Sermon deliverd by Rev Doreen C Hare on the occasion of Selly Oak Methodist Church becoming a Jubilee Congregation.
Stories are a fundamental part of how we communicate and learn and
share our life. It is a way used to communicate our cultural history
and has been used in nursery rhymes to carry a reflection on some
events in our nation's life - for instance "Three Blind Mice" is a
rhyme about Henry VIII's daughter, Mary 1st of England. She, as a
Catholic, had burned at the stake three Protestant noblemen. Because of
her terrible acts she was known as Bloody Mary and she is behind the
rhyme "Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary". Nursery rhymes have always been
used in games to tell of key events, for example, "Ring a Ring o'
Roses" is referring to the Great Plague. Stories are used to help us
communicate moral teaching - through fables and parables which we share
such as the shepherd boy who cried "Wolf". And stories are a means of
communicating our faith. Today's readings include stories about visions
which aim to help people amend understandings and change behaviour.
In the midst of the human experience of living in a world that seems to
be broken and fractured in relationships; between nations, tribal
groups, power groups, families, faith groups and individuals from
different backgrounds, these visions carry messages about a different
condition of human relationships. They can be influenced by looking at
the relationship God offers to everyone. The divine love offers a
community of equality, a oneness that holds all together.
The Revelation of John describes this as a new heaven and a new earth
where there is a mutual dwelling together in perfect relationship. This
picture in the vision is a story of community which embodies and lives
out all that is true of God and therefore is seen as the dwelling place
of God on earth. It is heaven on earth.
In Acts we have the story of Peter's dream which enables him to
understand that the community that is true to God is a community that
includes all people who are endeavouring to live in ways that are true
to God. This community is not unlike the community of John's new
"heaven on earth".
Such communities clearly are doing new things. They are seeking to be
true to the ways of God. Like us, these communities are trying to
understand the real meaning of being a Jubilee community. The biblical
teaching about jubilee is all about restored community. It underpinned
the teaching of Jesus at the beginning of his ministry when he spoke of
his teaching being good news for the poor, release for captives and
freedom for the oppressed. It was the concept of restored community
that was behind the early Christian communities' teaching and their
practice of sharing wealth and breaking bread together. All this meant
that they claimed there was not a needy person in their community.
Christians since those early times have tried to make sense of what it
has meant in their own time to have restored community. But as we now
look back in hindsight so often we see how mistaken some endeavours
have been. Recently on holiday in Canada this was brought to my
attention when I heard the history of the Rocky Mountains and the
growth of the towns in that area. I heard a lot about the pioneers who
were called The Overlanders, who brought the railway to the area and
opened it up. I heard less about the Canadian Indians' story. They are
now called First Nation people who live in special reservations and
whose communities seemed to have been displaced. I wonder what the
Methodist minister Rev Robert T Rundle was thinking when he went as the
first missionary in the 1840s to Banff in the Rockies. Perhaps he
thought he was building restored community.
In this year as we remember the 200th anniversary of the Act to abolish
slavery, it is good to remember that many abolitionists took their
inspiration from Leviticus 25 calling on them to proclaim liberty, and
this liberty would be a Jubilee. All of this was searching for that
restored community.
So now Birmingham city through the Birmingham Community Empowerment
Network has launched a consultation document called Thriving in
Diversity. It is a document about looking for restored community and it
reminds us that we can plot a story of steps towards that community.
The Abolitionists are remembered but so is the 80th birthday of the
equality of suffrage between men and women, the 50th anniversary of the
Wolfenden recommendations which decriminalised homosexuality. It
reminds us of more recent steps like the equality of the age of consent
and the more recent Disability Discrimination Act. However it points
out that progress has been irregular and frequently only partial. This
restored community which gives to all people the possibility of equal
and flourishing life is something that still needs to be worked for.
Being a Jubilee congregation is about seeking that restored community.
It is a declaration to live as a Jubilee community by supporting the
aims of the Jubilee Debt campaign, praying for justice, having someone
who will facilitate education and action on debt, making an annual
donation to the campaign and annually, as a congregation, taking at
least one action on debt.
The report from the Birmingham Strategic Partnership challenges us to
address the issues which prevent or disrupt community equality and
cohesion. All of this accords with the Gospel to which we commit
ourselves. How important it is that we get involved in doing something
to move nearer to that restored community that is the new community of
the gospel vision! This community thrives in diversity rather than
seeking a monochrome condition of humanity. It rejoices in the richness
and variety. So one thing that we can do is try to learn about and
understand those who are different from ourselves. Another thing that
we know is going to be done is the work here at being a Jubilee
congregation. There will be a retiring collection to enable us to make
that annual contribution to the work of the Jubilee debt campaign and
there is more information about that campaign on your seats. Audrey
will be very happy to talk to anyone who wants to know more.
We can all reflect on the groups of which we are a part and check that
these groups foster relationships that create restored community
thriving in diversity. We can all look to take actions that help us to
take another step to work towards that vision of community where
flourishing life is available to all people throughout this global
village, a global village thriving in diversity, valuing and enabling
all condition of human life. Today we can tell the stories of our
journeys so far and have that vision in our mind's eye of the holistic
community of mutuality and love which underpinned the readings which
have informed our thinking this morning. Then the new heaven and earth
of those readings will be a part of our story as well as our dream.
Amen.
Last updated 12.6.2007