Goodies and Baddies

I used this short homily at both our 8am and 6pm services today. It's based upon Luke 10.25-37 (The Parable of the Good Samaritan).

I’m not sure if any of you are familiar with the Austin Powers films? They’re a spoof on the classic James Bond films with our super-spy hero battling super-villains. We have our goody and our baddy. If we had any doubts who we should be rooting for our baddy is called “Dr Evil”, so it’s pretty clear. 

In one memorable scene a henchman, who must be evil because he works for Dr Evil, is mowed down by a steam roller, driven by our hero, and killed. What happens next is played for laughs but is ridiculously clever. We cut to a women happily baking in her kitchen. The phone rings and it’s The Evil Corporation sadly informing her of her henchman husband’s death. We learn the henchman was a model husband and step-dad and his loss devastates his family.

How many films have we watched where nameless “baddies” were killed off by the heroes? But it’s ok because they were the baddies. Films very often have this very black and white approach to who’s good and who’s bad, often relying on our own prejudice to help us root for the hero. In Die Hard the baddy is German, in Back to the Future the baddies are Libyan, in other films they may be Russian, ugly or scarred, or in the Case of Star Wars, English. Sometimes they’re even a priest.

The thing is we all have prejudice however subtle, and much of the time it can be cultural, as with the people Jesus was living amongst hating Samaritans. If in first century Palestine you’d put the words “good” and “Samaritan” together in a Jewish community they would’ve been outraged. It’s hard for us to get our heads around how radical Jesus was being here because “Samaritan”, through our familiarity with the parable represents compassion, kindness and goodness. 

The Jews hated Samaritans. Hated. In the words of retired bishop and theologian Tom Wright Samaritans were wrong. Everything about them was wrong. Wrong worship, wrong theology and wrong behaviour. Religious division going back centuries caused this particular people to be despised by the Jewish community more than any other. 

Now not only is this man from a despised people portrayed as the goody of our story, but the upright Jewish people – the priest and Levite – are the baddies. This would have been outrageous to the listeners. 

Now I don’t believe the priest or the Levite were bad, they were just misguided in how to serve God. They were trying to keep the law, stay undefiled, by not touching what was potentially a dead body. and yet in the Samaritan we see grace and love and mercy. We see God reflected in this despised man who asked no questions about who the victim was or how he got to be there. He cared for him and ultimately saved his life. 

So we have to ask the uncomfortable question, who do I have any prejudice or preconceived ideas against? Because they are our neighbours. Are we antisemitic? The Jews are our neighbours; Islamophobic? The Muslims are our neighbours; Homophobic? The LGBTQ+ community are our neighbours; Misogynist? Women are our neighbours; Xenophobic? All races are or neighbours; anti-immigration? Immigrants are our neighbours? Faithful? Atheists are our neighbours; Atheist? People of faith are our neighbours…and the list goes on and on.

I said in my sermon last week there is no “us” and “them” just a universal “us” as a whole, every person we meet is our neighbour, everyone we connect with or interact with is made in God’s image and loved.

If we are people who profess to love Jesus and follow his teachings we can't ignore any person we meet in need, no matter what our perceptions of them, no matter whether we judge them as being “good” or “bad”. This really is one of the most radical things Jesus has taught us, and one of the most difficult to live out.

More Than Sunday

Sermon based upon Luke 10.1-11, 16-20, from the main morning service.

Who in this room would describe themselves as an evangelist? Are there people here who feel comfortable with me using that term? Or uncomfortable with me using it? I think it’s a word which our tradition has an uneasy relationship with, a word I have an uneasy relationship with, and I think it’s down to our need to label things and how we associate words with particular meanings, and those meanings can evolve over time.

I’ve had to make my peace with the word “evangelism” and explore what it really means because one of the nine criteria you’re examined upon and have to reflect upon when training for the priesthood and throughout curacy is evangelism, poor Huw and Alex over the past few years have had to write reports on me and one of the areas they’ve had to reflect upon was sub-headed “mission and evangelism”, because we do like to lump these together. 

This is probably, once again, revealing way too much about myself but when I first started coming to St Michael’s the word Evangelist or Evangelical would conjure up a picture of a certain type of Christian with a particular set of beliefs. It was a word with negative connections, a word which summoned up men stood on the corner of Market Street telling me I’m going to hell, a word which often rejected my calling as a woman to the priesthood and a word which rejected and condemned my LGBT family and friends. A word more concerned with what we should be thinking rather than what we should be doing.

