The World of Rev Ken
Pentecost 11
27-07-2005
Genesis 32.22-31, Matthew 14.13-21
We all have scars, limps, dicky knees – left over from operations, an accidents, or even, heaven forbid, fights. I have a scar from when my appendix was removed when I was 11. One of my shoulders is not in the right place due to a motorcycle accident. That was an event that changed me forever. Even the scars from fighting and things like that remind us of that event, the marks of struggle perhaps.
Every struggle, every incident, every wrestle we have with life leaves us scarred. It’s one of the ways we learn. Missy Higgins, the popular singer/songwriter recognises this in her song Scar – in the chorus she asks to be left with a scar to remember not to do whatever it is she is singing about again. I looked at the words the other day, but I couldn’t quite work it out – maybe a relationship? Anyway, that’s beside the point. Even life scars us – as we grow older, our bodies deteriorate, - not necessarily our minds, although that’s a good excuse isn’t it, a seniors moment. Gradually we change, we move differently, feel differently, look different. Other types of struggle takes it out of us as well. Not just physical struggle either – emotional and spiritual struggle is also hard for us, and will leave its mark. Worry and depression makes us hunch our shoulders and look down.
Sometimes we even mark ourselves to remind us of something. We call it ritual scarring, and it’s common in many cultures. In Western society tattoos are becoming popular with men and women as a ritual scarring, something on our bodies that reminds us of something, or that marks something significant, even if the only thing it tells us is not to go and get drunk and let your mates talk you into getting a tattoo ever again. A friend of a friend once did that – ended up with cobrar on his arm – spelt c o b r a r! So it seems that we are very keen to show our life history in and on our bodies. Our bodies become our c.v, our auto-biography.
Now there is a lot of pressure on us all to succeed in life. We must have a good job, good home, happy kids, nice garden, nice car, as much money as we can get, a good wine cellar – etc, etc. Happiness? Fulfilment? Spiritual enlightenment? Yeah, if you can fit that in, it’s a bonus. But after all, that’s not what its all about, is it? We are encouraged to struggle in this world, which is fair enough, but we are usually encouraged to struggle for the wrong things. And the scarring, in the end, is meaningless, because the scarring ends up being things like exhaustion, breakdowns, burnout. Or Marriage break ups, never having time to be a parent, bad eating and no exercise. In short, a totally messed up sense of priorities. Is it really worth it, in the long run? Is it worth throwing our lives away in the vain pursuit of what some advertising consultant tells us is life, the universe and everything? No, of course it isn’t. But gee its hard to give up, even though it’s such a struggle. It’s a mess really.
Jacob was successful in the material world. He’d managed to scam his inheritance. He’d used his cunning to out-manoeuvre his father in law, who was also his uncle, and profited in that venture. But in the end, what he really needed was an honest blessing and a reconciliation, both with his brother, and I think, with himself. He needed reward for something that was done through hard work, not scheming. And this is what he got.
He struggled through the night with a man who seems to be God. He has his dark night of the soul. We have a physical struggle here, which has a spiritual theme. For most of us a spiritual struggle is in the realms of the mind and the heart. It could be that Gethsemane experience, that dark night of not wanting the burden of faith and vocation, the struggle to live as a Christian. Its tough at times, we all know that. And sometimes we can forget what it is we are actually struggling for. Or perhaps, what is actually worth struggling for.
Jacob struggles for blessing. This was a honest struggle, for a change, and that is what is significant. There is no trickery here, he is actually overcoming the odds, because even with his injury, he is still able to win a blessing from this mysterious man, who turns out to be God. Now that’s something worth struggling for, certainly worth a scar, or a limp, which is seems he has from then on. He receives a blessing from God, he came face to face with God and lives. But you know, that even though Jacob struggled, even though he had to fight for a blessing from God, we don’t?
