Looking in the Global Mirror
November 18, 2012
Sermon by Tim Schmucker
(last in the 7-part series “Looking in the Mirror”)
Texts: Matthew 5:1-16, 1 Corinthians 12:12-27
This is the 7th and last sermon in our fall series titles “Looking in the Mirror.” We’ve been through a lot, looking into the mirror, have we not? We’ve tried to see Christ in us here. We’ve certainly seen the many phony photoshopped body images in advertisements and media. And we’ve seen our bodies in the mirror when they fail or age. And then we’ve looked into the electronic mirror of disembodied technology and started to explore the meaning of relationships in our age of electronic communications.
And last Sunday we looked into the mirror and saw …
… ourselves – the body at TUMC, God’s temple.
The church as body, this congregation as body. And yet, while we are one body, we have many members. Just look at us. Oh, that sounds like our Corinthians passage, chapter 12.12-27. As Paul wrote:
“The body does not consist of one member but of many. If the foot were to say, ‘Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body’, that would not make it any less a part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would the hearing be? As it is, there are many members, yet one body. The eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I have no need of you.’…. But God has so arranged the body [so] that the members may have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honoured, all rejoice together with it. [So] Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.”
Now, look around and say to those next to you: “We are the body of Christ.”
Now, let’s expand our vision, and ask – what does that mean in a larger context? Let’s say we at TUMC are the elbow, and Langley Mennonite in BC is the ear, and Rosemary Menno in Saskatchewan is the … well, you get the idea. But let’s go to an even broader context. Let’s look into a global mirror. Perhaps the Mennonite Church in Ibagué Colombia South America is the head or foot of this body. What does being the body of Christ mean in a global sense?
To explore that question, let’s visit the Mennonite Church in Ibagué Colombia, a global part of the body of Christ. Before we visit, I want us to recognize that we’re not being comprehensive today. We could also visit a Christian congregation in Gaza or in Six Nations of the Grand River near Brantford Ontario or one of the many hundreds of Mennonite congregations in Africa.
So again, What does being the body of Christ mean in a global sense?
[Google Earth video, from TUMC’s building at 1774 Queen East zooming out to North America, then moving to South America, then zooming into Ibagué, Colombia].
Then:
[picture of Ibagué Colombia Mennonite Church building]
Let’s enter the Ibagué Colombia Mennonite Church building
- Live via Skype
- Greetings from pastor Amanda Valencia, then José Antonio Vaca has a message for us (live, translated by me):
“I’d like to share with you some of what I’ve been able to see and experience in my 50 years of life.
Colombia is a wonderful country with spectacular climates, landscapes, and nature. In addition, it’s a country rich in natural resources, but perhaps, as has happened throughout Latin America, in her wealth is found the source of poverty and inequality in which we live, as the greed and desire for wealth of other foreign nations have been around since the Americas were “discovered”.
First were the Spanish, then the British and now the Americans and Canadians and other more developed countries, which has meant us being stripped of our wealth, in collusion with corrupt governments that have sold off our sovereignty.
I share this with you because it’s there in the poverty and inequalities where our more serious problems originate – the poverty and exclusion to which peasants were subjected who only longed for the right to land tenure. This was the origin of the armed conflict that we have lived the last 50 years.
I grew up watching as the armed conflict increased in intensity and seeing how our land and our wealth were concentrated in a few hands. Alongside these lived social realities, I went to a public university where these realities hit close to our heads, us knowledge-hungry youth, and also challenged us to actions. And at the same time, my mother instilled in me Christian values and I joined the Mennonite church.
There was a key moment at one point in my life when I had to decide how I would respond as a person, as a Colombian, to these social realities of extreme injustice that our people lived. I was at the point of deciding (and this is the first time I’ve publicly confessed this), of deciding to explore the path of armed revolution, but my commitment to Jesus and his ways of peace that I had come to know in the Mennonite church was stronger.
So I decided to serve my country based in the church. I came to this decision with the support of the Mennonite church and based on the great social commitment of our church to the needy, disadvantaged and marginalized. In other words, I decided it was better to announce the coming of the year of the Lord, the year of jubilee, rather than take the path of violence.
So, here the Ibagué Mennonite Church has responded to the intensification of the armed conflict that in recent years has caused a large displacement of entire communities who have left villages and the countryside to come and live in the cities. And so it is with this displaced population that we have been working. These displaced people fleeing violence end up in poor neighbourhoods in and around Ibagué.
But unfortunately many of them have not yet found the peace they crave, because for example, one neighbourhood of these can be considered neutral but then both former rebel fighters and paramilitary supporters arrive – arch-enemies, and tensions continue at levels that have even led to violent deaths among them, aggravating their situation of poverty, unemployment and exclusion.
This in turn forces some to turn to thievery, drug dealing or prostitution. In these difficult contexts, new generations are born and grow and those children who will be the men and women of tomorrow grow up lacking adequate references and models to not repeat these stories.
And here is precisely where our church has tried to have an influence, working with these children and young people to teach them Christian values and the alternative way of Jesus. We have done this in different ways. First, we first had a afterschool program including school work help, psycho-social and pastoral counseling along with meals.
Then we created a space to meet with them on weekends which gradually led to the forming of a faith community in one of the neighbourhoods, where we now have a kindergarten.
The activities of this emerging church there have a special emphasis on children and young people. While we cannot remove them from the environment they live in, we can teach them to live in different ways, following the teachings of our Master Jesus.” [End of message from Ibagué Mennonite Church.]
Chepe, it would be amazing to be able to continue visiting, getting to know each other as Mennonite congregations in the body of Christ, but I need to finish this sermon. May our Lord Christ Jesus continue to walk with you at Ibagué Mennonite Church.
