Today being Domestic Violence Sunday, we need some context.
Many of us would be familiar with research that 1 in 3 Australian women experience physical or sexual violence from the age of 15.
In response, our national Church conducted a rigorous and extensive survey across the whole church. The results provide us with some distressing, though maybe not surprising, news. Some of the key points:
The prevalence of intimate partner violence among Anglicans was the same or higher than in the wider Australian community. Our Christian faith, our commitment to love did not lessen or limit our capacity for violence.
The prevalence of intimate partner violence among church-attending Anglicans was the same or higher than among other Anglicans. It did not matter if we went to Church or not – if we attended weekly or simply ticked ‘Anglican’ on the census form, we were still committing Domestic Violence as much as, or in some places, more than the average in Australia.
There are many forms of domestic violence other than physical, – harm or threat of harm to the body – and we cannot list them here; there will be information available when you leave.
But just a few forms:
Coercive Control – controlling and manipulating behaviours within a relationship;
Financial Abuse – controlling or misusing another a person’s money;
Vexatious Litigation – abuse of legal systems to intentionally cause distress; and
‘Tech Abuse’ – when someone uses technology to control or frighten, such as short abusive messages sent with electronic bank transfers of child support.
Whatever form domestic violence takes, it is always a break in and betrayal of relationship, and at root a spiritual betrayal of a person made in the Image of God.
Significantly, the Anglican survey also found that, although unintended, Christian teachings may contribute to this betrayal of relationship.
And if we are honest, if we critically look at our sacred texts and traditions, we can easily see this.
Sacred story after sacred story in the bible, old and new testaments, show women as not having agency, their consent as irrelevant and their bodies considered as property. This theology has real world implications: it contributed to and fed into the principal that there could be no rape in marriage – made explicit in English Common Law in 1736 – and only definitively repealed by all Australian states in 1992. This is the legacy of our church and tradition.
This legacy means that we have become part of the normalized culture of abuse in our world.
And so, this is why we are here, as part of DV Sunday – to be shocked, to be horrified, to be silent … and to explore, to question, and vision how we can ensure violence is addressed before it begins. This is the hope, a hope to make a new beginning that will contribute to a new world where DV is eventually eliminated.
Our Gospel today also speaks of a new beginning.
At the end of our Gospel last week, at the end of Chapter 20 of John, we heard words of conclusion and summing up: “Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples that are not written in this book.”
And the consensus of scholars is that yes, indeed, the original text of John did finish at the end of chapter 20.
And yet, here we are today at the start of a new chapter, with another appearance of the resurrected Jesus, a story unlike anything else in John, involving the disciples as fishermen. This story, whatever its origin, was important enough for the compiler of the Gospel to include, even after the original conclusion and final verses. For him it was a story that needed to be told, a story that needed to be part of the Good News.
We all have stories that need to be told, especially DV victim-survivors.
A few years back I was blessed to witness such a story, a story that had to be told.
I was leading regular Morning Prayer with a group of women, many of whom had attended their parish for decades. On one memorable occasion, when we celebrated the life of the incredible Florence Nightingale, women’s advocate, social reformer and lay theologian, the spirit arose and these amazing, beautiful, strong women began to speak.
One woman, that cold July morning, shared her experience decades ago, never shared with anyone before then. When, as a younger woman, she approached the rector of the parish with plans to leave, flee and divorce her violently abusive husband. The rector said that if she did so, he would refuse to give her communion, refuse her the Body of Christ, the Body that is given for her personally.
… After she shared, another woman responded: the same thing happened with her. Neither woman knew each had experienced the exact same abuse by the rector. Neither had shared their hidden DV stories until that morning.
And as these wonderful women talked and cried, what emerged, what erupted, was an alternative history of the parish, a history and a story that refused to be silenced, a story that had to be told. And so, it must be for all victim survivors; so it must be for our church.
Today’s gospel story, a story that refuses to be overlooked, included at the end of the already finished book, is equally important.
In it we hear Jesus ask Peter three times if he, Peter, loves Jesus. Each time, Peter indicates, “yes”. This threefold questioning is an act of utmost love and forgiveness – it corresponds to and counters Peter’s threefold denial of Jesus after Jesus’s arrest, just before the cock crowed. This is Jesus giving Peter a chance to undo that betrayal, to restore and repair the broken relationship. And by his threefold “yes”, Peter does so.
But, and crucially for us today, something deeper is indicated.
Though we hear the single word ‘love’ in our English translation, in the Greek there are two different words: agape, a selfless, unconditional love that seeks the well-being of others and philia, friendship, sisterly and brotherly love, affection between companions.
Jesus asks Peter if he, Peter, agape-loves him, if he loves selflessly and unconditionally.
Peter responds but changes the word: he philia-loves Jesus, he loves Jesus because he is known, because he is a friend, a companion on the way.
By his change of love, from universal to brotherly, Peter is refusing the fullness of Christ. By constraining the freely given love of Christ to that between brothers, to that between members of the new Church, Peter, as symbolic head of the church, is limiting the story, controlling the narrative, wanting to keep this love within the group.
And this is what we, as church have often done ever since. The Church and other institutions have controlled the narrative and
created a normalized view of the world, where abuse is accepted. We, the church, do this by limiting our love.
This is exactly what the rector from the Parish with the morning prayer women did when he threatened refusal of the sacrament. He only offered philia-love, love contingent on the women remaining part of the accepted and official story of the church, a story where domestic violence did not occur.
We know that story far too well.
But the story and the love Christ offers, and calls us to share, even if Peter could not share, is agape-universal love. It is love that always disturbs and changes the group, the closed circle, the church, because it loves beyond the in-group and beyond those who control the narrative.
And so today, our hope is to love beyond the narrative; to listen to real stories, true stories that have to be told. Our hope is to listen and hear, and to let it be known we will listen and hear.