The cartoon referred to in the sermon
For more ‘Coffee with Jesus’ – follow this link
Category: Sermon
Sermon for Sunday August 22nd – Stewardship
Sermon for Sunday 22nd September – Stewardship Sunday
Luke 16:1-13
The Good Steward
Today is one of those strange Sundays which I can never find in the liturgical calendar, but which almost all churches seem to celebrate, and that is Stewardship Sunday 🙂
Stewardship -I wonder what image that conjours in your mind? What are our expectations on ‘Stewardship Sunday’. I wonder if folk avoid church on ‘Stewardship Sunday’ 🙂
I wonder if this story resonates? I remember a colleague of mine at the Catholic school where I taught, and he recounted how the local parish priest had visited him and his wife on a dark winters evening. He had come in and without asking after them or their family, reminded them of their financial obligations to the church. and then left. . . as my friend said, ‘I wouldn’t have minded all that much, but he wasn’t our parish priest, we worshipped at another church!’ 🙂
Well, I have never preached on the subject of our giving to the church and I’m not about to break the habit of the last 15 years of ministry. Which you might think must be the end of the sermon, for what ELSE can one talk about on Stewardship Sunday, but money, or deceitful money as Jesu calls it. Like the vain person, Money assumes we MUST be talking about it 🙂 Of course we might think of Stewardship of ‘Our gifts, or time’ and perhaps we’ve heard sermons on that. But I’ve never preached on that either and don’t want to break my duck today 🙂 Partly because preaching on Money, or Gifts or Time, is to preach on things which we instinctively, if wrongly think of as ours, which has nothing to do with the Gospel of Jesus Christ – which begins with the assumption that Everything is God’s.
That we can say of Nothing – ‘This is Mine’. Indeed things, Money distort us and make us want to Own them. Thus we speak of Ours. That is the way Jesus addresses us about Money. He calls it Untrustworthy – Unrighteous – Deceitful – it’s out to trap you, out to make you think it is yours . . . So I don’t want to dwell on those things because we all tend to thinking they are ours however much we deny it – and we will end up with the sort of unhealthy dynamic where if my sermon is particularly skillful, then perhaps I can encourage you to think about giving a little more in these areas?? No
Rather I want to think what it means to be a Steward in biblical terms – what we are stewards of – and how we should respond to today’s gospel reading.
So what does it mean to be a steward? Firstly a steward is a servant. He or she has a master for whom they works. And they are ALWAYS in view. The Christian is God’s Servant, God’s Steward. In a sense being God’s steward is the Whole Active Christian life. Supremely in The Servant, The Steward of The Lord. Jesus Christ, whose Bread is to do the will of HIs Father. We are the Body of Christ – so we, the church are the Servant of the Lord – our very life is about serving God – that is why we are here. The manager in the story is put in charge of his masters things – but he has squandered them. And he realises his time is up, for his master wants an account!! He knows he is facing the sack.
Similarly our Stewardship is something of which we are expected to give an account. Individually and as a church. Christ calls us to account. ‘How have you stewarded what I have entrusted to you?’ God is asking us. So our Lives and our Life together is lived out with a view to Christ and His command to us. He is the one we must answer to. And here we have a problem, for frankly when it comes to we modern people, we are so full of our sense of it being Our Life to do what We want to do with, that the idea that we might have to give an account is at best vague. Put another way, we tend to think of God and Christ in very abstract terms. The idea of Judgement, of accounts being made is not close to the surface of our thinking, but we cannot begin to think clearly about Stewardship without this. The Steward in the story is FAR wiser than we are in this regard. ‘the children of this age are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light.’ He’s VERY aware of his boss and his responsibilities. Put another way, if we are foolish enough to claim to be Christians, then we should know better in the matter of having to give an account.
So Stewards work for another – and they have to give and account of how they have CARED for that which is not theirs. Stewardship is a matter of taking Care of that which is Gods. This is why I do not think Money, or gifts or talents or out time are in view when we think of Stewardship. I want to suggest that Stewardship has little if anything to do with anything we might be deceived into things we think of as ours. Rather they are those things which we feel detached from. THESE are the things we are given to care for. Indeed THERE in a sense is part of the problem. Dishonest Money actually Detaches us from our sense of responsibility – we do not identify with that with which we have been entrusted as Stewards . . .
Three areas of Stewardship that are given into our hands. They define the Entire Active life of the Christian, God places them into Our Care, and will come to ask us what we have done with them.
The Creation – If you like, the original model of the Stewards are Adam and Eve – they are told to ‘Till and to Keep the Garden’. As some of us explored last year – the words have overtones of worship – their tending is to be worshipful – in the sense of treating with the greatest of respect. As we heard a few weeks ago in our musings on Colossians, Jesus is the Second Adam, He stewards Creation in healing the sick and casting out demons, and calming the storm, and cursing the unfruitful tree – He is the one in whom the whole created order holds together and for whom it was made. So As the Body of Christ we are to Steward the Creation.
And when we do, The Creation is a source of blessing to us – The Earth hath brought forth her increase and God, even our own God shall bless us Ps 67:6 – As we tend the Earth, then God blesses his servants through the Earth. God looks after the Good Stewards whose eyes are on looking after God’s good Earth. YET . . . we have as it were sought to make the Earth a source of our own gain, We have not treated it as if it was not ours, to do with as we life, we have not been Good Stewards. And so more and more the Creation is not that vehicle of blessing . . .
Just this week I was reading of one of hundreds of examples of this. How in Alaska – for generations people have with tremendous respect and care fished for Sockeye Salmon. Stopping the fishing if the stocks looked stressed. But now it appears that the huge headwater area is also the site of possible Gold and tin mineral extraction on a vast scale – the Financial worth of the deposits estimated at $ 1 trillion US. Although one mining corporation this week announced it was withdrawing one big corp now has what it likes to call ‘Rights’ on the whole lot (How Proud we are, to say we have RIGHTS on that which is God’s) . . . $1tn, or the health of the Salmon?? History which seems in this regard be heading into an abyss tells us who will win in the end. If you like sockeye salmon, enjoy them this season . . . dishonest wealth distorts our view.
We are given stewardship of our own souls – of our lives before God… I wonder if we have thought of that? For as Christians Our lives are not our own to do with as we will as much as the planet is not ours to do with as we will. Creation, Our souls – belong to God in Christ. To mix the metaphor, How do we tend the garden of our soul?
The rich man calls his Steward to give an account – we are accountable. The Steward is not his own boss – neither are we. How do we tend the garden of our souls wisely? By being accountable for our lives.
How regularly do we sit with someone to give an account of our stewardship of our soul? Of our life with God?
We are meant to do this – we are meant to watch over one another in love. And again money distorts it. We have grown up in a church where the only people who are accountable are those we pay 🙂 They have contracts and terms of service and covenants. And we are SO used to money dictating things that we think there is nothing wrong with this, after all Deceitful mammon whispers in our ears, ‘we don’t want to waste our money, do we?’ . . . – but are we as alert to the wasting souls amongst us?
I wonder how many of us come to worship Sunday by Sunday, but think ‘I feel like such a lousy Christian’ – I wonder how few of us dare to voice this to another – to ask for help – to say to someone else, would you help me steward my soul? Would you in love, hold me to account for my life?
The shrewd manager sees the time of accounting coming! He realises he has failed big time he realises he is about to be sacked . . . so he thinks ‘I need some friends’ and he takes the bills of his masters clients and in a rush cuts and slashes them – ‘quick rewrite your bill so its half as much – you – cut yours by a third – you cut yours by 80%!’ Of course when his master sacks him – these people will look after him, for he has ‘looked after them – and his master smiles. He’s lost his money, and this scoundrel has taken care of himself 🙂 He is shrewder than the children of Light
Which brings us to our final arena of stewardship of One another.
3) Love your neighbour as you love yourself – This is Stewardship – for your neighbour is a bearer of the image of God. They belong to Him. I wonder if we think about this when we think about our neighbour. The person we meet on the street. The poor. They belong to God -they are put into Our hands. Esepcially those of us who have the financial means to help them. Throughout Scripture, ‘The Righteous person’ is exemplified in the one whom the poor know as their friend. Righteousness and care for the poor go hand in hand.
It is in regard to This stewardship that the story Jesus tells hits home most clearly. The manager – the steward of the rich mans affairs has made a mess of it – we are told he has squandered his property. The man puts money to work, to buy himself friends. And Jesus says we should do the same, and particularly with respect to The Poor. Until Very recently Care for the Poor was understood as Central to Christian piety. But less and less so, as so many Christians ironically grown wealthy, and increasingly separated from the poor. One of the ways Money is deceitful is in hiding the wealthy from the poor. It is worth considering how we live in our society – are the rich and the poor cheek by jowl? No, there are rich neighbourhoods and poor neighbourhoods. HOw many of us know people as friends whose daily lives are a struggle to feed a family, I wonder? The Righteous are known and welcomed by the poor.
We live separate lives and so The Poor are just an abstraction to us . . . just like God and judgement and giving an account. For many in our society, and indeed sadly in the church, the poor are just an abstraction – we do not sit at table with them, or share their lives, yet I regularly hear them condemned as deserving their poverty, written off as wastrels. THese people who are by and large strangers to us
And the Owner of the house is coming. Next week the door closes. Week by week we have heard Jesus warning his people about dishonest wealth, about caring for the poor. Next week we have the chilling tale of the Rich man and Lazarus. The door closes, The judge has come and the one who lived without a care for the poor man at the gate finds himself in hell . . . This week we are a week shy of this – the manager realises that the judge is on the way – so what does he do?? He transfers his masters wealth to those amongst whom he will have to live. and Jesus notes – the Master commended him for his shrewdness. When the accounts are settled, the man will find himself amongst friends and Jesus says ‘And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of dishonest wealth so that when it is gone, they may welcome you into the eternal homes.’
He acts out of fear . . . he is not a child of light. He does what he does because he knows he’s out on his ear. We Know that we are utterly loved by the One who has given His World, His people and indeed His Life to us. We have nothing to fear from Deceitful wealth, however loudly it may whisper in our ears that we have to look Care for it. We have been given a far more glorious task of Caring for Creation and Others and through that our very souls
I said at the outset that God wasn’t in view in the Rich man, but perhaps in a sense he is. Yes we like the scoundrel manager have squandered what belongs to HIm. We have squandered the earth, our souls and indeed the lives of others, but perhaps at the last, he might smile upon those who have come to their senses, Woken up to who they are in Christ, and have sought to be the Good Stewards they were created to be.