We are blessed already, we have a promise from God. There’s no struggle in gaining the actual blessing because the struggle was done for us by Jesus. All we have to do is accept the grace and hope that is offered to us. That’s it. The struggle comes later when we try to live according to that grace, and it’s not always easy, although its not always hard either. When we do have the difficult times though, we have God’s compassion for us to help us through. We heard of Jesus’ compassion for the hungry hordes – he fed them. He feeds us too, not just our physical nourishment, but the real food of life, that which will sustain us forever – the Truth. If we show compassion we can live that life, the Christian life, more fully, mores successfully. But we have to be compassionate to all, even ourselves.
I think Jacob’s struggle wasn’t just with God – it was also with himself. Perhaps he realised his own shortcomings, and that there was reconciliation needed within himself. Perhaps he needed an honest struggle to be himself - to be able to allow himself to accept God’s blessing, to be able to allow himself to ask for it.
Are we able to ask for a blessing from God? We know that it will be offered and granted, because of God’s compassion for us, because of God’s love for us. But can we ask for it? It can be a struggle to ask, for many of us, because so many of us carry around this idea that we shouldn’t be blessed because we are not good people. We don’t measure up to the high standards of perfection. Perhaps we once said something not very nice to someone, or did something not very nice, or thought something not very nice, or whatever. We carry around those scars within ourselves. But we don’t have to, and I think I’m finally starting to realise that myself. Now this is a massive breakthrough for me. Because my struggle in life is against my habit of beating myself up, of expecting myself to be perfect. And I’m still learning that I don’t actually need to struggle at all.
I don’t need to struggle, none of us need to struggle, because of God’s grace. We make mistakes, we hurt people, and we need to say sorry when we can, and forgive others when we can, and seek reconciliation whenever possible. But we also need to forgive ourselves and seek reconciliation with ourselves and learn to love ourselves as we would love others, and as God loves us. You see, that’s the difference between Jacob and us – he had to wrestle for a blessing. We don’t. Its given, because of Jesus. The grace is extended, the blessing is offered, and rather than pin God down, all we have to do is accept it, accept that compassion and hope and love, accept that offer to be in community with God and with each other.
So we are ok not being perfect, with our war wounds and reminders of past glories and failures. The scars can remind us of lessons we learned, and remind us of how God forgives us all the time, no matter what we’ve said, done or thought, and that the only struggle we really have is the struggle to love ourselves and each other. Jacob struggled for his blessing. We are freely given ours. We are loved, and we have hope in a great God, and a great future. We can live in the confidence of this hope, safe in the knowledge that we all truly are loving and loved people. So why deny ourselves ourselves?
Peace be with you.
Pentecost 8July 10th, 2005Genesis 25.19-34, Ps 119.105-112, Romans 8.1-11, Matt 13.1-9, 18-23.
Plants are amazing.
If you go to the high country in Victoria and New South Wales, where there is snow for part of the year, usually, you will find plants that can survive being beneath snow for that time. When it melts, they are still there, still alive. They are specialised, suited to their environment, adapted. And in rocky places, wherever a crack forms, you’ll find plants clinging to the rock, using up every available piece of soil lodged in those cracks and hollows. Their roots force their way further into cracks in the rocks to cling on, and they trap more soil in the cracks as it’s washed in by rain. In dry, arid areas, perhaps even deserts, you will find plants that are suited to that type of climate and soil conditions. Just look at the more inhospitable parts of our country that support life, particularly evidenced by the wildflowers that bloom after a good wet season, when the outback becomes blanketed in colour. Even under the sea, and in lakes and rivers and billabongs, plants grow and flourish. They are adapted for life under water, and their variety is mind boggling. And even the amazing number of different types of grasses available for different soils and water availability and climate, and the different types of wheat and other crops. When you see all of this, you realise that there is a lot more to sowing seeds than just casting them about in a random fashion. There has to be more thought to it than that. I mean, God created all of the plants on this world, wherever they occur, to survive in their particular environment, to take root and to seed themselves, carrying on the process of growing more. God wasn’t haphazard about it. Neither are we, usually. So we can see that the sower in the story is not doing a very good job, chucking seeds about in the vague hope that they will grow. What is kind of strange, in this parable, is that it’s the soil that’s getting the blame for it!
