PostScript: Who me? Who you? Who God?

Comments, prayers, questions and discussion on the week's news.

Introduction

Faith in God and beliefs about who we are and who other people are affect the way we treat them. Jesus challenges our assumptions and calls us to respond with love and generosity.

Context

Since President Trump threatened North Korea with ‘fire and fury’ and North Korea countered with threats to Guam, commentators have been reflecting on the exchange. An evangelical advisor of the POTUS said that God had given the President authority to act with vigour and violence. One analysis looks at the view of God that underpins this approach, arguing that for Trump God is Authoritarian rather than Benevolent.

This point was also made in a moving article in the Church Times of 4 August 17 about John Sutherland, formerly Chief Superintendent in the Metropolitan Police, who lost his faith in a God of rules and regulations and eventually discovered a God of love and grace.

In Charlottesville Virginia, a ‘Unite the Right’ rally led to violence and the murder of an anti-racist protester. Church representatives marched against the white supremacists.

The story also raised questions about what / who we believe in and how that affects what we do.

A number of news stories reflected the way people are sometimes treated in our society, when some identify as ‘us’ and others as ‘them’. The National Crime Agency reported that modern slavery is much more prevalent in our society than was previously thought – this is about how vulnerable people are exploited and controlled to produce cheap or free labour and kept in often squalid conditions with no self-determination.

This was followed almost immediately by a report of the conviction of 11 members of a Lincolnshire family who had been running a modern slavery ring.

In Newcastle, 18 people were convicted of grooming and sexually exploiting vulnerable girls. This generated a debate about how to talk about offences like this. There was a call for research to help us understand this widespread crime better. There is something here about how modern British girls are perceived and treated, probably based on cultural Asian notions of honour. Another layer is the anxiety that the story would lead to an increase in hostility towards people with roots in the Indian sub-continent.

The 70^th Anniversary of the Independence of India and the Partition with Pakistan raised stories of the terrible times when thousands of people from different religions were slaughtered.

Reflection

Where does evil come from? A big question! Jesus says it comes from within, from who we are – but looking at the story, it also arises from what we believe in. Who is God for the various characters in the Gospel reading? In the first story (which is optional), the implication is that the Pharisees follow an Authoritarian God, having a world-view that power, loyalty and keeping rules are key to a good life. The disciples, represented by Peter, want to understand, but they are struggling to make sense of the new perspective that Jesus brings. Jesus says it’s what we do and how we relate to other people that shows up who we are and how righteous we are. It matters when our politicians and religious leaders act or speak in a violent way that causes harm to others. Violence says more about who we are ourselves than acting as a positive solution to problems. And it matters what our politicians and religious leaders believe about God, about themselves and about society – because these beliefs influence what they say and do.

Jesus and the disciples were out of their own territory, in what we now know as Lebanon, in the coastal area north of Galilee. They are approached by a Gentile woman – worse than that, for Canaanite, read pagan. The woman calls out in the words of a supplicant beggar, “Have mercy on me!” It is shocking for a woman and a Gentile to approach a rabbi. Jesus ignores her, and readers have sometimes struggled with his seeming lack of compassion. Ken Bailey treats this as Jesus teaching his disciples, waiting to see how they will react. The disciples want Jesus to send the woman away – they see her as less than human, not worthy of attention. Their own cultural and religious perceptions make them hostile to her. Jesus gives what might be the expected rabbi’s reponse, but the woman doesn’t go away. She doesn’t believe Jesus means it. At the end of the encounter Jesus praises her faith and heals her daughter. He has shown his disciples what compassion means, and how he expects them – and us – to treat people who are different. The disciples didn’t expect this, the disciples didn’t expect Jesus to heal and minister to ‘them’.

Prayer

This prayer could be used as a prayer of confession or as an intercession:

When we take offence because someone presents another view,
Jesus, Son of the Living God,
Have mercy on us.

When we cling to the rules to justify the way we treat others,
Jesus, Son of the Living God,
Have mercy on us.

When we are blind to the strangers in our streets,
Jesus, Son of the Living God,
Have mercy on us.

When we hide from the people we regard as a nuisance,
Jesus, Son of the Living God,
Have mercy on us.

When we refuse to help those who cry out for assistance,
Jesus, Son of the Living God,
Have mercy on us.

Help us to be alert to your presence in each person,
to love them as you love us,
to serve them as you serve us.
Jesus, Son of the Living God,
Have mercy on us.

Questions

Who is God for you – now and at different stages of your life? And how does your faith affect what you say and do?
Who are the people in your area who tend to go ignored, unnoticed, and pushed to the margins?
The disciples are hostile to the Canaanite woman. Where do you see hostility to people who are different?

Action

What are the organisations in your area that support people who are often marginalised or excluded? Do one small thing to support them. It could be as little as taking a bag of goods to a Mind or Scope charity shop (for example).

Young people

Who is welcome in your church? Who should be welcome?
Make a list of people you would like to welcome and turn it into a notice for the church.
Ask the church leaders what they think about it.
Think about what would need to be done to make people feel actually welcome.

Meg Gilley is an Anglican parish priest in Gateshead.
She tweets at MegGilley1
And blogs sporadically at ramblingrectorbensham.wordpress.com

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