Isa 40.21-31, Psalm 147, 1 Corinthians 9.16-23, Mark 1.29-39.
We’ve heard this morning possibly my favourite piece of scripture in all of the bible.
It’s the reading from Isaiah. In particular the bit about being lifted up on eagles wings. It’s a powerful image to me, because there is something about eagles I really like. I like eagles so much that I had one tattooed on my right arm a long, long time ago. I remember how much of a thrill it was a few years ago, when I was riding my last motorbike, my long suffering Honda 500, around Kangaroo island, and I saw an eagle at the side of the road. It just sat there and watched me ride past. It was magnificent, such a wonderful, majestic creature. And so unafraid, so unconcerned with this noisy motorcycle going past, so aloof and unaffected by the passing world.
What does the image of an eagle mean to you? To the American forefathers, who chose as their national emblem the bald eagle, it apparently meant strength, courage, freedom, and immortality. I also read that the eagle can symbolise spiritual energy. The eagle is the symbol of St. John the Evangelist, which by coincidence is the patron saint of the church where I became an Anglican and identified a calling to ordained ministry.
But I think it’s the freedom that I like the most about the symbol of the eagle. That the creature is not stuck on this earth, that it can soar above the turkeys stuck on the ground, all the rubbish, and be distant, removed, aloof.
On Monday I got back from a week on the bike. 2700kms or thereabouts, to Melbourne via Port Fairy, the Great ocean road, then from Melbourne to Wodonga via Healesville and the Blacks Spur, Beechworth and the Bakery, and home via Shepparton and Bendigo, through Horsham. What a fantastic ride. When my butt had recovered, by about Wednesday, I found myself wanting to be back out on the road, traveling. This has been exacerbated by watching the dvd of the series “The Long way round” with Ewan Macgregor and Charley Borman riding around the world, northern hemisphere at least, on BMW motorcycles. It’s not always easy for them, the journey, especially in Mongolia and Siberia, but the freedom, the travel is the thing. It’s not so much the destination, it’s the journey. I had a much easier time of it than they did, I only had to ride through very hot conditions, like 40 degrees for days on end. No bogs, no river crossings, no freezing conditions, although the heat was hard enough. Yet through the hardships, the freedom, that feeling of traveling, of being in between, rootless, removed from the cares and the petty worries of the world was a wonderful feeling. It’s very easy to get addicted to that feeling and to feel a bit lost when it’s all finished, even though you get home to the family and friends, and back to normal life. Ewan and Charley recognized the feeling was coming, that let down at the end of a journey, when a destination is realised.
I was talking to someone about this phenomen a couple of days ago, the fact that I kept thinking about the trip and pining for the road, and this person described the feeling as “freedom withdrawal”. So this “withdrawal”, combined with the eagle’s wings reading, has got me thinking a lot about freedom.
Freedom has become a commodity. Harley Davidson try to sell their rather agricultural motorcycles on the basis of freedom. But considering the more desirable models in the larger engine range cost upward of $23k all I can think of is being shackled to a huge personal loan. That’s not freedom to me I’m afraid. But Freedom is a desirable commodity. People are prepared to pay for it. Yet as with the Harley, its rarely actually freedom. It’s an illusion of freedom. There are still dependencies, there are still ties, there is still a cost in the end. True freedom is something totally different.
We tend to think of freedom as the ability to do whatever we want to, some sort of personal anarchy. There is a common misconception that religious people, particularly Christians, aren’t free, because we have lots of rules to follow, and spend all our lives trying to curtail other people’s freedom and fun as well. Hippies were free, the idea was to have no ties man, free love, all that stuff, until sexually transmitted diseases started running rampant in communes. Funny how herpes can make people square again, turn them into good middle class citizens. Our concept of Freedom is but an illusion, I think. Our version of freedom could never make us happy. If we did just what we wanted to do, then imagine the chaos, the anarchy, the mess, the herpes. No, as Pope John Paul 2 once said, "Freedom is not the power to do what one wants. Freedom is the power to do what is right." Freedom is not being shackled to the evil of this world. It is the ability to love in spite of who we are and the situation in which we find ourselves. It is the ability and the desire to heal and be healed ourselves, and to live that healing for the world. It is the freedom to dare to be whole. It is the freedom to love God and let God love us. It is the freedom to believe that Jesus did something wonderful for us.
God restores us, frees us.. That’s what we hear in the reading from Isaiah. God is the one behind it all, the one who made it all, the one beside whom we are very very insignificant. Yet in Gods saving grace, the gift of Jesus Christ, we see that we are not insignificant in God’s eyes, we are loved, we are offered freedom to choose to love God and love God’s creation, our fellow creatures. And people who are freed, restored to fullness in creation are going to want to tell others about it. That is our commission, as Paul writes in the letter to the Corinthians. It is something we are entrusted with. Paul is free, yet in this freedom he chooses to serve others and tell them the gospel. He is free to act appropriately in a context, being inclusive and tolerant with his behaviour amongst different cultures, telling the gospel in relevant ways and treating different peoples with respect. Freedom means he did not have to follow an oppressive set of laws, but could follow the law of love, and in so doing share in God’s blessings. We are free to believe in something, freed of the pessimism of this world, free to hope.
Free to do a lot, really, contrary to popular opinion.
Being a Christian isn’t too bad, is it?
The Lord be with you.
No room at the inn.
What sort of a welcome is that to the world for the Son of God? No place for them at the inn.
Well, it’s to expected really and I doubt there would be a better reception today.
