A sermon by Major Sandra McLean of the Salvation Army

Thank you for the invitation to be with you this evening. As Nathan mentioned the other week, I work for the Salvos and as part of my role, around 14 or 15 years ago, I used to bring groups of trainee officers to the church in South Yarra, to participate in, and learn from, your worship.

I loved being part of your worship services, I loved the liturgy and the comfort and challenge it brought to me, I loved the inclusion and how beautifully so many people participated. I can’t say that all my students were as enamored as I was, but it was certainly a teaching moment that stretched some of their thinking, and I was always grateful that we were welcomed.

Fast forward another decade or so and my role with the Salvos has changed several times. I now find myself in a role where I help our officers/pastors to reimagine the gathered people of God for a new time in history. How do we speak of Jesus in a post-world? What does discipleship look like when the church is no longer at the center of, well anything? What is essential to be included in worship and to call ourselves the church?  My role covers Victoria, South Australia and the Northern Territory, so plenty of work to keep me busy. And it is no easy task, often I need to start by reminding people that they did not break the church and that there are multiple factors impacting how we got to where we are. But it is a role I love. Helping our people to reconnect with the DNA of the Salvos, our peculiar particular part in God’s mission and what it means to be a sent people. Some of these are themes I will touch on tonight.

At the heart of TSA is a vision of justice, a vision that rings out in our Scripture passages for this week. It is spoken of in Psalm 82 and shared by the prophet Amos, who was deeply concerned about the social inequality and empty worship he found among the people. For Amos worship and justice went hand in hand. And today we are clearly reminded that God measures both our worship and our action. As in the time of Amos, this remains an unpopular message in some churches, and to say so would have me quickly exited. I think I am safe here!  It is hard to deny that God calls us to bear fruit, and that fruit includes justice as well as worship.

Tonight, I want to focus on the theme developed in the oh so familiar story recorded in Luke Chapter 10. It is one of those stories heard and preached about so often that it would be easy to skim over it and think there is nothing new for us to learn. But even if this is true, I think the evident lack of justice and care for our neighbours means the world has yet to catch on, and maybe so has the church.

For the most part in my relatively safe suburb of Doncaster I don’t really get the chance to be a good neighbour to someone beaten up at the side of the road. I can say in all honesty that, if there wasn’t too much blood, I would stop and ensure that the person was ok. But this of itself does not make me a genuinely good neighbour. Unlike the Samaritan in our story, I am unlikely to be the historical enemy of an injured person, I mean they might be English, but we’re over that now, yea? So I am unlikely to be in danger if I stopped and offered help. But the reality is that, as a relatively introverted person, I do not always find it easy to be a good neighbour. Sure I’ll help out in an emergency, and I will try not to be a bad neighbour, but go out of my way to change my neighbourhood, now that is a different challenge all together. I am blessed however to be married to an excellent neighbour who mows lawns for a few houses around us, is pretty handy on bin night, and intentionally seeks to connect with our neighbours and show an interest in their lives. He is slowly teaching me to be a better person and neighbour. 

And I have certainly been privileged to witness people who do this well. The other week I stopped at Woolies on my way home from work, it was cold, wet and getting dark and I just wanted to get home. It was an old Woolies that looks like it could do with being pulled down, no self-service and only one check-out open. In front of me at the register were three old people, older than me. And Debbie, the checkout lady who was an excellent example of a long-term good neighbour. She knew all three of the people by name and made sure that they felt seen and listened to. Despite no doubt the impatient look on my face, she still took her time with them and was even nice to me. I found myself thanking her for the beautiful example of kindness she showed. Once again chastised by my own lack of natural neighbourliness. It is not a hard stretch to imagine that the three people in the queue in front of me intentionally shop at that time in that place because of Debbie.

In a recent training event I was participating in, a young but very effective officer/ pastor commented on his vision for the church he leads. Not once did he mention attendance numbers, although it is a growing church. His vision was that the existence of their church would literally transform their community. He spoke of fewer hungry kids, less stressed parents, fewer people not being able to pay their rent, fewer kids not having safe homes, or adequate resources to help them with their education, fewer people dining alone every night, fewer lonely, disconnected people. With tears in his eyes, he spoke of how he wanted his church to be such an integral connected part of their community that no one who spoke of them would be under any illusion about why they existed or the difference they made. In the words of missiologist Alan Hirsch, their church would establish and reveal an “outpost of the kingdom of God” in their community the people of this church would be involved in every community group, every sporting club, every educational institution, every workplace, as living signs of a new kingdom, a better day. And because I can see this already beginning to happen and because I think this is a vision from God, my heart leapt within me, and I too had tears in my eyes. This church is in the middle of the sort of area that many good Christians would not choose to live in, but this young man and his family cannot imagine living anywhere else.