Amen
Sermon for Sunday 23rd June – St John the Evangelist (transferred)
Sermon for Patronal Festival
St John the Evangelist, Roslyn
Exodus 33:12-23
Psalm 117
1 John 1
John 21:20-25
The glorious gospel of Jesus Christ
Years ago, whilst training for ordained ministry, I was struck by the opening of one of the books I read. Indeed I wasn’t so much struck by it as haunted by it – as it’s memory has stuck with me down through the years, and it seems that today as we celebrate our Patronal Festival (almost exactly 6months late 🙂 ) it is a good place to start our consideration of the scriptures.
The book, ‘Telling the Story’, by Andrew Walker, professor of theology and education at King’s College, London opens with these words
‘In 1983, Lesslie Newbigin’s first draft of his book, The Other side of 1984, was being discussed in the British Council of Churches by a distinguished group of churchmen and women, including bishops and leading theologians. The question arose: ‘Well, what is the gospel anyway?’ Only two of the people present were prepared to hazard a guess’
Walker continues ‘This is shocking, but it is not so surprising’.
One can readily imagining a church meeting – or indeed a sermon where the question is put – ‘What is the gospel, anyway?’ And we would all break into little groups and discuss it and possibly there would be scribes who would write down our answers. The conversation would I guess go something like this ‘Well, for me, the gospel is . . .’, and ‘For me, the gospel is . . .’ You may like to think about that question briefly? And I wonder how many of our definitions when carefully questioned would be devoid of any mention of Jesus Christ . . . but I pray that they would not, here of all places
On this our Patronal festival, it is first of all worthwhile remembering the full ascription of our church. To all and sundry we are known as St John’s, Roslyn. But our full ascription is ‘St John the Evangelist, Roslyn’ St John the Evangelist. St John the one who declares the Evangel, the Good News, the Gospel. We above all should know what the Gospel is
St John, the one commonly thought to be he who lay at the breast of Jesus at the last supper – close to the heart of Jesus – declares to us the very heart of the Gospel – and John’s message is simple. The Gospel John proclaims is Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ Is the good news. He comes not to declare some message from God, he does not come to suggest to us the right way to live. Jesus does not come to announce the Gospel – He Is the gospel. It is His Life which is offered both to God and to the world.
What is it that John says in the opening to the first epistle, to which we have just listened?
We declare to you what was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands, concerning the word of life— this life was revealed, and we have seen it and testify to it, and declare to you the eternal life that was with the Father and was revealed to us.
What we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands – this Life.
Herein is one of the greatest challenges for us as the people of God in this age. In an age which is increasingly solipsistic, that is that lives in its heads, that thinks truth is a set of propositions about which we may agree or disagree over a dinner table yet still live together as we have always lived, and moreover which thus perhaps more than ever before, spiritualises the gospel that we may escape its concrete demands on our life, our challenge is this – that John, the one who is accused, and indeed in some of the early church writings lauded for writing a spiritual gospel – identifies the gospel with ‘Jesus, son of Joseph from Nazareth’. The Light of the World, The Bread of heaven, The Good shepherd of the sheep, The Way, The Truth, The Life. All these Wonderful ascriptions are no mere Ideas, they are not timeless truths, They are to be seen, heard and touched in Jesus. The Living Word of God is made Flesh.
John proclaims no vague ‘spiritual gospel’ No ‘message’ or ‘timeless spiritual truth’ His gospel is the flesh and blood and bone and breath material reality that is Jesus Christ
And that the Life is declared – the gospel is announced – so that you also may have fellowship with us; and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is declared as the Life that comes from God, that we might share in the life Of God. ‘Now this is eternal life – that they might Know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent’
We must wonder at those churchmen and theologians who could not put the gospel into words – who did not know What it was. We must wonder, ‘Did they not know Jesus Christ?’
For He is our Life – the entirety of it – as Jesus says to us ‘Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing.’ Might we suggest that the church is in the unhealthy state it is, because increasingly it has less and less to do with Jesus, her risen Lord and the entire content of her being? As St Paul says ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.’ This is a great mystery, and I am applying it to Christ and the church. Christ Is our Life. Apart from Him we have no good thing
Do we know this? That Jesus Christ is our Life? As John puts it in Chapter 3vs16-17 ‘For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Those who believe in him are not condemned; but those who do not believe are condemned already, because they have not believed in the name of the only Son of God.’ That there is Life only in the name of Jesus.
Just a week or so ago, many church folk were astir at the ‘once in a lifetime’ visit of the Dalai Lama to Dunedin. Understandably so in some respects. A man of international standing and widely admired . . . but, brothers and sisters, not once in a lifetime – but Every week we gather here to meet with Jesus Christ, the Lord of history, the one through whom ‘All things [have come] into being,’ The one without [whom] not one thing came into being.’ He comes to us – His is the life we share – It is His word we hear proclaimed – it is His body and blood upon which we feed. We sometimes speak about ‘Going to church’ as if it were somehow just another even in the week. Sometimes we enjoy it, sometimes we don’t, sometimes the choice of hymns suits our tastes, sometimes they don’t, sometimes the sermon is to long for us, sometimes we wished it were longer 🙂 But ALWAYS Jesus Christ is present amongst us – ALWAYS we receive forgiveness of our sins through his blood – ALWAYS The Lord is HERE!!! Think folk about that just for a moment. I was left wondering why there was so much excitement about the visit of the Dalai Lama, and seemingly so little Joy amongst the people of God Sunday by Sunday – when we meet with Jesus Christ our Life. We may want to ponder that for just a moment. Do we, the flock of Christ here in this place Know him?
John shows us unambiguously that we cannot flee to the vacuous subjectivity of ‘the spiritual’ – handily divorcing faith from the concrete commands of Jesus. Jesus of Nazareth Is the gospel – and this is not just John – Jesus the Good News of God is the subject of all of scripture – that Gospel is proclaimed throughout all the pages of Scripture. Moses, it seems to me sees Christ far more clearly than we who bear his name often do.
As God in his mercy reveals a little of himself to Moses – Moses realises that the people cannot live apart from the presence of the Living One as he intercedes with God ‘Consider too that this nation is your people.’ The LORD said, ‘My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.’ Come to me, all ye that are weary and heavy laden, and I shall give you rest . . . And [Moses] said to [the LORD], ‘If your presence will not go, do not carry us up from here. For how shall it be known that I have found favour in your sight, I and your people, unless you go with us? The disciples have to be told by Jesus that apart from Him they can do nothing, apart from Him they Are nothing, but Moses pleads in effect – Do not leave us In this way, we shall be distinct, I and your people, from every people on the face of the earth.’ In this way, we shall be distinct . . . from every people on the face of the Earth.
The reduction of the Gospel to a spiritual message – carefully crafted to offend none – stripped of its true content, Jesus Christ – leaves Christians utterly indistinct from every people on the face of the earth. ‘Oh you are spiritual? So are we – how lovely!’ But how can we know what Spiritual means??? Apart from Jesus Christ – the Word made flesh. Apart from that core understanding that apart from the Life of the Living One in our midst we have nothing, we are nothing, we gain nothing. Yet knowing Him, we have Everything.
The words Follow Me – are addressed through Peter to the whole church – to live our live in and through and with Jesus Christ
Next year – 2014 – we celebrate the 200th Anniversary of the first preaching of Christ upon these shores. As a diocese we will together be called to a corporate act of identification with Jesus Christ. Across the Diocese there will be a renewal of our baptismal vows – a reminder to us all that we have seen the Glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, and we have died in baptism with him, and that our life is hid with Christ in God. Following that, the bishop will embark on a Diocesan wide Hikoi – proclaiming the Gospel of Jesus Christ across the Otago and Southland.
When as it is to be hoped such proclamation of Jesus Christ stirs up our neighbours to ask of us ‘What is the gospel anyway?’ May we not be ashamed to bear the name of Jesus. May we not shy from naming him as our Life – May we not be left as those churchmen and theologians were embarrassedly struggling for words – especially here in the Church that bears the name of the one that has written these things that we might believe, and believing might have Life in and through Jesus Christ.
Amen
Sermon for Sunday June 16th – Four after Pentecost 2013
1 Kings 21:1-10, 15-21a
Luke 7:36-8:3
“I see you”
Naboth the Jezreelite had a vineyard in Jezreel, beside the palace of King Ahab of Samaria. And Ahab said to Naboth, ‘Give me your vineyard, so that I may have it for a vegetable garden, because it is near my house; I will give you a better vineyard for it; or, if it seems good to you, I will give you its value in money.’
That these verses are seemingly innocuous to us, betrays a poverty of theological imagination of the highest and most destructive order. That we can hear these words without a chill going down our spine shows how little we think of God. We think that Ahab’s request is perfectly reasonable – indeed we do not think it can possibly have anything to do with God – after all, isn’t this precisely how we live out our lives?
We see something someone has, and we ask if we might own it instead? I am aware locally of several instances of people or organisations looking at a piece of property – a house perhaps which stands on land which would be very useful to them, and so they make the home owners an offer, and like Ahab sulk when they don’t get their own way. After all, ‘Everyone has their price . . .’ Indeed we see this working itself out in many ways across the world. Governments and large corporations making offers to people to move them off their land, for large agricultural or power schemes. And when they don’t get their way . . . well if sulking is the worst they do, then the people have been fortunate. Much of our food and power production in the modern world is dependent on peoples being moved off their ancestral land, ‘for the greater good of all’ we say. And yet of course it is not Our land which people seek to acquire. It is Not Our land.
In a couple of weeks time, together with my family, I’ll be flying back to the UK. As part of our time there, we’ll spend a week in a remote coaching house, high in the mountains of Snowdonia, North Wales. As you approach the house you drive up a long broad valley with steep sided mountains rearing up to right and left. The hill to the left was made famous some 70 years ago now, when the man who farmed it wrote a book about his experiences
It is a fine and very enjoyable read, but I have to admit I am always put off it by the title “I bought a mountain”. It is I suggest presumptuous, indeed more than that, it verges on the blasphemous. It is surely incredible that anyone who has the remotest sensitivity to Holy Scripture would fail to think this way – for ‘The Earth is the Lord’s and all they that dwell there in’ Yes all land has an owner – the Lord. None of it is ours to buy or sell – but that is not how we see things . . .
One of the interesting things to consider as we approach the 200th anniversary of the first proclamation of the gospel in these lands, is that one reason that the Maori we so very open to the message of the Scriptures was precisely because the Bible teaches that no-one Owns the land. To Maori thinking, as to that of the Hebrews, it was plain. The land was not up for sale. Those first Pakeha migtrants were allocated space, and to farm, because we all need land to flourish. So Space was made, but never with our understanding of Ownership. For the Maori Understood, they Saw that no-one owned the land. Indeed it is a ridiculous idea, because one way or another everyone ends up as fertiliser for the land 🙂 but later the English began to sell the land. Essentially the heart of our many of our bicultural problems here in New Zealand are related to this difference in understanding.