It’s not that there would be any problem accommodating the expectant mother and her husband. Perhaps room for a donkey might be a bit more tricky. I mean, hotels don’t have stables anymore, they have subterranean car parks, cavernous dirty places where the air is full of carbon monoxide and the stench of stale cigarettes and alcohol. A donkey would suffocate in one of those all night. But the family would have no trouble at all. Unless of course they were homeless, destitute – then they would have trouble. But the pertinent issue these days is that there doesn’t seem to be real place for Jesus in the present world, or at least, here in Australia. And sadly, even less room for Jesus at Christmas time in this heavily secular society.
I wonder about the fact that there was no place for Mary, Joseph and the soon to arrive Jesus at the inn. I wonder if its not just that there was not the accommodation left, but that the inn keeper didn’t like their kind. I mean, they’re from Nazareth, country hicks. She is pregnant, they’ve been traveling, they’re probably filthy from the road. I wonder perhaps if they were treated the same way we treat homeless people these days. We have trouble finding places for them. They don’t fit in,they disturb us. Its not just that they are homeless that disturbs us, often its because they are different, strange, unwell, that makes them outsiders. They don’t fit anywhere and so are left on the streets. Its easier for us to leave them there.
So it’s kind of a strange paradox we have here – God’s Son, our Saviour, born into a world where there is no place for his kind. Born amongst the animals and their smells, their dung. Born amongst the lowly – the King in the outhouse. No finery, no fanfare, no thrones or bells ringing here. It reminds us of His death as well, a King on a cross, no crown of gold, just a crown of thorns, a crown of pain. We can’t separate his death from his birth, or his birth from his death. They are the bookends of His life that give it the meaning, they are the significant events of grace and mercy and love.
Because it is love, above all, that brings us Christmas. I guess we imitate this love a bit with the so-called Christmas spirit, that warm fuzzy feeling that makes us slightly more charitable at this time of the year, that makes us a little more friendly, until we’ve had too much to drink and start threatening photographers of course. It’s that Christmas spirit that inspired the truce on the battlefields of Gallipoli, where they stopped shooting at each other and got out of the trenches and met in the middle for fellowship. But just as that ended too quickly, and they got back to the process of shooting at each other, fighting some earthly King’s war, so our Christmas spirit seems to evaporate on Boxing Day. Yet the true Christmas spirit, that love and grace and mercy that God shows us in Jesus, never ends, never gives up, never evaporates. This love is what St. John writes about in the gospel attributed to him, 3.16, “God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, so that all who believe in him shall not die, but shall have everlasting life.” It’s a love given to all, regardless of who we are or what we have done. All we have to do is accept it from God.
Now there is implicit in this equality, isn’t there. We are all offered God’s love. Yet I think there are some who are favoured in the message of Christmas, and it is made plain here in our gospel reading for tonight.
Its not one particular denomination, its not members of a secret sect or people who worship a particular way or who speak in toungues or who prophecy. Who is it then? It is the poor. The message of hope is primarily directed at the poor, the outsiders, the outcasts, the rejected. It is a message that God does not regard them as outsiders – indeed, God regards them as the true kingdom, those most deserving of God’s love, those who need it the most. In this, it is also a critique of the religious and political systems that keep them poor and outcast, that keeps them in poverty. Systems that are still in place today in one form or another. Perhaps our annual subscription to the “Christmas spirit” is our way of denying our complicity in this.
We see further evidence of Christ’s significance to the poor in the announcement by the angel to the shepherds of the birth of their Messiah. The shepherds were outsiders. They couldn’t leave the flocks at all, so they couldn’t worship at the temple. They slept rough, they probably didn’t clean all that often, and I imagine they would have been covered in wool fat and dags. Although perhaps the lanolin made their hands soft, who knows? But anyway, they were quite definitely outsiders. Yet they heard the news first. Blue collar workers heard it first. Outcasts, outsiders, the unclean, heard it first. They got the scoop. And they responded first. They accepted the Good News first, because it was meant for them. It was good news that they could handle, that was not threatening.
Now I wonder if the angel had appeared at the temple, and the religious authorities had heard the news first, what would have happened? If the angel appeared in the palace of Augustus, what would have happened? What if it happened now? I imagine the spin doctors and politicians having a field day, the religious authorities arguing over the theology and whether or not it fits in with what they believe, and what sort of service they should have to commemorate it. I imagine Bishops and Pastors and elders referring the matter to endless committees and conclaves and board meetings, the issue being pulled apart in the colleges and procrastinated about, finally being forgotten about cos it’s all too hard, and besides, we do have a church to run, don’t we? I imagine us rejecting him. Which is what happened back then. Jesus was rejected by those he came to save. Because He didn’t fit in with their plans, their politics, their power games, their bigotry. He upset too many people. He was friends with the powerless, not the powerful.
God’s rejection of human values of power and wealth can also be seen in the fact that God’s Son himself came into the world in the most vulnerable human form possible – a baby, new born, in a poor family in rustic and crude surroundings, laid to sleep in the feeding trough of cattle. The miracle of birth combined with the miracle and wonder of God encapsulated in this tiny, helpless body. That’s love. That’s true sacrifice, giving up the greatness, power, strength, of being divine, to be vulnerable for the sake of others. That’s real love.
I’m not trying to make us all feel guilty. Christmas is a celebration, isn’t it? But I am trying to say, in a roundabout way perhaps, that God’s love for us is huge, and in Jesus we see this. And that God cares about the little people, the defenceless, the vulnerable. I also want to encourage you not to give up the Christmas spirit, on boxing day, but rather to nurture it, and to make a place for Jesus in your lives all the time. Let him be born in you and dwell in your hearts. Live the wonder of Christmas everyday, reveling in the incarnate God, this God who is with us.
Have a wonderful Christmas, and may God fill your hearts and homes with joy.
The Lord be with you.
Hasn’t this year gone by really fast?
I mean, here we are already at the end of the year.