And it got me thinking about so many of our churches who I suspect may have a different focus. The message that many churches send out is more one of condemnation than it is anything else. The church has found itself in the position of trying to attract people to come to them and learn to be like them, believe and behave as they do. We have set ourselves up as the hosts with all the answers, rather than take the posture of guest, as the sent people of God. We have made being religious more important than love and justice and compassion. We have found a way to appease our consciences by giving to the poor, without actually getting involved in their lives too much. We have in essence failed to be good neighbours and at times have even been bad neighbours.

My first encounter with the church in Australia was literally as their neighbour. My unchurched family lived across the road from a church, and they were not good neighbours. They regularly parked across our driveway and blocked our street and were very noisy. A girl in my year at school went to the Church and would regularly invite me to youth group. Out of boredom one night, and in part to appease her, I went. Only to receive a good dose of feeling on the outer and judged by her and her friends. Needless to say, I never made that mistake again. 

Over the years and in my role, I have had plenty of time to ponder what the barriers are to the church being good neighbours. Some suggestions I have come up with are: our focus on attraction, believe and behave if you want to belong, consumerism and entertainment being more a focus in churches than service, forgetting that our role was to be sent people who make disciples, not even aware of our neighbours, aware of our neighbours but nothing like them, marketing ourselves as friendly but only to people like me, so entrenched in our sub culture that we are not even able to make friends with anyone outside of it. And perhaps at our worst we are people who actively condemn our neighbours whose behaviour may offend our sensibilities. 

So the questions need to be asked again, who are our neighbours and are we in fact both individually and collectively good neighbours?

*** You can imagine that not everyone is always thrilled when The Salvation Army opens up in their street, especially where we have social programs that assist people with complex needs. Attempts to open social housing, refuges, or safe injecting rooms, have certainly led to strongly expressed feelings. Even just because of the people who congregate at our churches we have had some interesting press. One comical incident from 10 years ago was featured in an Adelaide newspaper. Salvos Cartoon from 2015. The night club complained and said they might be forced to shut down because their customers did not like the kind of people who hung around our doors. The comment from the officer was simply that he found it rather ironic. Sadly the nightclub remains. Thankfully so do we!

But it does make me pause and think, I wonder, are we more inclined to declare ‘not in my neighbourhood’ than we are to intentionally pick a neighbourhood with social problems that need people to get involved? Would we rather the government put ‘those’ kinds of people somewhere else, or do we see ourselves as part of God’s plan for the redemption of the world? 

I know I may sound naïve but believe me I am not.

I have been a Salvation Army Officer for 38 years, held 23 roles in 3 countries and seen my fair share of poverty, social problems, hatred and war.

I have visited and stayed in the West Bank, in what was once the home of the Samaritans. I have prayed the Lord’s prayer and wept with Palestinian Christians as they explained how hard it can be to pray that prayer and how earnestly they pray some lines. Give us this day our daily bread, lead us not into temptation, and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us, will never flow easily from my tongue again. How could they, now that I have prayed them in a context where they may mean life or death. 

I have lived in Sri Lanka during the civil war. Where Sinhalese and Tamil Christians literally laid down their life for one another, in complete contrast and defiance to the rhetoric of the majority. I have witnessed persecuted people more concerned about my safety than their own.

I have lived in Alice Springs, right next door to the Church, and watched the pain and the prejudice play out before me. People sleeping in our garden because they felt safer there than anywhere else. 

I have watched poor people in inner city suburbs pushed out of the rental market by the gentrification of now desirable locations, to the exclusion of those who have lived there in sub standard accommodation for years. 

I have watched whole nations of people suffer and die whilst rich people spend $40 million on their wedding day.

I am not naïve. I have seen firsthand the troubles of the world. I have feared for my life and the lives of those I have worked with and love. And I am sold out to being a follower of Jesus, doing the things he did for the reasons he did them. But I’m also an introvert who likes order and is not keen on messiness or surprises. Loving God with all my heart would be so much easier if Jesus hadn’t added that bit about loving my neighbour as myself, and then clarified that he didn’t just mean people like me! Some days I even have empathy for the lawyer who asked Jesus the question. What was the silly man thinking?

Over the years I have inadvertently developed a number of ways to avoid being in a situation that might require me to be a good Samaritan, or follow through on that love your neighbour thing.

Of course, none of these will be familiar to you.