As it was famously with Ghandi, so too with the Maori to some extent – both Saw, both Understood the gospel far better than those who proclaimed it. For several centuries the Western version of Christianity had become increasingly dissociated from the Creation. The word ‘The Earth is the Lord’s’ reduced to the level of a pious bumper sticker – having no concrete reference in the lives of believers. Ahab, in many ways represents Our view of Land, as commodity. The scriptures warn us against covetousness, but we like Ahab see and we desire . . .
But, Naboth responds to Ahab : ‘The Lord forbid that I should give you my ancestral inheritance.’ Now we have to be careful here – for we might think that Naboth ‘owns the land’ – in the way for example that part of my family had until about 30 years ago, farmed the same land for several generations. But no this is not quite the same. Rather the ‘inheritance of Naboth’ was that Land that God had distributed, so that in the end none would go without food. All would have, for want of a better phrase ‘the means of production’ – for the Land brings forth her increase – and thus we are blessed by God. ‘The LORD forbid!’ This was enshrined in The Key Law of the Old Testament – the One that Jesus comes to enact and of which I have spoken before – the Law of Jubilee. Jubilee recognised that some would do worse, some would do better, and thus some might find themselves having to pass their land to others in order to survive. BUT after 50 years All land reverted – without penalty. You didn’t have to pay to get it back – because it didn’t belong to the others in the first place. It belonged to God. We do not believe this.
So Ahab is transgressing the law of God in seeking to obtain the land from Naboth in the first place. Naboth knows, he must not give away, and he definitely must NOT sell it. He must not make that which God has given to him a means of dishonest gain. For that in truth is what it is. We cannot even begin to comprehend this, how far has our perception, our apprehension of the Living God evaporated from our consciousness that we hear the opening verses of the reading and do not quake in our boots – we do not cry out in horror at the blasphemous acquisitiveness of Ahab. We just don’t get it. Oh yes we get the horror of what happens next – but we are blind to the appalling sinfulness of the request – because it is how we live out our own lives.
Ahab views the land, and wants it for himself. That is Sin – and it still is. Now I could give you many and varied examples of this going on all around us – suffice to say that acquiring land is how much of modern commerce and trade goes on. Interestingly there is in the scriptures a constant if quiet judgement of trading, which occasionally bubbles to the surface as in this tale. we think nothing of it. We have lost sight of God. And thus also our neighbour.
Indeed it is the evil genius of the modern world that it hides the neighbour from us. and it is why money is so important to us. For Money is a mechanism of disconnection from the other – everyone has their price. When we go to buy something apart from courtesies, we have no interest whatsoever in the person from whom we buy – we pay its value in money – the human is hidden. Indeed of course so much that we buy we do not buy from those who produce. Who made the clothes we wear? Unless you buy all your food at the farmers market, then it is highly unlikely you know who grew it. We certainly don’t know anyone involved in the production of our food in the biblical sense – that you Know them we eat with them, we are their neighbour. But even the act of buying and selling itself denies the other. Ultimately it denies God. how can we pay anyone for anything if the Earth is the Lord’s?? We have devised a way of living which denies the fundamental truth, that Everything belongs to God – and thus also we lose sight of our neighbour. We think that the answer to hunger in the world is better structures – but in reality it is the necessary softening of hearts of those who dwell in fine houses and dine sumptuously each day – to pick up on a later story of Jesus.
And losing sight of God and neighbour is at once the key theme of both this reading and our gospel, and also the heart of our human plight. Thus Jesus is the one who comes to restore sight to the blind. And to See God, is also to see ourselves not only in relationship to God, not only in relationship to others, but in relationship to the whole of creation. We live lives of disconnection from Creation and our neighbour which would have been unimagineable but a few generations ago. We think we can buy mountains, indeed we think we can buy anything if only we have the money. We are oblivious to the impact of others of our decisions. We mat say – ‘this is my land’ – ‘this is my mountain’ even . . . And God laughs us to scorn . . . We are called to a deep deep repentance. Before we can accept the life giving word as the Baptiser says, our hearts must be prepared. ‘You have two cloaks, your neighbour has none’ Unless we are repentant we cannot hear the Life giving word of Christ. Our deceiving hearts block the path of Grace.
At least Ahab had to look Naboth in the face! At least he was tormented by the outcome, and at least he repented – although sadly our reading stopped short of that point. Our lives are disconnected, from the land, from one another and thus from God. It is one reason why I am increasingly saying that as Christians we are ‘against the Spiritual’ – for ‘the Spiritual’ is a way in which modern man escapes the concrete responsibility and necessary repentance he has to his neighbour and to creation. We ‘spiritualise the gospel’ – we sing pietistic hymns about how sweet the name of Jesus sounds – but we do not obey Jesus. We do not See him. we do not know him. And I admit freely and without any pride whatsoever that I know much of my own failings in this regard.
I entitled this sermon – ‘I see you’. Years ago a tutor at theological college told us that we in the West say – ‘How are you?’ when we meet others. But in many African cultures people say ‘I See you’. The other day, in Auckland I was involved in a mihi for the first time and shared a Hongi with several people. I was told that some people looked the other in the eye when pressing noses – I am someone who does look people in the eye – it was a powerful experience – I fully understand why the Maori understand it to be a sharing of divine life. And of course once you have so shared Hongi, you are no longer manuhiri [visitors], you are now tangata whenua – one of the people of the land, sharing in all that that means – sharing in life – Sharing – neighbours in the biblical sense.
Our gospel reading at first sight about foregiveness and love – which it is – is also about the associated theme of hospitality and sharing in life. Jesus asks Simon the Pharisee, ‘Do you see this woman?’ ‘Do you see her?’ Ahab Sees the Land with covetous eyes. “I want that!!” He only sees Naboth purely in terms of his realtionship to the land which Ahab erroneously thinks he owns. Simon sees the woman – purely as a sinner. He has no relationship with her and indeed does not want one with her. One can only wonder at his reaction if he had to give her a hongi! Simon stands afar off. The woman draws close to Jesus.
It is worth noting that the story doesn’t make the sense we expect it to. Jesus uses the love of the woman for him to teach Simon a story about forgiveness – if we read it closely the dynamic is staggering, in her drawing near to Jesus she is forgiven. Her love for Jesus is as much the trigger for forgiveness as it is the result of it. Jesus only speaks the words ‘Your sins are forgiven’ AFTER she has wept over his feet and dried them and it is not entirely clear whose benefit it is for – indeed all we hear is the reaction of the others in the house. She has entered relationship with Jesus – She loves him. As in the story of jesus and Peter which we have mentioned several times since easter – there is no act of penitence – all there is is love. Do you love me.
To Love is to welcome the other – to identify with the other. To identify them in their freedom. Love is never coercive. It involves no ownership of the other. Rather it is a free sharing in the life of the other freely given. It is all gift. The Biblical word is Grace. Unfortunately we are heirs to such a distorted tradition that we imagine Grace is purely something which exists in relationship to our relationship with God. But aside from our relationship with creation and our neighbour we cannot know God. The Land is Gift. It is not to be bought or sold, indeed it cannot. If we do not see this, we do not see. Every person we meet is gift to us, as the woman was to Jesus. To reduce her to a moral problem, or as in the case of Naboth a difficult trader – is to fail to see them. Do we see?
Sermon for 2 after Pentecost – Sunday June 2nd 2013 – 9th Sunday in Ordinary Time
Sermon for Sunday 2nd June – 2nd after Pentecost
1 Kings 18:20-21, 30-39
Psalm 96
Galatians 1:1-12
Luke 7:1-10
‘you’ve gotta serve somebody’
Bob Dylan
Last weekend, as Jo reminded us last Sunday, we offered our hospitality to the Diocesan Hui on Marriage. Certainly for any number of reasons, being here in New Zealand has caused me to reflect at far greater depth on these matters than I had done whilst in England. And in particular I have been drawn over and again to the words of Jesus concerning marriage – which for the far greater part reveal that he does not think as we do on these matters, whether we are Conservatives or Liberals, both of whom seem to see in marriage the Summum bonum, the highest Good.
Jesus sees marriage as relatively unimportant – and I choose my words carefully. Relatively Unimportant. Relative to what you might well ask? Relative to the Kingdom of God, and thus Relative to the life of a Disciple of Jesus.
In one of the parables of the Kingdom, someone uses as an excuse ‘I have just got married’ – and we all know what is the outcome for those who excuse themselves from the invitation of the King. Again Jesus over and again points out that devotion to Him far far outweighs all others relationships. Just the other week I was on retreat with other clergy and lay ministers and we heard these words from the gospel of Luke ‘Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple.’ Yes, as we all know, or at least as I hope we all know, Jesus is engaging in hyperbole here, but the point is clear – without a devotion to the person of Jesus that dwarfs all other allegiances, including marriage and family life – we cannot be his disciples. St Paul sees marriage as a hindrance to discipleship. It is only because we view Marriage through the distorting lens of Christendom that we think otherwise.
Jesus says marriage is not important enough to be part of the Age that is to come, where ‘they neither marry nor are given in marriage’. As the church, we are an eschatalogical community, a foretaste of the age to come, Marriage is not of much significance to the church.
At the end of the Hui, Bishop Kelvin speaking of his episcopal ministry used the metaphor of a lumberjack, trying to keep a great raft of logs together on a river. The image that came to mind was that the raft of logs has got stuck up a creek. Perhaps our lack of progress on this issue is precisely its insignificance in terms of the Kingdom of God.
We are now in what the church calls Ordinary time. From Advent to Ascension – we focus on the coming, the incarnation, the revealing, the passion and the resurrection of Jesus. Now the focus shifts onto the church and its faithfulness to Jesus – The Kingdom of God and discipleship, that is our obedience to Jesus, which is the essence of the Kingdom.
The heart of discipleship is obedience to Jesus. As Dietrich Bonhoeffer puts it, ‘only the one who obeys believes, and only the one who believes obeys’. Believing in Jesus and Obeying Jesus are one and the same. There is no distinction between faith and works. To believe is to be living out this Salvation Life.
Our gospel reading today focusses on the associated issue of Authority – the Authority of Christ. Obedience to Jesus comes from a recognition of who he is – to see who he is is of course to believe in Him and believing He is who he Is, obedience is of course only natural.
And Jesus in this encounter with the Centurion is staggered – he is ‘amazed’ at the faith which is evidenced before him. But whose faith is he talking about? We might think that self evidently that of the Centurion, but I suggest that is not all. The story is worth looking at in some detail.