What? Its not the end of the year yet? But it is. Oh, you mean its not December 31st yet. No, it isn’t, but it is the end of the year. It’s the end of the churches year.
Next Sunday we begin the countdown to Christmas. Next Sunday is the first Sunday in Advent. We start at the beginning again, we remember Jesus birth and how this is the fulfillment of God’s promise of grace to humanity. The wheel turns, the end becomes the beginning.
But this week, today, we celebrate the end of the year with the feast of Christ the King. How appropriate. Because we finish of with a reminder of who is really in charge, who’s agenda it is, who’s church it is. Its Jesus’ Church, and He is the king.
The King. Now that’s a troublesome title in Australia today, isn’t it? I mean, we are not the most fiercely royalist nation on earth, although I think if we had the Danish royal family we might be a little more so. Our lot have so much scandal, don’t they? But the title is not terribly helpful to many of us. What do we think of when we hear the word king? In an Anglican context we might remember King Henry 8th, who whilst he was in many ways responsible for the Anglican Church breaking away from Rome, was not a terribly nice person. When he didn’t want to be married anymore, he usually found permanent ways to rid himself of the missus. Not a very Christian thing to do. We may think of persons in power, good and bad, who are waited on by many servants, who live lives of luxury, privileged and power, in great big mansions and castles behind big walls and with many guards. They are untouchable, they are above us, they are out of reach. Is this what we mean when we affirm Christ as the King?
Of course, when we look at the Gospel reading we see a very different type of king. We don’t see the king of luxury but the king of poverty. We see a King who identifies with the least of the world, not the most. Its not some patronising visit to a childrens hospital or to see people whose legs have been blown off by land mines, but is so identified with the least that He chose to die the death of the Least, after being born as one of the least, in a place where animals were kept, and attended by dirty smelly shepherds. This is the real idea of Kingship, an idea that humanity just can’t seem to grasp. What does he say “Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.” This is an example of leadership, of relationship that we could all benefit from – treating each other as if they were Christ, treating each other as if they were royalty. It’s a good lesson to remember today as we reflect on the year gone by and remember who the boss is. It’s not me, in spite of what my cup says, it’s Jesus. It’s his church in the end. Not mine, or yours, or the Archbishops, or even MDC’s. Jesus is our Lord. It is Jesus’s church. That’s who is in charge.
How many kings, or any other leaders, for that matter, lead from the front? How many presidents, or prime ministers, or government members lead wars from the front? Would the answer be none? How many leaders lead from the streets, where people live rough, or lead through their lives in outback communities, or by doing it tough some where? How many church leaders really do it tough these days? Not many, I would imagine. I’d include myself amongst the ones who don’t do it tough. But Jesus as King did it tough. He led from the front lines, the battle against oppression in the name of religion, the battle against injustice, the battle against the habit we humans have of being in-human with each other – in short, He led the battle against evil, the battle for life. Perhaps militaristic language isn’t entirely appropriate but it is a battle sometimes, it is tough sometimes, and Jesus copped the worst of it. For us. That’s a real King. That’s a real leader. Even at the end, on the cross, when hope could have been abandoned, it instead became the defining moment of His Kingship, the point at which all human concepts pertaining to the Kingdom of God were destroyed forever. The Kingdom is in this world but not of it. It was the end of the old, the beginning of the new. The Kingdom here on earth. A possibility that Jesus won for us.
End times are tricky, they can be difficult, they can be sad. The end of a life can be a sad time. My Nan died on Friday morning, and that’s sad. I guess the fact that she was very very ill, at 90 years of age, makes it a little easier to take. I’ll never forget her jelly cakes, they were the best. Its sad for us left behind.
We are at an end time now in this parish. We are at a crossroads. We cant afford to have full time ordained ministry here anymore. In effect, we cant be a parish in the way we have been used to being a parish.
How do we feel about this? I imagine many of you will feel as I did, quite down about it, and that’s natural. What I want to say though, is this – that even though it’s the end of the way we were, it is the beginning of a new way of being. It is freeing, in a sense, because we can go for broke now, with reckless abandon. We can try stuff out, without fear of failure, because we have nothing to lose, and plenty to gain. Before a resurrection there has to be a crucifixion. Before the beginning again, there is an end. The end is a transitional phase, just as death is. It’s a way of being something different. That is the opportunity that confronts us now.
What do we do? Do we accept that our parish is dying? Do we just let it go, not changing our attitudes, not struggling, not attempting to call for help? That’s the key – calling for help. We need to ask God for help, if we really want this parish to keep going.
Exodus 16.2-15, Psalm 105.1-6, 37-45, Philippians 1.21-30,
Matthew 20.1-16.
I used to manage a small business in Shepparton, in Victoria.
It was a small branch of a larger graphic arts and repro company that was based in Albury, NSW. It was in Shepparton largely to service one particular company whose main trade was labels for the tinned food industry, an industry which is pretty much the backbone of the Shepparton district. All of the SPC and Goulbourn Valley labels, a large proportion of IXL jam labels, and many other labels in the early 90’s came through our little place. It was mostly a happy place, apart from that inferiority complex that you will often find in the poorer, under-resourced and neglected branch office of a company who seem to want to extract money but not invest in equipment and training. And I’d have to admit that I wasn’t ready to be a manager, I had very little, actually, no training whatsoever, or experience, and I was pretty much sent there because the previous guy had made life difficult for himself with personality clashes with the staff. And the fact that no one else wanted it. He went back to Albury, and I moved in.
It all went ok, until the two photo-typesetters were discussing their wages. It turned out that one was on more than the other, even though she had been there a shorter time. Suffice to say that the one on lower wages didn’t think it was fair. And gee, did the proverbial hit the fan then. I had a revolt on my hands, and the only way to quell the riot was to convince head office to make the pay rates equal. Disaster was averted – just, and we went on, until I ran away to Adelaide, and that, my friends, is another story for another time.
