"Where is God when the church inflicts hurt?"
Texts: Genesis 16:7-15, John 9:13-34
Sermon preached by Rev. Jeanette Mathews
25 May 2003

On my office door I have a calendar published by the Balarinji Design Studio - the same company who produced designs for the three Qantas Dreaming planes. The man who established this studio, John Moriarty, was a part aboriginal child removed from his mother and family at the age of 4. His mother took him to the Roper River Mission in the Northern Territory to receive an education and in the belief that the mission would ensure he was not removed like other light skinned aboriginal children had been from their community. One afternoon when she went to collect him from school, he was no longer there. With other children he was taken to Sydney and Melbourne and finally the Mulgoa Mission in NSW. Although John has clearly achieved success in his life, he speaks of the pain he carried. His feeling of being abandoned by his mother remained with him until he met her again as a teenager and heard her side of the story. He also speaks of experiencing hunger and physical abuse in mission homes. When he was 16 he was told he was too old to remain in the home so was sent out with instructions to look after himself. In his account published in the Bringing Them Home Oral History project, he says he admired many caring missionaries he encountered, but condemns the system that enmeshed well-intentioned cares and aboriginal families in the sad outcomes of separation policies. (Many Voices p. 58)

In the last few years we have become aware that the horror of sexual abuse is present in the church just as it is elsewhere in the community. This issue has again been at the forefront of the media in recent months and weeks and reminds us that the church and people called to ministry in the church can become perpetrators of abuse towards others, even children, and can enjoy the protection of the church structures at the expense of their victims.

I have written in my pastoral letter this week about Michael Lapsley - a South African Anglican Priest who was severely injured by a letter bomb sent to him while he was living in exile in Harare in 1990. Both hands and one eye were destroyed by the bomb which had been hidden amongst religious magazines sent to his home.

These stories are amongst many that could be told of hurt inflicted in the name of or through the structures of faith.

The two biblical stories that have been read to us today are also stories of individuals who were badly treated at the hands of those who understood themselves to be God's people.

Hagar's story is found in chapters 16 and 21 of Genesis. As we heard, she was the slave girl of Sarah, the wife of Abraham. This was the couple chosen by God to be the founding family of Israel, but more than that, to be a blessing to all they met as we read in Genesis 12. But the promise of becoming a great nation was threatened by Sarah's barrenness, as we see so often in women of the bible. Abraham agreed to her suggestion that her Egyptian maid be a surrogate wife and mother, but Sarah regretted the suggestion as soon as Hagar became pregnant. Hagar ran away, we are told, because "Sarah (with the blessing of Abraham the text tells us) dealt harshly with her". It's a fascinating passage with some notable features - Hagar the abused slave woman is the first woman to be directly addressed by an angel of the Lord in the Old Testament; and the first person to give a name to God. Her son's identity and name Ishma-el were to be forever tied up with this God, the God of Isra-el. There are parallels between Hagar's story and the Exodus story of the Israelite slaves who were harshly treated by the Egyptians in later times and also fled from a place of bondage into the wilderness. But what is of particular interest for me today is that this woman who was so badly treated by people of God was found by that God and instructed to return and submit. It is a harsh and challenging story to hear and understand.

Like many stories in the gospel of John, the story we have read from today can be understood on a number of different levels. Most people believe that the hostile relations between Jesus and the Jews in John's Gospel reflect the experience of the Christian community out of which the gospel comes, late in the first century. The Jewish Christians who claimed that Jesus was the Messiah were no longer welcome in the synagogues where they had once belonged. In this passage in John 9 the blind man is a representative of this community and the question of Jesus' identity is at the heart of the passage. But on one level this is simply a story about a man rejected by religious authorities because he no longer fits their categories or abides by their rules. There was the assumption that someone's sin was behind the illness and such sin could not so lightly be forgiven. The man's identity was questioned - probably he had never even been looked at before - he was just the blind man sitting and begging. It was a problem that he was healed on the Sabbath. And when you read through the whole chapter it is amazing that such an important event as a man being able to see for the first time in his life isn't welcomed by others, or celebrated, even by his family, but instead leads to theological controversy and expulsion from the synagogue where he had probably been longing to go all his life.

Such stories as these may have connections with the experience of people today. Although we perhaps find Hagar's story hard to identify with, all sorts of women have found their stories in her. The exploited servant, the black woman used by the male and abused by the female of the ruling class, the surrogate mother, the resident alien without legal recourse, the other woman, the pregnant young girl who feels completely alone in her predicament.

And the blind man expelled from the synagogue may share his experience with those who feel the church disapproves of them for any number of reasons: because of a different theology, or failing to wear the right clothes or speak in the right way, or being the wrong colour or having the wrong sexual orientation.

So where is God when the church is an agent of hurt? Can God still be a real presence for healing in spite of the representatives of God?

In both the biblical stories we have read God steps in to change the situation. The blind man is met again by Jesus and welcomed as a disciple of the one who was on the side of life, of light, of freedom and a vision for a better world. Well might he say "here is an astonishing thing!" (v30) God had come to him in spite of the religious leaders, in spite of prejudice, in spite of suspicion and fear. God had offered him a new way of looking at the world, and the courage of his own convictions.