After Jesus had finished all his sayings in the hearing of the people, he entered Capernaum. ‘After Jesus had finished all these sayings . . . Luke clearly intends us to link the gospel incident with what Jesus has just been saying ‘in the hearing of the people’. We are as it were encouraged to be ‘the people’ who have heard him speak, and who now follow Him to Capernaum. But what was it Jesus has just said?
Actually, he has just completed what we might call Luke’s version of The Sermon on the Mount. Like that in Matthew – Luke has Jesus conclude the sermon with the words about the house on the rock and that built on sand. And as in Matthew there are words about the importance of Obedience. In Matthew Jesus says ‘‘Not everyone who says to me, “Lord, Lord”, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only one who does the will of my Father in heaven.” In Luke we hear Jesus perhaps in exasperation saying this, ‘ ‘Why do you call me “Lord, Lord”, and do not do what I tell you?’
Put another way, they call him Lord, but do not treat him as such – they do not recognise his Authority. And so with those words as the background, Jesus comes to Capernaum. A centurion there had a slave whom he valued highly, and who was ill and close to death. When he heard about Jesus, he sent some Jewish elders to him, asking him to come and heal his slave. Note, the gentile Centurion sends the Jewish elders to Jesus, They don’t offer to go. Perhaps a sign that whilst he recognises Jesus, they do not. Well we know what happens next. The Centurion, hearing that Jesus is en route, sends some of his friends to Jesus, and tells them ‘Lord, do not trouble yourself, for I am not worthy to have you come under my roof; therefore I did not presume to come to you. The honour the Centurion holds Jesus in is such that he would not presume to come to him . . . But only speak the word, and let my servant be healed. Words of great faith which we sometimes echo in our words of invitation to the Eucharist ‘Lord, I am not worthy to receive you, but only say the word, and I shall be healed.’ The Centurion recognises the Authority of the Words of Jesus – How?
For I also am a man set under authority, with soldiers under me; and I say to one, “Go”, and he goes, and to another, “Come”, and he comes, and to my slave, “Do this”, and the slave does it.’ The Centurion exercises authority – and he recognises authority. When Jesus heard this he was amazed at him. He has just been expressing his frustration with his hearers ‘Why do you call me Lord! Lord! and do not DO what I say???’ And then this Gentile Centurion describes how he orders his soldiers and his slaves and they do what he tells them. ‘I tell you, not even in Israel have I found such faith.’ Who has the higher Authority?? Jesus, or the Centurion? The answer is so obvious. But who commands the respect of obedience? The Centurion. Jesus as it were sees the ‘faith’ of the soldiers and the slaves of the Centurion, who obey him. He sees their response and compares it with the failure of those he is teaching to ‘Do what I say’, their ‘lack of faith’
But of course this Is the story of those who presume to call themselves the people of God.
In our Old Testament lesson – what is at stake is also the matter of Authority. In Elijah’s famous face off with the prophets of Ba’al – the issue precisely is ‘Who is God?’ Ba’al or Yahweh, The LORD. And following the dramatic encounter, all the people declare ‘the LORD is God, The LORD is God’. But for all that recognition, as the prophets declare – the people do not acknowledge him as such in their lives. They cry out to him when things go badly, but do not obey him as Lord and God. ‘Why do you call me Lord, Lord and do not DO what I say?’ And so it is when the LORD stands amongst us in the flesh. Many see his acts, even more hear his words, but few obey. Their own agendas are all so much more pressing. As Jesus says ‘they hear the word, but the cares of the world, and the lure of wealth, and the desire for other things come in and choke the word, and it yields nothing.’
I wonder if that was going on last weekend, certainly it yielded little if anything. Our thinking about marriage is so skewed – we see it of such distorted importance, that when we hear Jesus say ‘whoever has left his . . . wife . . . for my sake and the kingdom . . .’ we assume he must have got it wrong . . . but that is quite plainly what he says. To be a disciple is to be devoted to Jesus, to recognise his authority, like the soldiers and the slaves of the Centurion, to Act immediately in accordance with his command. Put another way, to have faith
To tie up there is something which needs to be said about Obedience to Jesus. For it is a mark of our wayward hearts that we find such a thought onerous. And so we must insist on two things. Firstly that obedience is the fruit of faith – it is not an attempt to curry favour with God.
Such a thing is not possible – God in Christ has reconciled the world to himself – We are made right through faith in Jesus. We do not obey Jesus in order that we might be put right with God. We do not obey, like perhaps the soldiers and slaves obey, out of fear. We obey because we Recognise him, we recognise his authority – Calling him Lord is not merely the word of our lips, it is the deepest recognition of our hearts and wills. It is a sign that in truth we do Know Him, we recognise that He Is Lord. To obey him is to recognise Him for who he is, the one who fills everything in every way, the eternal Logos of God. It is to align ourselves with all that is good and true and beautiful – it is to align ourselves with the Light and Life of the World. Not to do so is to say that there is some other greater source of authority in the world, there is some other, some higher truth.
And this brings us to the second and final point. That knowing Jesus, we Love him, and obedience is the natural fruit of that Love. Nothing delights us more than to obey the one we love. For we know that in obedience to the one who loves us so much that he died for us, we will truly find our deepest Joy. We recognise deep within ourselves the Life giving nature of his command, that at first declared all things Good, like a spring of water welling up to eternal life. To know that in obedience to Him we know our true freedom, that for which we were made, the fulness of all we were created to be – truly children of the most high God.
May we all know the true and perfect freedom that is Loving obedience to Christ
I close with a prayer of St Augustine: Let us pray
O thou, who art the light of the minds that know thee,
the life of the souls that love thee,
and the strength of the wills that serve thee;
help us so to know thee that we may truly love thee;
so to love thee that we may fully serve thee,
whom to serve is perfect freedom.
Amen
Ordination Sermon
Sermon on the occasion of the Ordination of Jo Fielding to Priesthood in the church of Christ – PENTECOST 2013
Texts
Jeremiah 1:4-9
Psalm 33
John 21.15-29
‘Do not be afraid’
In a few moments time, +Kelvin will ordain Jo to the Sacred ministry of Priest, a Priest in the church of Christ. Priesthood only makes sense in the context of God’s people, And Jo, you may well look at the church today, and think ‘what on earth am I doing here??’ I hope you do.
One of the things that seems to pass pretty much unremarked in this well known gospel incident, where Peter encounters the risen Christ, is that Jesus refers to His people as Sheep . . . feed my lambs, tend my sheep, feed my sheep. It is all too easy to Romanticise sheep, but only someone with no experience of them can do so. It is an unpromising metaphor!
I have several shepherds in my family, English Lake District Hill farmers . . . – and from personal experience I know that there is nothing at all romantic about working with sheep. Sheep are ignorant, they are willful, they require you at times to be up in the night at times risking life and limb to rescue one that has got into a jam, they are remarkably unbiddable, and above all they are easily scared by anyone and anything. Sheep are Full of fear, and although I have never myself witnessed it, there are those who say sheep run West every morning at the alarming sight of a strange ball of fire rising on the Eastern horizon
So Sheep is not a flattering metaphor for the people of God, but in that we are fearful, it is perhaps the truest. For of all human emotions, fear is probably the most powerful, the most prevalent and the one which drives so much of what we do, albeit usually at a deeply unconscious level . . . and the people of God are not immune from the human condition in this respect.
The OT in pretty much its entirety is a testament to the ignorance, the unfaithfulness, and the wilfulness of the people of God. Why are they unfaithful? Why are they willful? Why are they unbiddable – because they are afraid . . . But let us not deceive ourselves playing silly games over the uniformity of the two testaments. There is a remarkable uniformity between the children of Israel, the disciples, and the infant church to which Paul writes – a remarkable uniformity of . . . well for want of a better word ‘sheepness’, frightened ‘sheepness’.
I had thought to begin this sermon with the parable of the talents and focus on the third slave – the one who is afraid – but of course to speak of ‘talents’ is itself an all too easy way to evade that primordial fear. ‘OUR talents’, so we tell ourselves ‘make us safe’. We may well think, we need a talented person. We need someone we can all take confidence in!! Send us someone to get us out of this mess!!
We also hear the cry in the church, Send us Strong leaders. Send us someone with a track record in growing the church. Send us someone to save us, for we are afraid!! And ignore what God has done. And ignore the gospel – that God Has Sent His only son into the world. It is an odd thing that the Church in its fear ignores Jesus Christ and the salvation he has wrought, and His promise to build the church.
. . . but don’t go feeding us the strong medicine of the gospel – don’t make us face the Living God. If we truly understood ordination, we might well say – whatever you do, don’t send us a Priest. Indeed the people of God in one way or another will always try to stop a Priest being a Priest
One of the key reasons we should require our priests to be faithful in the reading of Scriptures, is so that they are under no illusions about the people whom they are called to serve . . .
But, God be praised, the Scriptures are an even more consistent testimony to the long suffering God who has called them into being, who breathes his Spirit upon them, and who calls some of their number to the sacred ministry of a priest.
Some of their number. The other reason we require our priests to be faithful in the reading of Scripture is that they never forget, they too are sheep. Where does Christ look for shepherds?? Amongst the sheep, Amongst the wilful ignorant unbiddable and the fearful – ‘but I am only a child!’ Wails Jeremiah. Yes, the priest must also read the Scriptures to unmask her own tendency to conspire with the people of God – it was after all Aaron who made the golden calves and such ministry goes on unabated to this day in the church. No – Priests come from the sheep and they need to be alert to that.
There is a foolish tendency to imagine that the disciples ‘Got it’. That following the resurrection they were so brim full of the Love of God, the realisation of what the resurrection meant, that now Peter ‘gets it’ Now he understands. But the evidence of the New Testament suggests not. Peter, however boldly he proclaims the gospel at Pentecost – is afraid of the implications of the gospel – as we read in Galatians 2, he separates himself from the Gentile believers – Aaronic ministry continued
And Jesus sees this in Peter – listen to His words. Very truly, I tell you, when you were younger, you used to fasten your own belt and to go wherever you wished. But when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will fasten a belt around you and take you where you do not wish to go.’ Peter, you weren’t prepared to lay down your life for me, and even at the end, after you have been following me however many years I choose, you will have to be taken unwillingly to die for the sake of my name and to glorify God. Peter, called to feed the sheep, is a sheep to the last . . . as the people of God, we’d love to see ourselves in a more favourable light, We are deniers of the truth – And Jesus reinforces the point – placing the one who denied him at the front of the line where we can all see him, if we but looked. Peter is chosen that we do not get above ourselves, that we do not think that it is about us and our skills, our abilities, our knowledge – Or even, and Peter is the best example of God – our ‘desire to lay down our life’. Peter is chosen to remind us that it is All about the Glory of God, as Peter’s death will be, and as I pray, your priesthood will be, Jo
Yet despite the overwhelming evidence of Scripture and the history of the church, regarding the church and its leaders – we still run away from it. The Spirit of Aaron is not dead. We may Romanticise the Priesthood, – and perhaps more so on a day like today.- Ah, the sacred ministry of the Priest . . . how Wonderful . . . Romanticism is utterly out of place – it is a horrible sign that we are avoiding Christ – that we do not believe – we haven’t looked the cross in the face.