The parable in the Gospel reading for this morning is kind of similar. It’s about the fairness of wages in the workplace. It’s an industrial dispute. Whilst at Ross Graphics it was different pay for the same amount of work, in this parable we have workers who have done different amounts of work getting the same pay. The money they have been paid is nothing extravagant – it is enough for them to live on for one day. That’s all. It’s not like they are company executives or anything. The problem is the grumbling of the ones who have worked all day against the ones who have worked a shorter time, who get the same cash. Now, on the human level, there is some justification in their complaints. It’s not fair, is it, by human standards? They should be paid by the hour, they should be paid fairly for the work they do, and if they don’t do enough work, then they should get less than those who have been there all day. But the thing is, this is not on the human level. It is a parable about the kingdom of heaven. And God’s abundant generosity.
Now, unless you hadn’t noticed yet, you will know already that the kingdom of heaven is very much NOT the kingdom of humans. The rules are different, the perspective is different, and things operate on a different set of rules, a different set of industrial laws. Not for this kingdom is the highly regulated labour market sought after by the ultra-lefties, or the dog eat dog utopia envisioned by the neo-liberals. No, it runs on the law of God’s grace. A believer is a believer and is saved, regardless of the amount of time one has been a believer. There’s no gold watch for long service. The wage of faith is life eternal, salvation, forgiveness, God’s love. Regardless of whether the believer is a long term Christian or a newby.
As a church, we are called to live in the kingdom NOW, as much as we possibly can. That means sharing that grace that God offers us, as unconditionally and fully as we can. There are implications in this for us as members of the church. Especially in the way the church, the diocese and the parishes are run.
Who is a full member of the church? Who has the right to make decisions? Who controls the church? Every baptised member, guided by God, is the correct answer. But often it is the long term members of the church, who are given or who take the power, who control the destiny of the parish or diocese, and have great difficulty allowing newcomers to have a voice. Perhaps it’s that old respect your elders thing. Now there isn’t anything wrong with that as such – respect for your elders and your seniors is important. However Jesus is pointing out that this is not how the kingdom of God operates. That giving of power to the longest serving members, the giving of special priveledges, is a human thing, not a God thing.
In the Kingdom of God, all are equal. No one is more equal than anyone else. Everyone is saved. Everyone is given grace. God’s grace is infinite. How do you get more of a share of something that is infinite? Its only limited by our capacity to accept it. It’s a hard thing to comprehend, but from God’s perspective, individual things like length of service, or how many brass plaques are about the church with your name on them don’t matter a damn. God doesn’t give out gold watches for 50 years service to the Kingdom. God gives out grace and forgiveness to all who ask and who accept Jesus into their lives, regardless of the length of time they are believers. Everyone is equal. Everyone gets love. It’s up to us to get over our sense of injustice about it, and share that infinite love and grace just as abundantly and recklessly as God does.
So then, in terms of our parish, how might this affect the way we live? Well, what it means is that every member of this community of faith has an equal say in the future of the parish, and the present of this parish. Everyone can take part in the decision making and the vision forming and the mission of this parish. Some may choose not to take this up – that’s up to them - but it is there. Everyone is free to have a say – even the kids. And no one has the right to shut them up. They have a right to say what they think just as much as adults do. I was at a parish once where, at a meeting about children’s ministry, someone said “Who cares about the children. They don’t pay the bills”. Shocking, isn’t it. Yet I think that person was actually brave enough to voice what many others think. It’s the same with new comers, and with other people who we see as not having as much right to a say in the church. It shouldn’t be based on length of service or the amount of giving. Clergy are really good at trying to silence voices. We have to listen to each other, to be able to allow each other to have a voice. Going back to what I said a few weeks ago about confronting each other when we need to, the key is listening and affording each other the respect that is due to a fellow human and a fellow member of the family of God. No one deserves more or less respect due to their social position, their age, their gender, their length of membership, their giving to the church, or even whether they are ordained or not. Every single person deserves our respect as fellow human beings, especially in the church. Any rule that states this is so is not from Jesus, it is human in origin. Membership, full membership of the Kingdom of God, and hence the church, is based solely on our faith and our acceptance of Jesus as our Lord and Saviour. Hopefully our community will reflect this.
The Lord be with you.
Pentecost 16 2005
Exodus 12.1-14, Psalm 149, Romans 13.1-10, Matthew 18.10-20.
Today’s Gospel reading is scary, isn’t it?
I mean, readings about judgment and death and all that sort of stuff just don’t hold a candle to this one.
What do I mean?
Well, in today’s Gospel readings, Jesus is talking about how to confront people.
AAAAAHHHHHHH
Confrontation. That’s the scary bit. The thought of having to confront someone causes more anxiety than just about anything else. People stay awake all night dreading a looming confrontation. People stop talking to each other to avoid having a confrontation. People will pretend another person doesn’t exist, they will move states, move countries even. Fear and anxiety about a much needed confrontation splits up marriages and families. People will allow a relationship to go down the plughole rather than be honest.
It’s the little things, isn’t it? Things that others say, things they do, that harm us in some way, that change us for the worse. If we fear confrontation, then the issues is never resolved. It becomes a grudge. It becomes something that drives us. It grows and grows, until we forget the reason for the grudge, it becomes ingrained, it becomes part of us, as we replace the anxiety with self-righteousness, stubbornness and plain pig-headedness. Not a nice situation.
