Sisters and brothers, I speak to you in the name of God, Creator, Redeemer and Sustainer.
Everyone is calling out for peace, but I say, ‘No peace without justice!’ From the inimitable Peter Tosh, who sang with Bob Marley. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOZQZAX4deM)
And now for the health warning. Some of you will find much of what I have to say difficult and disturbing. I hope so. I find it difficult and disturbing, but I ask a favour. Please don’t stop listening until you hear all of it. Then you can start to quarrel. Catch me after the service, send me furious emails, but let us engage.
So, no peace without justice. And we are certainly in a world where there is no peace. The Geneva Academy estimates that there are over 110 armed conflicts going on right now, and when I looked at the site yesterday, it had not yet added the conflict in Lebanon. (https://geneva-academy.ch/galleries/today-s-armed-conflicts)
‘War in the east, war in the west, war up north, war down south….Everywhere is war’ I am quoting and paraphrasing again, from another Reggae artiste, one Mr Robert Nesta Marley. War in Southport, war in the West Midlands. Everywhere is war. War on the planet. War on Mother Earth ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oWydZA75asI)
And why is war here, and why should we care? Can’t they just stay with their conflicts over there and leave us out of it? Alas, that is not how it works. We all still live on the same planet and what affects one set of people eventually affects us all. It’s like when you are sitting in the dining room and somebody lights an aromatic pipe in the living room of the same house. You can’t escape without leaving the building. We are on a planet. There is no escape hatch.
So we are all interconnected and what affects one, eventually affects all. Who here remembers COVID?
But there are other reasons why the consequences of the more than 100 conflicts around the world and of the assault on the earth itself find themselves on the doorsteps of the more or less United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the other countries of the global north. You/we – for the purposes of this homily, I emphasise my dual citizenship- bear the brunt of the responsibility for most of them. Went there, stripped away the natural resources, moved the people halfway across the world and back again and then walked away as soon as most of the profits had been stripped, leaving devastation and political unrest. Africans, Chinese and Indians as well as Scottish, Irish and Welsh coerced or enticed to the Caribbean and the Americas-so-called , to East Africa, Fiji , Sri Lanka, you name it, while the native populations were usually terrorised or brutalised into near extinction. Of course the people come here. You went there.
And the earth. Part of the project of empire was to project a theology that as the humans in charge dominated and subjugated the people they came in contact with, so all humans should dominate and subjugate the earth. Peoples with a theology of cooperation with the earth were ridiculed and silenced as foolish pagans. Bad theology hurts, and we are feeling the pains right now. Anybody fancy a dip in the Severn or the Wye?It’s chilly, but it’s not the cold that will kill you.
So, No peace without justice, but how do we do that?
We are in Coventry cathedral, the birthplace of the Community of the Cross of Nails.
Out of the ruins of the cathedral bombed in WWII was fashioned a cross of nails and eventually a world wide community focused on
Healing the wounds of history
Living with difference and celebrating diversity
Building a culture of justice and peace.
We have just heard sung the Litany of Reconciliation with the haunting response,
‘Father forgive.’
Let us pause a moment and remember.
Homework is to look at it again and make the words our own.
There will be a fair bit of homework, actually, but you will be relieved to know that you will mark it yourselves. Please take some time to watch the video on the Community of the Cross of Nails on the cathedral website. Much to think about there, but I was particularly struck by these words from the German Pastor Elvira Schlott,
‘How can we look each other in the eye? How can we simply talk and how can we discuss what truth actually is?’