The soil conditions in the paragraph are the people to whom the mission of Jesus Christ is being directed. The idea is for us all to be like the good soil. Yet the fact is that it’s not very often we’ll have people who are like the good soil to reach out to with the Gospel, receptive and ready for the seed to be planted. So rather than being general and casting around the gospel on the off chance it may take root somewhere, amongst the weeds and rocks and paths, we need to be more strategic and specific, just as a farmer is when choosing which type of crop, and indeed which sub-species of crop will best suit the conditions and the soil. I mean, there are many different varieties of wheat, for example, and the trick is to pick the right one for your situation.
Part of being strategic is learning as much as we can about the mission field. Who are the people we want to reach? What do we know about them, their desires, fears, hopes, needs? Where can we scratch their itch? How can we find out? And how can we teach ourselves to do it?
Perhaps we can start with the fact that good and bad soil can be a subjective concept. Perhaps good and bad soil is a value judgement based on the suitability of our particular mode of delivering the message, whatever that may be. Its not that the message is wrong – I mean, the Gospel of Our Lord, Jesus Christ is not wrong – it’s more about the way we tell it. And even then, when you do try to tell in a way that suits its target audience, it’s a tricky path to walk, because it’s easy when trying to be relevant, trying to fit in, to lose track of the story all together. In trying to relate to people we can sometimes try too hard and lose our Christian identity. We need to be true to ourselves and our faith, as well as trying to speak an understandable language.
An example of this is the theology taught in some independent churches that says if you live the right way God will reward you. In many ways, it is a perfect message for its target audience, primarily middle to upper middle class people. It is success driven, it promises rewards that are often material and financial – and that can then become the proof that you are a good Christian. It hits a nerve with many people, particularly in the middle to upper income bracket, with a good amount of disposable income. Yet they seem to forget that Jesus didn’t talk about gathering wealth, and indeed discouraged it. They seem to forget that success and failure in this world are human concepts, not divine. In human terms, Jesus mission was a total failure. He was executed as a blasphemer and a criminal, an enemy of the religion and the state. He was helpless, it seems. He wasn’t the Messiah who would make Israel a great and mighty nation, ruler of the world. Yet we know that in God’s terms, in terms of the salvation of the whole world, it was a success, an overwhelming success. The hope lives on, He lives on, the Spirit lives on, within us. So it is important to be more open and objective about our judgements of the mission field, to look more at ways we can communicate, the language we use and the way we worship, so as to facilitate the seed planting to that particular patch of mission field. And in ways that do justice to our faith. Just as a farmer will use soil maps and testing to determine the nature of the soil and determine how to do the planting, and prepare the ground differently accordingly, we also must look, listen and learn, and do the research to work out how best to plant the seeds. Then get on with the planting. Perhaps then the crop we sow will yield a hundredfold, although I think most of us would settle for thirty fold, or even ten fold. But that doesn’t mean we should aim low. Do the seed planting, and let God grow the crop.
I couldn’t let this Sunday go by without mentioning the London bombings. I’m not going to talk about it too much. Instead, I think a time of prayer in solidarity with those affected by terrorism anywhere in the world is more appropriate, and also prayers for those who would kill and maim in the name of their belief. After this short prayer, we will have a time of silent reflection, for us to offer our own prayers for peace in the world, and an end to terrorism wherever it occurs.
A prayer following the bomb attacks in Central London
In this time of darkness we pray for strength and ask that God may: Bind up the broken-hearted, restore the injured and raise up all who have fallen; Support all who are giving their skills to bring relief to those who suffer; And bring in his kingdom with justice and mercy for all: We ask that the nations of the earth may seek after the ways that make for peace; And that in the power of the cross we may trust in the light of God's goodness to triumph over all evil. All this we pray in the name of Jesus Christ who shares our humanity and pain. Amen
Pentecost 7.
July 3rd, 2005.
Genesis 24.34-38, 42-49, 58-67, Ps 45.10-17, Romans 7.14-25, Matthew 11.15-19, 25-30.Personally, I hate being imperfect. I hate slipping up. I hate making mistakes. I hate, sometimes, the fact that I’m human.
I think in this I have much in common with Paul.
We can see that Paul struggles with his humanity.
