About
every six years or so, the Feast of St. Francis comes on a Sunday, and when it
does, it coincides with World Communion Sunday.
This year, it also coincided, near enough, with the visit of a Pope who
has taken the name Francis, the very first one to do so. And as I've said before, there's a reason for that, a reason why the head
of the Roman Catholic Church, which has always been cozy with the powers that
be, which has amassed a lot of property, a lot of stuff, might not feel it appropriate to name himself after the
Saint that opposed all of that, who resolutely ministered from the margins, who
took Jesus at his word when he bade
them go into the world owning nothing but the shirts on their backs and the
sandals on their feet. And our Francis has tried to live up to
that, within the confines of the modern, global church: rather than limos, he
runs around in tiny cars, dines on very simple fare, and sleeps in the dorms
with the other priests.
And
on his visit, he showed he's also
read Paul as well, as he presided over the World Meeting of Families, hearing
face-to-face from families all over the world.
“There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free,
there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.” Jew or Greek—code for homie or foreigner—slave
or free—code for, well, slaves versus
those who own them—male and female, using the wording from Genesis, and, well .
. . two out of three ain't bad . . . after almost 2,000 years, the Church Francis
heads still hasn't gotten that last part right. Although he has talked about increasing the
role of women in the church, he's made it clear that female priests are just not
gonna happen, at least any time soon.
Why
do you suppose that is? Well, the
proximate answer, the one I suspect comes most
quickly to women’s minds, is
that men are in charge. A more
high-fallutin’, women's-study-y answer is to darkly mutter “the patriarchy,” which
amounts to saying the same thing. And it's true: the male hegemony, the
patriarchy, has had things firmly in hand since the rise of the Mesopotamian
conquest states some 5000 years ago.
See, what happened was a couple of key advances that made conquest
really lucrative. The first was the
domestication of the horse, which meant that the conquerors didn't have to do
all the work, all the walking and hauling and all that. The second advance was the wheeled vehicle,
which made it profitable to carry off large loads of booty, which was hard to
do on a fella’s back, or even in his saddlebags. All of a sudden, their pillaging became
immensely profitable, ‘cause the marauders could carry their plunder back to
the house.
Like
any raiders worth their conquest merit badges, they killed off the men-folk so
they couldn't fight back, and all the children ‘cause they weren't worth much
anyway, but women . . . Well. They were worth something. They could
work the fields, press their breech-clouts and polish their spears, and of
course, they could perform other . .
. services for a war-weary hero. Problem
is, there were so dang many of
them. Soon, there was a major glut in
the worldwide market, and like any good market economy, it drove down the value
of women, so that soon, they began to be worth less than men. In other words, they began to be seen as inferior.
Soon,
societies became rigidly hierarchical.
Every caste, every rung in the ladder, had separate tracks, a higher one
for men, and a lower one for women. As a consolation prize, women of higher
castes could lord it over those of lower.
Religions developed with hierarchies of priests who were all male,
natch, ‘cause their gods were male, and besides: females were inferior,
remember? And they’d faithfully
interpret the words of these gods which—wouldn't you know it—reinforced the
status quo, the societal hierarchy and the relative worth of women and men.
And
lo! Women were the root of all evil,
everything was their fault—just ask Adam, if you don't believe me—but the early Christian church was different, as is
hinted at in our passage: women apparently took leadership roles in the house
churches, and served alongside the menfolk as disciples and the like, but by
the second century it was back to business as usual with the rise of the
all-male priesthood—after all, Christ was
a male, and don't forget that original sin was brought to us courtesy of
that, that woman.
But there was that brief, shining moment right after Jesus’ life on earth,
and it's exemplified by Paul's mid-century writings: “in Christ there is no
longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male
and female . . .” But even Paul didn't get it all right, as seen in letter to Philemon, where he advises him to
be a good little slave. As I said, two
out of three ain’t bad.
