Church of Sanctuary (part two)

“The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God”  (Mark’s Gospel ch1.v1)

“These are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name” (John’s Gospel, ch.20.v31).

It never ceases to astound me that despite the ravages of Christian history somehow and repeatedly people see beyond them to a truth that beckons us.

I was in Ghana,  some forty years ago now.   My hosts took me to the coastal fortresses from which millions were transported in chattel slavery to the Americas. I saw the tunnels though which people like my own dear hosts were put on boats with no rear view of the land they were leaving, by people from the land from which I came.  The grief of it.

Yet somehow out of this have come faithful followers of Jesus.   Subjected to indignity, degradation and inhumanity by owners and their reps who said they were themselves Christians,  somehow from this has flowed over time a diverse, deeply humane, profoundly Christian stream, to the spirituality and witness of which we are all debtors.

Like our four gospel books, like our whole New Testament, this has found its origin – dare one simply say? – in the cross of Jesus.

What I’ve written about Ghana could be multiplied over and over in the story of especially Western Christianity,  in the intricate weave of history, colonial, missionary, military, mercantile, histories in which motives have been very mixed, so many people have been exploited and suffered.   But somehow, and we may think despite all, the gospel of Jesus Christ has found its way into hearts and minds.  Can this be explained except by a pull beyond all that seems to compromise its truth?  ‘You can only fool people so much of the time’.

Chine McDonald in her book “God is not a White Man’ writes that, as she was studying theology in the UK, she never heard it acknowledged that their studies were incomplete because they were only looking through the lens of while Europeans.  The point:  how much many of us have to learn from that majority of Christians who are neither white nor European.

Now might we put it another way round, and dare to ask:  ‘how does Jesus see any of us?’   At this point, isn’t it simple?  Isn’t it each of us, in our simple, unadorned, humanity?

I remember a saying, I can’t remember from where, that a monarch has just one image which is reproduced on all coins;   but the image of God is different every time.   Neither does difference of culture, origin, ethnicity, of human wealth or standing affect its equal value.

Which may take us back to the cross of Jesus, and its appeal.

St Paul in his New Testament letters reflects a great deal on the death of Jesus on the cross,  on its meaning, and that of the resurrection.

Holding it together is his repeated meditation on ‘the body of Christ’, which clearly and intimately links Jesus’ words at the Last Supper, “this is my body”, his crucifixion, the Holy Communion in which we share,  and ourselves as ’the body of Christ’ of which we are all parts, valued and valuable.

He writes of mutual caring: “If one member suffers, all suffer together with it”  (I Corinthians 12.26).   And of shared honour : “if one member is honoured, all rejoice together with it”.

Paul also expresses his conviction that the cross of Jesus ‘has broken every barrier down’:   “There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female;  for all of you are one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3.28).

So, how does Jesus see any of us?

This may seem to be straying from the subject of sanctuary,  and from focus on those among us who are refugees.   But surely our view must altogether begin with our sense of who any of us are before God?  of  what touches me,  and what in that case what touches you in my sight?  –  aware as I may become of my shortfall, and how much there is I have to learn, and that being the case, from whom?

Next time, more specifically on Sanctuary.