The excerpt from his letter from the Romans that we read this morning talks about it, his personal struggle with the fact that humans cannot be perfect. The heart of it is this – “I can will what is right, but I cannot do it.” The perfection of following the Torah, the Jewish Law, is desirable, yet is unattainable. Paul struggled with the fact that for what the perfect idea of a lover of the law, a true follower, a true believer, a righteous person, and the reality that the law cannot be observed successfully. If we try to observe it, we run around in circles, we chase our tails, we spend so much time making sure the cups are clean, we are not eating with sinners, and all the other garbage that we forget that the law is supposed to be about justice and love for one’s self, ones neighbours and our God. We will end up driving ourselves nuts, and if we are really unlucky, driving those around us nuts as well.
It all comes down to the concept of perfection. There is a duality operating here, in that there is the perfect idea on the one hand, and its projection into reality in the other, its form in reality, if you like. The perfect idea, for example, the law of the Old Testament, as a concept, might seem ok. It’s a set of rules meant to govern interaction between peoples and God. It sets out guidelines for looking after each other, for property transactions, for justice. The idea was good. But the implementation is flawed. Because as soon as people get involved, with their natural self-interest, it gets perverted, and the perfect idea of the law becomes subordinate to the whims of those who interpret it. The powerful become more powerful, because they control the interpretation and policing of the Law, which makes them able to control others. The Pharissees, as interpreters of the Law, become able to control who is in and who is out of society. They can decide what is right and wrong, because they have the education and the knowledge to do this, they can make the laws fit what they want to achieve. So the “perfect laws” become imperfect as soon as they are transmitted to humanity, as soon as they are made manifest in reality.
Perfection is impossible. The ability to obey this law, all of its many, many rules, is just not possible for us to do. Attempting to do so will drive us, and probably those around us, insane. And you know what? God knows this. That’s why God did something about it, because it was too hard for us. And this is where Paul is coming from, the fact that even though we are incapable, through our human nature, of being perfect, of being able to keep the law, it is still made possible for us to be in a good relationship with God. Paul spells it out – “Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord.” The world might be imperfect, we might be imperfect, but we find redemption through Jesus Christ.
So then, we know that God doesn’t demand perfection. A faithful heart is all that is needed, and the desire to show the fruits of that faith. But so often we expect perfection. We expect perfection in others – we can see that in the Pharisees, who are dissatisfied with John the Baptist because he eats little and abstains from alcohol, yet they also judge Jesus because he eats and drinks too much they say. Never happy, never perfect enough for them. IM sure we are all guilty of this at times, expecting levels of perfection in others we would be totally incapable of achieving ourselves. But an equally damaging habit is to constantly and unreasonably expect perfection in ourselves, and then beating ourselves up about it. Jesus talks about heavy burdens and hard and easy yokes. How heavy a burden is it when we fall short of our own high standards? I’m a classic, and when I read between the lines of Paul’s writings I see that he probably had that problem as well. He knew, as I and many others know, that heavy weight carried by a person who is never pleased with themself, who never loves themself. It even shows physically some times, the drooping shoulders, the hunching of regret, the sad look. It’s too much for us to bear, because we are not meant to bear it. It is a hard yoke, as opposed to an easy yoke. Everyone has a burden to carry – that’s life I’m afraid, its hard sometimes and good at other times, and even in the good times there are things we must do that seem burdensome. But if we make it hard for ourselves and for others, we make the yoke hard. A hard yoke, in physical terms, might be a yoke that is ill-shaped, is uncomfortable, digs into us, chafes us, that rubs us up the wrong way. It might give us splinters even, pricks our conscience. It is a yoke that lets us know constantly that we are carrying it. It’s not nice. Trying to observe the full body of the Law is this heavy yoke, this hard yoke, this yoke that can only drive us into the ground. With Jesus, with the new covenant God made with us through Him, the yoke is easy. It’s not that everything is simple now – living as a Christian is a trying life too. A person who witnesses to others that their life has only been wonderful ever since taking the Lord into their life is not telling the truth, or perhaps has yet to have a crisis of faith. They are misleading others. Often when these people do have their faith tested, they turn away from Jesus because it becomes too hard to follow Him. So, it can be a burden being a Christian, yet its easier, n the long run, than not being one. The yoke of the Law for a Christian is easier. We are to seek God, and to seek to do justice to others, and care for them, and love them, as much as we can. We aren’t called to be perfect, we are not called to be that which we cannot be. We are just called to believe and do the best we can, and turn to Jesus for assistance. We are called to be what we can be. That’s all. It reminds of a car bumper sticker I’ve seen about, a bit clichéd perhaps, but relevant and true nonetheless. It reads “Christians aren’t perfect – just forgiven.” Sums it up really.