• Mix only with people like me, who believe what I do, have similar values and almost never need help with anything.
• Send my children exclusively to Christian schools, youth groups etc. 
• Make sure all of my friends are Christians and that I have no room to include anyone new.
• Avoid routines that might allow me to become familiar with people by bumping into them regularly. This includes cafes, gyms, supermarkets and hairdressers. The gym is quite easy to avoid.
• Avoid getting to know the Debbies by never shopping in the same place at the same time.
• Always use the self-serve counters where I can, after all I am very busy, and my time is important.
• Only live in neighbourhoods with high fences and garages I can drive into, entering my house without having to speak to pesky neighbours.
• Even in those neighbourhoods avoid anything more than surface level conversation, I don’t want to pry.
• If any unsavoury people or situations arise, petition to have them removed from my neighbourhood. Do so under the guise of protecting myself, or better still blame my children. 
• Avoid getting involved in anything that may require me to step outside of my comfort zone, after all I don’t want to interfere.
• Holiday with Christian friends, because I have children, make sure they did too, this will help prevent my children accidentally making friends with any other random children. 
• Make sure everyone knows my high moral standards to prevent unsavoury types trying to get to know me or lead me astray. If they feel suitably judged they will leave me alone.
• Make sure that people understand the rules of behaviour in places of worship, reminding them it is God’s house set aside for religious observance. 
• Do not study or read widely or talk to people with different ideas or opinions to me. They may corrupt me. What if I accidentally like them or find what they have to say interesting or even convincing? 
• Give money to charities, preferably the Salvos of course. This will ensure I can tell myself I am caring for the poor without even having to meet them.
• As a Salvo, attend worship services regularly, be seen, wear my uniform, find a way to serve the gathered community, go to a small group where I can make friends like me. And then talk about the work of the Salvos as though I am somehow able to claim it as my own, thus keeping my good Samaritan status in the community safe.
• Ask loads of questions before taking any action. With any luck this will keep me busy for years and someone else will step up and help.
• Make moral and religious purity the goal of my life.
• Don’t stay anywhere too long and become an expert in small talk. Do not risk going deep, ever.
• Remind myself that I don’t have the skills to help this person with their complex needs.
• Surely my husband can just do the good neighbour part.

I’d like to tell you that the list I shared was simply humourous, but more than one of them have actually been my reality at least once. No matter how many times I read the story of the good Samaritan, no matter how many sermons I hear or preach about it, the reality is that I still have a way to go. The reality also is that the world needs more than ever for you and I to be good neighbours. To be the sent people of God, the first signs of a new kingdom, a new reign where the needs of others are as important as our own, where all children are of equal worth regardless of where they were born, the colour of their skin, their social status. Yes we are to love God, worship, worship and worship some more, seek and offer forgiveness, be grateful, remember who God is, what God has done, is doing and will do. We are also to take action, pursue justice, be the hands and feet, the example, the living embodiment of Jesus.

Despite being born on Epiphany, I don’t actually have a Messianic complex and I also do not believe that I carry the responsibility to take Jesus anywhere, indeed I believe God is already at work wherever we are and we are invited to join in. But I do believe that wherever I go I am to  live out the values of the kingdom and represent Jesus by doing the things he did for the reasons he did them. And so as a way to remind myself of this I have started carrying around a little Jesus figurine in my pocket, one in my car, a handful in my handbag. I want to be constantly reminded that I am a sent person, sent to live in a way that points to Jesus, sent to love my neighbour the way Jesus loves them and me. 

My daughter bought me a bag of 200 little Jesus’ figurines and my granddaughter challenged me to leave them around wherever I go and if possible send her pictures. So far Jesus has been seen in supermarkets, public toilets, a bakery, a tree, a dance studio, the body shop, outside a restaurant. I’m planning to pop one on Debbie’s checkout if I ever see her again. It’s just a gimmick, a bit of fun with my granddaughter, but it has certainly made me think about whether or not people see Jesus, or even a good Samaritan, when I am around. The truth is I am still a work in progress. Maybe you are too?

In a moment we will remember the body of Jesus broken for us, the blood of Jesus poured out for us, we have the opportunity to once again dedicate our lives to loving our neighbour the way Jesus has loved us, in remembrance of our Jesus who moved into the neighbourhood and demonstrated what love looks like.

And from our final Scripture today, Colossians Chapter 1, I want you to know that I am thankful to God for South Yarra Community Baptist church, I have prayed for you now for many years and I won’t be stopping any time soon. I am grateful for your influence, challenge and encouragement. I pray you will bear much fruit and be strengthened. Thank you for welcoming me tonight.