racial justice sunday 2004
CONNEL ST ORAN’S AND DUNBEG
Murdoch MacKenzie
12 September 2004
Genesis 18:1-10 Luke 14:16-23
Luke 13:29-30 ‘People will come from east and west and from north and south and sit at table in the kingdom of God. And behold some are last who will be first and some are first who will be last.’
In the birthday column of The Times this week I noticed that Professor Tom Torrance was 91. A former Moderator of the Church of Scotland he taught dogmatics in Edinburgh and I remember him telling us that when he was a student he travelled widely in Arabia and was once captured by Bedouin tribesmen. A frightening experience, until they took him into a tent and sitting on the floor, he was invited to dip his hand in the same dish, to share a meal, and at that moment he knew that he was safe.
Because sharing food together, in all cultures, and especially in the Bible, is a sign of friendship and acceptance. That is why it was so scandalous at the Last Supper when Jesus said; ‘He who has dipped his hand in the dish with me, will betray me.’ When we eat together, as we do this morning, it is a sign and seal of our community here in Connel, of our communion with God and with one another.
To read the Bible is to read about food and drink, about meals, about feasts, about hospitality. Let’s think of a few verses out of many hundreds. We have already heard about Abraham and the three strangers. We remember the manna in the wilderness. Psalm 23 ‘ Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of my enemies, my cup overflows’. The first sign in John’s Gospel is of Jesus at a wedding in Cana of Galilee at the feast, turning water into wine. (John 2:1ff) The only miracle to be recorded 6 times in the Gospels is the feeding of the multitudes – the 5000 and the 4000. Jesus sat at table in the house of Simon the Pharisee,(Luke 7:36ff) in the house of Zaccheus the tax collector, (Luke 19:5) in the house of Mary and Martha at Bethany,(Luke 10:38) in the house of John Mark in an upper room in Jerusalem at the Passover Meal. (Mark 14:14 Acts 12:12) The early Christians as recorded in the Book of the Acts of the Apostles were always having meals together, ‘breaking bread in their homes they partook of food with glad and generous hearts.’ (Acts 2:46)
And so many of Jesus’ parables are about feasts. ‘The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a marriage feast.’ (Matthew 22:1 ff) and especially in Luke 14 the parables about taking the lowest place at a marriage feast , about who you should invite – not your friends and your relatives but the poor, the maimed, the lame and the blind, and the banquet in our reading this morning where one by one they made excuses and the servant was sent out into the highways and byways to compel people to come in especially the poor, the maimed, the blind and the lame – because the first shall be last and the last first. And then the parable of the prodigal son, which ended up with the killing of the fatted calf, eating and drinking and making merry.
And in our text in Luke’s Gospel for Racial Justice Sunday, the great eschatological vision, what would things be really like at the end of time when the kingdom of God comes ? What do you think things will be like ? What would you like them to be like ? Well, Jesus said: ‘People will come from east and west, and from north and south, and sit at table in the kingdom of God’ – and especially the poor, the maimed, the blind and the lame – for the first shall be last and the last first in God’s upside-down kingdom. Remember the heavenly banquet of Isaiah 25 and verse 6 ‘ On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of wine, of fat things full of marrow, of wine well refined.’ As Jesus said of the Roman centurion in Matthew 8:11 ‘ I tell you many will come from east and west and sit at table with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven.’ A theme reiterated by Jesus in Revelation 3:20 ‘Behold I stand at the door and knock, if anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come into him and eat with him, and he with me.’ And in Revelation chapter 19 we read of the heavenly banquet, the marriage supper of the Lamb. Verse 9 ‘Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.’
But who are those who are invited ? Was it only the Jews ? Only the Christians ? Only friends and relatives ? Only those who might return the favour, only those who turn up with boxes of chocolates and bottles of wine ? Only those who have received a communion card ? Only the rich and powerful ? Only those who were too busy with other things to have time to come along to the feast ? Was it a closed shop or an open house, something for the in-group or something for everybody ?
Well it’s clear isn’t it that Jesus’ invitation was, and is, to everybody – especially the poor, the maimed, the blind and the lame. And in particular the strangers. In Hebrews 13:1-2 we read ‘ Let brotherly love continue. Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.’ Abraham had learned that, long ago, when three men stood in front of him.
Many years ago I worked in the oldest Anglican church east of Suez, St Mary’s Church in Fort St George in Madras, the church in which Robert Clive was married. Amongst the many memorial tablets around the walls was one, dedicated to a person who was obviously greatly loved by everyone, and chiselled into the marble it says, that this person was loved even by the strangers. That meant the natives, the Indians ! Later, when I worked in St Andrew’s Church in Madras, some of my Indian friends used to tell me that long before, when they were students, it was only white people, mainly Scottish of course, who were allowed to sit in the pews, whilst the strangers, the Indians stood in the outer circle.