So the lesson for this morning?
The lesson is to stop trying to be perfect, and to stop beating ourselves up about being imperfect, about being human.
It’s also an encouragement to take on the easy yoke that Christ offers us, and live according to His word, believing in Him, loving Him, and doing good and just works in His name, showing forth the spirits of His love for us.
It all helps.
Saints Peter and Paul 2005Acts 12.1-11, Ps 87, 2 Timothy 4.6-8, 17-18, John 21.15-22.
What’s a martyr these days?
When we hear the word martyr used, one of the first images that comes to mind is a suicide bomber in the middle east, in Jerusalem, or in Iraq. We think of religious lunatics, whackos whose own distorted, deranged and malignant version of their favourite deity causes them to kill. They live lives, and die deaths, that are death giving, not life giving. They do not help their causes, they only create more chaos and destruction, more oppression, more hate, more fear. They bring only darkness to the world, not freedom or glory. They create fear and paranoia.
They are aiming for this, you see, this world of fear, because fear is a great weapon, it’s a great tool to keep people in check. Its not just terrorists either. The United States government is expert at the use of fear, our own government has been quite proficient in its use to remain in government, and I’m sure the opposition would love to be able to use it as well. Indeed, when parties and politicians take a stand against fear, they usually fail. And even churches have used fear as a tool for evangelism and church growth. The signs outside the church up the road witness to that. Unfortunately it seems to work, as evidenced by the current growth in the more hardline rightwing evangelical churches. But even so, I would be very reticent to use that theology to grow the church. Because in the end, it is not life-giving, it is not long lasting, it is not community building. It is isolating and it creates and sustains fear, not love. It is the theology that leads to murderous groups such as the Ku Klux Klan.
Now why am I talking about this stuff this morning? Well, it’s because we are talking apostles and martyrs this morning. And because it worries me the way the word martyr is used and understood, the misappropriation of the word.
The origins of the word martyr relate to witnessing, testifying, telling the truth. The original word meant nothing like senseless mindless killing in the name of a misunderstanding, no, a perversion of the word of any deity. It didn’t mean actively seeking death for glory. That is just plain suicide, not martyrdom. Jesus death was martyrdom, in the sense that it was a witness to God’s love for us, and it was passive. He was killed by others. He did not kill himself. But the activity of salvation was not martyrdom, there is a big difference between the two, and it would take a long time to explain it all, so I think its best left for another time. And you know the interesting thing though about the word martyr is that in its original usage it doesn’t require the witness to die because of that witness. That meaning developed as Christian witnesses were killed by others because of their beliefs and their refusal to deny Our Lord. And the thing is, they didn’t die telling people to kill in the name of our Lord, but telling people to live and love in the name of our Lord. The fact is that Jesus did not want bloodshed in His name. No self respecting deity would. Because there is nothing glorious in suicide bombing and terrorism. There is nothing glorious about killing people. Perhaps there is personal glory, some sort of short-lived veneration by other like-minded religious lunatics, but there is no divine glory, no special place in heaven. I mean, the glory on earth is the reward, the veneration by fellow nutters is the payment. Glory cannot be found in bloodshed. Glory can only be found in a life lived well, a life in which the fruits of the Spirit are revealed in the actions of a person, the fruits of love. Glory can only be found in living in Jesus Christ.
So the, Peter and Paul. Ahh, finally we get to them. Now whilst they are referred to as martyrs, they are very different to this modern idea of a martyr.
