This past week at the clergy conference in Lethbridge, we were preparing for Wednesday’s noon day prayer, when one of our clergy was called away to receive an emergency phone call.  That call was to notify one of our diocesan priests that one of his parishioners, 26 year old, Captain Nicola Goddard had been killed in the line of fire.  If you have been following the news you will know that Nicola Goddard is the first woman combat soldier to be killed in action.  Her father at that point had been informed, but not her mother and we carried that weight of knowing that she had yet to learn that her baby had died.  Sanjit, her parish priest and Archdeacon Barry Foster left the conference immediately to go and be with the parents, while we staying behind held the family up in prayer. 

Nicola Goddard was fighting a powerful enemy that we know of as the Taliban.  I don’t need American based CNN to give me my information about them.  There was a lot of attention in the academic world when I was a student in the ‘80s at McMaster University where I got my undergrad.  I recall hearing about and reading in the university newspapers about the human rights violations, the indiscriminate killing, the treatment of women, the religious fanaticism, and the political chess games as the last remnants of the cold war took on new life.  It is naïve to believe that what they are doing is in any way legitimately cultural and not some kind of insidious evil and hatred that has taken on a life of its own, becoming the glue that bonds this confederacy known as the Taliban.  It is just as insidious to believe that the west and in particular the US in its beef with the Soviet Union didn’t have some role to play in creating this monster by putting guns into their hands.

From what I have been able to read in the newspapers, I understand Nicola’s fellow soldiers, especially her regiment, are beyond devastated at her death.  The arduous training and living conditions soldiers go through creates a bond beyond the norm, such that they will risk their lives and die for one another without giving it a second thought.  The men and women of Nicola Goddard’s regiment were her friends, and she died as much for them and her fellow soldiers, as the platitude goes, she did for us.  So I ask you to keep her family and all the troops in your prayers. 

The reason I’ve talked about Nicola today is not just to honor and name her as the first woman combat soldier to die in Canadian history – in our time, but because scripture tells us today that Jesus said “No-one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”

Throughout history, Christians have died for one another – for the “faith” if you will.  There is a saying that the Church is built upon the blood of saints.  It’s well known that in the fist few hundred years before Christianity became the official state religion of the Roman Empire, people willingly died and were martyred for the cause.  That was an inspiration to people.  The Knights Templar now drawing popular interest due to the Davinci Code – did their part to escort pilgrims to the Holy Land and fight in the crusades against the Muslim insurgents.  Warrior monks who not only converted people, but also made sure they died on the end of a sword before they could change their minds and become apostates.  The Templers used to die some pretty nasty deaths themselves fighting for God.  They were originally poor and held in high esteem.  Later, when they became wealthy and powerful as a result of their conquests, and their tight brotherhood, they were demonized and excommunicated by the church.  Then we have the witch trials, that coincidentally only ever resulted in the death of the accused, where the laws of the land declared that the church could claim the property of the convicted.  Those martyrs died not primarily from the unbelievable torture they endured, but for taking back their “confessions” when it stopped.  Then of course in more recent history, we have colonial expansion, and missionaries, well intentioned, but often resulting in slaughter on one side or the other.  The problem with martyrdom is that people die.  Indiscriminately. 

I don’t think that in the Gospel we heard today that  Jesus meant for death to be a kind of occupational hazard of faith.   I think that we need to remember as well, that as an historic people of faith, that Christians have had as big a role in persecuting as they have in being persecuted.  And the sad reality is that not only are Christians still persecuted in some parts of the world today, but Christians still find reasons to persecute.  Even in our own backyard.

And that means we’ve missed something in the message of Jesus, despite all our good intentions.  And it means we’ve misread what he meant when he said this.

Our reading from Acts provides some clarity on this.  The context is the primitive church.  It’s a time when the original disciples of Jesus were still alive and working in their ministries, going out and preaching the Gospel.   It illustrates for us, perhaps one of the first contentious issues or arguments about who was a true and proper and good follower of Christ.  So new was the faith that it wasn’t even called Christianity.  It was just known as “The Way.”  The issue was over the fact that Gentiles had heard the Good News of Jesus Christ and wanted to follow him, to convert to “The Way.”  … of Christ.  But Jesus had been a Jew, and his earliest followers had been Jews.  So the issue became, did one have to convert to Judaism, including following all the purity laws and being circumcised to be a follower of Christ. 

It’s important to remember that the Jews had a way of identifying themselves by their orthodoxy, their purity laws and their rituals.  This is how they distinguished themselves and set themselves apart from everyone else as God’s chosen people.  This is how one knew one was a Jew and this is how one knew one was not.  The idea that non-Jewish followers of Jesus wanted to be a part of the faith, without all the trappings of Jewish custom that would set them apart as exclusive was really quite unthinkable.