‘People will come from east and west and from north and south, and sit at table in the kingdom of God. And behold, some are last who will be first, and some are first who will be last.’ One of the most important books of recent years is that by the Chief Rabbi, Jonathan Sacks called ‘The Dignity of Difference’. In it he has a special section on the problem of the stranger in which he points out that only in one place does the Hebrew Bible give the command: ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself’ but in no fewer than 36 places are we commanded to ‘love the stranger’
Time and again it returns to this theme: ‘ You shall not oppress a stranger, for you know the heart of the stranger – you yourselves were strangers in the land of Egypt.’ (Exodus 23:9)
‘When a stranger lives with you in your land, do not ill-treat him. The stranger who lives with you shall be treated like the native-born. Love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt. I am the Lord your God.’ (Leviticus 19:33-4)
Now, on Racial Justice Sunday all this surely speaks to us loud and clear. Here in this corner of God’s vineyard, we live in a land of hospitality, with the Bed and Breakfast industry and the tourists and our wonderful meals in the church hall, not least this week when the table was extended across the world to the people of Sudan. I think I told you before, the story of years ago in Fife, when I put a map of the world on the black-board and asked a class of primary school children which country God loved the most and a child’s hand shot up, and I thought she might say ‘Scotland’ but, in fact she said: ‘ Ethiopia’. Today she might say ‘Darfur’ or perhaps ‘Beslam’ ! because the first shall be last and the last first in God’s upside-down kingdom.
But it’s not only Darfur. Martin Wolf of the Financial Times has asked us to imagine the world today in the form of a stretch limousine, a cadillac, driving through an urban ghetto. Inside is the rich world of western Europe, North America, Australasia, Japan and the emerging Pacific Rim. Outside are all the rest.
Today 89 countries are worse off now than they were ten years ago. Worldwide the top 20% of high income earners account for 86% of all private consumption, whilst the poorest 20% account for only 1.3% of consumption - these are the billion people who live on less than a dollar a day. As we will sing in our communion hymn as we feast from the Lord’s Table ‘These are the ones we should serve, these are the ones we should love.’ In the global village ‘all these are neighbours to us and you.’
And this communion table is not meant to be an esoteric piece of polished furniture in the corner of a Presbyterian church. It is the Lord’s Table to which the whole world is invited, from east and west and from north and south, because God so loved the world, not just the Church, that he gave his only-begotten Son, that round this table we may indeed join the hand of friend and stranger, join the hand of age and youth, join the faithful and the doubter in their common search for truth. And as we break the bread and share it with one another it is a symbol of our sharing the fruits of the earth, the gifts of God with friend and stranger throughout the whole wide earth.
And yet at this moment out of the 6.5 billion people in the world, we, the richest 20% consume 16 times more meat, 17 times more energy, and 145 times more cars than the poorest 20%. United States citizens spend more on cosmetics, and Europeans spend more on ice-cream, than it would cost to provide schooling and sanitation for the 2 billion people who currently go without both. The world’s 3 richest individuals have more assets than the 600 million who make up the world’s poorest nations.
Is it any wonder that people will come from east and west and from north and south to sit at table in what they perceive as the kingdom of God ? But when they do come they are not always welcome. The refugee, the asylum seeker, the stranger, the cockle-pickers of Morecambe Bay. Only this month Steve Moxon has published his book ‘The Great Immigration Scandal’ in which he argues against mass immigration. It has been said that a more racist hate-filled book would be hard to find. Moxon’s poisonous rant is designed to sow fear, terror and distrust between the white and ethnic communities. It reminds me of a young man from Zanzibar whom I met in Milton Keynes. His shoulder was all mis-shapen and he explained that this had happened to him when he was tortured in Zanzibar. His face and his nose were scarred and twisted and when I asked him if that had also been part of the torture in Zanzibar he replied: ‘O, no. This happened in Milton Keynes.’
And it happens all too often, which is why we have Racial Justice Sunday to remind us that Jesus broke down all barriers of ethnicity, class, gender, power and wealth, to remind us that we are one race, the human race, to remind us that many Scots have left our shores as refugees to seek fame and fortune in every corner of the globe and to remind us that when we meet asylum seekers and strangers on the streets of Glasgow, Oban or Connel – that we ourselves were strangers in the land of Egypt.
Therefore let us keep this wonderful feast of the Lord’s Supper not with the old leaven, the leaven of malice and wickedness but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and of truth, ( 1 Corinthians 5:8 ) as we eat together with all those whom Jesus loves and for whom he died and who come from east and west and north and south to join with us as we sit at table in the kingdom of God.