Are they religious whackos? Well, perhaps in the context of their world they were, because the term is very subjective. I mean, in their own social group, their families and their worshipping community a suicide bomber isn’t regarded as a religious whacko. As I said, their fellow nutters venerate them. Peter and Paul, in following this strange prophet who was crucified outside Jerusalem, would certainly have been regarded by their Judean peers as slightly whacko, and hence dangerous. I mean, whackos are dangerous, aren’t they? They were counter cultural, in that what they preached went against the religions of their culture. Paul even turned his back, eventually, on the strict observance of the law of his religion of origin, as Christianity became less and less Jewish, and he came to realise and began to preach that to be a Christian didn’t require one to follow explicitly the letter of the law. Paul was not about legalism. Paul was about living a life that was glorious, a life that showed God’s glory, Jesus love, and the Spirit’s action and drive. He went to his death passively. He was killed by his persecutors for refusing to give up his faith. He didn’t commit suicide or kill others, and this was a culmination of a life that was lived in grace and power and love. His death was not the witness, it was a witness, it was just another part of the witness of his life. The power of love, the glory of God in his life was the transformation from the persecutor of the church into its most energetic evangelist, church planter extraordinaire. Paul was a violently zealous person before his encounter with the risen Christ on the road to Damascus. This divine encounter did not make him violent for Jesus, it opened his heart and compelled him to be a zealous evangelist and pacifist for Christ. His many skills, especially in communication and in the use of rhetoric, were put to use for the promotion peace and love. God was with him throughout his life. Paul was blessed. And his teaching and example inspired many and still does. And you know what - nobody got killed!!! Although unfortunately, his words have been twisted by anti-Semitic loonies and used to incite persecution of Jewish people, which just goes to show, if you want to hate someone you can find a reason in everything, if you read it wrong.
And what of Peter? In the gospels, we see Peter as this bumbling sort of person, earnest but impetuous, trying to say the right thing but somehow ending up saying the wrong thing. When the crunch comes he resorts to violence, cutting off someone’s ear, and then he denies our Lord three times. Yet his encounter with the risen, living Christ transformed him as well. Jesus knew this would happen, I mean he said that Peter would be the rock of His church. Peter became that rock, steadfast and sure. He was not violent after his transformation. I mean, even this prison breakout in the reading from Acts was passive and peaceful. Doors were opened, chains removed, without anyone getting killed. The church did not launch a counter attack, or suicide terrorist strikes in an effort to get him out. They prayed. In the Gospel then, Jesus tells him to feed His sheep. That is the task of the rock on which the church was built, to nurture Jesus flock. Again, not to take over the world, defend the holy lands, liberate people through the use of force, executing the infidels along the way. It is all passive. And it lead to martyrdom. Jesus told him that. Yet he willingly followed Jesus. And he became that rock.
This is the power of God the Trinity in action, transforming. When I hear all the mention of God from the United States in their conquest for oil, whoops, war against terror, I cringe. I cringe because I know that God does not want death and destruction in God’s name. I cringe because nowhere in the Gospels does it say that George Dubbya Bush is to be the saviour of the free world. No where at all does it say that the United States of America is a nation charged with the task of invading and executing the infidels. That is using God for political purposes. That is building up a case for violence that is just as unjustifiable as a suicide bombing. It is not inspired by God at all, nor is it blessed by God. Do we really think that God is on our side in a war? Is God on any side? I think so. But God is not on the side of any armies. God is on the side of the defenceless, the powerless, the innocent victims of war.
And that’s the point I want to make. A martyr is not someone who dies in the process of killing others to make a political point. That sort of martyr wins no friends. That sort of martyr wins no blessings, no special place in heaven. A martyr is a person who, like Saints Peter and Paul, lives a life that glorifies God and tells the world about the true Gospel, the Gospel of Jesus Christ, who did not demand violence but demanded that we look after the defenceless, the poor, the sick and differently abled. It is a Gospel in which there are no Jews or Greek, male or female. A life and death that witnesses to Gods love. A life of passive resistance, a life of compassion, a life of peace.
