A version of this sermon was first delivered on 10th September 2006 at Holy Trinity Barkingside - a slightly amended version (with Part Three added) was delivered Sunday 21 July 2024 at St Barnabas Northolt. As Anglo-Catholics we have a set of four readings (Old Testament, Psalm, Epistle and Gospel) with our clergy wearing traditional robes, and played with that structure for delivering this sermon in 3 parts. The sermon however is only on the reading from Ephesians 2:11-22
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PART ONE (delivered before Ephesians reading - before speaking take my alb off revealing myself in a suit and tie - ie secular clothes)
Welcome to the department of immigration. As you know, we have had a certain amount of trouble recently with illegal immigrants, asylum seekers, people without visas, and other troublesome foreigners. I would like to bring to your attention the following three candidates who I hope you will agree need to be deported forthwith
Firstly,
Nicholas from Myra– a Turkish National. Illegal immigrant and religious leader or “Bishop“. He is guilty of multiple illegal entries into this country on the same day each year, attempting to corrupt the Young through bribes and unsolicited presents, and numerous counts of breaking an entering usually via chimneys. he also goes by the aliases Saint Nicholas, Santa Claus, and Father Christmas
Secondly
George, a Palestinian National. His supporters claim he slays supernatural creatures. More reliable intelligence shows him to be a former soldier and religious fanatic, sentence to death for defying a legitimate military order to show loyalty to his head of state by sacrificing to him. He has no demonstrable connection with this country but is known to have been labouring here without a work permit as “patron saint“,
Thirdly
Saul of Tarsus, who also goes by the names paul or Saint Paul. Shows how even people from the best backgrounds can succumb to dangerous fanaticism. He is a university, the educated professor of Judaism and a full citizen of a highly respected Roman Empire who gave it all up when he switched to an extreme sect the“Jesus followers“
He compares a membership of this sect to citizenship and claims that loyalty to Jesus and to the “new Israel“ worldwide community of Jesus followers should take priority over loyalty to the state.
All three should be deported for forthwith
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PART TWO (delivered straight after Ephesians reading, still in a suit and tie)
My friends - our nation has a problem. in the past Christianity with something harmless quaint and old-fashioned something that could be described as a white peoples religion. Something very English. Cucumber sandwiches with the vicar. Miss Marple, Jane Austin. Harmless quaintness…
But in the last couple of decades Christianity has started becoming a dangerous sect. Why even recently we have had Archbishops who weren’t even English - the last but one Archbishop of York was Ugandan, and the last but one Archbishop of Canterbury was …. [horrified tone of voice] … WELSH! We need to get it back to being for Englishmen at prayer - and cucumber sandwiches
The problem is the Christians have started reading Saint Paul. Almost every one of his letters in the Bible encourages Christians of different racial groups to interrelate and react as equals Jews or Gentiles. “In Christ there is no Jew or Greek” of course Jesus‘s message was meant to be for the whole world, but the earliest Christians were sure of the racial superiority of one group -the Jews -so anyone who wanted to become a Christian needed first to become Jewish. Now obviously we are not Jews - but we know they really meant the English!
Until St Paul turned it on his head, Paul had lived in the world with different races lived in very different places Jews hated gentles;
{nodding head enthusiastically as I say all this bad stuff}, gentles hated Jews. Jews did not even eat with gentles
but he says in Ephesians chapter 2 Jesus made both groups into one {reading with horror}. v15"He has abolished the law with its commandments and ordinances, so that he might create in himself one new humanity in place of the two” - {deep breath}
Of course there have been plenty of patriotic people who have CALLED themselves Christians.
Patriotic Protestants in Northern Ireland who called themselves Christians who shout abuse to little children on the way to school
Patriotic Catholics in Northern Ireland who called themselves Christians who blew up shopping malls
Patriotic Americans who call themselves Christians and wave their MAGA flags demanding the babies of illegal immigrants are separated from their mums at the border
Patriotic white people in South Africa who called themselves Christians who supported Apartheid
Patriotic black Zimbabweans who called themselves Christians while murdering elderly white farmers
Patriotic Hutus who called themselves Christians who murdered Tutsis in the Rwandan genocide
Patriotic Germans who called themselves Christians who sent Jews to the gas chambers
Patriotic Russians who call themselves Christians and rape Ukrainian women
My friends, the problem isn’t people who call themselves Christians or even who go to church. The problem is when they start reading the bible {shaking head as I say this} - and particularly St Paul
All his ranting about how “In Christ there is no male or female, no Jew nor Gentile, No slave nor free."
EVERYONE knows that men are superior to women, our race is superior to other races and rich people matter and poor people are scum. If they start reading St Paul {shaking head} v19"So then you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but you are citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God
“Citizens” - as if their membership of this “sect” (what he describes as the “new Israel”). If their so-called citizenship of this was more important than their citizenship of this great nation.
Then there is the word he uses to describe his religion “Church” - eklesia - “those gathered out” - thats the word the Greek translation of the Old Testament uses for “the Nation” - that their highest loyalty lies with this sect of Christianity with what the bible says to them, not with what the government says to them. Huh!
Undermining loyalty to the state!
What’s worse. He…. opposes…. Hatred ?!?!
Paul claims that through his death of the cross Jesus “breaks down the dividing wall of hostility between us”
“The dividing Wall of hostility” - how can we sell the Daily Mail if we can’t get people to hate foreigners? Hating assylum seekers sponging off the state. Hating those hard working Polish Plumbers coming here and taking our jobs (thank goodness with Brexit we have got rid of most of them). Hating the Germans (and now the Spanish) because they are better than us at football. Hatred sells newspapers. Hatred wins elections. If you are left wing you hate America. If you are right wing you hate Europe. If you are left wing you hate heartless billionaires who don’t deserve the money they’ve got. If you are right wing you hate workshy people on Universal Credit who don’t deserve the money they’ve got If we can’t preach hatred, they might look at our real policies.
