Do’s and Don’ts of World Community
Twenty-first Sunday after Pentecost - Year A
Sunday, October 5, 2008
Twenty-first Sunday after Pentecost - Year A
Sunday, October 5, 2008
Let us pray: Let the words of my mouth be acceptable to you, O God, my rock and redeemer. Amen.
One way of describing the Ten Commandments is to call them a list of rules for the building and healthy functioning of community. They were on my mind this week as preparations were being made for the celebration of Worldwide Communion, and as I prepared for my contribution this afternoon at the world religions conference at the Explorer Hotel.
There were certainly some similarities in the two sets of preparation, but there were also some differences. How, for example, do the Ten Commandments stand up as norms for healthy community when other faith expressions are part of the community? That was a question I asked myself throughout the week. This reflection then, is the result of that reflection.
Added into the mix, of course is the disturbing parable that constituted our gospel reading today. Like all the parables, this not a straight-forward allegory. It has layers of meaning, even though we are told in the epilogue to the parable that the religious leaders saw through it clearly enough to see themselves depicted and described to the point where they were ready to arrest Jesus on the spot - stopped only by the court of public opinion which was in Jesus’ favour at the moment.
On an immediate level the parable is about terrorism - assassination carried out on the first wave of servants to terrorise successive delegations of servants in any further attempts by the vineyard owner to collect his rent. But at another level it could also be about class struggle and an uprising by oppressed sharecroppers who felt they were being exploited by a wealthy and demanding landlord. You can’t go too far into this way of thinking, however, without raising disturbing questions about the role of God in the story. After all Jesus describes it as a story about the kingdom, which immediately conjures up thought about God. In fact, the parables of Jesus are all stories describing in one way or another what is meant by the kingdom of God. Even the word kingdom is one that has become increasingly difficult for me to accept, although I admit that I hedge on it. Other words to replace kingdom have been suggested - kindom - removing the ‘g’ to suggest the relationship we share with each other as “kin” is one, but the one which I prefer right now is simply the word “community” - as in “we are a community of God’s people”.
Well as much as I think the parable is about terrorism I’m certainly not going to refer to it in my presentation later this afternoon. There are certain words that just don’t fit certain situations and that is one of them! I do, however want to use the word community.
In fact, the reflection for us this morning in preparation for worldwide communion, and the reflection for this afternoon’s world religions conference are deeply connected. They are both about community. They are both about my vision of the way God wants us to be connected with each other. Yes, it’s a bit different to speak within the Christian community as I am doing now and to speak as a Christian within a community of people from different faith perspectives, but for me it’s only a question of drawing the circle wide - as a favourite song of mine goes and then draw it wider still.
In fact, this is God’s community. We are part of it - but it is God’s and not ours. And so, we must ever be drawn to wider and wider interpretations of who belongs. Worldwide communion helps us to think that way. World religion conferences help us to think that way.
The Ten Commandments as they are called - are norms for living in healthy community. They stand up pretty well as a description of how to keep good order and maintain healthy connections. I might wish that they had been given with more positive statements. Many relationship manuals - whether they be designed for couples living together or parents and children give importance to positive expressions rather than negative ones. John Calvin - the Christian reformer suggested that each of the don’ts offered by the Ten Commandments has a positive attached to it. “Do not kill” for example implies “support the living”.
The most potentially troublesome commandments when it comes to reflecting on world community in a multi-faith context are the first ones - the ones that refer to the one and only God. It’s only dangerous however when we imagine God as our own - when we are more focussed on ourselves and our community rather than the idea that it’s God’s community, and we are only a part of it. Christianity, in some of its forms, has a hard time with this one, wanting to claim the community as its own - drawing the circle only wide enough to let people in who think more or less the same. Sometimes that circle is so small that it won’t even let other Christians in. We need only to look at the many branches of the Christian faith to recognise how true this is.
But we are a part of God’s community - God is not part of ours. God is bigger than any one of us - whether that “one” be a single person, a single denomination, a single faith expression, a single culture, a single geographical region, a single anything.
And so that’s the truth we are being called to on this worldwide communion Sunday. That’s the vision we are being invited to hold as we gather at God’s table on this day.
#145 More Voices
Draw the circle wide, draw it wider still. Let this be our song, no one stands alone, standing side by side, draw the circle wide.
God the stillpoint of the circle, ‘round whom all creation turns; nothing lost but held forever in God’s gracious arms.
Let our hearts touch far horizons so encompass great and small; let our loving know no borders, faithful to God’s call.
Let the dreams we dream be larger, than we’ve ever dreamed before; let the dream of Christ be in us, open every door.
Amen.