Lisbon 1755, Napier 1931, Beatles, Jazz and God

SERMON PREACHED AT THE JAZZ EUCHARIST
St JOHN’S CATHEDRAL, NAPIER
ART DECO WEEK 2014

(the sermon is not based on the readings of the day!)

On Saturday, 1st November 1755, the Feast of All Saints, a massive earthquake struck the region around Lisbon, Portugal. Centred 200 kilometres off shore, the 8.5 magnitude quake generated a massive tsunami and fire that took up to 100,000 lives. It remains one of humanity’s greatest catastrophes.

It also rang the death knoll of what we call “Christendom”, the era spanning some 12 centuries, when church and state cozied together in the bed of Europe. That was an era during which the simple justice- and faith-based message and life of a rural Jewish carpenter was turned into a system of oppression and control. Sadly it was also the era Christianity reached out through the colonial world.

By Tuesday 3rd February 1931 that was history. When my predecessor Dean Brocklehurst gathered a few parishioners together for a small regular service that morning their practice was far from the mainstream practice it had been in Portugal on All Saints’ Day 1755. For some, especially men who had seen the horrors of the Great War, God was already dead. For others God was dying his last gasps. The first sexual revolution, that of the Flappers, of D.H. Lawrence and Katherine Mansfield and the devotees of Madame Blavatsky, was already giving him the Last Rites. The second sexual revolution of the Beatles era would soon bury him.

The faith of those gathered with Dean Brocklehurst was probably fairly conservative. Teachings of his day were of a rather strict and formal, distant god. This stern god had survived Lisbon and was an instrument of instruction ensuring that natives and children were well-behaved. The intelligentsia though rid themselves of God, for god as guarantor of personal survival had died in Lisbon with 100,000 souls. Over the next 150 years God as a national assurance of military victory also died, dead in the mud of the trenches as both sides sought his help.

Dean Brocklehurst and those injured or killed around him were dwelling in what would soon be clearly seen as a rearguard action. Their faith is now often mocked as a fairy tale belief in an Imaginary Friend. Today faith is seen as crackpot, silly, marginal – though the aftermath of 9/11 suggested for a short time that there are still some who, as martyr Dietrich Bonhoeffer suggested, will turn to God when sore afraid.

Nevertheless, out of the rubble of the first cathedral here a new cathedral grew, and out of the rubble of Napier a new Napier grew, and out of the rubble of the gung-ho developers of the 1970s and ’80s a new celebration of things Art Deco grew, and we are here together annually, remembering (literally meaning that we are pulling together and making present again the members, the elements, of those earlier times). We watch, too, as the rubble of Christchurch is slowly transformed into a new infrastructure, a new place of laughter and tears and birth and death.  We watch the phoenix rising. For I would rather define this renewed trust in life, this renewed hope as “resuscitation” or “rising phoenix” than use the word “resurrection.”  I reserve that word for a unique event 2,000 years ago and its impact on my death and yours.

Gradually, ever so slowly, as is God’s wont, something else is growing out of the ashes of Lisbon 250 years ago and out of Europe’s great wars, and even worse, out of the horrors of Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen and Hiroshima and Nagasaki: slowly theologians and teachers have begun to realize that the all-conquering god who died in the rubble of Europe on All Saints’ Day 1755, and the tribal god who died in the trenches and killing fields of 20th century wars (and whose epitaph was so brilliantly written by the war poets) – and the god who dies today amidst cries of "Allahu Akbar" in new killing fields of Syria and Sudan: that god in any form is an imposter.

Slowly since Lisbon our prayers have begun to speak of and to a different God: not a banner waving or neon lit god but a suffering God who was crucified, and who died as if in the rubble of Lisbon and the European cities like Dresden and the concentration camps and the scorched earth of nuclear holocaust, and who died with Edith Mary Barry and Kate Williams in or soon after the destruction of this cathedral’s predecessor, and who struggled in the soul of poor Doctor Waterworth who spent the rest of his life wondering if he had done the right thing in administering a fatal dose of morphine to Mrs. Barry, because ethics is never easy. A God who struggles to be born in your soul and mine as we too face whatever torment and inevitable death lies ahead of us; only then God breathes the unique moment of resurrection into us and makes real at last the greatest joy of all.

In other words, slowly, ever so slowly, since 1755, theologians (not all) rediscovered the God who cried out on the Cross, the God who cried “my God my God, why have you forsaken me”, and the God who breathes resurrection-life even greater than resuscitation into Edith Mary Barry and Kate Williams and your loved ones and mine, the God who says that death is not the end, that No is not the answer, that Yes is the final word in the universe, the God who waits patiently for our love in response.

That God – not even the phoenix god of finding fun again, but the God still there when all fun ceases – that is the God whose hope we must seek always to proclaim in our words and in our prayers in and from this Cathedral of St John, if this place is truly to be a place of resurrection, life, and hope!


TLBWY

Flipping the finger for Jesus?