And then again we run away as I have suggested by imagining that it is all about the competence of the one called – I think on this second point it is instructive that those elements of ministry which are the strict preserve of the Priest, require no skill set whatsoever. Blessing the people, pronouncing absolution of sins, baptising, and presiding at the Eucharist. At the heart of Priesthood is something which requires nothing in terms of skill, learning, training, natural gifting – and everything in terms of giving yourself.
The Carmelite nun, Ruth Burrows speaks of the Christian life, that life which is focussed in the Priesthood, in these terms – It is as if we carefully craft a life – we work hard at it, we bring all we have to it and then – as if it were a most beautiful vase we carry it up a steep mountain to proudly show it to God, only to get to the top of the mountain and discover that God is not there, and that God is down the mountain, down a steep and perilous path, down somewhere we cannot see, and that we have a choice – we can seek after God, or we can stay on top of the mountain. but to seek after God requires us to lay all that hard worked, that beautiful vase, al that learning, all those skills, to lay them down. As a priest presides at the Eucharist, they do just that. Lay down all their skills, learning, accomplishment and risk themselves, entering the Holy of Holies, seeking out the living God – the one whom no one can see and live – and what is more – to lead the people of God to that place. To pick up the Cross.
And so we run away, or to use Burrows’ metaphor, we stay in the light of the things we believe we can trust – we hold on to our skills or Romanticism, we strive to be Strong leaders precisely because we are running away from the Cross of Jesus.
God in his mercy is weakening his church, precisely that he might be its all in all – but we do not believe. We do not believe that death is the door to life – we are afraid precisely because of the Cross of Christ. Even though it is often on our tongue – we reduce the Cross to a metaphor, or a doctrine. ‘The Cross is about God’s Love for the world’ – a subtle means of romanticizing the Cross – or a doctrine – ‘God was in Christ reconciling himself to the world’ – Yes it is Scriptural, but it is also dissociated from the Reality of the Cross, which is a first century Jew, nailed to a piece of wood, naked, flogged, gasping and dying . . .
it is no wonder that the Church is always to be found running in the opposite direction, but in a few minutes we are going to Ordain Jo to hold the gaze of the people of God on that reality in ministry of Word and Sacrament to say ‘Behold, your God’- to embrace it in her life, and bid God’s people to follow.
Of course – like the prophet Jeremiah she may well say – Who? Me??
‘Now the Word of the Lord came to me’ – How fine that sounds – There I was just enjoying life and ‘the word of the Lord came to me . . .’
‘Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, That’s nice 🙂 but we don’t follow the path of what is unfolding : before you were born I consecrated you; Hang on a minute . . .! Isn’t this something I choose??? I appointed you a prophet to the nations.’
Perhaps THE clearest sign that someone is truly called of God to the ordained ministry is that they are running like hell for the exit . . . At least it shows that they really have encountered the Living God . . . you realise that you may after all end up . . . like Jesus. [Another cause for romanticism – ‘Ah, you want to remind people of Jesus? You want to be like Jesus . . .???]
‘a naked, flogged, gasping and dying first century Jew, cruelly nailed to a piece of wood’ by whom? By the people of God’
As a priest you are to hold the crucified one before the eyes of the church. And we may well not thank you for it – so you need to hold it before your own eyes day after day after day. For this is the pattern of your ministry. People today may well wish you every success in your ministry – but what are we the sheep looking for??
What does success look like – ‘If only Jesus knew what we knew’ ‘If only Jesus had access to our skills our wisdom’ ‘If only Jesus got it . . .’ is the translated bleating of so many of the sheep
‘It is finished’ he said – and there was no-one there – there at the zenith of his ministry – the sheep had all scattered. There is Successful ministry – There is God reconciling himself to the world. There is The Priest
As a priest called to be with God’s people – your greatest challenge is that it will often be God’s people who don’t want you to follow that path. Who desire to be part of something which soothes our fears – something which makes us sure we are on the winning side – Like Peter they will say “This must never happen to you . . .” Where have we heard this voice before??? Look! You need to turn stones into bread – here’s a book to show you how – Go on a course in “How to Throw yourself down from the Temple” – that will get the crowds flooding in – actually if you want, we can sit you at the feet of many who ‘for a fee’ can show you how you can rule the world . . . Just whatever you do, don’t turn us to face the Crucified one . . . Don’t be a Priest . . . be a manager, be a good pastor, be the sort of person everyone can admire and love . . . but don’t be a Priest. So today the Church also calls you to make vows – that you not forget that you are a Priest, to hold your gaze on the crucified one, and to promise to hold ours there also, even though we may not thank you for it, or indeed wish you success . . .
I said at the outset, that we might well look at the church today and think ‘Crikey’ – Actually perhaps there is no better time to be ordained – when all our earthly resources are spent, when all our attempts to save ourselves have come to nothing, perhaps when fear is at its height. When the vase we have carefully constructed is shown to be fit for nothing. I close with a brief thought, an image and a word from the Scriptures.
Firstly a word from the Psalms – Facing the Cross – confronting our weakness, the word of the Gospel is the same – ‘Do Not be afraid’. 18 Truly the eye of the Lord is on those who fear him, on those who hope in his steadfast love . . . to deliver their soul from death, and to keep them alive in famine. The Lord will deliver your soul from death, he will keep you alive in famine.
Then from my Tutor in Christian Ministry who when pushed to give a visual metaphor for the Priesthood said ‘The one Stood at the head of the line of God’s people at the Colisseum’ It is a picture of utter vulnerablilty and requires no skill, no gifting, just devotion to Christ – ‘Do you Love me?’ is the only question Jesus asks Peter. Not ‘can I trust you not to get it wrong again?’ Not ‘can you build a fine church for me’ – That is not what Christ requires of you – Jesus himself has promised to build the church . . . He asks ‘Do you Love me?’ That is Enough – That is Everything
Amen
Sermon for Pentecost 2013
Sermon for PENTECOST 2013
Genesis 11.1-9
Acts 2:1-21
John 14:8-17, 25-27
‘They were all together in one place’
As some of you know, this past week I have been traveling a fair way in order to get to know our Diocese a little better in my capacity as Vicar General. I spent time with the clergy and key lay leaders in Central Archdeaconry, and also visited Oamaru. In between I went on a rather long detour, North over a fortunately warm and sunny Lindis Pass, and on past Aoraki, Tekapo, on into Canterbury on what I hoped wasn’t a wild goose chase.
Just before leaving the UK I was present at the formation of a new Christian community in the far south west of Wales, and I had received an email from them asking if I might make contact with a couple from Hororata who had visited the community on a recent visit to Wales. So I drove on into the night, to draw up at a small cottage, weary from travels to meet two complete strangers, with whom I had shared the scantest of email dialogues.
There was an almost instantaneous connection between us. We shared in a meal and long conversation – we prayed the Night Office of Compline and in the morning shared in breakfast before once more praying together. It was for a few brief hours, Life in common, Life together. What made this connection possible?
Several years ago, I went to the best bible study I have ever been to, given by the Biblical Scholar Margaret Barker. The theme was the Covenant, but what really stuck with me was a comment she made. She said, ‘there is something about a Christian – you can always recognise one – a certain light’. Well as the other night we shared in faith, we prayed together and she took my daughter Rose, then studying theology at university under her wing, and encouraged her in her studies. Again someone I had never before met, someone whom I have never met since – but a very natural and rapid affinity. And something I have found to be true wherever I have been – that when I meet a fellow Christian, connection is easily made, deep and not readily forgotten. A shared Life.
A few weeks ago I preached on what is the sign that we are Christian. As I said, Jesus says the Outward evidence is this Life together, this love for one another that transcends everything else. But what we may ask is it that Creates this common Life, and what is its essence?
Today is one of the Principal feasts of the Church year. The feast of Pentecost – the Celebration of the pouring out of the Holy Spirit upon the gathered disciples of Jesus – sometimes celebrated, not unreasonably as the birthday of the church, and our gospel reading is flanked by two readings about people ‘together in one place’. In the reading from the Book of Acts, and from Genesis we hear of people and a common life – but with radically different foundations, and thus radically different outcomes.
Of course it is easy to see points of conversation between the two readings. In both we have a multiplicity of tongues. But in one case these cause radical division, in the other they are transcended to create a new unity. In one case people are separated by their diverse cultures (language is both the mother and the child of culture), in the other language and culture is transcended to create a new humanity.
In one a people try to come together to make a life for themselves, apart from God, in rivalry to God. ‘Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves . . .’ What a universal theme this is – the human desire to build a monument to its own significance – to make a life, a name for itself. To be able to stand back and say ‘Look what we have done!’ Reading as I have this past couple of weeks of the rapid acceleration of Climate change – those words – ‘Look what we have done!’ I suspect will come to have the hollowest of rings.
But over and against that human effort to make a life for itself we hear of the Gift of New Life, poured out at Pentecost. A Life that does not lead to division, but a life that transcends divisions. A life we do not build for ourselves, but a deep and rich life that is the Gift of God. And we must say at the outset that this is a life that transcends All human boundaries. The announcement of the Gospel creates a new community drawn from all the different nationalities gathered that day in Jerusalem. Discovering that in all that united them in Christ, those things that divided them became of much less significance. They did not allow the diversity of their cultures to stand as a means for ignoring the command of Christ, to Love one another.
And here I have to say that in the long term in the Anglican Church of Aotearoa / New Zealand, we cannot rest content with a three tikanga structure, for the life of Christ transcends cultures. Very briefly, we see this fight going on in the early church, when Peter comes to Galatia, out of fear he allows his Jewish culture to triumph over the life in Christ and does not share in table fellowship with the Gentile Christians. The church if you like tries a two tikanga structure, and everyone loses.
For many years now, I have supported a missionary organisation, Operation Mobilisation. At the heart of the missionary work has been ships – at present the Logos Hope. Upon these ships, Christians from all over the world come together in community to share in the good news of Christ and take it all around the world. Of course these enterprises are not all sweetness and light, but those aboard are compelled by the love of Christ and his command to love one another for the glory of God. Christ before culture. Christ before whanau, Christ before family, Christ transcendent, Christ over all.