And what of the first clause, in Christ there is no longer Jew or Greek? Today we might say in Christ there is no
longer Canadian or Brazilian, no longer Israeli or Icelander, no longer American or Syrian . . . we certainly have no
problem with that, do we? After all, that’s what this day is all about,
a celebration of the worldwide communion in Christ? Heck, the Pope even heard from a Syrian Christian
family . . . But what if we end up bombing Syria? Oh, wait a minute . . . We're already doing that
. . . Can we guarantee that none of those Christians who we proclaim that we’re
one with aren't getting killed or maimed or at least frightened badly by our warplanes?
We can't even guarantee we don’t bomb Doctors Without Borders, for Pete's sake . . . so I
don't know how Christians in this country can affirm the first clause of Paul’s
statement . . .
But though I'm picking on the good ol’
U.S. of A., I’m not sure any Christian
in a modern nation can do any better . . . Nationalism, the belief that your
nation is better than any other and, therefore, is deserving of all the perks
thereof, is pretty-much de rigeur . . . and
it's seen in things as trivial as soccer rivalries and as dangerous as wars of
acquisition. The avowed goal of Vladimir
Putin is the restoration of Russia to its place of power and dominance on the
European continent, and he is beloved by his country-people . . . I was shocked
to hear that the production of a British miniseries about the Raj, the colonial
occupation of India, has sparked a debate between people ashamed of that
history and those nostalgic for the good-old days, who covet a return to world
power.
It’s all due to a belief—actively
encouraged by what Paul called the powers-that-be—that their country is the
best, with only the most spotless of motives, that they aren't like those other countries . . . And they demonize
their supposed enemies, making them seem morally in the wrong, even sub-human,
sometimes, and is it any wonder that the late, great Presbyterian pastor
William Sloane Coffin put it, nationalism is every bit as evil an “ism” as
racism.
Note that we’re not necessarily talking patriotism here, not a simple love of country .
. . We're talking about a belief that one’s country, one’s state, one’s nation can do no wrong, that it's the
greatest on earth. And to the extent
that Christians in these countries go along with the status quo, to the extent
that they buy the nationalist narrative, I can't see how they are living into Paul’s statement that in
Christ there is no longer Russian or Turk, Serb or Japanese, American or Brit,
that we’re all one in Christ
It's easy to say this is because of “sin,”
whatever that is, but I think the
reason is a bit more concrete than that . . . Remember last week we talked
about binary thinking, subject-object thinking?
Where we think of ourselves as “I” and everybody else “not-I?” And how we are taught this from the very
beginning, something is either right or wrong, and how it is reinforced in
school and on science shows, and how it carries over into religious denominations
and political parties, and territories and countries? Nationalism is a natural outcome of the way
we’ve been taught to think, how our rational mind operates, and how we’ve been
inculturated to view anybody other than ourselves and our own as “other.”
But I want you to notice one little
thing, one little verb: “to be.” Paul
uses it four times in this verse: three times in it’s present singular form of “is”
and once in its present plural form of “are.”
He says “There is no longer
Jew or Greek, there is no longer
slave or free, there is no longer
male and female; for all of you are
one in Christ Jesus.” He doesn't say
“there could be no longer Jew or Greek”
or “all of you are supposed to be one
in Christ” he says “there is no
longer Jew and Greek” and “all are one
in Christ.” For Paul it is a present
reality, there is no doubt about it, it's already true.
But how could that be? Is he talking figuratively here, is our oneness
in Christ only metaphor, an illustration of why we're supposed to be nice to
each other in a way that transcends political, social and even biological
boundaries? I don't think so . . . I
think he is asking about a spiritual reality (whether it is a physical one is
beyond the scope of this sermon).
Remember Jesus drawing the little one into his arms? His saying that whatever you do to one such
as this you do to me, whenever you feed someone and give them drink you feed Christ
and give Christ drink? Remember when he said “I will be in you and
you in me?”
As Christians, the divine Holy Spirit,
the divine Christ dwells within every one of us, it infuses us, and is the
Spirit more than one? Is Christ? I don't think so . . . We are one in Christ
in a real way, and whatever we do to another one such as that we do to
Christ. Amen.
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