FAITH FOR THE GENTILES:
responding to the Other
Psalm 148; John 13: 31-35; Acts 11: 1-18
I was raised and went on to ministry among Baptists, in New
Zealand. During my primary school days, with great daring I once walked inside
a large Catholic church. The shape, the furniture, candles and other devotional
symbols were unfamiliar and to me a little spooky. I was browsing the pamphlet
stand when I noticed out of the corner of my eye a strange man with a black
dress on. That was enough for me – I got out as fast as I could.
I had encountered the
Other, and in my ignorance I was afraid.
In every arena of life, we are confronted by the challenge
of the Other, of the one who is different The horrendous news again this week
illustrates how some of the worst atrocities of human history have occurred in
the encounter between ignorance and the Other. But on any day in our normal
round, what profound opportunities for the enrichment of our lives arise from
such encounters. It all depends on whether we approach the Other with fear and
anxiety or with faith and adventure.
The New Testament early describes the challenge for the
Scribes and Pharisees, trying to decide whether Jesus was one of them, or an
Other to be wary of and to contain. Today’s text shows some of the new Jewish
Christians with a similar problem, hamstrung by their traditional belief that the
Gentiles are the Other and may not be accepted as converts.
But Jesus and Paul are not about making converts of people
to a new faith. Their gospel is about
converting the thinking of the existing people of God. Paul is totally true
to the vision of Jesus where he declares that in Christ the old distinctions of
Jew/Gentile, Slave/Free, Male/female no longer count for much. With such words,
Jesus and Paul radically convert the category of the Other.
Where do you and I
meet the Other?
Within the UCA we meet the Other in the context of the
so-called ethnic congregations. The word ‘ethnic’ derives from ‘ethnos’, the
word Paul uses for Gentile or nation. In Hebrew the word is ‘goy’. To engage
with those of an-Other ethnicity is not just to cope with difference between us
but to try to appreciate what it is to belong to a cultural minority.
We are also aware of Otherness in the UCA as we struggle
with difference in the area of sexuality. Here is an-Other minority we often
pontificate about in ignorance of their whole life experience. At first our
problem seems to be whether we can accept people who (we think) differ from us
in such an important way. On further thought, we may begin to recognize a more
profound issue: whether it is right for us even to think of people in same-sex
relationships as Other. After all, genetically the difference of sex is only 5%
of who we are. And people who are ‘partners’ express a range of social and
sexual behaviours, few of which are determined by gender,
So how do we deal
with the Other? Here are two guidelines:
First, we need to
acknowledge and value significant difference, with no thought of assimilation
or conversion to our ways, This is the nature of the encounter Martin Buber
characterized as I-Thou; it is the way God in Christ meets us. Second: we must embrace and treasure
the Other in the unity of which the gospel speaks. On this basis, the early
church affirmed diversity in unity –
the Gentiles were not required to observe the Torah.
2000 years later, the encounter between Jew and Gentile
described in today’s text still challenges us. My encounter with the Otherness of Jews is one of the most enriching
and challenging experiences of my life. My doctoral study was motivated by
the prominent place of the Other in the stories of the Hebrew Bible, people
outside of covenant, like Hagar and Ishmael, Lot, Ruth,and Rahab the Madam. As
I sit and talk e.g. with Rabbi Keren Black of Leo Baeck centre for Progessive
Judaism, the sense of our common love for God and all humanity, and our understanding
of leading God’s people, makes our traditional and dogmatic differences seem of
little consequence.
In his latest web news, our UCA Assembly secretary writes
about reading, Church Next. The
author Eddie Gibbs declares an evangelical imperative to engage with people in
ways that are open to ambiguity, dialogue and witness – in short, through stories. (From p 34) We must unconditionally accept those who are
content to live with ambiguity, and be humble enough to communicate in open
dialogue with those who hold a pluralistic world view. The confidence of our
witness must be in Christ alone and not … in the impregnability of a Christian
apologetic.
Gibbs’ words may assist Christians who are troubled by what
they call relativism, the idea that
one belief is as good as another. The key truth of the gospel is that each person’s story is as good as
an-Other’s. We enter into the story and life of the Other so that we may
understand more clearly our own story and deepen our own integrity. This may
only bear much fruit when I meet the Other allowing that my belief may not be
any better than his or hers.
Personally, I have a growing conviction that the
authenticity of my own life of faith and that of the church cannot be affirmed
apart from opening ourselves to their critique of our claims and our
evangelising.
In this season, we celebrate the new of Easter: for the
first time, Gentiles were accepted among the people of God. Sadly, Christians
like to hog all the new for themselves, falsely imagining that the Jews were
left with the old. We also exaggerate the gospel, forgetting that forgiveness
and salvation by grace were not new in Christ, even though a section of Jewish
religion had lost sight of them.
Rabbi John Levi speaks of Rabbinical Judaism and Christianity
as sister religions, since both
emerged from a common tradition in the first century. This is very gracious of
him since in Paul’s image of the Gentiles grafted on to the Olive Tree of
Israel, it seems that Christianity is clearly the younger sister.
It is plain to me that the Jews also experience the new of
the covenant promised by their prophets of old, the personal knowledge of God
and the priesthood of all, precisely
what Jesus proclaimed. The important thing is that you and I still grow in
our own experience of God and of the faith community.
The gospel is still
about converting the thinking of the people of God, of you and me. This
will happen for us only so long as we still meet Jesus as the Other, Jesus as a
sign of contradiction to all that is partial and prejudiced in our lives. With
faith and adventure, let us eagerly grasp all that our encounter with Him holds
for us.
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A sermon presented by the Rev Dr Paul Tonson at St Aidan's Uniting Church North Balwyn, on
9th May, 2004.
IT MAY BE REPRODUCED WITH ACKNOWLEDGMENT.
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