And herein is the key – this shared Life – this One life that is poured out at Pentecost.
We remember from last week, Jesus commands his disciples to wait – stay here in the city – and so we hear ‘they were all together in one place’ – Obedient to the command of Christ. For all their fear, for all that they could not have fully understood what was happening, for all the threat of persecution from their fellow Jews, their Love for Jesus kept them there. ‘Jesus has commanded us to stay here, so we stay here’. If you love me, you will keep my commandments. – If you love me? This is the essence. What is the question that Jesus asks Peter,? What is the only thing Jesus is interested in in that encounter on the shore? What is the One thing he keeps asking? Do you love me? Do you love me? Do you Love me? And each time when Peter responds ‘Yes’, Jesus issues a command. If you love me, you will keep my command. Why do we as Christians Love our enemies? Why do we forgive seventy times seven? Why do we obey Jesus? Because we Love him.
‘If you love me, you will keep my commandments. 16And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you for ever. Keep my commandments – stay here in the city – And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you for ever – until you have been clothed with power from on high.
What made that instant connection with strangers possible? Why do we recognise Christians when we are in their company even though we may well come from culturally diverse backgrounds? What is the connection? The Holy Spirit – the fruit of a shared love of Jesus.
they came upon a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there. And they said to one another, ‘Come, let us make bricks, and burn them thoroughly.’ And they had brick for stone, and bitumen for mortar. Then they said, ‘Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves; The lives we try and make for ourselves, like the tower of Babel involve hard work, striving after . . . after what? Security. Looking around and thinking we are alone we seek security; let us make a name for ourselves; otherwise we shall be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.’
Ultimately this always leads to division – for we are eternally securing ourselves against the other, the rich against the poor. the strong against the weak, we seek security in family only for that too to become a source of disappointment, all of it ultimately a securing ourselves against the Life of God in Christ – Yet the other night I met two complete strangers – people whom everything in my basic animal instincts teaches me to be on my guard against. ‘you do not know them. How can you trust them? They are not like you?’ All we had in common was a love for Jesus. And in that we found a deeper richer security than anything we could possibly have built for ourselves.
All together in one place – all of them, Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs
From this completely diverse group of people, God creates his new humanity, founded on love for Christ, obedience to his commands and the grace and strengthening of the Holy Spirit. So that just a few verses we read . . . All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need. Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having the goodwill of all the people. And day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.
Do we know that fellowship in Christ? It is my prayer that a a church we will more and more discover the truth that He is our Life
At the end of Peter’s speech as we heard it today, he quotes from the prophet Joel “All who call on the name of the Lord will be saved. All who love Jesus will discover the Salvation Life – a Life that transcends all boundaries, as God in Christ, sending the Holy Spirit has as it were transcended his own.
Amen
Sermon for Easter 5 – Sunday 28th April – Year C
Sermon for Easter 5 – 2013 – Year C
Acts 11:1-18
Revelation 21:1-6
John 13:31-35
SERMON PART 1
SERMON PART 2 WITH SIGNIFICANT DIFFERENCE FROM ORIGINAL
“The sign”
That our Life together brings glory to God
“Are you a real Christian?” . . . I wonder how many of us have been brought up short by such a question. I remember in my early years at University being troubled deeply by that question, usually on the lips of very eager believers, who wanted to know ‘Are you Saved?’ ‘Really Saved?’ ‘Very Very Saved so that you know deep within your heart that you are a Christian??’ One could always walk away from such well meaning folk, although the question still ran around in your mind and troubled you at night.
I remember an atheist famously questioning my faith as he knew the Bible far better than I. And so I went seeking security, I went seeking security. The story went on after I had ‘Chosen to follow Christ’, for then the question was – ‘but you were baptised as a baby! How can you Really be a Christian . . .’, so one evening I went along to a local church where we had a special service for ‘Renewal of our Baptismal vows, and full immersion’, but then . . . the questions came from another angle – ‘do you speak in tongues?’ For ‘this is The authentic sign that you Are a child of God.’ Like many of my and earlier generations I sang with Gusto the song ‘He lives he lives Christ Jesus lives today, he walks with me and talks with me along life’s narrow way. He Lives. He Lives. Salvation to impart. You ask me how I know he lives, he lives within my heart . . .’ but all the while the questions, one after the other, and not just from individuals challenging me, but also from the pulpit.
“Are you a real Christian?” I wonder how many folk here flinched, thinking ‘here we go again! My faith is going to be called into question, is it the real thing?’ “Are you a Christian?” I hope I have not preached such a sermon here, but I know I have preached them elsewhere, and I have come to understand that this is wrong, very wrong. Not because our faith is a personal thing and shouldn’t be called into question – but because it is a meaningless question. For the measure of the Reality of the LIfe amongst us cannot be found in anything that we have done. Rather it is in what God has done in Christ and the Risen Christ is doing among us . . . “Are you a real Christian?” is actually a very poor question. It is a question which assumes we are all individuals and that the church is nothing more than a collection of individual believers, which it is most certainly not. As always, our real need is not for answers but for better questions
You will remember that last week I made reference to a friend who was troubled in this particular respect. Ruth is someone I know from my previous parish, someone who has always prayed, who has always understood herself as a child of God. Although she lived away from home, she came to her mother church to be married, and I prepared her and her fiance and found her to be a thoughtful Christian woman. But when she contacted me, she was troubled, and her worries seemed all too familiar.
Following the birth of her children had gone along to her local Anglican church to seek baptism for the child. Well they had a good priest there who invited both Ruth and her husband along to Baptism classes. To cut a long story short, Ruth now is involved in giving these classes. But she was troubled because folk in her church were saying in effect ‘to be a Real Christian, you need to have given your life entirely to Jesus’ . She wanted to know what I thought.
My response was that at the end of John’s gospel, when Jesus asks Peter the first two times, ‘Do you love me?’ he is saying in effect ‘have you given your life entirely to me?’ – and Peter responds ‘actually no, but I am trying to be a friend’. Finally Jesus asks him ‘are you trying to be my friend’ Peter says yes. Put another way – Jesus asks him twice ‘Are you a real Christian’ Peter twice shies away from it, Jesus then asks him, ‘are you any kind of christian at all?’ Peter says ‘yes this is what I’ve been saying all along, I’m a really rubbish Christian’ and Jesus makes him the first pope 🙂
We would think that Jesus would only entrust his church to someone of such monumental integrity and honour, someone who was completely ‘sold out for Jesus’, someone who had abandoned EVERYTHING, someone who WOULD die with him – but no. Jesus picks Peter to be the Rock on which he builds his church . . . And still 2000 years on, the church hasn’t begun to understand this . . . Anyway, Ruth was very happy with that answer – well I think it was my answer. It might have been my offer to punch the lights out of anyone who said she wasn’t a Christian. 🙂
Now its helpful to continue to think of Peter for a moment, it’s always helpful to think of Peter – for our reading from Acts finds him up against something which sounds very familiar . . . to put it into this ‘Are you a Christian language’ Peter is relating the story of his call to go to the house of Cornelius – called to a bunch of ‘God fearing Gentiles’ But people who could not possibly be Christians!! (Actually for Peter read ‘God’s people’) They are outsiders – they are Not God’s people. Of course they could convert and become ‘Jews’ – that is in the understanding of those first believers, there is something they could do to become ‘God’s people’.
How did you become one of God’s people? What did you have to do? To put it in the language of our question ‘How did you become a real Christian?’ The answer was – you were circumcised’ [Of course this was adult circumcision 🙂 not infant circumcision 🙂 It is strange that there never seemed to be a dispute over which type of circumcision was ‘better’ :), ‘Oh I chose to be circumcised . . .’ ‘I’ve given myself totally to God, unlike those of you who just found yourself circumcised . . .]
So when Peter goes back to Jerusalem where the Apostles, those ’really on fire for Jesus missionary Christians’ . . . whom we note haven’t got out of Jerusalem yet, even though great persecution has broken out 🙂 . . . when he goes back they don’t say – Great! The Gentiles are God’s people now also. They criticize Peter “Why did you go to uncircumcised men and eat with them?” Why did you go to those who are not God’s people? Why did you share food with them? To put it another way, why did you share in Life with them?
So Peter tells them – he recounts the story of the dream – about not calling unclean, that which God has declared clean. And going to Joppa, and then he recounts what happens . . . And as I began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell upon them just as it had upon us at the beginning. 16And I remembered the word of the Lord, how he had said, ‘John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.’ 17If then God gave them the same gift that he gave us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could hinder God?” What does he see? He sees the LIfe of God poured out and present amongst these people – they have been made God’s people – they didn’t get circumcised, they didn’t line up and ask Jesus into their heart. They do Nothing! And God makes them his people, indiscriminately – they haven’t even prayed the sinners prayer!!!
And the sign, How does Peter know that God has made them his people? The Life of God amongst them – The Holy Spirit fell on THEM not just one or two, here or there, not those who have responded in their hearts, All of them. As God saved the people of Israel from Egypt as a job lot – warts and all – this is how he continues to work. Just making people his people. For the Proud Western individualistic mindset this is the hardest thing to accept, that we do nothing – it is all grace and it is Communal . . . remember last week? The story of the community in Fiji? How their witness was that ‘We are grateful that the gospel was sent to Us . . .’ ‘We share everything we have with one another . . .’
The Chief did not say to us ‘You must give your life to Jesus, entirely . . .’ He said – We became Christians and now we share everything we have with one another. As I said last week one of the few occasions I have Seen the Kingdom of God Clearly.
What is the sign? The life of God amongst them. What is the sign, not that ‘you’ or ‘you’ or ‘you’ is a Christian. Indeed if you are asked by that the simple reply is that by baptism I was made a member of the church, therefore I am a Christian. But that is a bad question – the real question is ‘Are we God’s people . . .’ and the evidence??
Little children, I am with you only a little longer. You will look for me; and as I said to the Jews so now I say to you, ‘Where I am going, you cannot come.’ 34I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. 35By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” Jesus says, people will not know ‘You’ to be a Christian apart from your brothers and sisters – By this EVERYONE will know that you are my disciples because you love one another as i have loved you.
