During my first visit to Calcutta (Kolkata) India I was thrilled with the opportunity of visiting a church founded by William Carey who had left England in 1793 in order to bring the good news of God’s love to India. The story of William Carey’s work in India is the amazing account of a man who was trying to answer the question – “If Jesus were the Lord of India, what would it look like? What would be changed?” For 41 years Carey devoted himself to answering this question by preaching the good news of Jesus Christ, translating the Gospels into Indian languages, establishing schools for the poor, fighting against injustice and the exploitation of women and children, creating economic structures for the poorest of the poor, and by providing compassionate medical care for the suffering and outcast of society. Carey deliberately reached out to serve the neediest and most marginalized people of society – those who were outside the boundaries of caste and respectability.
I was looking forward to visiting the historic church that he had established in what had been a very poor and seedy area of Calcutta. Although the area was no longer quite as decrepit as it had been in Carey’s day, it was still surrounded by the congestion of grinding poverty and homelessness that I had seen throughout much of the city. The old stone church was situated on
a
compound protected by a high wrought iron fence with the only access being by
way of a guarded locked gate. Inside the church compound the noise of the
street was subdued and the only people allowed inside were those who seemed to
belong there including a group of theology students. Together, we were
insulated from the clamor outside, protected from the incessant tugging of
beggars on our sleeves. The discomforting sights and smells of human
wretchedness were kept at bay, outside the fenced off church. This cannot be what William Carey had in mind I thought; this cannot be his legacy – an isolated island of security and comfort amid a hungering, suffering mass of humanity. Where is the good news of Jesus in all of this? Does the church only exist to protect its assets, its property, its sense of decorum by keeping the troublesome and the needy at arms length and out of sight by barricading itself behind locked gates and fences? What about William Carey’s question – I had the audacity to ask a church official about that and if the church had any ministry to the needy people living and sleeping on the streets around the church. “We’d be overrun if the gates were open,” he replied. “They’d be sleeping on our lawns and in our buildings. We cannot begin to help them all and there would be no keeping this place clean.” It seemed to me that the church was in the right place in the wrong way – a barricaded island in a sea of human need.
It is a difficult problem however, to know when or even if the boundaries we create and the barriers we erect between us and other people serve a greater good or ultimately cause more harm. If those walls become a barrier to grace or restrict the good news of Jesus from touching the lives of suffering, poor, and hopeless people who need help then those barriers are a barricade to grace. “The reality of prison walls” someone said to me, “is not that they prevent prisoners from getting out, but that those walls tragically prevent the community from coming in.” The reality of locked churches and gated compounds is not just that these preserve the assets and the sanctuaries but that they tragically become barriers to the hospitality and grace so desperately needed by the world outside. Of course there is a place for walls and barriers, but often those same walls and barriers often result in unintended consequences that put self preservation ahead of loving and serving those in need and trouble.
When God created the world, it was without borders; there were no fences delineating one person’s property from that of another; no delineation of nations, states, and tribal lands. The only boundaries were all natural - between the land and sea, mountain and valley, day and night, heaven and earth. But it did not take long for humankind to claim territories as their own by erecting boundaries, walls, and fences to secure their possessions and to control the incursion of aliens and undesirables. Distinctions arose between “them and us” – between our people and those people, citizens and foreigners, belongers and non-belongers, locals and come-from-aways, criminals and community, believers and infidels, between Christians, Muslims, and Jews, between Hindus and Buddhists. The God-created world became dis-integrated; wars and feuds and geo-political, economic, and even religious conflicts have become daily evidence of graceless barriers that preserve self interest and security while contributing to the continuing disintegration of the world.
The Kingdom of God we are told, is a Kingdom in which all boundaries will disappear - there will be no barriers or discrimination between races and tribes, males and females, rich and poor, presidents and pipe-fitters, or even between mature believers and young believers. Meanwhile, here on earth even those of us who believe in God and who look forward to the coming of His Kingdom, perpetuate disintegration by the political, social, and religious barriers we erect to protect ourselves and our interests. Jesus taught His followers to be generous and liberal as the salt and light of the world. Salt is absolutely useless if it remains contained in a saltshaker just as light is useless against the darkness if it is kept enclosed and covered up.
THE
CORACLE is published weekly as a reflection on faith and life.
It is available free by subscription. The name CORACLE - refers to a
small leather boat that was typically used by Celtic monks during the 8th and
9th Centuries. One of the most famous was St. Brendan the Navigator who
undertook a missionary voyage of faith. Without navigational maps and
instruments he trusted that by waves and wind and current, God would bring him
to the place and places where he was meant to be. Yet far from being
fatalistic, his voyage was the deeply spiritual account of a man’s journey in
surrendering to the will of God and trusting God to guide and protect him from
danger and disaster. Brendan’s voyage became famous as an ideal for the
Celtic monks of Ireland who dared to venture into unknown and wild places in
order to spread the gospel. Setting sail in their fragile coracles was at
once a courageous act of faith and a profound expression of their passion to
follow Jesus Christ no matter where the journey would take them or what the
journey would entail.