Confrontation is hard. Each one of us handles it differently. I’m afraid I’m an avoider, and I suspect many others are. The issue itself, the sadness about it, the anger, all builds up until like a release valve on a steam engine, or to be more contemporary, a waste-gate on a turbo charger, it comes gushing out in an explosive release. Any one in the way of it will get burned. So in the end, nothing is resolved, and in fact it is made worse by the fact that the outburst was not driven by a sense of wanting to be reconciled, a sense of love, but by a long time of rising bitterness.
Another way is to not tackle the problem, to leave and avoid the issue. This is a killer of community and a killer of families. Church communities break up because of something that happens or doesn’t happen and no one has the guts to do something about it in a loving way. People leave parishes, even priests leave parishes rather than speaking up about something that troubles them, rather than attempting to address the issue. It’s not a good way to be. And can spark some interesting games at times.
Game playing is not nice. Game playing is often used instead of confrontation. Game playing is destructive and dishonest. It becomes a form of manipulation, of covert bullying.
There is more blatant bullying. For some people it is easy to say what they don’t like. However, it is difficult to say it in a way that is loving. It becomes insulting. This is also a sign of fear, even though it comes across as aggression and bullying. Bullying behaviour is based on fear – the bully is usually frightened, and cover for it by frightening others. It is not honest at all, it says nothing about how they really feel, and pretty much slams the door on any chance of reconciliation. The fear is so great that the chance for healing of the relationship is lost. This sort of stuff has also been known to fracture and split families and communities, even church communities.
But as they say, it takes two to tango. I’m not sure I have the confidence tgo stand up to any of these behaviours, and I’m sure I’m not alone. This sort of stuff goes on until someone challenges it in a loving way and gradually the behaviour ceases, hopefully. This is the thing with what Jesus is saying, that there is a mutual responsibility to seek reconciliation. The person who is sinned against is to go and talk with the other person to try to work it out. Jesus is actually encouraging us to confront, but confront in a way that is loving and holds some hope of actually getting somewhere. Jesus says to speak to the other person and point out the issue, in private. He is telling us to be honest, to actually name the issue to the person concerned and invite dialogue. We cannot make others change, we can only say how we feel and hope that they respond, and this is the very opportunity that is offered. If it does not work, then there are other steps that can be taken to attempt reconciliation. And attempt it we must, even though often a true reconciliation will have to involve some confrontation.
As Christians we are called to be people of reconciliation. It’s unfortunate then that even in the church we often have conflict. I guess that’s bound to happen whenever there are human beings involved. Paul writes about trying to avoid breaks in relationships with others and with God, living in love. But inevitably these problems happen, so when they do, we have these words from Jesus to help resolve the conflict, setting up a process to work towards reconciliation. So perhaps it’s in this that we can find a way of making confrontation less scary.
The thing with this process is that it is done with the goal being reconciliation. It’s not done to exact vengeance, to take away honour or to hurt in some way, which is what happens so often with confrontation. It is a process which, if both parties allow it to happen, can lead to a peaceful resolution. As I said earlier, it takes two to tango, so it needs both parties to be willing to operate within it and to be loving and honest in the process. Often when we are confronted we resort to particular behaviours ourselves, defensiveness, or anger, or denial. We need to listen and be honest about our responses, seeking to examine ourselves to see if there is truth in what is being said, and to work towards a suitable resolution. Not ignore and go and gossip about it, nor blow up, nor use any other game playing that deflects the criticism and makes it so we don’t have to deal with it, so we don’t have to consider it seriously. Listen. And consider.
This is the central point. Listen. If we listen to each other and properly hear each other’s concerns, we will be a lot better off as a community. If we speak of our own concerns appropriately in ways that are loving and honest then we give others a better chance to hear those concerns and open the door for reconciliation. If we say nothing, or react badly, then we are closing the door on reconciliation. Imagine if God our Father had done that to us, closed the door and punished us, instead of listening to us?
We accept that grace from God that is offered to us. How about offering it and accepting it from each other? How about not letting things escalate until relationships are fractured forever? How about saying something about what bothers you in a loving and peaceful way? How about listening to each other without reaction? Jesus would.
The Lord be with you.
Pentecost 15 2005
Exodus 1.8-2.10, Psalm 124, Romans 12.1-8, Matthew 16.13-20
If any want to become my disciples, let them deny themselves and take up the cross and follow me.
I don’t know whether it kills the body, apathy, maybe in the sense that we aren’t real good at getting off our butts to do anything it could, but its more a killer of the soul.
We watch those so-called current affair programs – Today Tonight, A Current Affair, and get our prejudices deep fried and ready-wrapped with a side order of self righteousness and paranoia. They tells us that we’re ok, and it’s those young dole bludging single mothers and those awful Moslems who are the cause of all the trouble in the world today. It makes us feel better about our carefree life on the couch, consuming. We let the tv channels do the agitating, we let them form our opinions for us, we subscribe to the world view they want us to have. They feed us this diet of moral garbage and we don’t even need to chew it – it is pre-masticated. Baby food. And we swallow it whole.
So then, this is a happy start to a sermon for a baptism isn’t it? I apologise a little bit, but I really wanted to get your attention and get you all thinking about what our role as Christians in the world is. Obviously when we are baptised we become part of the family of Jesus Christ, we become members of the church and we become heirs of the
John Mellenkamp. Anyone heard of him? He’s a singer. First he called himself Johnny Cougar, and then it was John Cougar, then John Cougar Mellenkamp as he began to reclaim his birth name, and then finally John Mellenkamp. God knows what will be next. Anyway, he wrote a song about making a difference. Actually he wrote a few, but this one in particular has a line in it that always sticks in my mind. It goes “Stand up for something, or your gonna fall for anything”. I think that was pretty much the chorus. It’s a great line. It’s about having an opinion and doing something about it. It’s about being passionate about a cause and helping out. That’s how things happen, that’s how social justice occurs, that’s how change occurs. Has anyone heard of William Wilberforce? What is he famous for? He is famous for his tireless work for the abolition of slavery. He was a man who felt called to serve God and the Kingdom in politics, and it was in that arena that his beliefs drove him to work for social justice, in areas like education for all people, overseas mission, parliamentary reform, and religious liberty, as well as every year for 18 years raising a motion to abolish slavery. In this matter he was finally successful 4 days before his death in July 1883. He was a man who followed the example of Jesus, giving his life for the pursuit of a greater good for all humanity, not his own personal agenda of the acquisition of wealth and power. He stood up and made a difference, devoted his life to it. He was patient and he perservered because he believed.