Jesus is not interested in you ‘being a Christian’ – he never told anyone to ‘be a Christian’. Rather he formed a community of people by commanding them to follow Him, a people whose life was his life. The question is not ‘Have I given my life to Jesus’ Actually when we truly Hear the gospel it puts an end to our questions. Peter tells the Apostles and other believers 7If then God gave them the same gift that he gave us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could hinder God?” 18When they heard this, they were silenced. the questions come to an end And they praised God, saying, “Then God has given even to the Gentiles the repentance that leads to life.” It is not the question ‘have I given my life to Jesus’ It is the Fact ‘God has given his life to us. The shift from I to We – the biggest shift we need in the Church – He gives us something to do . . . get baptised? Jesus wants us to entirely give our lives . . . to each other
As I told my friend Ruth, I have yet to meet this mythical Real Christian, the one who has utterly given their life to Jesus. From time to time I hear a rumour of one, but I suspect that if one does exist, living the fully surrendered life, we would not hear of it, for only Jesus would be visible . . . no all I meet is a bunch of folks who like me are stumbling along, trying to make sense of this whole thing, but many of whom are labouring under a misapprehension, that there’s something they still haven’t done to be a Real Christian . . . but my brothers and sisters that is not the point . . . Yes, there Is something to do, not to be REALLY saved, No. NOw that God has given this Life even to us , Now he has saved us, Now He has made us christians – WE are to live it. WE.
So when I say – ‘we cannot live the Christian life on our own’, we modern individualists might hear me saying – we need each other so that as individuals we can live the life. That is not what I mean. We need each other because the Christian Life is Loving one another as Jesus has loved us. In other words, the needing one another IS the life of Jesus. Sharing Life, is Sharing HIs Life. Church is not a place where we get equipped to better go live the Christian Life – no it is the community where the Christian Life is known. And God is glorified in that way. For here, with one another, We are by Grace, God’s people. The Church is not a means to individual salvation, it is the place where Salvation is encountered. It is not a place where we come to get help with our individual lives – it is the Community where true Life is found.
Sermon for Easter 4 – Sunday 21st April 2013 – Year C
Sermon for Easter 4 – 2013
Sunday April 21st
SERMON RECORDING PART 1
PART 2
PART 3
Acts 9:36-43
Revelation 7:9-17
John 10:22-30
“The Presence of The Good Shepherd”
In a week when parliament passed legislation to make marriage open to people of the same gender, there will no doubt be many who will be standing up today in pulpits across this country, and indeed across the world – I see the BBC give it a very high rating on their news site – There will be many who will either be declaring words to the effect of – ‘this is the end of the world as we know it – the collapse of the moral order!’ – or declaring this a huge triumph. Whichever way it is thus received, I have to say it is either straining at or rejoicing over a gnat, whilst swallowing a train load of camels. It is almost utterly insignificant, and I believe that to be the case even with respect of the church.
What will happen here in the long run in the church, is that there will be those congregations that accommodate themselves to it, and those that do not – and I use the word ‘accommodate’ advisedly. For we have a church which in common with most western Christian expressions of church is all but indistinguishable from the world in which we live. Thus if we accept this change it is a tiny accommodation struggling to get in to a church already full of accommodation, or if we don’t it is a tiny accommodation kept out by churches that don’t realise how accommodated they already are. If we think keeping pure is the game, we’ve missed it – we’re with the Pharisees 🙂
We do not to recognise how hugely the Spirit of the Age controls almost all our understanding of Christian faith. It controls how we read the Scriptures, it controls our church attendance, it controls how or if we pray, it controls what we do with our money, it controls how churches are governed, it even controls our relationships between clergy and laity and bishops and clergy . . . the Zeitgeist, the Spirit of the age is in charge and by and large we kid ourselves if we pretend that we are led by the Spirit of God.
There are many aspects to the Spirit of the Age which capture us. In a sense this obsession with sexuality – for or against is such a captivation, but that will pass. The old demons are still pretty much in charge. As always Money has a huge effect on us consciously and unconsciously. Our supposed need for financial security drowning out the voice of the Good Shepherd ‘I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one will snatch them out of my hand.’ . . . ‘I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one will snatch them out of my hand.’ Why do we fret about money? Of course for those of us who are well off, it is All to easy to say that we know that we don’t, that it is not our financial security that holds us – not realising that our own security is in what we have, we kid ourselves that we are living by the Spirit, rather than the Spirit of the age. We may hear the words of Jesus and sense that we are secure, but our security has another source. It is only when it is taken away that we realise that it was that that we were resting on. It is only the wealthy who by and large come up with elegant dodges around Jesus’ confrontational teaching on money and possessions. ‘Do not store up . . .’
We are in a panic about the finances of the diocese, insofar as we panic about anything in New Zealand 🙂 But the strange irony is that we are very wealthy – put aside a moment the uncomfortable fact that the church has all the money that is in our own personal bank accounts, we are the body of Christ after all, so our money is his – The Diocesan trust board is looking after $25M! Where is this money? By and large it is the money of individual congregations – we are all securing ourselves by ‘our’ money – so we are not releasing it and thus the future of the diocese is called into question. It is like a family where each brother is wealthy, but none is prepared to go to the shops, so all starve. Can we really be hearing the voice of the Good Shepherd, ‘I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one will snatch them out of my hand.’
Very related to this deceitful sense of security money brings – for the Spirit of the age connects and touches everything – the Spirit of the age shows itself in terms of how we are taught to relate to God. Herein we see laid bare, the Spirit of Individualism, rife in our society and our churches. We see it in many ways, not least in this question of hearing the voice of the Good Shepherd. ‘My sheep hear my voice’ Says Jesus – and someone may well say – I never hear Jesus speaking to me . . . ‘ I never hear him speak to me’
Now I wonder how many of us feel that way, that ‘I have never heard Jesus speak to me’ I do not at all criticise anyone for feeling like this, a bit excluded by those who make much of ‘their personal relationship with Jesus’. We have not been well taught if we think this way – and we pretty much all have. I know that my own experience was for a very very long time, that the principle significance of faith was ‘my personal relationship with Jesus’ THAT was THE thing.
But listen – ‘my (Individual – possessive – something belonging to me) personal (read private – hotline) relationship with Jesus’. This is Consumerism, isn’t it?? ‘You can have your own house, you can have your own car, you can have your own . . . you can have your own relationship with Jesus, as well . . . I want to come at this ‘personal relationship’ in a roundabout way, through this false god of consumption (a disease of old – TB), in part, because I want to allay your fears if you think you have not heard the voice of Jesus
The language of consumerism is deliberately targetted to keep us away from God and each other. All the worlds economic systems are without exception part of the world which is not hearing the voice of the good shepherd – the Spirit of the Age has no interest in the Life of Christ – ‘You can have your own . . .’ ‘You can have your own . . .’
I have on a couple of occasions over the last 30 years seen the Kingdom of God in incredible clarity – once amongst a group of recovering drug addicts [I may have spoken to you about them,if not I will one day] and once on a trip to Fiji. I remember sitting with a village elder, who was also the Methodist minister as he spoke to a group of wealthy western tourists about how they were very wrong to criticise the Western missionaries who had brought the good news to Fiji. He said, ‘Before we knew Jesus, we used to eat each other . . .’ 🙂 Note his language though, before WE used to know Jesus. Here was a man, a poor man without doubt – he could not afford a simple pair of sunglasses to protect his obviously diseased eyes – not witnessing to ‘his personal relationship with Jesus, but to the faith of his people – when WE came to know Jesus . . . our relationships with each other, were transformed –
and then without meaning to, for there was nothing proselytising in his manner, he said -’ ‘as Christians, we share everything we have’. As if this was OBVIOUS, As Christians, OF COURSE we share everything we have with one another. ‘So if I have no sugar and I need some sugar, i go to my brother and ask him and he gives me some sugar, and if he needs something I have, he asks me and I give it to him. We have no doors on our houses, we come and go – our doors are open to one another . . .’
It was one of the most profoundly moving experiences of my life and to this day I realise that I was closer to the Kingdom of God there in that very simple hut, sat on the floor drinking kava (and no, not the ‘champagne’ 🙂 )
Life – Shared. Listen to the voice of the economic machine, that we are told must be fed, or the world will fall apart – ‘you can have your own . . .’ We will know that the Kingdom of God is breaking in when Mitre 10 says ‘Buy a lawnmower and everyone on your street will benefit’. ‘you can have your own . . .’ cuts us off from one another. I remember as a young man going to my first ever church conference and being absolutely thrilled to hear about a church where they had a communal store for gardening things – everything was shared -as a result they had far more money to give away and their communal life blossomed.
‘You can have your own personal relationship with Jesus . . .’ A few months ago I was teaching on the nature of the church, BTW if you can have your own personal relationship with Jesus, why do you need the church? (more anon) and I spoke about a book – ‘Hearing from God’ by Dallas Willard. I picked on this book because I had recently been involved in a conversation about it with a friend and had gone back to look at it, but I could have picked almost any contemporary book on Spirituality and prayer from my shelves, and I have my own huge collection of such books. The Church is absent from the book. This is all stuff you CAN do on your own, and indeed there is no expectation than that is entirely HOW you should be ‘Hearing from God’, certainly there is NO sense that we Hear from Jesus ‘as the people of Jesus’ . . . That God Primary address, is always and has always been to a people, to His people, to His flock. That we are addressed AS the church, not primarily as individuals.
Of course one of the reasons we imagine that we can have a relationship with Jesus apart from the church is because as Christian booksellers know all too well . . . yes consumer capitalism operates even here – ‘You can have your own Bible!!’ That that is entirely unremarkable to us is one sign of how difficult it is to recognise the Spirit of the Age. Indeed not only can we have ‘our own BIble’ we can have one in a translation WE enjoy and Easily understand, one which perhaps is full of notes for people ‘just like me!’ So we have Youth Bibles, Bibles for Men, Bibles for women, Bibles for mothers, Bibles for recovering addicts, BIbles for . . . fill in the list, I am sure you can find the Bible which perfectly suits me in my personal relationship with Jesus . . .
We forget that for the first 1800 years of the churches history we couldn’t. Before the advent of the printing press in the C14 all Bibles were hand written and there were very few – if you’d even seen one you’d be unusual. Even after that there were but few and for the next 400 years we would only see a copy in our local church. In my study I have a very old family bible – dated 1804 – it is what a pretty wealthy family could buy (in this case yeoman farmers) – a family bible – note again that it is money that makes this possible. Now in my house we have 30 bibles??? One for every mood of the day 🙂 So we think that reading our own bible is normal, whereas it is very abnormal. No, for most of church hiustory and indeed still for most Chrisitans throughout the word, the Word is shared. People sit togather to hear the Word, to Hear from the Good shepherd. the Word is first and foremost adressed to a people, Christ’s body which by baptism we are all part. We are included in Christ – apart from the body I am cut off from his life. We cannot hear the Word apart from our beothers and sisters – for apart from them we are apart from Christ? The Life of Jesus is our COmmon Life – it is the Life that we share – we cannot know it apart from one another.