To God’s Name be the praise and the glory. Amen
Murdoch Mackenzie
12 September 2004
Genesis 18:1-10 Luke 14:16-23
Luke 13:29-30 ‘People will come from east and west and from north and south and sit at table in the kingdom of God. And behold some are last who will be first and some are first who will be last.’
In the birthday column of The Times this week I noticed that Professor Tom Torrance was 91. A former Moderator of the Church of Scotland he taught dogmatics in Edinburgh and I remember him telling us that when he was a student he travelled widely in Arabia and was once captured by Bedouin tribesmen. A frightening experience, until they took him into a tent and sitting on the floor, he was invited to dip his hand in the same dish, to share a meal, and at that moment he knew that he was safe.
Because sharing food together, in all cultures, and especially in the Bible, is a sign of friendship and acceptance. That is why it was so scandalous at the Last Supper when Jesus said; ‘He who has dipped his hand in the dish with me, will betray me.’ When we eat together, as we do this morning, it is a sign and seal of our community here in Connel, of our communion with God and with one another.
To read the Bible is to read about food and drink, about meals, about feasts, about hospitality. Let’s think of a few verses out of many hundreds. We have already heard about Abraham and the three strangers. We remember the manna in the wilderness. Psalm 23 ‘ Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of my enemies, my cup overflows’. The first sign in John’s Gospel is of Jesus at a wedding in Cana of Galilee at the feast, turning water into wine. (John 2:1ff) The only miracle to be recorded 6 times in the Gospels is the feeding of the multitudes – the 5000 and the 4000. Jesus sat at table in the house of Simon the Pharisee,(Luke 7:36ff) in the house of Zaccheus the tax collector, (Luke 19:5) in the house of Mary and Martha at Bethany,(Luke 10:38) in the house of John Mark in an upper room in Jerusalem at the Passover Meal. (Mark 14:14 Acts 12:12) The early Christians as recorded in the Book of the Acts of the Apostles were always having meals together, ‘breaking bread in their homes they partook of food with glad and generous hearts.’ (Acts 2:46)
And so many of Jesus’ parables are about feasts. ‘The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a marriage feast.’ (Matthew 22:1 ff) and especially in Luke 14 the parables about taking the lowest place at a marriage feast , about who you should invite – not your friends and your relatives but the poor, the maimed, the lame and the blind, and the banquet in our reading this morning where one by one they made excuses and the servant was sent out into the highways and byways to compel people to come in especially the poor, the maimed, the blind and the lame – because the first shall be last and the last first. And then the parable of the prodigal son, which ended up with the killing of the fatted calf, eating and drinking and making merry.
And in our text in Luke’s Gospel for Racial Justice Sunday, the great eschatological vision, what would things be really like at the end of time when the kingdom of God comes ? What do you think things will be like ? What would you like them to be like ? Well, Jesus said: ‘People will come from east and west, and from north and south, and sit at table in the kingdom of God’ – and especially the poor, the maimed, the blind and the lame – for the first shall be last and the last first in God’s upside-down kingdom. Remember the heavenly banquet of Isaiah 25 and verse 6 ‘ On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of wine, of fat things full of marrow, of wine well refined.’ As Jesus said of the Roman centurion in Matthew 8:11 ‘ I tell you many will come from east and west and sit at table with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven.’ A theme reiterated by Jesus in Revelation 3:20 ‘Behold I stand at the door and knock, if anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come into him and eat with him, and he with me.’ And in Revelation chapter 19 we read of the heavenly banquet, the marriage supper of the Lamb. Verse 9 ‘Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.’
But who are those who are invited ? Was it only the Jews ? Only the Christians ? Only friends and relatives ? Only those who might return the favour, only those who turn up with boxes of chocolates and bottles of wine ? Only those who have received a communion card ? Only the rich and powerful ? Only those who were too busy with other things to have time to come along to the feast ? Was it a closed shop or an open house, something for the in-group or something for everybody ?
Well it’s clear isn’t it that Jesus’ invitation was, and is, to everybody – especially the poor, the maimed, the blind and the lame. And in particular the strangers. In Hebrews 13:1-2 we read ‘ Let brotherly love continue. Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.’ Abraham had learned that, long ago, when three men stood in front of him.
Many years ago I worked in the oldest Anglican church east of Suez, St Mary’s Church in Fort St George in Madras, the church in which Robert Clive was married. Amongst the many memorial tablets around the walls was one, dedicated to a person who was obviously greatly loved by everyone, and chiselled into the marble it says, that this person was loved even by the strangers. That meant the natives, the Indians ! Later, when I worked in St Andrew’s Church in Madras, some of my Indian friends used to tell me that long before, when they were students, it was only white people, mainly Scottish of course, who were allowed to sit in the pews, whilst the strangers, the Indians stood in the outer circle.