Wilberforce’s example for the way to live his life was of course Jesus. So then, what was Jesus like. Meek and Mild? I doubt it. Gentle, compassionate, empathic – yes. Meek – NO! Mild – NO!
Jesus was an agitator. That’s the main reason he died. The powers that be don’t like agitators. Agitators are trouble makers. They can be dangerous, especially if they go around telling the truth. Jesus, in his work and his words, made a difference. He made a difference in terms of humanity’s relationship with God, but let’s set that aside for just a minute. Jesus made a difference in terms of His relationships and actions during His life. He befriended the friendless. He ate with the unclean. He touched the untouchable. He healed the sick. He liberated those held under the bondage of a legalistic interpretation of the Law, he set them free. He pointed out the hypocrisy of the rulers and law interpreters. He showed that the
Essentially what I want to say this morning is this - Please make a difference in the world. This is what we are called to do as the baptised members of the family of Jesus Christ. (This is what I implore you, the parents and godparents of Kane, to do – to help raise Kane to be someone who will strive to make a difference, who will question and investigate, who will speak up when it is warranted,who will be compassionate, caring, assertive and always seeking justice. This is vitally important. Our nation, our world, depends on people like that.) Its not always easy – Jesus did say to the disciples that those seeking to follow him must take up their cross. This implies a hard road, a journey that will be difficult, a journey that may mean self sacrifice, but ultimately a journey that will benefit others, as well as being self-fulfilling. It’s a journey that has as its destination something that lies beyond our mortal existence, a journey that actually has some meaning, that actually goes somewhere. It’s a journey that benefits the many, not just the one. It’s a journey of love.
Get off the couch. Make a stand for something. Change the world, change yourself.
The Lord be with you.
Pentecost 12. Jealousy and Envy.
Genesis 37.1-4,12-28,
Sibling rivalry.
Its great fun, isn’t it?
Anyone with siblings will know about it.
Anyone with Children will know about it.
Sometimes it goes on for years. I know of elderly people who are still resentful of siblings, and don’t talk to them.
Usually at the heart of it is jealousy and envy.
Well, there are probably many, many factors for this, that have nothing at all to do with our faithful any of us are, or whether God favours some churches more than others. It’s probably got do with our ability to embrace change more than any perceived favouritism on God’s part. But what we must not do is let it divide us, because if we are divided, we are more likely to fall and to fail. And besides, there is a lot that bonds us together, much much more than what could break us apart.
Joseph’s brothers could have done well to have remembered that. That even though Joseph may have seemed more blessed than they were, there was still much more than joined them together. They were family. Some of them may have had different mothers, but they were joined in having the one father. They shared a common ancestry, they shared blood. They were, even if they didn’t want to see it at the time, one.
We’re like that in the church. For all our perceived differences in theology, scriptural interpretation and morality codes, we all share a common ancestry. We look to God as our Father, we look to Jesus as our saviour, we look to the Spirit as that which sanctifies and empowers us for our life and work in the world. We confess the Nicene Creed. And we seek to express our Christian faith in a way that is real for us, that says what we feel, and is authentic. Different ways of being church just don’t matter so much. Because when we get back to the basics of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, we see that Jesus was actually against exclusive religious hierarchy. Jesus was about unity. Even Paul – what does he say in the reading this morning? – “For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; the same Lord is Lord of all and is generous to all who call on Him.” Says it all, doesn’t it. God is God for all of us who confess the Nicene Creed. It’s just human stuff that keeps us apart. And it is those brave souls whose prophetic words of unity attempt to bridge the divides that struggle to keep us together.
Because in the end, working together with our siblings is much more productive and life-giving than working against them. Setting aside the minor differences, and working together on growing the kingdom of God is so much more what God wants us to do. Being prophetic voices for extending a welcome to them is a step reminiscent of Joseph’s brothers Judah and Reuben, who whilst not actually convincing the brothers to not harm Joseph at all, at least managed to keep him alive, and in the long run, secure the future of God’s people, the nation of Israel. This is what we have to do to secure the future of the church of God, in whatever form it will take. Because the one thing about the church that doesn’t change, is, paradoxically, the fact that it does change. The Church has never been constant, it is dynamic, just as we are, just as our faith is, just as our God is. And just as there was a reason for Joseph to end up with Lordship over his brothers, to be in a position to save them, so it may be that there is a reason for one part of the church to be growing and one shrinking. Only God knows what will happen.
So, we are called to embrace others, seek to work with them, and try to at least set aside jealousy and envy. If we can do this, nothing will hold us back, and the hopes of all Christians will indeed be realised. God’s Kingdom here on earth.
The Lord be with you.
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.
July 10th, 2005
Genesis 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
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.
Acts 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.
June 5th.
Genesis 12.1-9, Ps 33.1-12, Romans 4.13-25, Matthew 9.9-13, 18-26.
I can imagine Jesus using sarcasm.
“Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. `For I have come to call not the righteous but sinners.”
