A Fourth Church Sermon by John W. Vest

July 12, 2009 | 4:00 p.m.

The Waters of Rebirth

John W. Vest
Associate Pastor, Fourth Presbyterian Church

Galatians 3:23–28

Friends, you’ll forgive me if I seem a little groggy this afternoon. Just yesterday I returned home from our high school mission trip to Belfast, Northern Ireland. The exhaustion of the trip, some residual jetlag, and a cold that we all seemed to share has taken its toll on your preacher today. But it is all worth it. Thirty-two high school students and twelve adults spent more than a week together on this trip, touring the city of Belfast and other parts of Northern Ireland and engaging in some shared service projects with Protestant and Catholic youth from around the city. While these service projects were important and we accomplished some good work at several good places, this was not the primary focus of our trip. The real purpose of this trip was to learn about the history of division and violence in Northern Ireland and what people are doing now to move toward peace and reconciliation.

Northern Ireland is a deeply divided society, split between political and social groups that happen to divide along religious lines between Roman Catholics and Protestants. Catholics are considered Nationalists, which means that they wish for Northern Ireland to be a part of the Republic of Ireland to the south. Culturally, they align themselves with native Irish traditions. Protestants, of which Presbyterians happen to be the majority, are considered Unionists, which means that they want to maintain ties to the United Kingdom. They are more culturally tied to Great Britain. These religious, political, social, and economic divisions run deep into Irish history and erupted into a period of brutal violence in the late 1960s known as the Troubles. Though the Troubles more or less ended with a peace deal in 1998, Northern Ireland is still a deeply divided and segregated society. Over the past decade, the challenge in Northern Ireland has been to move from ceasefire to true peace and reconciliation. While we were there, our group was able to hear about and witness such moves.

Our home in Belfast was in the hall of an organization called the 174 Trust. This organization and its director, Bill Shaw, have been longtime friends of our congregation. Their mission is to provide space, resources, and leadership for activities and programs that bring together children and youth across sectarian lines. Though Bill happens to be a Presbyterian minister, the 174 Trust is a deliberately nonsectarian mission that sits in the midst of a predominantly Catholic neighborhood in North Belfast. It has been successful at bridging the gaps between Catholics and Protestants through things like soccer, boxing, youth clubs, BBQs, and other similar activities. It stands as a beacon of hope in a part of Belfast that was once a focal point of violence and death.

Some of our group worshiped and worked at Whitehouse Presbyterian Church. This congregation worships in a relatively new building, new because its much older building was completely gutted by a massive fire that was most likely set by a sectarian arsonist just a few years ago. While the loss of this old church building was devastating, it was also a catalyst for change in their community. Whitehouse’s pastor, Liz Hughes, told us a remarkable story about this. In retaliation for the fire, some zealous and misguided Protestants attacked a Catholic family’s home in a nearby Nationalist neighborhood. In a bold move of solidarity, members of the Whitehouse Church visited this family to pray with them and collectively mourn their shared losses. This family was so moved by this act of reconciliation that the children of the family went throughout that Catholic neighborhood to take up a collection for the devastated church. When they brought these gifts to worship the following Sunday in big candy jars, Liz said there was hardly a dry eye in the place. People who were supposedly enemies came together as one.

Toward the end of the trip, our group heard from a man named Joe from an inter-church youth organization called Youth Link. Joe is Catholic, and he told us about the deep hatred he once held for Protestants. When he was just fourteen years old, his best friend’s home was broken into and his father was shot dead in front of the entire family. This deeply affected Joe, who later found out that before he was born his own grandfather was also killed by sectarian violence. “How could God let this happen?” he wondered. These events fueled rage and anger in his heart, what he described as a journey of hatred, and he turned to violence, going so far as throwing rocks and gas bombs at the Protestants he hated so much. The ironic thing was that he had never even met a Protestant until he was eighteen, yet he hated them more than anything in the world. Through Youth Link, he began the brave work of forgiveness and reconciliation. He finally met people from the other side. While he freely expressed his pain and anger, he also heard their stories and began to recognize them as people just like himself, people caught in and damaged by a brutal conflict. Through honest dialogue and shared activity, he was able to develop understanding and eventually experience forgiveness. His journey of hatred became a journey of reconciliation.

For those of us who were in Belfast these past several days, these and many other stories and experiences fill our minds and hearts with glimpses of hope. These are signs that the world is changing. These are signs that the world is being reborn.

The passage from Galatians has deep meaning for the conflict in Northern Ireland, and it has been used there by those in the church working to bring about peace and reconciliation. Its original context is a letter that Paul wrote to a deeply divided church in a place called Galatia. In this letter, Paul urges the Galatians to realize that there is more that unites them than separates them. In the passage that we heard, Paul quotes what most scholars believe is an ancient baptismal formula, words that were spoken in the early church when new members were baptized and welcomed into the community: “As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.”

The application of this to Northern Ireland is obvious. Baptism is a sign and symbol that we are all one. Baptism, as our welcome into God’s covenant community, is common to all, regardless of who you are or where you come from. If and when Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland are able to recognize their common calling as baptized Christians, they will be a long way down the path to reconciliation.

But this is not just a message for Northern Ireland. It’s not even a message for the Christian church alone. In our Christian tradition, baptism is a particular expression of what I believe is a universal truth: We are all children of God. We are all equal before God. We are all equally loved by God. And so we should love each other in that same way. We should love each other as God loves us.

Can you imagine what the world would look like if we all believed that? Can you imagine what the world would look like if we all acted like that?

It’s daunting to even know where to start. Before we left Belfast, I told our group that as tired as we were, as hard as we felt that we had worked, the hardest work is still ahead of us. And so it is for all of us. In the relative peace of our society, we may not feel as if there are groups or even individuals that we consider our enemies. We may not feel that we stand in need of reconciliation like our sisters and brothers in Belfast. But we do. Chicago is every bit as divided as Belfast. We are just more subtle about it, which makes it even worse. Just look at the divisions that exist in our city between races. Look at the huge gaps between the rich and the poor. Look at inequalities that still exist between people because of gender or sexual orientation. Look at how lines between our neighborhoods separate people from each other. And look at how all of this contributes to ours being one of the deadliest and most violent cities in the world.

What would it look like if all that changed? What would it take for that to change? And what role does this church play in that? Here we are in one of the most affluent and materialistic neighborhoods in the entire world. Yet just blocks to our west is what is left of Cabrini-Green. How can we be a bridge between those two neighborhoods? Here in this place, we serve both the rich and the poor, yet they don’t always mix. Maybe that could change.

Maybe, when we remember our baptism, when we remember the waters of rebirth, we will be inspired by the truth that sets us free and will seek to create a new kind of community here in Chicago. Maybe this is the light we are called to share in this city.

“As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.”

Amen.