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This Week's Sermon !

June 22, Trinity Sunday 2025

1 Kings 19: 1-15a
Psalm 42 - 43
Galatians 3: 23-29

In Christ There are no Hyphens

It was at the 24th Olympiad in Seoul, South Korea. Ben Johnson, a Canadian, won the 100m in 9.79 seconds and became, by default, the fastest man in the world. Then, three days later, we saw again and again that crushing news conference where it was announced that Johnson had tested positive for the metabolites of a banned steroid and he was stripped of the gold. From sea to sea Canadians were in mourning - most of all we were embarrassed. In 1993 another drug test showed an abnormal testosterone to epitestosterone ratio, apparently a sign of banned drugs, and he was banned from competition for the rest of his life.

Usain Bolt, a Jamaican, currently holds the world record at 9.58 seconds.

Before the Olympics in 1988 Johnson was hailed as Canada’s fastest man and possibly the fastest in the whole world. This Canadian was going to do us proud! This Canadian was going to bring us the gold and indeed he did, FOR THREE SHORT DAYS. But, after that fateful news conference, our media almost instantly began referring to him as a “Jamaican-Canadian”, or “Jamaican-born Canadian.” It seemed like the Canadian media wanted to put as much distance as possible between him and “real Canadians.” Since he was born elsewhere, giving him a hyphenated status seemed to be the easiest way to do it.

Occasionally, I have the privilege of talking with people about their own funerals. I remember one such discussion. I knew that this woman had married a widower with a small child and then they had three children, now with children and grandchildren of their own. I asked her how I was to refer to the children and grandchildren and she said, “ I have four children, there are no steps in my house”. The little girl, too young to remember her biological mother, and long since a grown woman, was her daughter, equally. As we know, for some families there IS conflict and favouritism. It turned out that this woman’s funeral was my last in that Pastoral Charge. There was even a connection between that daughter and my own family; not unusual for PEI.

In the early church there was a controversy about belonging lurking in the background. To make matters simple, there were Christians who had been Jewish and Christians who had come to faith in Jesus from other faith groups, cultures and countries. Since Jesus and his disciples were all Jewish and the belief in a Messiah was a Jewish one, some in the church felt those in the second group should convert to Judaism first and then become Christ followers. For the men this meant circumcision. For everyone it meant a tacit acceptance of a nationalistic view of the world that made everyone else second-class. After all the people of Israel were, “God’s chosen people.” As tensions between synagogue and church increased the distinction eventually became moot, but at the first it was a thorny issue.

In this context Paul tells the people of the community of faith from Galatia that there should be no distinctions between and among them.

This is positively mind blowing! Keep in mind that Paul was a devout Jew. I believe that he even bragged that his following of the law was exemplary - and he was, initially, a vicious persecutor of those who had begun to hang around with the Jesus people. Not only did he come to belief in Jesus but he also recognized that those who had never been Jewish, were to be of equal value to those who had been children of Abraham. That is an amazing turn around.

When I was in High School we studied the works of George Orwell - 1984 and Animal Farm. Similar to the Handmaid’s Tale, they are dystopian tales about the future. In 1984 I was in my last year of my undergrad and had the class sweatshirt - with a large “84" in gold on the front. One of my professors noted that the shirt reminded him of the Orwell novel by the same name. Another Orwell novel, Animal Farm depicts a world run by the farm animals and the pigs are in charge. As I recall the animals overthrow their human oppressors and begin to run things themselves. But as the porcine members of the animal community jockey for top spot, their slogan, “All Animals are Equal” changes into “Some Animals are More Equal Than Others.” Of course, the new slogan is an oxymoron, “more equal” makes no sense, but it is one of Orwell’s critiques of totalitarian regimes.

What if this epistle was written, not to the Christian Community in Galatia but to our churches here in Saskatchewan, here in the Bridging Waters Communities of Faith - two congregations 10kms apart. What would Paul tell us in Chapter 7, if there was a chapter 7?