SERMON PREACHED AT THE CATHEDRAL OF St JOHN THE EVANGELIST, WAIAPU

(NAPIER, AOTEAROA NEW ZEALAND: first cathedral to see the sun)
(16^th February) 2014

 Readings:     Deuteronomy 30.15-20

                       Psalm 119.1-8
                       1 Corinthians 3.1-9
                       Matthew 5.21-37

I suggested last week that we cannot and must not drive a theological wedge between Jesus and Paul, between Paul and the gospel writers, and between the gospel writers and Jesus. To do so is wantonly to compartmentalize the story of the people of God, to compartmentalize as it were God’s spiritual guidance, and while if we are to be honest we can’t avoid doing that to some extent, it is best if we avoid doing it unnecessarily.  Paul, with some rancour, challenges the people of Corinth (with good reason) to be what he calls a “spiritual people” because they were playing games with the guidance of God: we run the risk of doing the same when we unnecessarily distort the scriptures of our faith into micro-canons that suit our particular taste. I say again: we probably all do it (some of us were wincing this week at the readings from 1 Timothy and from Leviticus that seem somewhat alien and patronising to our post-modern ears). We all do it: Somehow we must seek the grace of God that we may be gracious and discerning in our reading of the sacred texts of faith, wise perhaps as serpents, gentle perhaps as doves.

To read Paul we have again and again the insight, stated baldly in Galatians but undergirding his whole world view, that humanity has fallen short of its divinely instigated potential. Later this would give rise to complex doctrines of the Fall: for now we might just recall that when we turn on the news we are simply not the humanity we ought to be. When we turn on a little bit of self-analysis we will probably discover that we are not the human individuals we ought to be. Ask those who are closest to us whether we have fallen short of human perfection, let alone the glory of God!

I’m neither a fan of bumper stickers, nor of clichés. On the other hand they can point to truths. Driving along a motorway and finding someone cutting into my lane unnecessarily I am I’m afraid I am likely to react in a slightly less generous way than Jesus would – though on the whole I refrain from flipping the finger. Walk past a beautiful woman on the street and I am afraid – don’t tell Anne – I am likely to find myself condemned by the standards of these stern words of Jesus (though not, perhaps, by Thomas Aquinas, who allowed us heterosexual blokes seven seconds of observation before appraisal becomes sin). So far I have not plucked out my eyes, but were I to be what some Christians rather dangerously call a “bible believing Christian”, a fundamentalist, then there is no doubt I should be plucking out mine eyes and chopping off mine limbs incessantly. Funnily enough I find an awful lot of fundamentalists with all limbs and eyes intact. I’m neither a fan of bumper stickers, nor of clichés, but what would Jesus do? Because, sadly, I know it would contrast markedly with my self-serving efforts.

Should we bash ourselves up for our inadequacies? Probably not. Matthew is in all likelihood reacting against those who were abusing Paul’s theology of grace,  those who like the Corinthians wanted to use their faith in Jesus to out-hypocrite the hypocrites (and we’ve seen too much of that in churches). Matthew more than any other writer lays down the “more even than the Law” demands of following Jesus. Luke records words of Jesus that suggest the Torah of the Jews will never pass away, but does not go into the gruesome details of lust and murder and legal shenanigans (the last a prohibition often ignored by some of the most casuistic of Christians) that Matthew records. Matthew lays it on the line with heavy hand precisely because he believes that bearers of Christ must strive, however inadequately, for the impossible. Matthew, every bit as well as Paul, knows that we all sin and fall short of the glory of God, but as the behavioural pendulum swung wildly Matthew realised that Christians needed to strive – always with the help of God – to strive for the perfection that Jesus had exemplified in his life and teachings.

Will we get there? Sorry folks: no. Not this side of the grave. But the grace and healing that comes from metanoia, from turning and turning again to the forgiveness of God is much easier to receive if we make the effort, no matter how some Christians distort that message into some sort of "earn you way to salvation" message. Will we fall short? Yes. Matthew knew that. Few people attain sainthood in the traditional sense, and the ones that do are precisely those who best know their need for the help of God. We are challenged though – daily – to strive. Choose this day whom you will serve: choose life, that you and your descendants may live. Choose life lived for others, love directed to others (even lane swappers!). Choose to hold fast to what we might call not the “land of God” as Deuteronomy puts it but the state of God-attunedness to which Jesus invites us day after day after day. Hold fast, as the psalmist urges us, eyes fixed on the demands of God. Hold fast … as God holds fast.

TLBWY

If we so choose.

