Sermon (broadcast on RTE in 2005) - Brookes Christian Resources - Updated

Thirty years ago I had the privilege of working for the Irish Methodist Church in the Inishowen Penninsula.  Back then we lived in Moville, and were part of the Londonderry or Derry Circuit.  We had our two young sons with us.   Regularly we crossed the border at Muff.   And it wasn’t long before our impressionable seven and five year old boys had invented a new game for themselves – it was called border checkpoints.

Ireland, north and south, was very different in the 1970’s.   The British army had a big tower just beyond Muff on the main road into Londonderry.   Soldiers with guns were always on duty.  There was a wire across the road that could be triggered if the army thought you were up to something and your tires would be ripped apart.   We were often stopped and searched at the border.   And I soon learnt that it didn’t matter if I was wearing clerical garb or civvies – I could be stopped either way.   

We did our major grocery shopping in Derry.  Back then there was a twenty foot high metal barrier that you had to pass through to get to some of the shops.  And as you went through the gate in the barrier you were frisked, to make sure you were not carrying a fire arm, or maybe a petrol bomb.   One day I sat with the Superintendent of the Methodist Circuit drinking coffee in the city when he told me that the coffee shop itself had been bombed eighteen months earlier – I couldn’t get out of there fast enough – though I tried not to let on.

Today, we can thank God that a kind of peace has come.   That the guns on both sides are being put away – that the check points have virtually disappeared, and that one can go almost anywhere without feeling intimidated, and without having to be searched.   There is now a much more normal feel to life north of the border, as well as in the south.   A kind of peace has come.

But – what kind of peace is it?  And will it last?   And what can we do to ensure it is cemented in and becomes permanent?   After peace – then what?  That is the question for this hour.

There is a gospel word that could, if we took it seriously, move us on to the next step.  It is that great gospel word: reconciliation.  It’s was a word much loved by Paul – but it is rooted in the heart of the Bible – and is absolutely central to what we as Christians believe is the good news.   

Reconciliation is a word about the healing of relationships.   It has no meaning apart from that.   But, in the New Testament it always has two aspects to it.   And the first has to do with the healing of the relationship between God and ourselves, the healing of our primary relationship.   

The gospel in the first place is about our being reconciled to God.   It’s good news because it tells us that the barrier, the gulf, the enmity, that exists between us and God due to human sin can be removed.   We can be reconciled to God.   We can know peace with God and peace in our own hearts.   Paul tells us, this is made possible through Christ who died for us all.   The cross is the bridge that enables our reconciliation to God.   In Christ, and through Christ’s self-giving love, you and I can find that God “reconciles the world – and that means us - to himself”.     

That is the basic message that missionaries to this land, from St Patrick, to the missionaries, evangelists, and preachers, of today, have to tell us.   Through Christ we can be reconciled to God.   And it is the essential foundation for what can happen next.   

But there is a second aspect.   For reconciliation in the Bible is not just about our reconciliation to God, though that is of prime importance, it is also about our reconciliation one to the other.   Christians, says Paul, are called to exercise “a ministry of reconciliation, God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ (also gives) us the ministry of reconciliation”.   

A ministry of reconciliation?    But what kind of ministry is that?   It’s a ministry that finds its model in the reconciliation Christ offers. That means in the first place it’s a ministry that bridges gulfs, that crosses barriers, that breaks through divides.  

It is very easy, and comfortable, for us as people to stay amongst our own – whether that be our own family, our own church community,  our own school or workplace, or our own culture.   But if we are committed to Christ’s ministry of reconciliation we have to be prepared to step outside those confines, these comfort zones, and reach out to others who are different – just as our Lord himself did.       

I well remember how nervous I was about going to spend five days in a Maori village in New Zealand – the Methodist Conference was being held there.   On arrival we had to wait to be officially welcomed before we could take our places, then we had to take off our shoes before we entered any building, and then all three hundred of us had to sleep in huge open uni-sex dormitories – where you changed into your night attire in your sleeping bag.  And the snoring … well it had to be experienced to be believed!     

But looking back it was worthwhile – it was my first real exposure to Maori culture and Maori hospitality.   By the end of the five days many of us felt part of the place – many had made new friends, and almost all had gained new understandings along the way.   

Christ’s  ministry of reconciliation, to which we are called, bridges gulfs and crosses barriers.      

The ministry of reconciliation is also a ministry that carries a cross.  Our Lord knew all about that – far more than we will ever know.  When we engage in reconciliation, people, even our friends, even some of our fellow Christians, won’t always understand, or agree with what we are doing.    I well remember preaching on Waitangi Day, the NZ national day that commemorates the Treaty made in 1840 between the Maori and the British Crown.  The sermon was about race relationships – about Jew and Gentiles, Maori and European.  After the Service a man who was a visitor to the church that day complained to one of the church leaders, one of my friends, about something I’d said in the sermon.  And I overheard my friends reply, it was this: “Sure he’s only the minister you don’t have to believe what he says”.   

  

Reconciliation is also a ministry that reaches across to the enemy.   Jesus himself presents the challenge: “love your enemies” he says.   And John in his first letter tells us that “if we say we love God and hate our brothers or sisters, we are liars, for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen.”    

In New Zealand one of the hard lessons that the Churches have had to learn is the costliness of reconciliation.   I am speaking of the reconciliation of the white New Zealander and the Maori – the native people of that land.   For years and years we thought, especially in the church, that we had good race relationship and that all was well.   But all was not well in either the state or the churches.   Land had been grabbed, people had been killed, the Maori language virtually outlawed, and Maori culture treated with contempt.   The churches failed for generations to treat Maori as equals – in the Methodist Church Maori people could become Home Missionaries but not ordained ministers, white ministers could minister to Maori but Maori could not minister to white congregations.    It is only in recent decades, that the churches have recognized the fact that all are equal in the sight of God, that western culture is no more Christian than Maori culture, that decisions based on over whelming numbers can favour the majority culture over the minority, and that something had to be done to rectify that if people were to be treated as equals.                   

           

Some, even within the churches have seen the Maori as “the enemy” in all this.   But it is not so, it is prejudice, it is discrimination, it is injustice, that is the real enemy – and as such these are the things that need to be dealt with whether in NZ or in Ireland.   

Reconciliation not only reaches across a divide, not only is prepared to carry a cross, but also reaches out in love to those whom we might see as “the enemy” whether they are republican or loyalist, Catholic or Protestant – recognizing that the real enemy is not people but the  prejudices, the discrimination, the injustices, and the myths that we hold on to about one another.

If we are to cement in the peace – and that I’m sure is our prayer that the peace be cemented in.   Then we need to take up Christ’s call to a “ministry of reconciliation”.   And to set out deliberately to deal with the walls that need to be broken down.     

As we, in this beautiful island of Ireland, with its great spiritual heritage, move forward may God grant that the day will come when all cultures, and traditions, will be able to celebrate St Patricks Day, and when all cultures and all traditions will be able to enjoy the 12^th July.

More importantly, may the day come when all Christians in this land will be able to walk hand in hand, in witness to the reconciling power of God, as we together face the huge challenge presented by the growth of godless secularism and materialism in our midst.

It is God who has reconciled us to himself through the cross, and it is God who now calls us to a costly ministry of reconciliation.

I thank God that Ireland has moved on from the 1970’s,

Now let’s trust God for the future, the God who calls us to a ministry of reconciliation, and let us be prepared to take risks for that.  When we do, we will not have just a “kind of peace” – but will cement in that deeper lasting peace, the peace of God in this land.                                                                                                              Amen