The God who sees and hears had sent Hagar back to her miserable life, and we wonder if this is a God of love acting. But a few chapters later we see Hagar again as a wanderer in the wilderness, only this time she didn't run away but was cast out of the household of Abraham. Amongst the biblical stories this is a tragic one, with shame on the part of God's representatives as they treat an outsider so badly, and pity for the woman Hagar who wanders lost and alone and eventually runs out of water. The last time we hear her voice in the story it is lifted in weeping as she gives up on life for herself and her child. But God lives up to his name of being the one who sees and hears, and lives up to his character of coming to the outsiders that everyone else is willing to abandon. God gives this woman new vision too, as we read in Genesis 21 "Then God opened her eyes and she saw a well of water. She went, and filled the skin with water, and gave the boy a drink. God was with the boy as he grew." (19-20) God came despite the actions of those who were God's people, God came despite the fact that this child Ishmael wasn't the child of the promise and the plan. This too is an astonishing thing! That the presence of God and the light of the love of God can be known even in the darkest hours of life's experiences.

Stories of hope

Let me share some more stories:

I heard a radio interview this week with a woman named Tjanara Goreng Goreng, an indigenous woman whose life has also been a mixture of great academic achievements and terrible pain as a result of sexual abuse and depression. In the interview she spoke of the way she was able to experience healing in her life - from a combination of a background of catholic faith, psychiatric counselling, an acknowledgement and apology from the man who had abused her, and a healing ceremony in the custom of her indigenous culture. The integration of her aboriginal identity with the benefits of medical science and education has resulted in her sense of wholeness, and the strength to form a Foundation for Indigenous Trauma recovery.

Michael Lapsley has devoted his survival of an assassination attempt to what he calls "remembering well". He was active in establishing an Institute for the Healing of Memories which runs regular workshops and seminars, spreading the message that healing involves remembering and dealing with the past, and creating new ways to move into the future. In fact, as a nation South Africa has consciously chosen this path as an alternative option to "forgiving and forgetting" or hunting down the perpetrators of injustice and bringing them to trial. People from all sides have been encouraged to tell their stories, to hear each other and commit themselves to a different future.

In the ACT we have the opportunity to participate in the Journey of Healing in an ongoing response to the findings of the Bringing them Home report that was released in 1997.The Journey of Healing Network is actively involved in achieving four aims:

* to continue to advocate for the wholehearted implementation of Bringing

Them Home Report's recommendations,

* to recognise that Indigenous children are still being separated from their families at an alarming rate and address the reasons for this,

* to encourage the teaching of Aboriginal history and current realities faced by indigenous peoples,

* to work for healing throughout the Australian community.

When we hear such stories of healing and restoration we need to ask ourselves what our responsibility is if we claim to be the people of God today.

How do we respond?

Firstly, there is a need for repentance - a need to recognise that at times we have not been a community of love and healing for those who are hurting. It has been easier to remove them, to shut our eyes, if they don't fit in. The apology that hangs in the entrance to the hall is a reminder to us of the process of recognition that we took as a church to our collective involvement in the discrimination and disadvantage of indigenous peoples in Australia. But it cannot stop there for our church. We need to have an ongoing critical eye on our practice and our priorities as a community.

Secondly, we need to keep re-examining our history in light of our knowledge - and to be prepared to both celebrate the good and mourn the bad. We want to honour and value our past, recognising the people and the moments that have nurtured us in our faith and paved the way for our ongoing witness today. But we also need to learn from the mistakes we have made at times, and work out better ways of doing things.

The BWA mission summit that Thorwald has spoken at this month has released a statement entitled "Mission in the 21st Century". I have put a few copies of the 24 point statement on the porch table if you are interested in looking at it in detail. We have had quite a bit of feedback from the conference via Michael Smitheram who was a participant also. He was particularly impressed at the humility that was underlying discussions about the way mission has been done in the past and the need to separate gospel and culture when speaking of mission. As an example he quoted a discussion that concluded : "we must have faith that the gospel is strong and can be given over without a need to control its interpretation or limit it to the forms of expression in which the missionary was comfortable". That conference seems to have been a good example of "remembering well" - critically examining the past and moving forward with renewed intentions informed by experience.

And thirdly we are asked to keep trusting in a God who hears and sees and loves, particularly the marginalised. This love is known when we care for each other, when we are welcoming to the outsider, when our gifts and our efforts are put towards making a change in the lives of others. Our thank offering is one way of expressing God's concern locally, nationally and internationally. But to be God's people today takes more than just giving our money, it means opening our arms to embrace those in need.

But even as we commit ourselves to living in such a selfless way, we recognise that God's love is there sometimes in spite of the Church, in spite of us. Through its history the Church has been spoken of as a "mother", in an attempt to capture the nurturing, caring quality of love that a mother has for her children. But even that love can fail, and when it does those who have been hurt by the church need to hear the words of God through the prophet Isaiah: "Can a woman forget her nursing child, or show no compassion for the child of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you" says the Lord. (Is 49:15)

Our next hymn is based on this text, encouraging us to:

.. praise the Lord through faith and fear,
In holy and hopeless place;
For height and depth and heaven and hell
Can't keep us far from God's embrace.


Resources:

Hymn: "A Woman's Care" from Heaven Shall Not Wait (The Iona Community)

Last updated: 27 May l2003