In other words, How can we reach each other from our positions of pain? We yearn for peace, but, there can be no true peace without justice. ( https://www.coventrycathedral.org.uk/reconciliation/community-of-the-cross-of-nails)
Another bit of homework is to listen to the speech given last week at the UN General Assembly by Dr Irfan Ali, President of the Cooperative Republic of Guyana, and one of my new heroes. The Caribbean is currently in a good place with several leaders including Mia Mottley of Barbados and Dr Ralph Gonsalves of St Vincent and the Grenadines who can more than hold their own on the world stage and Dr Ali is right up there with them. Dr Ali cogently set out the challenges from small member states to the international community, outlining what his own country of Guyana is doing to counteract climate change and to preserve biodiversity while being wealthy in natural resources, but lacking financial resources He began by challenging ‘If it is that we all agree on ending and preventing wars, …if it is that we all believe in climate, food and energy security, then what is stopping us from acting?’ ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Szov_Ab9Nzo)
And that is our question. If it is that we believe the Church of England is institutionally racist. The Archbishop of Canterbury has said so. If it is that we believe that the U.K. is the kind of society where people try to burn down hotels housing refugees. We have seen it, as in the last decade, we have seen the Windrush Scandal, the Post Office Scandal, the Grenfell Tower tragedy and the issuance of PPE during COVID among a myriad of other events and issues with racialised intent.
A recent public health review by the UCL Institute of Health Equity exposed that racism is a public health issue with more than half of London’s black and brown children growing up in relative poverty compared with about a quarter of white children, and with youth unemployment being double that for black children compared with white, but being higher still for Gypsy, Roma and Irish Traveller youth. And that is in London. Who knows what the figures are for the West Midlands.
To borrow from Dr Ali, ‘If it is that we believe racial injustice is wrong, what is stopping us from acting?’ Put it a other way, we have lamented and shed many tears. In Jamaican we would say, ‘We bawl plenty eye-water’. We bawl, but now we have to act. Some have been acting for a long time, and we acknowledge them, but it is time for all of us to step up the pace. It is time for us to kneel down, or sit or lie down or stand up in a revolutionary act of prayer.
That means prayer like what we are doing now in this holy place of worship, but that continues in that other holy place of worship found outside these walls. In God’s holy world, among God’s holy people. We have to proclaim and teach, in a way consistent with our actions, that we believe in justice for all, that we believe that each person is equally valuable and holy before God, regardless of ethnicity, gender, class, sexuality, ability and all the other characteristics. We have to give loving service to those who need it and those who would like it, we have to stand up for justice and we have to try to restore the creation.
But how?
We each have to open our eyes and ears to what is happening in the places where we live and work. We have to cultivate a holy inquisitiveness. We have to behave like the reverse of the three monkeys. We have to see the evil that is there, we have to hear the evil that is there, and we have to speak out against the evil that is there.
Are the children we encounter in our schools being cherished and encouraged to flourish or are they being bullied? Are they hungry? And what about those children and young people we notice outside of school? Are they ok? And those young mums and dads, are they being isolated or supported by the community? Are the older people being respected and loved, or are they too, isolated and cut off?
And how do we help without being officious and patronising?
One way certainly is to cultivate an attitude of listening and learning. Knowing that all people, no matter their age or circumstances have something to offer. I remember Junior, a boy I used to visit in the children’s hospital in Jamaica. He had hydrocephalus, where his head grew so big that he couldn’t move it. He had the loveliest smile and the warmest personality. I used to kind of save up my visit to him for the end of the day, because he always lifted my spirit. I am sure he has been blessing the angels with his smile these many decades. Run and laugh in peace and rise in glory, Junior.
And so listen and learn. Watch films together or have book clubs in different languages maybe. Have craft groups or cooking evenings, but make sure that the learning goes both ways. Have respectful hospitality, but I beg you please don’t put out those bowls to collect coins for the coffee. I never walk with cash and they intimidate me, and I am bold as brass.
Have bright ideas that you can share with us for support and sharing with others. Call us, text us. Watch this space for micro-grants and training programmes, maybe even here in Coventry.
And be a friend, be an ally. People get tired and need support. You too. Lend a shoulder and don’t be too proud to accept one. Jesus didn’t go to Calvary alone.
Be courageous. You might be the one being called to get on a horse naked and ride through the town to bring economic justice to the people. Those who don’t get the reference, ask one of the Coventry people, and don’t mind when they say firmly, ‘it was only a legend!’
So dear friends, again I say be of good courage. ‘what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?’