Hatred funds our military expenditure- [if we don’t fear and hate the enemy, how will get any money for our tank manufacturers]
“Jesus is our peace”- NO!!
St Paul begins “Remember that at one time you gentiles by birth, called the “uncircumcsion” by those who are called the circumcision” Before St Paul came along and interfered Jews and gentiles reacted to one another wioth name calling - “whities”,"N word" "P word" towel head. {in a happy voice} Name calling tells us who to hate {in an angry voice} St Paul tells us that in Jesus it has got to stop. “In Jesus we are one”
“Jesus is our peace”? - We don’t want peace - we want to unite around a common enemy.
“In his flesh he has made both groups into one”?- we don’t want to be one with THEIR sort. Our Race is superior. Their sort can work in Burger King and clean toilets - but don’t treat them as our equals. We can’t be ONE.
“He has broken down the dividing wall of hostility between us"? - The Berlin Wall, Apartheid, The Peace Walls in Northern Ireland, The wall between Gaza and Israel - we need barriers, psychological and physical to stop us actually having to meet these people and realise they are human beings
The problem, my friends isn’t people calling themselves Christians. The problems isn’t people who go to church. The problem {hyperventilating} is when they start reading the bible, and particularly St Paul. If we can stop them doing that then they might become good patriots who define themselves by what they are not.
But let them start reading the bible - the whole world order could be turned upside down. They might even start loving their neighbour!
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PART THREE - (delivered in the usual place after the Gospel - this time wearing my robes)
Ok - I am putting my serious hat on now.
We can sometimes think that the bible is only about Spiritual things… We read this beautiful passage from Ephesians chapter two and we can focus on phrases like “brought near by the blood of Christ” “reconcile…to God in one body through the cross” “have access in one Spirit to the Father”
We can focus on how Jesus took our sins away - and that is powerful and beautiful stuff - but it is only half of what this passage is about.
Because this passage doesn’t just talk about how we relate to God, it talks about how we relate to each other.
“remember that at one time you Gentiles by birth, called ‘the uncircumcision’ by those who are called ‘the circumcision’—a physical circumcision made in the flesh by human hands— 12remember that you were at that time without Christ, being foreigners from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. 13But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. 14For he is our peace; in his flesh he has made both groups into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us. 15He has abolished the law with its commandments and ordinances, so that he might create in himself one new humanity in place of the two, thus making peace, 16and might reconcile both groups to God in one body through the cross”
Desmond Tutu once said that “Those who think that politics and Christianity don’t mix aren’t reading the same bible as me.
Let me tell you two stories - one tragic the other beautiful.
In the early years of the 20th Century a young Hindu man came from one part of the Bristish Empire (The Raj) to another (South Africa to practise law. He had read some of the New Testament and he was bowled over by Jesus’s teaching - so one Sunday he decided to try going to a church. It was a lovely service, but as he was exiting, the pastor beckoned him to one side and said “Perhaps next Sunday you would rather go to the Church down the road with your own people?”
That young man’s name was Gandhi. He never went back to a church again. Years later a Christian friend of his asked “If you quote Jesus so much, how come you are not a Christian, to which Gandhi replied “It’s not your Jesus I have a problem with, its the Christians”.
Second story. In America in the mid twentieth century a young black couple were dating. He was a Baptist, she was an Episcopalian (Anglican). One Sunday he went with her to her Episcopalian church. He realised at communion they didn’t have little thimbles like he was used to in the Baptist Church, but a shared cup. He also realised that most of the congregation were white. This was the time of Segregation - before even Martin Luther King. As he went up to communion with his girlfriend the young man realised that the people before them were white and the people after them were white. And the rector went along the line with the same cup - “The Blood of Christ”, “The Blood of Christ”, “The Blood of Christ” - not only did the rector give the same cup to them, the white people before and after them drank from the same cup.
He had never experienced this in a church before - and he and his fiance became Epicopalians.
The person telling this story - their son Bishop Michael Curry, Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church of the USA, when preaching at the royal wedding in 2018.
One of things that makes me proud to be an Anglican - is that we are such a diverse church. Look at how many nationalities are around you! Of course we have lots of flaws in other areas, but that is one thing we get right.
I love Pastor Luke whose church worships in our hall and I am really impressed by his ministry - But the one reason I wouldn’t want to be a part of that Church is that they are almost all West Indian. Artur was telling me that when he came to England many years ago he deliberately chose not to join a Polish speaking church, because he wanted to be part of a church where he would not just mix with Polish people so he chose a Church of England church. Many others of you have told me similar stories
“13But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. 14For he is our peace; in his flesh he has made both groups into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us. 15He has abolished the law with its commandments and ordinances, so that he might create in himself one new humanity in place of the two, thus making peace, 16and might reconcile both groups to God in one body through the cross, thus putting to death that hostility through it.17So he came and proclaimed peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near; 18for through him both of us have access in one Spirit to the Father. 19So then you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but you are citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God,”
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A cheeky request
If you have read all the way to the end of this sermon, presumably you have found it helpful. If so, (if you are happy to do so) please give the sermon a five star (or at least a four star) rating. The better star ratings a sermon gets, the higher it comes up search engines. So you are helping me (thank you) but you are also helping other people get to read this. Thank you.
[if you really hated the sermon - what you read this far and you really really hated it?... Really? ;-) ]
