Namaskarum: May the God in me welcome and respect the God in you!

It is a joy and a privilege to be sharing with you today. Thank you for your invitation to speak at this exciting time in the life of all Americans, along with the hopes of a great many in other parts of the world. Ian Lawton has invited me to speak on Social Justice and emerging Progressive Christianity but as a Church you are heavily into social justice, so what is it that I may add to your understanding and practice other than a perspective from across the Pond?

But first, let me quickly introduce my particular ministry from the edge of the Church. It is called ‘Permission to Speak’ that encourages people in the Church to re-evaluate the nature of faith and to encourage living the Jesus values of compassion, self-sacrifice and acceptance of difference, concentrating upon changing both self and the world in the here and now rather than being overly concerned with what happens after we die.

From the outset let me say that I am totally committed both to the Bible as a human construct infused with the Eternal Spirit, and to Jesus of Nazareth, my Gateway into the Sacred. However, in my interfaith work my ministry respects and learns from, and hopefully contributes to, the spiritual pilgrimage of those who are Christian, Muslim, Jew, Hindu, Sikh and so on. It is a progressive ministry in the spirit of Thomas Jefferson who said, “Almighty God made our minds free”.

This is important because it seems to me that in Britain many of those who still go to church are either locked into a narrow understanding of ‘belief’ or are theologically uninformed, deprived of the fruits of contemporary Biblical scholarship, so another part of my ministry is to help people explore ways in which we together may discover a new relevance of progressive spirituality to support all our faith pilgrimages in these uncertain, post-modern times.

There is another group of people with whom I communicate frequently. These are what Jack Spong calls “the fastest growing branch of the Christian Church – the Church Alumni Association”. Reggie McNeal, currently serving as the Missional Leadership Specialist for the Leadership Network of Dallas, Texas, has identified a very real situation when he recently said, “A growing number of people are leaving the institutional church for a new reason. They are not leaving the church because they have lost their faith. They are leaving to preserve their faith.”

As I travel I detect a new moving of the Eternal Spirit in a progressive spirituality that expresses itself in the here and now, summed up two weeks ago by a British clergyman who blogs under the name of the ‘Madpriest’: “I really would love to see the formation of a ‘New Humanist’ movement that would include thinking, non-belligerent people of all faiths and none, in which the worthiness of the flesh and all creation is celebrated and where, together, we would strive to rise above our baser instincts to heal the world and its population that both religionists and atheists have damaged so much in our quest to become something that is not human.”

And so to social justice: as one of ‘Mr. Wesley’s traveling Methodist preachers’ I want to put this sermon into the context of three of John Wesley’s rules for the people called Methodist, but they apply to us all. The first: “The Gospel of Christ knows no religion but social, no holiness but social holiness.” John Wesley’s understanding was that it is not possible to be holy unless actively involved in making the world a better place. He was a very progressive Christian for the 18th century! A major part of social holiness has to be social justice addressing issues such as:

* all women have the right to decide what to do with their own bodies;
* all people have the right to work and to receive a livable wage;
* all people have the right to have somewhere to live;
* all people have the right to access appropriate education and health services;
* all people have the right to basic provisions of life for themselves and their families;
* all people have the right to worship in freedom;
* all people have the right to live in peace.

Please listen carefully: without social justice there can be no lasting peace anywhere. This applies to the world hot spots of Iraq, Afghanistan, Zimbabwe and the Democratic Republic of Congo, just as much as here in Spring Lake where, according to your 2000 Census, about 6.1% were living blow the poverty line, including 6.8% of those under the age of 18 and a further 4.2% of those aged 65 and over. It is encouraging to know that you have been involved in changing things for the better over these past 8 years.

What heartens me is that the contemporary global progressive spiritual movement is learning from the experiences and religions of people across the world. In this context there is an important word that should be at the heart of every progressive Christian: it is from the Bantu languages of Southern Africa, “ubuntu”, meaning “We must all take care of each other for us all to be safe and secure.” Nelson Mandela languished in prison on Robben Island for 27 years and yet when he was released his immense dignity was demonstrated in the way in which he treated his oppressors with respect and forgiveness. This post-apartheid openness was “ubuntu” in action and if we are to follow the ways of Jesus we need to be “ubuntu” people.

Social justice and progressive Christianity must be concerned with the here and now with deeds replacing creeds, and addressing the issue of over indulgence in which greed exceeds need. Unless we do something urgently then 80% of the world’s population will continue to live on less than $10 a day because 20% of us continue to account for 80% of the world’s consumption. This imbalance results in the death of 27,000 children each and every day because they have to drink contaminated water; they have insufficient food; they lack appropriate health care. It also results in 2/3rds of the world’s population going to bed hungry tonight and every night. Progressive Christians must address the inequalities that exist between the majority poor and the rest of us. Too many inner city children and young people in Britain are programmed by education and social expectation to fail. As an ex-school principal I know that to tell young people they are going to fail increases the likelihood that they will fail. In Britain we are experiencing a major problem with teenage knife crime. Poverty, low self-esteem and lack of hope are so often the root causes of teenage killings, especially when associated with the supply and use of illegal drugs. But it is not just a problem for Britain. I know to my cost what it is to stare down the barrel of a hand gun in a parking lot in Fort Lauderdale while my family and I were robbed by two 13 or 14 years olds. And where there are those inner city kids who live on the wrong side of the track and who have no hope for their future, then “ubuntu” holds a mirror to all our faces: “If there is no hope for the future of any of our young people then none of us will be safe or secure.”