[Chepe, sería cheverísimo seguir charlando, conociéndonos mas como congregaciones menonitas en el cuerpo de Cristo, pero me toca terminar este sermon. Que nuestro Señor Jesucristo les siga acompañando.]
Bye, adios. [Everyone waves!]
So what does being the body of Christ mean in a global sense? What does it mean for us the hand or knee or eye, to be part of the same body as the Ibagué Mennonite Church who are the toes or head or heart? They put their bodies – their personal physical bodies – on the line, ready for sacrifice, as they prophetically work for justice and peace following Jesus in the context of war, poverty and injustice. What’s our role as part of one body? As Paul wrote to the Corinthians:
God has so arranged the body, [so] that the members may have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honoured, all rejoice together with it.
So I want to share a few more stories of one part of our body, maybe the toe or an elbow … or maybe the heart. The Mennonite Churches of Colombia are being salt and light in a very difficult context, often risking their lives for justice and peace. They need us to be truly and fully part of the body Paul wrote about.[1]
On the International Day of Peace this past September, Mennonite churches across Colombia gathered in public places to celebrate the annual Bread and Peace Campaign. Sharing both bread and their daily commitment to nonviolence, they sang and spoke in public, thus demonstrating the every-day implications of peace-building in contexts of violence and hunger.
This yearly campaign began in 2002 as the government was pressuring all Colombians to become active collaborators of the State Armed Forces, and those who refused were labeled traitors and guerrilla supporters. All three Anabaptist denominations in Colombia – Mennonite Brethren, Mennonite, and Brethren in Christ – felt significant pressures, and decided to make visible their position for nonviolence by publishing a bold statement in the national newspaper. They declared that
“as followers of Christ … we affirm our biblical and historical commitment to walk the path of peace, nonviolence…. We refuse to participate in any armed group, and we refuse to pay so that others do so on our behalf….
They went on to declare that seeking peace with justice involved “conversations and actions with whomever is willing to consider non-violent, negotiated solutions,” thus rejecting the Government’s framing of who is friend and who is traitor. Indeed, they called on “the government, the armed groups and the media to give up their war like attitudes and begin genuine peace talks with real concessions towards the building of a new country…”
This and other public statements have played a fundamental role in protecting the lives of Mennonite church leaders in Colombia where the dichotomy labels you as enemy if you’re not a core supporter. The global Mennonite church has played a similar role at times.
For example, in 1997, the Colombia Mennonite Biblical Seminary was being threatened with closure due to its program of Peace studies that allowed many students to declare themselves as conscientious objectors to obligatory military service. North American Mennonite churches sent hundreds of letters to top government authorities. The Seminary remained open.
And then in 2004, Colombian Mennonite church leader, justice and peace activist, and human rights lawyer, Ricardo Esquivia was being threatened with detainment on deathly serious but false charges. Again, the global Mennonite and Christian community responded with a thousand faxes and letters sent to the Colombia government. Then, when Colombia’s Vice President called Ricardo in for a conversation, he greeted Ricardo with a huge stack of letters and the words “Mr. Esquivia, you have A LOT of friends.” Ricardo was not detained or imprisoned.
These are beautiful examples of the global body of Christ actively caring for each other as Paul taught.
A third example, when heavily armed paramilitary groups pressured the Mennonite Brethren churches in the province of Chocó to pay them a “war contribution” from the community rice-processing plant the church administered, church president Rutilio Rivas responded firmly:
“Mennonite churches have been committed to nonviolence and peace-building for centuries. We will not support any armed groups, not even the State Armed Forces.… We will not support you, even if it costs us our lives.”
Surprised by this boldness, and aware that Mennonites in Colombia have held this position throughout time, the paramilitary commander backed off his demand and promised to respect this position.
Are we ready? Ready to truly be the body of Christ with our sisters and brothers in Colombia as they lay their lives on the line for peace, justice and reconciliation? First of all, what can we learn from their example of courageous faithfulness? What does their bold following Jesus teach us as we discern whether we offer sanctuary to a Roma family? And secondly, what do they need from us? If we’re the foot, what do they the hands need us to do?
We can: Pray for them. Support them. Advocate for them. Pray again. Speak out on our Canadian government’s policies that put profits before people. And for those of us who have RRSPs and investments, examine them for holdings of Canadian mining companies, some of which are displacing Colombians from their homes, destroying land, and contaminating water supplies along with contributing to human rights violations, violence and armed conflict.
Recently, MCC in Colombia organized two National Anabaptist Consultations, with around 50 church leaders participating each time. The theme was political advocacy. They affirmed that:
1. The church is called to impact society…. Simply affirming God’s Kingship has profound political implications.
2. The churches’ advocacy comes of out radical obedience to Jesus rather than a political agenda.
3. Advocacy is inseparable from the churches’ actions to alleviate human suffering, to develop sustainable communities and to build peace.
You may have read about the new peace dialogues: the Colombian government with the rebels. After over 50 years of war and conflict, Colombia is at historical crossroads. These are the best conditions seen in decades for reaching a peace agreement. At the same time, there are profound obstacles, and there are also significant enemies of the peace process.
The Anabaptist churches in Colombia will risk their bodies, their lives for peace, justice and reconciliation. They need our support. Is the global body of Christ ready?
Our scripture from Paul: “The body does not consist of one member but of many. And God has so arranged the body that the members may have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer together with it. Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.”
Our scripture from Jesus: “You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot. You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house.”
[1] What follows is partly based on my own knowledge, and on an address Bonnie Klassen, MCC Colombia, gave to the MCC Canada AGM this past September. See my blog post “Being salt and light: advocacy with those risking their lives for peace”.