The Rector's Chronicle


Sermon from Epiphany 4 - January 28, 2024

 

As the story goes, Queen Victoria was hosting a guest from a foreign country. At the end of the meal, finger bowls of water were passed around so that everyone could clean their hands. The guest of honor had never seen such a thing so he lifted it to his mouth and drank it. Stunned silence passed through the room until the Queen raised her finger bowl to her mouth and drank. And then all the guests followed suit.

 

1348 saw the founding of the ancient Order of the Garter, the highest order of Chivalry in England. The origin the Order is said to be a trivial mishap at a court function. King Edward III was dancing with Joan of Kent, his first cousin and daughter-in-law, at a ball held in Calais to celebrate the fall of the city to the English after the Battle of Crécy.[4] Her garter slipped down to her ankle, causing those around her to laugh at her humiliation. Edward placed the garter around his own leg, saying: "Honi soit qui mal y pense. Tel qui s'en rit aujourd'hui, s'honorera de la porter." ("Shame on anyone who thinks evil of it. Whoever is laughing at this [thing] today will later be proud to wear it.").

 

At the heart of both these stories is the idea that our behavior should take account of others and their best interests even when we know they are wrong. 

 

Nanuki in Kenya is a place I have spent a number of months on exercise with the British Army as a chaplain over a decade or so. About an hour an half drive from there is a place called Murang’a where there is an Anglican Cathedral called St. James’ All Martyrs Memorial Cathedral. There, there is a mural by a painter called Elimo Njau who is sometimes referred to as one of the fathers of African art. I wish I could show it to you. It is a Simple but incredibly powerful and beautiful picture of the last supper set in an African context with the disciples sitting under an open shelter with Jesus using an old African spoon called a ciihiru to serve his disciples.


     

Among the faces of those disciples are those of the Mau Mau martyrs including that of a young woman who you will never have heard of. I only know of her because my father quoted her last words to me as a child with tears in his eyes. She was called Rehab Ngendo. We know very little about her except that, when the bloody Mau Mau rebellion took place the Mau Mau sent Oath administrators into communities to stamp out Christianity. They required Rehab Ngendo to disavow her faith and to drink a blood oath according to the tribal religion there. Rehab Ngendo said - and these are the words my father recited to me, “I have drunk the Blood of Christ. Will I now return to drinking the blood of goats?” They hoisted her up by the neck and strangled her. Others did the same. William Macharia in 1954 refused to take the Mau Mau oath. They buried him to the neck in the ground and no amount of intimidation would persuade Macharia’s wife to take the oath and spare him. She belonged to Gaturume which means the lamb- Jesus. 

 

These people from Kenya, where I spent so much time in uniform, along with these accounts of Queen Victoria and the origins of the ancient order of the garter (perhaps surprisingly!) came to my mind as I reflected on today’s Epistle. 

 

On the face of it, St Paul’s argument about food offered to idols probably seems to us rather dull and mostly irrelevant. We don’t come across food offered to idols in our day. Without going into too much detail, I think St Paul’s narrative is pretty clear. Christians were to be aware, not just of the truth they had discovered, but also of the understandings of the people around them. They had come to know that there is only one God, and that Jesus is his son. Therefore, to eat the offerings made to a nonexistent God was neither here nor there to them. They could have done that with a clear conscience. Yet, St Paul points out that what we know to be true is not so easy for those who struggle with the beliefs they grew up with or are surrounded by. Our behavior as Christians is to take account of those around us and their mistaken or false beliefs. Even if we know or think they are wrong we are obliged to behave in such a way that their path to faith and the truth is not damaged. As the young Kenyan woman Rehab Ngendo shows in such devastating clarity, she died rather than drink the blood of goats, even though she knew that the blood was nothing but goats blood, because she knew what false and damaging lies it meant to the people who sought to force her to drink it. 

 

So, what is that to you or me? 

 

Well, I would suggest that the way we engage with people we disagree with, the way we engage with people who think Christ is nothing, and the way we engage with people who are captured by some warped and twisted ideology, must also be dictated, not just by what we believe or know to be true, but by the fact that the people we are engaging with also belong to Christ, even if they do not know it. 

 

We are not here to prove we are right. We are here to try to win others for a kingdom that is not of this world. A kingdom that no political ideology will ever bring about, however compelling. That might mean seeking to agree with as much of the truth in another’s position as we can, but it can also mean being prepared to be strangled to death for not saying or doing that which we could in good conscience easily do, because we know that to do so would lead people away from the truth and from Christ.

 

It is not easy. In this country at this time, there is a great deal of, what W B Yeats describes as, “a passionate intensity”, and a lot of partisanship that goes way beyond simply which political party you belong to.  If you are like me, you can usually see some truth, even in some of the more extreme positions on both sides, but, to some, any opposition, however considerate of the view that is held, is, as they say, only a red rag to a bull, and one can often feel, that any words we might say are not worth saying as a result. 

 

Perhaps St Paul’s words can help us in this. If our words are spoken, not to prove we are right, (even if we sincerely believe we are) but rather spoken in order to seek the best for the guest at our table or our partners in life’s dance, then we may speak more boldly since we are speaking not for ourselves but for them. 

 

I think the question for all of us in this challenging year ahead, is, cliched as it may sound, “What would Jesus say or do?” If we ask ourselves that question when we face what seems to us to be untruth, then our answer might be different from it might have been. Crucially, if we recognize that we do not know what Jesus would say or do, but are only reaching out in the darkness for his words and response, then we may do even better than we would have done if we didn’t ask the question at all. 

 

Dear Rehab Ngendo, whose sacrifice for Christ is unknown to almost all the world, will be in my mind in the coming months. As will those ancient words born of civility and kindness, that challenge us to seek the good in other’s words and actions wherever possible. Honi soit qui mal y pense. What would Jesus say or do? Let us ask that question with seriousness in the coming months.


For our politics, whatever they are, are not his.

 




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