SERMON
PREACHED AT THE WAIAPU CATHEDRAL
OF ST
JOHN THE EVANGELIST
(NAPIER,
NEW ZEALAND)
ORDINARY SUNDAY 23 (12th October) 2014
ORDINARY SUNDAY 23 (12th October) 2014
Readings:
Isaiah 25:1-9
Psalm
23
Philippians
4:1-9
Matthew
22:1-14
One of
the great divides running through the witness of Christianity, almost as bitter
if less militarized that the Shi’ite-Sunni divide in Islam, is the divide
between the public-political faith practitioners and the personal-piety faith
practitioners. This difference is often enshrined in denominational allegiances,
and within denominations in the cleavage that sometimes exists between liberal
and conservative, though the labels founder on individual realities. They
provide a useful starting point, though: show me your personal salvation and I’ll
show you my political-social activism, or vice versa.
And,
while I haven’t yet asked a question, the answer were I to ask the obvious one,
is both-and, of course. Personal piety without commitment to public justice is
obscene. Political activism not anchored in personal piety is thistledown,
planted on the wind, as Denis Glover and the Preacher of Ecclesiastes each
might remind us. Not either/or, but both/and, though I should add that there is
a form of personal piety that is so seamlessly and unquestioningly anchored in
right-wing politics, particularly in the USA, that an observer might begin to
wonder where the party politics ends and the faith begins. I make no secret of my
belief that right-wing or capitalist dismissal of climate change is neither
more nor less obscene than a left-leaning form of politics that separates cavalier
sexuality from responsibility, and which reduces an unborn infant to the level
of medical inconvenience.
So,
while I find no scriptural reference (and however slippery interpretation
always is, scripture will and must
always be the yardstick of debate) to “personal” salvation and a “personal”
saviour, neither do I find a scriptural imprimatur of the nation state’s right
to ignore the plight of the individual in a mantra of the greatest good for the
greatest number. Last time I checked Jesus revealed the heart of neither a Communist
nor a Fascist God but the heart of the vulnerable, hurting but
hurt-transcending God of the Cross. “My Jesus, my Saviour” of the popular hymn is
also Jesus, Saviour of the World of the ancient canticle.
What do
we do then with a collection of tenuously linked readings like those we have? The
God of Isaiah’s prophesy will wipe away tears from the eyes of God’s people,
but this is a very collective, nationalistic God and it is the collective nationalistic
guilt and the collective, nationalistic tears that are being addressed. The God
of Philippians’ prickly author seems interested in the focus of the individual believer’s
eyes, a sort of “Turn your eyes upon Jesus” message, but elsewhere Paul
indicates that he does not have an individualistic but what is called a “dyadic”
view of the encounter between a believer and God, in which whole communities or
at least households may together, not individually, turn to receive the
grace-touch of the Saviour. Jesus seems to be threatening the dismissal of a
wayward chap to eternal hellfire, but the context, as I have suggested
elsewhere, is a tragi-comic tale about behaviour that even the most
reprehensible first century reprobate would not countenance, suggesting
therefore that this is more than just a tale about naughty individuals who do
not surrender to an altar-call of personalised salvation.
So I
suggest always, despite the non-existential, non-personal flavour of the world
in which the scriptures groaned to birth, despite the suggestion that salvation
in the biblical stories is not ever some sort of individualistic ticket to
eternity, that we nevertheless take each of these references and realize that,
while we can’t change the world, we can nevertheless change ourselves (with the
help of God), and while we can’t persuade the world of the veracity of the
claims our faith makes for Jesus or for God, we can nevertheless allow our
lives to be continually changed so that at least the rumour of God and God’s
values are kept alive. In that way, as global security blankets fray and disintegrate as they
have for every civilization, nevertheless the life-transforming love of the God
we encounter in worship and fellowship can shine through our attitudes of
compassion and justice and love despite the noisiness and fallibility of our
normal human self-serving volitions. I suggest that we don’t threaten to throw other people into hellfire, in other
words, but deal with that within ourselves which rejects the love-touch of God, the
healing invitation of God, that we amputate that within our lives which drowns out the justice-song of God, that we amputate
that within us which is anti-Christ
and turned to darkness rather than divine and eternal light. It is after all,
as Jesus says elsewhere, better to enter eternity maimed that to spend eternity,
whatever that might mean, wailing and gnashing our teeth.
As we do
that, and always only ever with the help of God, we may just become better
guests in the eternal banquet hall of God.
TLBWY
No comments:
Post a Comment