Advent Reflections for Intercultural Christians 1 & 2. # 181. 19/11/2024.
Out of Many,One People
Welcome, to something different – the first blog with a devotional flavour, for use in the four weeks of Advent; focussing as ‘Advent’ offerings frequently do now as a way of reflecting on the first coming of Christ. Particularly, as the title indicates, on the significance of aspects of that story for Christians who are now living at the meeting of several cultures. (In effect, virtually everyone in the country). The third and fourth reflections will be posted on December 3rd.
Advent Reflections for Intercultural Christians.
Advent Reflection 1. The local and the universal.
28 Simeon took him in his arms and praised God, saying,
29 ‘Master, now you are dismissing your servant in peace,
according to your word;
30 for my eyes have seen your salvation,
31 which you have prepared in the presence of all peoples,
32 a light for revelation to the Gentiles
and for glory to your people Israel.’ (Luke 2).
Simeon’s words represent a remarkable change of focus in Luke’s gospel. Whilst the dedication is to Theophilus (1:3), clearly located in the Gentile world, the following narrative is set in a pious, rural Jewish world. Zechariah and Elizabeth are ‘living blamelessly according to all the commandments and regulations of the Lord’ (1:5). Thus the angel visits Zechariah whilst offering incense in the temple. Recent archaeological discoveries have suggested that Nazareth was a very conservative Jewish community, resistant to nearby Roman influences. Gabriel’s annunciation to Mary, her visit to Elizabeth, and John the Baptist’s birth all breathe that same traditional Jewish piety. Mary’s song of praise to God, echoing that of Hannah in 1 Samuel 2, concludes with God helping ‘his servant Israel . . according to the promise he made to our ancestors, to Abraham and his descendants for ever’ (1;54,55). Abraham is still the father of the nation, not a blessing to all nations. Jesus birth, as now seems likely was into a very crowded family gathering that had been pulled together by a Roman census, and is heralded to the shepherds by the angels as ‘good news of great joy for all the people’ (2:10), not all peoples everywhere, but the people, the specific people that the shepherds belong to. So Jesus’s belonging to this people is marked by his circumcision and by being brought into the temple to be presented to the Lord.
It Is at this point that being guided by the Holy Spirit (mentioned three times in 2:25-27) Simeon takes the child into his arms and praises God in the words printed above – the child is a bringer of salvation to ‘all peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel’ (2:31,32). Luke will slowly roll out how this salvation, this light will be shed beyond ethnic Israel, to a Centurion’s servant, to Samaritans, and, when he writes Acts, to the ends of the earth.
But the conceptual shift starts with Simeon’s Spirit-given discernment. From the very local – a pious Jewish village family presenting their child in the temple by sacrificing a pair of pigeons – we suddenly get a spirit-inspired vision of the universal.
The universal had always been there in the background, from the several promises to Abraham, stating with Genesis 12:3, then spoken of in Isaiah’s prophecies and celebrated in Psalms, but now being fully incarnated in the child in the Temple.
In all this the local and the universal are not in opposition but integrally related. The universal could only be birthed from the local. From Jewish piety – historically shaped, geographically specific, focussed on worship and holiness – emerged the life that was to bring new life to all people.
Today we rightly rejoice in the universal. Not only do we delight in the good news of Jesus spreading across the globe, with increased responsiveness in nation after nation, but we value the immediacy of worshipping and fellowshipping in our localities with Christians from an ever-increasing variety of nations and cultures. Yet for Christians this ‘universalism’ does not place us in a cultural ‘elite’ that has risen above and can separate itself from local interests, towards which it now feels superior condescension. Rather our very delight in now being part of loving group of very varied intercultural believers stems from our having been rooted in the warm fellowship of a local community. Concerning Simeon’s thanksgiving prayer in Luke 2, the theologian Aaron Kuecker writes: ‘Simeon’s speech is a fine example of the simultaneous expression of Spirit-empowered in-group love and Spirit-empowered out-group love’ (page 69 in ‘The Spirit and the ‘Other’: Social Identity, Ethnicity and Inter-Group Relationships in Luke-Acts’). Simeon rejoices in infant Jesus presaging both the glory of his own people Israel and being the light for revelation to the Gentiles. So too we are called both to cherish the identity that nurtured us, as Paul does in Romans 9, and commit ourselves to belong to the cosmopolis around us, as Paul does in 1 Cor 9:19-23. As we rejoice in our local identities, so we are better placed to relish the identities of the ‘Others’ around us.
To meditate on:
1 a. What do I value in the culture and the church which nurtured me?
b. Is there anything from that heritage that I am at risk of losing?
c. What from that heritage that ought I to lose?