But the problem wasn’t the word, the problem was my own prejudice and how I associated the word, because this, when stripped back is a beautiful word. The Greek word it derives from has the same root as the word angel, the Evangelist is someone who brings a good message, like the angels- isn’t that beautiful? And that’s why it was something we Christians wanted to call ourselves as what’s better than the good news we have of the love of God in the person of Jesus Christ? 

The word mission is subject to a similar fate in recent times as it becomes absorbed into Christianese as a “buzz” word and one which many a priest and PCC comes to groan at the mention of as we’re pushed to share our “Mission Action Plans” or attending “MAPping” events. A Mission statement has become something that a business or organisation has and can feel a very long way from it being the “Missio Dei” or work of God, as we try and figure out what and how we do God’s work in our communities. 

To strip this right back to basics we have this morning’s gospel reading, where Jesus is sending out 70 disciples, we have no idea who, to do God’s work and spread God’s message in the world. Mission and Evangelism. The details of how they did this aren’t really for me the important bit, the instructions they’re given are something we can reflect upon but were meant for this particular group of 1st century Palestinians. If we’re looking to this passage to inspire how we should be in the world I think the important thing is looking at the spirit of how they were told to go about their work.

There’s a beautiful simplicity to it, they don’t go out burdened with things or with any gimmicks, all they have is the teachings Jesus has equipped them with so they can help others understand what God’s like, and an instruction to care for those they meet who need their help. There’s also a relentless positivity to it, an instruction to keep looking forward and don’t worry when people don’t want to hear it. Offer your peace and this message to everyone, but if they don’t want to hear it just shake it off and move on. You’ll have lost nothing.

But as with all scripture, and in particular The Gospels, we have to ask “what does this mean for us”, in particular those of us who might want to run a mile when we hear the words “evangelism” or “mission”?

A report came out a couple of years ago called Setting God’s People Free or SGPF, it was commissioned by the Church of England but undertaken by an organisation called LICC, the London Institute for Contemporary Christianity, who I’ve had an interest in for a long time as their area of expertise is supporting Churches and individuals to live out their lives as Christians Monday to Saturday, outside of what happens in Sunday church.

Central to the Setting God’s People Free 

initiative is the recognition of the power we have to show God’s love in our everyday lives, and in our own very individual ways to be evangelists in the truest sense of the word. Jesus says “the labourers are few” and I think the current statistic is less than 6% of people in the UK attend church once a month or more. When we’re all together it can feel like there’s a lot of “them” – out there- and not many of “us” – in here- but when we’re scattered and dispersed in our Monday to Saturday lives just think about all those diverse places we are where we’re reflecting the love of God; in hospitals, prisons, supermarkets, offices, law courts, schools, universities, football stadiums, kitchens, cafes, sports halls, playgrounds…the list really is endless. There shouldn’t be any “us” in here and “them” out there, there’s just “us” as a whole, every person we meet is our neighbour, everyone we connect with or interact with is made in God’s image and loved.

Now I don’t want anyone to be filling with anxiety thinking that the church is asking us to proselytise in Sainsburys, what it wants to do is empower us, for us to have a confidence in ourselves and a deeper understanding of how our entire lives are an offering to God and how that can shape all that we do and, as a response, as we see our whole lives as a reflection of the love God has for us, how that begins to shape what happens around us. People see God reflected in us and that’s infectious. We all know or will have known people who just seem to overflow with the Holy Spirit and how that makes us feel to be alongside them.

Many years ago I had to write a reflection on how I was an evangelist in my work as a nurse. I wrote that first and foremost we spread our message by demonstration, we live out the gospel in who and how we are, remembering that we’re first of all servants of God but we serve our professions too. Many of us work in vocational roles where our profession is one of service and at times of sacrifice.

It may not seem like the most conventional form of evangelism, but I believe we reveal the gospel in who we are and how we live our lives, and our mission is to be God’s people and love God’s people with and through our entire lives.

Last week Manchester Diocese launched a new campaign which has evolved from the Setting God’s People Free report. It’s called More Than Sunday and it’s going to run for the next 12 months. Now we can all get a bit cynical about things like this but I’m seeing this a truly positive step. I see this as a recognition of the power ordinary church goers have, stripped back from complex theology I can’t get my head around, and a move away from the debate and division which seem to dominate us as an organisation. It’s a recognition that those who lead our church at the highest levels have faith in your faith. You matter and you always have.

One final thing I’d like to say about the gospel reading is whilst we have the details about how the 70 were sent out there’s not much written about the results. Our encouragement to be whole life Christians isn’t about getting bums on seats or pennies in the bank, it’s all about the message and, like the disciples, caring for those we meet on the way. We should have confidence in the message we have, because it’s a really good message, it’s a message of love, belonging, inclusion, community and equality. That's a message I want to share.