It’s a line made for sarcasm, because it’s a line that works on different levels. Simplistically, it is reassuring those who think they’re righteous that they are indeed righteous and are correct to think that way. I mean, they knew Jesus didn’t come to heal them, because they don’t need it, do they. They knew, I imagine, that they were ok, healthy, righteous. Jesus knew that they wouldn’t receive the Gospel, because they were full of the knowledge that they didn’t need it. The unclean, the outsiders, the tax collectors and sinners, the sick and suffering, they would receive it. Because the Gospel joins them to the Kingdom of God, which is based not on a plethora of laws and regulations, but on those 2 great commandments, that say nothing about tax collectors being unclean and menstruating women being untouchable. In the Kingdom of God, they can belong.
Tax collectors were untouchable because they were doing a rather distasteful job. It wasn’t just that they were collecting taxes which people have always begrudged paying. It was that they were collecting taxes for an occupying enemy of the Judean state, and to make money for themselves to live on they had to collect more than the amount that was required by the Romans. This extra was theirs to keep, and I’m sure that many of you will know that already. The woman who had suffered bleeding for 12 years, a chronic gynaecological problem, was unclean under Jewish law. Leviticus 15.19-30 spells it out. In essence, it says that a woman who is menstruating is unclean, and is to be shut out from the community for 7 days, and everyone who she touches, or who touches her is also to be shut out, and everything she touches is also unclean. It almost sounds laughable, a bit like the old lower primary school “girl’s germs” thing, but it was taken very seriously. This passage prescribes that on the eighth day the woman shall take two doves or two young pigeons and take them to the priest to make a burnt offering to God for atonement. That is, to make up for her sin of bleeding which is a natural part of her God created state!!!! I hasten to add that this is a characteristic of many old religions – the prophet Mohammed has a bit to say about it in the Quran, for example.
Its interesting that the in our reading this morning episode of the raising of the girl and the healing of the bleeding woman come straight after Jesus says this – “Go and learn what this means – “I desire mercy, not sacrifice”. This is very significant.
Sacrifice is for atonement. In almost every culture in which it has happened, it has been done in order to make up for sins, to appease an angry god, to extract a blessing from a god. It’s about correcting wrongs. In our society, when someone commits a crime they are punished. They sacrifice their freedom, or money, or time, in order to make up for the wrongdoing. It doesn’t correct it, but it is supposed to make up for it. The sacrificing of two doves then is supposed to be atonement, something to make up for her sin. Does this seem a bit unfair to you?
It looks like it seems unfair to God as well.
This sentence ““I desire mercy, not sacrifice” comes from the book of Hosea. It is God speaking of an unrepentant Israel, who offer sacrifices yet do not turn from the ways that go against God’s love for God’s people. It is saying that the sacrifice is not important, indeed that it is not wanted by God, and perhaps won’t have the desired effect of exonerating the people of Israel. God is saying that mercy is what God desires for the people, that atonement for sin requires people to change their ways. I guess that’s the thing about sacrifice – there is an attitude at times that once you have paid the price, that’s over and done with, and you can do it again, and pay the price again. It’s almost like paying a toll. Do the crime, serve the time, then get out and do it again. But mercy is something much more radical than that.
Mercy breaks into the cycle of sin and sacrifice. Mercy makes all people clean – not perfect, I hasten to add, but forgiven, included. Mercy means loving all. That doesn’t mean we should empty the prisons as such, but it does mean that we should treat prisoners a bit better. And it means for this woman who was bleeding for 12 years that she has suffered enough.
God doesn’t want us to suffer. No matter what we read in the Old Testament, God doesn’t want us to suffer. Most of all, God doesn’t want us to suffer the pain of separation, both from God and from society. To appease the desire to make sacrifice for sin, God gave his only Son. Humans sacrificed him, and in this, all believers are made whole, are granted mercy. No one has to sacrifice any more pigeons, least of all those for whom their only sin is to menstruate, and those for whom their only sin is to be afflicted with ill health. Jesus didn’t berate the bleeding woman for touching him and making Him unclean. What did he say to her? He said “Take heart, daughter, your faith has made you well.” She is whole, she is free from her affliction, she is restored to society. She is healed in mind, body and spirit. She is one of God’s people.
There is another symbolic action to all this as well. The blood. Blood, to the Jewish people, was the life of a creature. Leviticus 17.14 says that the life of a creature is its blood. Perhaps the bleeding that this woman has experienced can be seen symbolically as her losing her life, becoming less alive. On Stargate Atlantis, a science fiction television series, there are creatures known as the Wraith, who feed on their victim’s life force. This feeding causes the victim to age in a matter of seconds as their life force is drained. We know that when life is tough, it’s not just hard on the body. It saps the energy. Grieving people will often feel tired. Depressed people don’t have energy for anything, sometimes staying in bed for days on end. There is no zest for life, no energy, no life force, no soul. Jesus, in healing this woman, in restoring her to life in the community, has stopped this draining of life. He has restored her to life, just like Jairus’s daughter, the 12 year old girl, who seems to have died. Both of these women are raised from death, restored. Both have a second chance. Jesus gave them back their souls. And the tax collectors – well, imagine doing a job, living a life where everyone hated you, a job that you hated yourself, but did it because it made you money and helped you support your family. Perhaps some of you have been there, I know I have. It sucks the life out of you. Even a job you enjoy is like that at times, especially when there just doesn’t seem to be anytime for anything but work. But Jesus, in being with us in the midst of that, shows us the important things, the things we could all do well to remember, those things that are life giving. Family, friends, recreation, rest. Eating a meal with others, being social, being alive. When we die, we won’t regret not spending enough time working. No, what we will regret is not spending enough time enjoying life, being with our loved ones, having fun. Reclaiming our lost souls, our lost life.
