When People Of God Seek To Do The Right Thing

NUM 21:4-9   LUKE14: 27-33  LUKE10:25-37

How do people of God make decisions about the best thing to do?

Where do they turn when life puts them in a quandary between what is right and what is wrong?

Especially what do they do when there seems to be a conflict between what your faith has to say and what secular society expects and what if, in the end, your belief is so strong, it ends up being the determining factor in your decision making.

Now that the dust has settled a little following the Archbishop’s lecture on Islam and English Law in the Royal Courts of Justice, it is to these questions that I have found my mind turning.

I know very little about the make up of Sharia Law, but I do know a little bit about the Christian tradition of which you and I are a part and how such questions have vexed the people of God from where we stand. So I make no apology for starting there.

Our Old Testament reading is actually a case in point.

The people of Israel and their beleaguered leader are on their beam end.

They have ended up wandering aimlessly in the desert.

They have run out of food and drink.

They are under attack from a a Caananite king who has taken some of their number captive.

And to top it all a plague of fiery serpents has come into the camp and they are being bitten to death.

There is a choice now to be made.

Do they jettison God and return to Egypt and subject themselves to the hard life of slavery under a foreign power or do they turn again to their Lord.

There is a growing feeling in the camp that it might be the time to cut their losses with this God and make the best of Egypt.

Moses will not go with the majority view – when there is a decision to make as to what might be right – he turns to God, alone and courageously – he appeals to the higher power in which he has put his trust and God listens to Moses and gives the people a way forward, a way to remain distinctive, a way to keep the vision of the promised land on the agenda.

A bronzed serpent is raised up and the people are healed and reunited under God.

Our New Testament reading is about taking account of the resources at your disposal before making a decision. There is a war to be waged and there is a tower to be built and Jesus makes the common sense point that you see what your resources are before you begin. If you don’t you run the risk of absolute disaster by launching forth with matters unconsidered.

If people of God seek to determine what is right and what is wrong they must take account of the resources at their disposal – not leaving that which is God given out of the equation.

Recognising that the law of the land may not have the final word.

In simple ways I have know this to be true in ministry.

English law may say that under a particular set of circumstances a divorce would be permissible – on several occasions people have come to me to ask what the church might teach and what my counsel would be in their situation. Not an easy place to be, I can tell you, but a sense in which people of God are wondering if there is more to be said.

The same situation has crossed my path with regard to termination of pregnancy – the law of the land has agreed one thing but people of God are feeling another. A family had to make a decision whether to change the medication of their terminally ill son knowing that the change would hasten his death. “If you think it’s right, we’ll do it” they said to me. Struggling to do the right thing under God and turning to their religious community for help.

Years ago as I curate, I remember writing letters to Marks and Spencer because that was the only way a member of the congregation was going to be able to keep her job owing to her refusal to work on Good Friday.

Now in none of those situations did I have recourse to a book of decisive Holy Law which I could read out and people could then act accordingly, but the view of the spiritual leader was being sought because the law of the land did not go far enough for people of faith. In none of those situations did anything I said bring those people into conflict with the law of the land – our law gave them the freedom to decide for themselves based on what the church might have to say.

I think though I discern an increasing parting of the ways between the way the laws of the land are driven by economic considerations and a moral code that can be identified as Christian. So I see increasing situations where Christians will need to stand up and be counted as the nature of our Society changes and it cuts itself loose from any faith heritage at all.

Because we are the established church we have an inbuilt voice but at the same time we have inbuilt controls set upon us too. We are being pushed to the margins, our views are mocked at the first opportunity, witness this past week,  and as that happens we need to consider how our voice shall be heard.

Think of the number of times in scripture, the people of God find themselves strangers and aliens within a community rather than part of it. Slaves in Egypt. Exile in Babylon. A wandering homeless people for much of the time. See how lightly Jesus sat to the religious laws of his day, remember how Paul grappled with his new found faith over and against the Jewish law which had hitherto been part of his lifeblood.

There is something about us which has been more likely to be counter cultural than just running with the status quo.

So if there is any truth in this with regard to our own tradition which we know a bit about, – what do we do when a society becomes of multi faith. What do we say about how people of God from other faiths have a right to give attention to their own spiritual teaching in the matter of what might be right and what might be wrong.

This seems to me to be the issue our Archbishop has opened up and I am left wondering about the animosity he has stirred up as a result.

Is it born out of ignorance and fear because we don’t actually understand what’s going on – but we do know that there are aspects of sharia law against which we as Christians would want to speak, and that to the ordinary person in the street we seen to be caving in to an acceptance of almost anything so that we hold on to some credibility.

 Or are their valid circumstances where people of other faiths ought to be able to have recourse to their spiritual resources in the same way that we would expect within our tradition.

Does the Anglican church have a role as a mouthpiece for those in the minority – we often say we do when it comes to the poor and the dispossessed – but what about in this situation. What about minority faith.

The Gambia is a bit of a one off place it is true. It is 95% Muslim and 5% Christian.

Whilst there are issues for the Christian minority about evangelism in that land, I was struck by the sense of acceptance of  Christian values in that society. A living side by side, a recognition of the godliness behind their respective spiritual insights. The happy go lucky rapport between the Anglican Bishop and his Muslim neighbours was wonderful to behold and at the ordination service of only the second woman to be admitted to holy orders in that land, where I was privileged to preach, the Muslim community turned out in force. It’s not the same as that everywhere. In other places the persecution of Christians is appalling.  

On Thursday of this week Rev Rosemary and I attended a clergy training day to help us understand more about the relationship between Christianity and Islam. It was very helpful and towards the end of the day questions began to inevitably centre around these issues. Bp Nick drew the day to an end by reading a passage of scripture for us to take away with us and think about.

“And behold a lawyer stood up to put him to the test saying “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life..what is written in the law?...He said to him “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind – and your neighbour as yourself…..but he desiring to justify himself said to Jesus “And who is my neighbour”..Jesus replied ..a man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho and he fell among robbers who stripped him and beat him and departed, leaving him half dead…..”

Yes he read to us the parable of the Good Samaritan – it’s about how the love of neighbour doesn’t just extend to the person who is like you – the key moment is when two cultures meet at the moment of deepest need, the moment when the Samaritan stopped to help, that answers the question ..and who it my neighbour?

I don’t know if that’s what Bp Nick expected us to take from it – but I certainly did and it was most moving and that ought to lie at the heart of where we stand on this issue, and all other issues whilst we’re at it.

 “And who is my neighbour?..and having used the spiritual resources of my own faith to identify him or her, what then is it I am next called to do.

RH  17.2.08