‘People will come from east and west and from north and south, and sit at table in the kingdom of God. And behold, some are last who will be first, and some are first who will be last.’ One of the most important books of recent years is that by the Chief Rabbi, Jonathan Sacks called ‘The Dignity of Difference’. In it he has a special section on the problem of the stranger in which he points out that only in one place does the Hebrew Bible give the command: ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself’ but in no fewer than 36 places are we commanded to ‘love the stranger’
Time and again it returns to this theme: ‘ You shall not oppress a stranger, for you know the heart of the stranger – you yourselves were strangers in the land of Egypt.’ (Exodus 23:9)
‘When a stranger lives with you in your land, do not ill-treat him. The stranger who lives with you shall be treated like the native-born. Love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt. I am the Lord your God.’ (Leviticus 19:33-4)
Now, on Racial Justice Sunday all this surely speaks to us loud and clear. Here in this corner of God’s vineyard, we live in a land of hospitality, with the Bed and Breakfast industry and the tourists and our wonderful meals in the church hall, not least this week when the table was extended across the world to the people of Sudan. I think I told you before, the story of years ago in Fife, when I put a map of the world on the black-board and asked a class of primary school children which country God loved the most and a child’s hand shot up, and I thought she might say ‘Scotland’ but, in fact she said: ‘ Ethiopia’. Today she might say ‘Darfur’ or perhaps ‘Beslam’ ! because the first shall be last and the last first in God’s upside-down kingdom.
But it’s not only Darfur. Martin Wolf of the Financial Times has asked us to imagine the world today in the form of a stretch limousine, a cadillac, driving through an urban ghetto. Inside is the rich world of western Europe, North America, Australasia, Japan and the emerging Pacific Rim. Outside are all the rest.
Today 89 countries are worse off now than they were ten years ago. Worldwide the top 20% of high income earners account for 86% of all private consumption, whilst the poorest 20% account for only 1.3% of consumption - these are the billion people who live on less than a dollar a day. As we will sing in our communion hymn as we feast from the Lord’s Table ‘These are the ones we should serve, these are the ones we should love.’ In the global village ‘all these are neighbours to us and you.’
And this communion table is not meant to be an esoteric piece of polished furniture in the corner of a Presbyterian church. It is the Lord’s Table to which the whole world is invited, from east and west and from north and south, because God so loved the world, not just the Church, that he gave his only-begotten Son, that round this table we may indeed join the hand of friend and stranger, join the hand of age and youth, join the faithful and the doubter in their common search for truth. And as we break the bread and share it with one another it is a symbol of our sharing the fruits of the earth, the gifts of God with friend and stranger throughout the whole wide earth.
And yet at this moment out of the 6.5 billion people in the world, we, the richest 20% consume 16 times more meat, 17 times more energy, and 145 times more cars than the poorest 20%. United States citizens spend more on cosmetics, and Europeans spend more on ice-cream, than it would cost to provide schooling and sanitation for the 2 billion people who currently go without both. The world’s 3 richest individuals have more assets than the 600 million who make up the world’s poorest nations.
Is it any wonder that people will come from east and west and from north and south to sit at table in what they perceive as the kingdom of God ? But when they do come they are not always welcome. The refugee, the asylum seeker, the stranger, the cockle-pickers of Morecambe Bay. Only this month Steve Moxon has published his book ‘The Great Immigration Scandal’ in which he argues against mass immigration. It has been said that a more racist hate-filled book would be hard to find. Moxon’s poisonous rant is designed to sow fear, terror and distrust between the white and ethnic communities. It reminds me of a young man from Zanzibar whom I met in Milton Keynes. His shoulder was all mis-shapen and he explained that this had happened to him when he was tortured in Zanzibar. His face and his nose were scarred and twisted and when I asked him if that had also been part of the torture in Zanzibar he replied: ‘O, no. This happened in Milton Keynes.’
And it happens all too often, which is why we have Racial Justice Sunday to remind us that Jesus broke down all barriers of ethnicity, class, gender, power and wealth, to remind us that we are one race, the human race, to remind us that many Scots have left our shores as refugees to seek fame and fortune in every corner of the globe and to remind us that when we meet asylum seekers and strangers on the streets of Glasgow, Oban or Connel – that we ourselves were strangers in the land of Egypt.
Therefore let us keep this wonderful feast of the Lord’s Supper not with the old leaven, the leaven of malice and wickedness but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and of truth, ( 1 Corinthians 5:8 ) as we eat together with all those whom Jesus loves and for whom he died and who come from east and west and north and south to join with us as we sit at table in the kingdom of God.
To God’s Name be the praise and the glory. Amen
Murdoch Mackenzie