Do I hear the voice of the good shepherd? Yes, you do – We do – when we come together to listen to his word in the Gospel – we stand and Hear Jesus – we feed on Jesus – we share in Jesus together. The Life that we have is only Life in that it is the Life that we share – there is only one risen Lord – we haven’t all got our own 🙂
Sermon for Easter 3 – Sunday April 14 2013 – Year C
Sermon for Easter 3 2013
AUDIO OF SERMON
SERMON PART 2
Acts 9:1-6
Revelation 5:11-14
John 21:1-19
“The pangs of birth”
The supposedly true story is told of a four year old child when his proud parents bring home his sibling [Richard Rohr : Immortal Diamond Kindle location 505]
The baby was placed in his cot in the nursery and his brother petered his parents saying ‘I want to talk to the baby!’ They assured him he could, but he pressed them saying, ‘No, I want to talk to him now, on my own!’ Well curiosity got the better of the parents, wondering what was going on, they left the boy with his baby brother and listened in at the door, to hear these words, ‘Quick, Tell me where you have come from! Tell me who made you! I am beginning to forget!’ . . .
At the heart of the human story is forgetfulness, we forget to whom we belong. Our story starts off in the garden where who we are is plain to see, but then Shame plays its part, and we hide, and in that hiding is a forgetting – it is as if we want to forget, because the pain of knowing who we are is too great – we are Afraid.
In the Garden, our ancestors we are told, hid because they were afraid. In the direct presence of God his Father, the man says, ‘I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid’ So we hide, and the longer we hide, the more we forget why we are hiding – but then occasionally some sharp stab of reminder comes back, some hidden shame and we hide once more.
Easter as I will not tire of saying, comes round every year, and lasts for fifty days. For fifty days every year as the people of God, we are held in the Light of the Risen Christ burning in full glory. Light Pouring forth that we would shield our eyes from, so Brilliant is its intensity. And we want to hide. 50 days is just too much exposure to the light
Over the coming weeks we will hear readings from the book of Acts which hold before us a picture of the church which to our ill formed eyes is impossibly pure and hopelessly idealistic. We dismiss it – we deny the Light. Today we see Saul blinded by the brilliance of Christ, and hear the Risen One ask him why he is persecuting Him, we are confronted again with a seeming impossibility about who we are as the Church, that Christ’s identification with the church is Total! Not why are you persecuting my people, no, Why are you persecuting me. So much of what we do as a church, so much of our carefully contrived theology seeks to deny the one who would love us. ‘Lord, you cannot identify yourself with us’ We want to live with the Shame, it is easier than coming into the Light’. We say ‘we are the body of Christ’ but then try and reduce it to mere words.
From Revelation, a door into the Presence of God is revealed, with the everlasting brilliant worship around the Throne – and most sharply of all, we are confronted with the Risen Christ, who commands us to abandon our doubts, who places upon us what often seems the impossible burden of forgiving others – and who stands before us, when all we want to do is hide.
I wonder. Did that little boy want somehow to go back? Had he come to an age where he had come to realise that all human love was conditional, had he begin to see that the world was full of weeds and thorns and that it was only by toil and the sweat of his brow that he would be required to make a life for himself. Was he seeing how terrible it was to have to make a life for yourself? For indeed it is a literally a terrible thing – and indeed how terrible we seem in our self made lives to the eyes of a child? Realising the lies of the world, Did he want to go back? And like all of us discovering that we live in a world of deceit, discovering there is no way back . . .
A couple of weeks ago, I spoke of the Catastrophe of Easter. For the Resurrection of Christ is the End of the World as we know it – there is no way forward from Easter on our own terms. It is the end of making our Own lives as the life of the Risen one is all that is on offer and to our sin blind eyes it is intolerably bright. Having seen the sun in full glory, the temptation is to follow our ancestors and hide, to try and go back . . . back to that safe place that existed before Jesus was raised, before God’s New Creation came crashing into our consciousness
and so it is hardly any surprise that just two weeks later where do we find the disciples? they have gone back to their fishing. They have gone back to the easy certainties, a life where they can call the shots, where their skills as fishermen at least have a chance of securing them against a world of weeds and thorns – a refusal to accept the life that Christ offers them Now!
Perhaps as we are So wont to do, they too have reduced the Resurrection to a story about what happens to us after the death of our bodies. Perhaps they are starting to say, ‘well Jesus is Risen, that’s wonderful, we don’t need to fear death anymore – we can go back to our lives in the secure hope that after death we will go to be with him’. Brothers and Sisters, I want to gently, but firmly suggest that to reduce the Resurrection to a story, even a true story about ‘what happens when we die’ is the very work of the Devil. In fact it is no less than to put Christ back in the tomb. It is to behave as if nothing has changed, when the message of the Resurrection is Catastrophic, Hell is harrowed, Death is defeated, Angels are rejoicing. . . there is no going back, there is no back to go back to 🙂
But the disciples have tried – like a child trying to enter the womb a second time, to steal Nicodemus’ words – they have tried to go back to the false securities of the world they know. For the Life that Christ offers is too bright, too much, we cannot control it, it is out of our experience, it is beyond our hopes.
And Peter epitomises this – For Peter the Resurrection of Jesus has not broken into the reality of his everyday life – it has not yet called him forth into the full glare of the Light of the Resurrection. He has not yet been born again – he has not come blinking into the New Creation that the Resurrection of Jesus has announced. He is Not yet crying out Christ is risen, Alleluia, for him the Resurrection is catastrophic. It is Bad News. The Risen one is pursuing him, the Hound of Love, the Hound of heaven, and Peter wants to flee!! He’s still hiding, he’d prefer to live in amnesia.
John’s gospel is The gospel of the Resurrection – The New Creation that Christ Is is its theme, It is only John who speaks of the Cross in terms of Glory – for it is only the Resurrection which declares it to be such. The letter to the Hebrews speaks of, Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the sake of the joy that was set before him endured the cross, disregarding its shame. The Cross was the Great instrument of Shame – a Curse in the eyes of Pious Jews, Foolishness to the ‘Wise’ Greeks, and deliberate tortuous humiliation to the Romans rulers. Shame is writ large, Yet John speaks of it in terms of the Glory of God. Jesus takes our Shame. And Peter’s. Peter is Deeply ashamed, as were our first parents.
Jesus said to them, “Children, you have no fish, have you?” They answered him, “No.” Of course they haven’t – the Living One has already declared that now they will fish for men – their old life cannot be returned to. There is no going back
He said to them, “Cast the net to the right side of the boat, and you will find some.” So they cast it, and now they were not able to haul it in because there were so many fish. 7That disciple whom Jesus loved said to Peter, “It is the Lord!” This has happened before – Luke records the incident and Peter’s response – ‘Get away from me Lord, for I am a sinful man’ John writes – When Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he put on some clothes, for he was naked, and jumped into the sea. Nothing has changed for Peter – perhaps he too hopes for heaven, but that hope hangs by the thinnest of threads, a thread which breaks the moment he realises the Risen One confronts him – he sees the Risen JEsus and all hope is Lost – for he does not yet understand. He does not believe that the Resurrection announces the Vindication of Christ’s work upon the Cross, that death and Hell, and Sin and Shame have been vanquished. he has not yet been born afresh into this new reality. He is still hiding with Adam and Eve – ‘I saw you on the shore, and I was afraid, because I was naked’ . . . but this is the New Creation, this is Not a second crack at the Old Story – rather this is what God has purposed all along – To Love the World from before the beginning of Time, as he has Loved the Son, since before the Creation of the World. Christ is Risen and now the relentless pursuer is Free in the World . . . steadily with unhurried pace . . . God is coming after us
In the Old story, Peter fails – he denies Jesus – thus he is condemned to a life of fishing and a vague hope that their might be something to come after it all, but not much hope given what he has done . . . Peter is You and I before we awaken to the Resurrection. Before we believe and are Saved. This is the story that is so well known, so familiar – we fail and we are ashamed and if we are caught, we are punished, and we say desevedly so – and indeed there is a distortion of the gospel which makes much of this old story . . . but another time
But What is our perception this morning? Not particularly as individuals, but as the Church? Peter is a cipher for the Church. What is the story which guides our common life? What are we doing here? Do we think about the future of the church in the light of the resurrection, or do we think about the future of the church as if the old story still holds sway? Will it all fail and die unless we do something? We need to find a way to make it better? Is there any hope? or have we awoken to the Reality of the Resurrection. After all, if the Lord can raise up stones to praise him, think what he might do with five people in a rural church? And here? What story do we live out of? Is this story about religion and ‘life after death’ or do we believe and wake up from that lie of the devil to be what in truth we are ‘The Community of the Risen One’. Of course that is so very hard. The comfort of the womb, the pleasures of Egypt, the golden days of the church, whatever and whenever they were . . . all death narratives. It’s easier to go back and hope for heaven, than to embrace the New Life of the Risen One and go where we are led – but listen to his voice . . .
Do you Love me?’ Do you Love me? Do you Love me? Peter has denied Jesus – he has said ‘Even if Everyone else goes, I will never abandon you’ He has shouted from the rooftops, ‘I Love him more than all the others!!’. He is utterly self deceived. He has denied Life – not once, not twice, but Three times. He has utterly nailed the door of Life shut . . . and the Risen One calmly steps through the walls of Peter’s shame . . . hear the words of St Paul – ‘There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do: by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and to deal with sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, so that the just requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.’ There is No condemnation . . . Neither do I condemn thee . . . Simon, Son of John? . . . Look at me . . . I cannot . . . Simon, Son of John . . . do you love me more than these? “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my lambs.” 16A second time he said to him, “Simon son of John, do you love me?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Tend my sheep.” 17He said to him the third time, “Simon son of John, do you love me?” Peter felt hurt because he said to him the third time, “Do you love me?” And he said to him, “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my sheep. No Condemnation, no demand for better behaviour, no demotion – Feed my sheep – I will still build my church on this rock, No condemnation . . . this is otherworldly – it is God’s New Order. We can barely believe such radical liberation – No Shame, No guilt, No trying to get it right – Just Love.
Finally, Jesus calls them on. The disciples have tried to go back, but their nets are empty, only The Risen One now gives life – as Chris reminded us last week, The Risen One holds the keys – Only the Risen One empowers the mission of the church to fish for men and women. Peter and the Disciples are called to follow Jesus once more – he leads them away from their boats, finally the nets are abandoned for Good. ‘I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also. And in Peter’s case to the fulness of Identification with the One who utterly identifies himself with the church. Peter like Jesus will die a death of Glory. Peter is a cipher for the church – the body of people who in dying to the Old Story are born again to the New Life of the Resurrection and so Glorify God
“To the one seated on the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever!” And all God’s people said, “Amen!”
the elves are heading west 