SERMON PREACHED
AT THE CATHEDRAL OF St JOHN THE EVANGELIST,
WAIAPU
(NAPIER, NEW ZEALAND: first cathedral to see the sun)
(9th February) 2014

 Readings:      Isaiah 59.1-9a
                       Psalm 112.1-9
                       1 Corinthians 2.1-12
                       Matthew 5.13-20

It is something of a commonplace in some circles to attempt to drive a wedge between Jesus, the founder of Christianity (though some have acerbically applied that sobriquet to Paul) and Paul, the re-designer and destroyer of the pure unsullied message of Jesus. We need to be very careful in driving that wedge anywhere, because to do so sidesteps the complex question of the hand of God on human history – a minefield it is true, but a necessary minefield to navigate if God is to be God in our lives.

I defend Paul against any implications that he was in any way the destroyer of the simple pure and unsullied Jesus message. Certainly there were Jesus-sayings floating around in the ether before and after Paul struggled – for good reason – to set down a more or less consistent applied theology in his short series of letters. The suggestion that somehow setting quill to papyrus and structured order into the random circulation of Jesus’ thoughts is somehow counter-gospel, this suggestion is faithful neither to history nor theology nor common sense. Papyri – written documents – were no new thing, and attempting to schematize the sayings of Jesus into theologised collections was hardly a new pattern, as the oral history of the Hebrew people had been set to papyri for centuries.  There is no wedge between Paul and Jesus – or between the gospel writers and Jesus, or between Paul and the gospel writers: these are instruments of the Spirit of God as a new relationship between God and humanity was emerging from the womb of Mary.

Unlike Jesus, though, Paul was writing after the events of Jesus’ life death and resurrection – and yes of course the gospel writers were writing after Paul, adding another dimension to the wedges that are not there. It seems to this interpreter highly plausible that Matthew was in fact writing up the Jesus story in such a way as to correct some excesses that were being birthed by devotees of Paul: Matthew’s “not one jot, not one tittle of the Law shall pass away” interpretation of Jesus to me sounds to be very much like a correction of Paul’s seemingly somewhat nonchalant attitude to Torah. That idea too needs development elsewhere, not here and has been explored by better minds than mine. Still: Matthew was writing a generation after Paul, and was very nervous at the excesses of some of Paul’s students.

Nevertheless, what Paul saw clearly, and what Jesus-sayings only occasionally touch on because his life, at time of speaking, was not complete, is the meaning of Jesus’ entire life and death and resurrection. Paul, though I am convinced he knew the body of Jesus sayings and teachings, does not dwell on them and rarely quotes Jesus. He does this for two reasons: in the first place they are a part of the agreed territory that he shares with his audiences and rarely need revisiting, and secondly because he sees that Jesus is no mere moral teacher or life-coach, but is the revealing of the saving heart of God. As I have said and will say, Jesus as a moral teacher is okay, but no more riveting than many other historical moral teachers. Jesus as what we variously call “Christ” and “master” and “Son” and “Lord” and other Christological titles is a wholly different dimension, demanding (as we saw last week) a crisis of decision. And at the heart of the crisis of decision is the question “what is a nice God like you doing dying in a place like this?” – the place being, of course the Cross of Jerusalem.

We will return far more to that question in Lent, but for now it is worth leaving it hanging in the air, not unlike our own magnificent sanctuary cross. The beginning of the answer to that question is in the revising of a belief in God that has God merely clinging on by divine fingernails, clinging on “out there”, out at the cold outer fringes of the universe. The clinging on God is impotent, unable to connect with human suffering, impotent because remote and disconnected from the human journey. The God of the Cross is not: the God of the Cross is embarrassingly invasive, in here, driving to the heart of your experience and mine, driving to our deepest darknesses and there, even there, shining Christ-light – if we let that happen.

If we let God do that. If we do not then God remains removed, out there, standing at the door and knocking. While the famous saying “behold I stand at the door and knock” from the book of Revelation is often used as a tool and image of conversion it is that and so much more. This God may stand at the door of my life and seek entrance, but does not do so only once. Does God have accesses to the dark places of my life that even I fear to enter? Does God enter my attitudes to spouse and family, to refugees and money, to driving a car and caring for the environment, to sexuality and benevolence and kindness and gentleness and all those things that Paul would call the fruits of the Spirit? The spectacular fall of pastors and priests in sexual scandals is one clear sign that this is not always the case, but there are a myriad other ways in which we can turn the God of the Cross into a plaything, and cut God out of the deepest recesses of human existence, if we so choose.

If we so choose. Generally we do: I do the things I do not wish to do, writes Paul, in description of the human state. When we choose to shut God out, then we cease to be the salt and the light that Jesus challenges us to be. Here is where there can be no divide between Paul and Jesus. For Paul sees clearly that, in order to live up to the demands of the Jesus sayings, we need to encounter the empowerment of the Spirit of Jesus. That Spirit comes to us only as we invite her, only as again and again we call out to experience the penetration of our lives by the light of Christ, the resurrection light of Christ, the been there, done that and changed Good Friday into Easter light of Christ. This is the Christ of the Cross in whom God draws near and by whom our lives are turned from death to life, whether we live or whether we die. This is the Christ by whom by the grace of God we can be salt and light.

TLBWY