And social justice and progressive Christianity must also be concerned with the here and now of the environmental threats to us all arising from climate change and dirty energy policies, the impact of which hits the poorest in the world far harder and quicker than it impacts upon us in Europe or North America. If you have ever moved house you will know that it is in moving that you find all those things that you had forgotten that you had lost! Until we moved 2 months ago I had a poster on my study wall [it is now in a box somewhere!] of the 19th century Cree Indian declaration, “Only when the last tree has died and the last river has been poisoned and the last fish has been caught, will we realize that we cannot eat money.” Let us tell that again to the White House and to Wall Street; to 10 Downing Street and the London Stock Exchange.

And in this context I turn again to another of John Wesley’s rules, this time concerning money: “Earn all you can; save all you can; give all you can.” He was 86 years old and still traveling and preaching. His assessment of Methodism as he neared the end of his life was that it had grown numerically because it has emphasized concern for the poor and social justice issues such as fighting against the transatlantic slave trade, but he continually struggled to understand why Methodism had impacted so little on changing the world for the better for all. In his Dublin sermon he wrote: “Most Methodists have learned well the first rule, earn all you can. Some have learned the second, save all you can. But few have learned the third, give all you can.”

Now Americans and Brits alike are financially very generous in our giving to good causes, enabling others to do our caring work on the front line. However, what also is needed is our personal time spent with the poor and the prisoners of self and of institutions. And so I encourage you to continue devoting time to people of other religious groups and cultural backgrounds, listening, sharing, learning and growing together as sisters and brothers of the One God of All, regardless of the different names that we give to our own Gateways to the Sacred. I also encourage you to continue to welcome the strangers into your lives and into your church because such hospitality is Sacred. Do not expect them to become like you before accepting them as your equals: black and white; women and men; gay and strait; old and young; native and immigrant; able bodied and those who are physically or mentally challenged and challenging. Where there are those who are treated as less than our equals, as being in any way inferior to ourselves, then “ubuntu” holds a mirror to our faces: “If we treat others as inferior then none of us will be safe or secure.”

And the final rule of John Wesley for consideration today – his rule for Christian Living.

“Do all the good you can,

By all the means you can,

In all the ways you can,

In all the places you can,

At all the times you can,

To all the people you can,

As long as ever you can.”

Continue to do all the good you can without trying to convert people from their religion or ways to ours, and without making other people dependent upon our charity. Barack Obama rightly challenges us to avoid what he calls in his wonderful book ‘The Audacity of Hope’ this “stifling paternalism.” Social justice and progressive Christianity must work with rather than do something to another. Keep your primary involvement with social justice as enabling others to have the where with all so that they can do things for themselves to become the people that they can be in the Sacred.

Many Christians proclaim that there is a God-shaped void within every one of us that can only be filled by Jesus. This is true for Christians but there is a greater Truth. We are all temples of the Sacred Spirit and within each of us there is the sleeping giant of Perfect, Unconditional Love; of compassion towards others; of self-sacrifice for others; of acceptance of difference within and between others. This sleeping giant is waiting to be awakened then practiced by us. This is what Jesus discovered and lived by and died by – the sleeping giant of the liberating and barrier breaking Indwelling Sacred Spirit. This is the key to understanding the growing link between social justice and progressive Christianity: everyone is infused with the Indwelling Divine that some call ‘God’. This is the Hindi “Namaskarum” that recognizes and respects and welcomes the Divine Spirit within everyone we meet. It is in seeing all people as our sisters and brothers in the One God of All that can empower us to continue to be effective workers for social justice that will move beyond the political rhetoric and electioneering to really change things for the better for all people, here and now.

And like it or not, the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures are profoundly political. In the book of Amos 5:24 we progressive Christians can find our commission and our encouragement to action: “Let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never ending stream.” And as the Letter of James reminds us, “Faith without works is dead.”

Social justice is our calling as progressive followers of the way of Jesus. Social justice entwined with progressive spirituality is the great hope for the future of all humankind. So let us go into this new week and this new presidency with renewed commitment to ensure that we grow together as citizens of the global community, committed to working as one for the common good.

May Barack Obama and the new administration lead us all as Namaskarum and ubuntu people, welcoming, respecting and caring for one another so that there is a greater chance that we will all be safe and secure. The world has been waiting a long time for one such as Barack Obama to lead America to fulfill the purpose for which she was founded – a place of true equality and opportunity for all; and a place of fulfilled social justice. For any who may be critical of this sermon for being too political and not enough religious; too much Democrat and not enough Republican, I paraphrase a saintly leader of the Christian Church, one time Archbishop of Cape Town, Desmond Tutu: “When you say that politics and Christianity do not mix, I wonder which Gospel you are reading.”

Social justice is both a spiritual and a political issue. It is the progressive Christian imperative that will speak afresh to today’s increasingly skeptical world. May we hear what the Spirit is saying to us today, and may you be blessed as you are a blessing to others. Amen.