2 a. Has there been times when, like Simeon, I have been particularly struck by the world-wide nature of God’s purposes?
b. In what ways has the light given to Christians of other cultures illuminated my faith?
A prayer:
Almighty God I give you thanks for all those who prayed for me and gave time to nurture me in my faith. Thank you that from that base I have been drawn into your world-wide, intercultural family of faith. Help me to love those of different backgrounds, to let their light illuminate new aspects of my faith, and so grow into ‘the wisdom of God in its rich variety’, through Jesus Christ our Lord.
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Advent Reflection 2. God’s Surprising Ways.
2 In the time of King Herod, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, 2 asking, ‘Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews? For we observed his star at its rising, and have come to pay him homage.’
Of all the bible passages that are read over the Christmas season this is my favourite (plus it gets a second reading in the ‘proper’ church year after Epiphany on January 6th ). It conjures up pictures of heading into the unknown, of traders travelling along ancient silk roads, of long, desolate journeys in difficult conditions, ‘and the villages dirty and charging high prices: a hard time we had of it’ (T S Eliot: ‘Journey of the Magi’). We can hold our own images of these men: wise scholars, deluded dreamers, crafty diplomats. My favourite is a monologue I came across several years ago where their personae was that beneath their street-wise hardness was a yearning for something true and holy. But whatever our imaginations read into the story, the text tells us that they have come to find a child who is king of the Jews, and that they ‘have come to pay him homage’ (Matt 2:2). If it must have been an amazing journey, it was prompted by an amazing source, the rising of a special star, and had an even more amazing intention: to offer expensive gifts in homage to a child-king. God in his mercy had drawn them to worship not only a king but also one who is ‘to shepherd my people Israel’ (2:6).
For these three well-travelled, cosmopolitan, perhaps exotic and certainly wealthy men to arrive in the home of Joseph’s extended family must have been indeed a very strange and surprising occurrence, a fine example of the meeting of the local and the universal discussed in the previous meditation. The Ghanaian theologian, the late Kwame Bediako, described the remarkable spread of Christianity in twentieth century Africa as ‘the surprise story’ of Christian missions. Theorists expected the Christian gospel to get a faster and more ready acceptance in India or China with their rich literary traditions of religious faith. But the spread of the gospel is often surprising, as in China after the collapse of the cultural revolution, or now in Iran after the Shia Islamic revolution.
Have surprising ‘magi’ arrived at your church? They might not be at all exotic. (I read this week of a church holding evangelistic professional wrestling bouts). But churches in multi-cultural areas should be praying for and looking for arrivals as seemingly unlikely as the magi who appeared in Jerusalem and then Bethlehem. I think of a Pakistani Fijian Moslem and Irish Roman Catholic couple who were looking at our church noticeboard. We chatted and they came to church, and then came to faith.
Of course, in areas of marked ethnic and religious diversity there is no programme or diocesan course can set up such encounters. They are random and often quite rare (again, like the arrival of the Magi). I like the phrase used several decades ago by Christopher Lamb writing on ‘Belief in a Mixed Society’ who speaks of ‘loitering’ – waiting for rare opportunities to share faith with people of very different backgrounds; and being alert and inventive to make use of them when they occur. Such ‘coincidences’ are often more likely when a church is praying. One of the blessings for churches in culturally and religiously diverse areas is our very helplessness. We don’t call the shots. We are not playing at home. We have no simple and predictable blueprints to ensure our effectiveness. In our weakness we can only depend upon God; upon God, that is, and upon the wonderful strangeness of human beings so that the most surprising people can turn up in unexpected ways, and start paying homage to Jesus.
To meditate on:
1. Can you list some of the surprises you have had in intercultural church life?
2. Are there times or ways in which you have seen potential interest in the faith by unexpected people squashed?
3. What are some ways you can keep alive the hope that God will work in surprising ways in your church?
4. In what ways might your church be more able to receive unexpected visitors?
5. Is there anything that this reflection has prompted you to pray about?
A Prayer:
Lord Jesus, for any one of us, coming to faith in you was unlikely. The grace that worked in us can work in anyone. Keep alive in us, we pray, the confidence that you will work in our church and through our ministry that people might find faith in you. By faith, may our confidence not be worn down, may our vision be alert, may our trust and expectations be sustained. And in your grace may we be surprised and delighted by those whom you call to belong with us in the community of faith. May those who have come by hard and unlikely journeys encourage us, even as we value too those whose trust in you seems less extraordinary. In your name, we pray that you may be glorified in your people.