Reflection with Canon Pat Browne: Every life matters

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Canon Pat gave this homily at Holy Apostles, Pimlico, today:

On the rare occasion when I drive on the motorway behind those lorries carrying huge containers, I find myself thinking of those 39 people who were discovered inside one some years ago. No one knew their names, their nationalities or where they had come from. They were nobodies who had been shoved in there - into a sealed, refrigerated, locked room and left to die. Some other human being or beings did this to them. Some human being made a decision they did not matter. "I don't know them so it doesn't matter to me who they are.

Human trafficking like this is happening all over the world - one set of people making judgements that another set of people do not matter- that they can be bought and sold - and even killed for profit. Just look at the gangs that put people in small boats to cross the English Channel.

The story in today's gospel is not about where you sit in church. It is about you or me making judgements and deciding that we are better or more important than some others. That is the sin of the man sitting in the front of the synagogue in today's gospel "I thank you, God, that I am not grasping, unjust, adulterous like the rest of mankind, and particularly that I am not like this tax collector here. I fast twice a week; I pay tithes on all I get."

Another example of this deciding that there are others whose lives do not matter or are less important than mine, is the decision that Parliamentarians are going to have to make in the next few weeks. Recently the Home Secretary put forward a bill to deal with anti-social behaviour, knife crime, terrorism and policing powers. One thing it is not about - or wasn't supposed to be about - is abortion. But one MP put in an amendment about abortion. At the moment abortion is legal up to 24 weeks of the pregnancy. This amendment if it is passed will allow a woman to abort her child right up to birth and even during the birth itself. And can you believe it, it was passed after just 46 minutes of backbench debate in the House of Commons - I repeat, 46 minutes of backbench debate.

This is no way to consider a measure which has major ethical, social and medical implications. After all, the supreme human right is the very right to life itself. Would any civilised human being kill a child a week or two before it was about to be born? That is what we are talking about. There's all this talk about Great British values. People who suggest doing this have no values. They are amoral.

At the moment the bill is being scrutinised at the moment by the House of Lords.

But what is abortion done at any time? It's a judgement made by one human being that the life of another is less important than theirs. It is the same with what they are calling the Assisted Dying Bill.

Who am I - who is any one of us - to make judgements like that? Are you better than the person sitting in the seat here beside you this morning? Am I better or more important standing up here than you are?

Elitism, snobbery, racism, homophobia - and what is convenient for him - these are all the sins of the man at the front of the church. He is judging himself to be better than others.

This world is now tiny - I can fly from one side of it to the other in 24 hours, or less. I can speak to someone the other side of the world instantaneously and see them as we speak - and for free - on FaceTime or WhatsApp. You would think this would make us closer to one another and kinder.

Our tiny world made by God for his children to live in and in which he wants us to share and support each other as one human family, is fragmenting at an alarming rate with pettiness and nationalism - all based on judgement - judgement that I and people like me of my colour or race or language are somehow better than others who are different. So we shut ourselves up in our own little country, We build borders and barriers and spend millions to keep others out. We fragment the family of God.

Which brings me back to refugees. No one leaves home unless staying in their home is as dangerous as the mouth of a shark. No one puts their children in a boat unless the water is safer than the land. Many of these people have had no other option. And when they arrive here what are they met with?

Our gospels tell us - Our God tells us - Every life matters. You are no better than the person who is in front of you or behind you here in church or anywhere else. He or She is your brother or sister and all of you are my children.

God says to us: Love your neighbour as yourself….No more. No less than that.

Any judging that's to be done? Let's leave that to God.

See a recording of today's Mass at Holy Apostles, Pimlico, here: www.churchservices.tv/pimlico/archive/recordings/MO4V6HAy8CFLgTh