Many years ago, I was talking with one of the Stewardship people who worked at our General Council Offices in Toronto. He was meeting with our Conference Committee somewhere in Nova Scotia. He had a hard time with “tradition”. He said, “in the church I attend, we pay very little attention to the past; all our time is spent looking to the future. What are we going to do in the coming year? What are our goals? His congregation was a new church development and few people, if any, were second generation. For the most part we were trying to provide leadership to congregations whose members had been there for generations. In such cpngregations, “we don’t do it that way” is a common response to a new idea.

About 25 years ago one of my retired church members was thanked for helping with the church suppers they had in the summer, with these words, “Thank you- it’s so nice to see the new people taking part.”

Later on, she sounded off to me, “new - new, we’ve lived here all summer for 20 years. I go to church almost every week.” One young adult was spoken to harshly in the kitchen because “that’s not the way to do it;” when she worked as a cook for the University President and was competent and capable.

Of course there are food preparation rules that we must follow - but as far as I know, none govern the way carrots are cut or potatoes are peeled.

I was looking at church ads a few years ago and one ad boasted, “we sing all the old hymns!” I was speaking with a minister in another congregation who said, “we are trying to have the vast majority of our hymns be ones that were written in this century.

I was speaking with new parishioners who had retired and moved in with their daughter. They told me that their old congregation, in another province, had frequent informal fund-raisers. The church pillars would decide that they wanted something that was not in the budget and would pass around a pledge sheet on a clip board. The well-heeled members of the congregation were usually very generous, but this working couple felt intimidated - they felt like they never really belonged because they could not keep up with that kind of generosity.

Some churches have no time for new music, but as I said, some are just the opposite. My experience is to teach the new music to the children. Also, if you want to teach new music, in a foreign language, have a peppy tune and bring it out for VBS. I remember when we had a smashing success with the song, “amigos de Christos”, in other words “friends of the Lord”.

Bruce Harding is a well known United Church musician, based in BC, who travels often. One day he was taking a taxi to the airport and he asked the cab driver, a person of colour with a heavy accent, where he was from. Upon hearing the answer the white, balding, red-head, who knows More Voices inside out, began to sing a hymn from that new hymn book. He said the cab driver’s head spun around like he was an owl. He was hearing his faith language sung by a balding redheaded white guy thousands of kilometres from his native land. They hapily sand that and other hymns for the rest of the drive to the airport. Instead of creating divisions among the two, the words of faith united them across barriers of language, race and culture.

There are some people who consider the King James bible to be the only version of any value. It is a beautiful translation if you also love the works of Shakespeare but understanding it fully required a very high reading level. In addition that long ago translation is actually not as accurate as more modern ones. Better and older original manuscripts have been discovered and hundreds of more years of experience with the English Bible has improved the work. I have heard it said, in jest (I hope) “If King James English was good enough for Jesus, it is good enough for me!”

To begin with, Jesus did not speak English; neither did the people in Britain at that time. English It would not take over in Britain for about 500 years.

We can easily extrapolate the passage to mean those who speak different languages. In addition to Greek being another language, it was also totally different culture and way of thinking. When quill was put to parchment, the gospel writers wrote in Greek.

When we look at the face of another, it is a common to pick out differences rather than look for similarities. We have a great opportunity when we encounter someone who is different in any way, to welcome a friend in Christ.

I am currently reading a book by Bishop Mariann Budde, who is the Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington. After the death of George Floyd the American psyche began a long overdue reckoning with the racism that was simmering just under the service. As they say, “if looks could kill,” President Trump would have struck her down, as she said very little more than we are called to love and value all of God’s people and God’s beloved world. Diversity, Equity and Inclusion seeme to be on the chopping block as the backlash from dissatisfied white voters seems to be cheering their president. Even though we are not American we do have concerns, other than tariffs as this kind of thinking, this kind of racism, this kind of “hate of the other,” gains a greater foothold.

As people of faith we need to pause and reflect on the question, “what actions and attitudes do our faith call from us” and then we need to go forth to do and be that kind of people.

There is no Jew or Greek, no slave or free, no male or female, for all are one in Christ.

Amen.

1995- 2021 The Rev. Beth W. Johnston.

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journeywithjesus.net

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