God has given us back our lives, just as he gave back the lives of the bleeding woman and Jairus’s daughter. God has done this through Jesus Christ. Its there, Gods mercy, and it’s offered to us. Can we now show God’s mercy in kind to others? Can we be Jesus to the sick, to help others to receive from God their souls, their lives? You betcha! Praise the Lord who gives us life, and saves us from death. Alleluia!
22nd May.
Exod 34.1-8, Song of 3 young men 29-34, 2 Corinthians 13.11-13, Matthew 28.16-20.
Traditionally this is the day when priests and ministers invite mission speakers, theological students, or people of the street to preach, because its just too hard a subject. Why is it difficult? I mean, you only have to look at all the books written on the subject of the Trinitarian God to see that it is a very difficult subject. It is difficult to preach on the subject of God the Trinity because God is difficult to describe. We just don’t have the words for an adequate description, we don’t have the imagination to picture the unimaginable. But that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t try. Because the danger in just accepting that God is indescribable, almost unimaginable, is that we will just accept the space that is left, and we wont try to find God anyway. We might just think it’s all too hard and give up.
Wine tasting. Have you ever wondered about all that stuff that gets written about oatmeal tannins and spicy oak? I mean, what do oatmeal tannins taste like, or smell like to someone who doesn’t eat them? Or drink them or smell them, what ever it is you do with them? It’s all very subjective, and it’s all very much reminiscent of our problem of describing God. Chocolate is the same. How can we tell someone else what chocolate tastes like? Or that old line “It tastes like chicken” that is applied to just about everything. Does God taste like chicken?
What we find, really, is that no matter what a wine critic writes, no matter what we are told chocolate or barbequed brown snake tastes, it’s no substitute for experiencing it ourselves. Ultimately that is the only way for us to know ourselves what a taste is. Or a smell, or a feeling for that matter. And it’s like that with God as well, in that in reaching out to God, in feeling, seeing, hearing, smelling and tasting God for ourselves, we can truly know God. And from that knowledge of God we can be the ones who facilitate the search that others are on for God, especially in the vacuum of God consciousness that we find ourselves in today.
And there is a vacuum of knowledge and experience of God. It’s not through lack of searching, I mean just about every celebrity or pop star is into some sort of spirituality, sparking lots of other people to get into new age fads, which seem to change quite often. People want the spirituality, the crave it, they need it. We are spiritual beings, it is what we were created for. Once upon a time, most people in our society had at least some sort of knowledge about Christianity. But with the increasing secularisation of society people often these days lack the core knowledge, the basics, the Christian reference points, that would give them the foundation and the basis from which to begin that search. It’s into this vacuum that we are directed, by the great commission in the Gospel.
The epistle reading this morning, from 2 Corinthians 13, has at the end of it that prayer that we call “The Grace”. This verse is the earliest known Trinitarian formula in the church. It would seem that very soon, within 30 years of Jesus death and resurrection, the Trinity is known and seems to be an intrinsic part of the faith of the fledgling church. Almost 2000 years later it still is. We affirm it in the words of the Nicene creed. That the Trinitarian faith has withstood the test of time, and has strengthened says a lot. It speaks volumes of the truth that it represents to the community that confesses it world wide. The importance of this is underlined in Jesus command to his disciples, and through them, to us, in the words of the great suggestion. It reminds us that we are taking to the world in the task of the great commission not some fly by night new age psycho mumbo jumbo, but something that is grounded in the history and experience of the church, and more, in the faith history of the Israelites, a faith that links with previous ages, and will link with future ages. This is what we use as the basis for our mission as stated in the Great commission, which is what I would like to look at now.
It’s very easy to baptise in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. I mean, if you have an appropriate traditional church, you have people almost queuing up for their children to be baptised. Making disciples of people, well, that’s much harder.
Convincing people to be disciples of our Lord Jesus Christ, disciples as we are disciples, takes a lot of work. Its not just teaching them to obey everything that Jesus taught us, which is hard enough anyway. Its about incorporating newcomers, new disciples, into the community of faith, the family of Jesus. Being inclusive is the key. It was the key to Jesus’ work on this earth, the way he included people, the way his healings not only made a person healthy in body, it brought them back into society, back into community, healing their spirit. Making a disciple is a bit like a healing. In passing on the Gospel, we are helping God to work a miracle in them that will see them on a path to wholeness. We also need to include the new disciple in our community, so that the miracle has a good, safe and supportive place in which to work. New faith can often seem very strong, but it can also be very fragile. We need to be loving and supportive.
But there will also be changes for us. Inclusion has a cost. Just as getting a new Priest has seen some minor changes to things in the Parish, hopefully changes that people like, any new person joining the comunity will change something in the dynamics of a parish. This is something that needs to be thought of and acknowledged, and a commitment made before the planning day to work through when it happens. We have our planning day next week, and as Margaret Chittleborough will be preaching that morning at the one combined service at 9am, this is my last opportunity before then to speak to you as a whole in the context of a sermon. We are seeking to grow the parish. In the planning day process we will listen to God (I hope) and seek new ways to make disciples and include them in our community as equal members. Please think carefully about this during the week, the seriousness of this part of our task. Because if we invite people here and then get resentful of the changes, then we might as well withhold the invitations and plan closing the decommissioning service.
We have a message to proclaim. We have a God, the Trinitarian God, whose nature is a subject I think I’ve sidestepped quite nicely this morning. This Trinitarian God loves us, it is Gods nature to love us. We love God as well. We have people to reach and include. And we have our own faith to grow in the meantime. Thats a lot to do. So please pray about the planning day this week. Come to the service at 9am, and stay for the planning day. We have a lot to do in the coming years, and we need to get on with it. Just as synod got on with it yesterday in naming Bishop Jeff Driver as our new Archbishop, in a spirit of cooperation and prayerfulness.
The Lord be with you.