Now – it’s important to remember that the ancient history of the Israelites included strong ties to the land and especially to Jerusalem.  It’s also important to remember that they were exiled from their ancient homeland.  Living as strangers in a strange land during the exile (exelic period) meant that within a couple of generations they might be assimilated and lose their heritage and their relationship with their God.  So during this time away from home, their laws and rituals maintained their racial, cultural and religious heritage and kept it alive.  They remained distinct and ideologically pure people.  God’s chosen people.

That served its purpose well while they were in exile.  On their return to Jerusalem, it was another story.  So rigid did the laws of purity become that a program of ethnic cleansing began to rid the community of its impurities.  New compulsory laws required divorce and expulsion of gentile wives and children.  The in-group was separated from the out group.  The favored from the not-so-favored.  The blessed from the not so blessed.  Purity and orthodoxy reigned.  Religious privilege and certainty reigned in light of these exclusionary practices.   To be sure, they had their “heathen” among them who protested these practices, reminding the community that their ancient patriarchs Moses and King David had gentile wives – several each in fact.  They reminded the authorities that King Solomon not only had Gentile wives, but was born of a Gentile mother.  They reminded the authorities about the ancient command of God to show mercy and kindness to strangers and foreigners.  They reminded the authorities of their ancient roots and the teaching of God who had commanded love for one’s neighbor, who had required his people show mercy and kindness to foreigners who resided in their strange land, and how the psalmist had spoke of God pouring out God’s spirit on all the nations.  They did not deny Israel was the chosen people of God, but sought to remind their own people that they were not the only ones loved by God whose abundant mercy was overflowing upon the earth.  But things remained unchanged and the law took on the character and practice of the law for the sake of the law, rather than for the law – that is, the law of love.  Jesus recalled the God of his ancient ancestors, that the people of his time had forgotten.  He challenged their literalism – and for this he was crucified.

So it was in this spirit of maintaining purity in the Jewish faith – and orthodoxy of its religious customs that God sent a message to the world through the Gentiles.  God and indeed, the work of the spirit will not be thwarted by rigid, human definitions of what it means to be one of God’s own.  And so Peter who almost exclusively ministered to the Jews, takes a look at these Gentiles in whom he is witnessing the spirit of God at work, and says “who can withhold water for baptizing these people who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?”  In other words he is saying, “Who are we to declare that God is not working in these strangers who are not like us – and who are we to withhold the blessing?      

I have a point in all of this, in case you haven’t figured it out yet.  And that is, as a species for all the good that we are, and we are wonderful in many, many ways, we are also in a lot of trouble.  It’s bad enough that  in the so called secular world (and I think that’s a relative term) that we have war,, politics, privilege, wealth, poverty and social status,  to remind us of our place, and separate the haves from the have nots.  It’s bad enough that translated more and more into ideals of religious purity, that people of all religions shape God into their own narrow, self serving world view to the point that it overflows into religious fanaticism, with all its cruel repercussions. 

We are mistaken if we think that is a problem that exists somewhere else in the world and not at our own table. 
Almost every day I receive emails that I find offensive.  Defenders of the historic faith the writers call themselves.  They couch self-serving hatred of those whom they consider different and unacceptable in terms like tradition, orthodoxy, purity, and historic faith.  Terms I once held dear, that they have co-opted as their own to the exclusion of other faithful people, whom they consider less than beloved people of God.   Two thousand years ago it was the Gentiles.  Thirty years ago it was the ordination of women – and it still is in the wider universal church, including some parts of the Anglican Communion.  But today, the really big scandal is the blessing of same sex unions.  Yes, there is always a reason to come to God’s defense by condemning a brother or sister.  The problem is, if it doesn’t feel like love to the person receiving the message, then we need to be questioning if it’s from God.

Jesus said, “No one has greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”   Is Jesus asking you to die for him and to become a martyr for the faith?  No. Not likely. 
Perhaps in the spirit of God who pours out his blessings upon the whole world, and upon all the nations, we best consider that laying down one’s life means relinquishing our biases, and the trappings of exclusivist thinking, that while we may believe on the one hand brings us closer to God, in fact separates us and others from the experience of God’s love.  We are reminded today that following God is about more than following the rule of the law – it’s about paying attention to the spirit of the law.  We are reminded that “everyone who loves the parent, loves the child.”  We are reminded that we have no place to decide for ourselves to hold back blessing – in this case as seen in the rite of baptism – when God has clearly blessed someone ---- even someone who does not fit our vision of how a child of God should live.  

I ask you as followers of Christ, how do you lay down your life to show God’s love in the world?

                                                                                      Amen