Christ Church Cathedral

A Homily for Lent 2, 2008
Christ Church Cathedral, Montreal
The Very Rev Michael J. Pitts

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Genesis 12:1-4
Romans 4: 1-5, 13-17
John 13:1-17

It is probably because I am an introvert at heart, but I have never been a sportsperson. At school I disliked both football (we called it “Rugby”) and cricket. Whenever I had the chance I opted for the loner sports like cross-country running or orienteering. Later on I got to enjoy squash, and, since I came to Canada I got as near as anything to playing a team sport when I took up curling, which I still enjoy.

All of which is to confess that never in my life have I been to a football match, and only rarely seen part of one on television. But when I have done that, I have noticed from time to time somebody in the crowd of spectators holding up a placard with the words “John 3:16”. This, I understand is a way in which fervent evangelists bear witness to the Gospel. It also happens to be part of our liturgical Gospel this morning, so let’s look at it.

For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.

Like so much of John’s gospel it is a beautiful idea beautifully expressed. If you remember, it is one of the “Comfortable Words” read by the priest after the confession in the rite of the Book of Common Prayer. As I read the original text, like many times when the word believe occurs in our Scriptures, it means trust. And again, as I read the words eternal life in John’s gospel, I hear him speaking, not about life after death, about a quality of life here and now which arises out of trusting relationships

Unfortunately, in the thought of the fervent evangelists who hold up the placards, these words mean something rather different. Belief comes to be beliefs, that is, acceptance of certain propositions or truth claims about. Jesus. Without these beliefs, in this way of thought, we will never experience eternal life, but only eternal damnation. The required beliefs include rather narrow statements about who Jesus was and about how his death cleanses us from our sin.

Now in fact the thought of the whole of the writings of the John School does tend to be exclusive, carefully defining who is inside and who is outside the community, and as we go though the Letters to the Apocalypse, this exclusive theology becomes more pointed. And yet even in John there is another voice speaking. Look at the very verse which follows the famous John 3:16:

Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. ⁱ

Remember too that after all the violence and destruction of the Apocalypse, the penultimate image is one where the river flows out from the New Jerusalem, and waters the trees whose leaves provide healing for the nations. ⁱⁱ

This duality of inclusiveness and exclusiveness runs all the way through the Hebrew and Christian scriptures. Karen Armstrong’s recent book The Bible, which has been part of my Lent reading, brings this out well. The duality is especially apparent when we study that key theme of the Jewish-Christian tradition, the covenant.

The theme of covenant theology is that, out of the world, God calls into being a special people for himself, and enters into a covenant relationship with them. “You shall be my people and I will be your God”. By and large, within Hebrew scripture, the covenant is seen as exclusive. Those within the covenant relationship are only Jewish people, and the mark of the covenant, for males, is circumcision. The requirements of the covenant, on the human side, are differently seen at different periods and by different schools. Sometimes it is cultic purity, worshipping only Yahweh. Sometimes (especially after the exile) it is more personal purity, avoiding certain foods and ways of dressing. But both cultic and personal impurity can occur even in situations outside our choice, leprosy being one of them, not to mention, because this theology developed in a patriarchal society, many states of womanhood. The prophets tend to have a different view. The human response to the covenant is social justice, and its symbol is above all shalom, peace, health and right relationships with God, with other people and with the physical world.

But even while all of this is still basically exclusive, it is important to note that there are stories which express a somewhat different approach. The first covenant is with Adam, whose responsibilities are both to tend the garden and to fill the earth with life. As Adam is the primal human being, then this covenant includes the whole of humanity which issues from him. Similarly in the story of Noah, when, after the flood, he and his family are the only humans left in the world, he receives the responsibility of a renewed covenant, which likewise includes the whole of humanity. The sign of this covenant is, of course the rainbow.

However, it is in the stories the covenant with Abraham, and subsequently with Moses and David, that exclusive thinking finds its roots. It is here that the covenant relationship is seen to be specifically with Jewish people. Particularly in the Moses story, the covenant responsibility on the human side is seen as the keeping of the law.

But again, notice from our Hebrew Scripture reading this morning that the Abrahamic covenant is not totally exclusive.

I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed. ⁱⁱⁱ

When Paul, the Jew of Jews, was struggling to understand for himself, and to defend to others the experience that God was calling gentiles into the covenant, he went back to the covenant with Abraham, as we saw in our liturgical reading from Romans.

For this reason it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his descendants, not only to the adherents of the law but also to those who share the faith of Abraham (for he is the father of all of us, as it is written, "I have made you the father of many nations"). ^iv

As Christian theology developed, this renewed understanding of the covenant came to be understood as a new covenant. Both from the thinking of Paul and from the stories of Jesus, many of us see this covenant as a wide open arrangement. It includes all who trust in the presence of Christ and who want to belong. Its symbol is the common meal, both the liturgical meal of the Eucharist, and the times when we meet together to break bread, in the family, in the restaurant, in the pot-luck supper.

Others, as I hinted at the beginning, see it differently, drawing on the exclusive themes of scripture and the tradition. The covenant is restricted to those who share certain ways of believing about God, about Jesus, about the Scriptures and about the nature of this common meal. Covenant responsibility, in this branch of the tradition also includes moral conduct, based on a narrow, and, in my view, remarkably selective reading of the scriptures.

This divergence of understanding is one of the factors behind the divisions in our Anglican Church at the present time. In fact, I believe that the division is to be found in a sphere much wider than just the Anglican Communion. The spotlight is on us because our division is a symptom of a divide which runs through the whole church.

In this struggle there is a certain inequality which arises from the very logic of the debate. For those who want to be inclusive, by and large want to include those who disagree with them. Those who stand in the exclusive tradition, of course want to exclude us.

I find it somewhat ironic that the attempt to keep the Anglican Communion together by drawing up a standard of a set of beliefs necessary to being part of it, is being undertaken under the title of the Anglican Covenant. It seem to me that the very process is based a partial view of scripture, a partial view of the Anglican tradition, and probably excludes half to three quarters of those who want to describe themselves as Anglican.

Let me end by suggesting to any who may be nervous of letting go of the somewhat comfortable exclusive view of faith and covenant that you may want to reflect on something else that the covenant meant to Abraham:

Now the LORD said to Abram, "Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you... ^v

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i John 3:17
ii See Revelation 22:1-7
iii Genesis 12:2-3 NRSV
iv Romans 4:16-17a NRSV
v Genesis 12:1 NRSV