this Song goes on and on my friend

SERMON PREACHED AT THE WAIAPU CATHEDRAL

OF ST JOHN THE EVANGELIST

NAPIER, NEW ZEALAND
FIRST SUNDAY OF ADVENT (30^th November) 2014

           
Readings:        Isaiah 64:1-9

                         Psalm 80:1-7, 17-19
                         1 Corinthians 1:3-9
                         Mark 13:24-37

 

The story of the People of God is one of repeated stuttered beginnings. It is a story of the thwarted dreams of God, of forgiveness and new starts, of repeated stuttered beginnings by the chosen people of God, of the thwarted dreams of God, of forgiveness and new starts, and so the cycle goes on like those songs that dance again and again, longer and longer and harder and harder and futiler and futiler like the famous whirling dervishes, but without the beauty of their manic dance. It is a story of being human, yet a story of being human in a vortex of history.

 

When the last Isaiah voiced his great laments it was not a story looking to have a happy ending any time soon. All that the people of God had loved and treasured was lost: the great traditions of the past, the glorious first temple that both represented and enacted God’s presence was gone. The priesthood of the temple was gone. Economic security was gone. The great traditions of liturgy and worship were gone. Even the sense of there being a God was gone.

 

Te Mata Peak, Havelock North

When the twentieth century began God was back in His Heaven and all was well. The great ecclesiastical traditions of Europe practised magnificent liturgies, hymned a glorious national God, ensured children knew their Our Father and wore clean socks. The great movements of Empire were at their peak. Like Te Mata Peak   the breath-taking way up ended in a precipitous fall; on 28^th June 1914, Gavrilo Princip took the lives of the archduke Franz Ferdinand his wife Sophie. It was a catalyst for chaos, and Europe plunged into the demonic throes of the Great War. God fell from heaven for vast swathes of those who had admired His remote and majestic glories, and Christendom, if not Christianity, died.

 

It had been the same for Isaiah and many of the great prophets centuries before. Isaiah cried out: “O that you would tear open the heavens and come down, so that the mountains would quake at your presence.” It is probably a cry than many in the theatre of war could repeat, though perhaps today we have so lost the narrative of faith that there is no longer anyone to whom to cry.

This too is not a new thing under the sun: many in Isaiah’s time had grown comfortable and jettisoned God in times first of suffering, then of plenty: “no one calls on your name or strives to lay hold on you.”

 

But Isaiah dared to dream a different dream:  he dared to dream of a God who could and perhaps would rend the heavens, though evidence was non-existent. He dared to hold to the vestiges of God even though God was long dead:  the vast ceremonies and majesties of God were not for him, but a God who would eventually, as we find in the next chapter, respond and say “here I am, here I am.” But of course this is a story of the thwarted dreams of God, of forgiveness and new starts, of repeated stuttered beginnings by the chosen people of God, and the so the cycle goes on: this is the song that never ends: it goes on and on, my friends (and if that has sowed for you an ear worm then welcome to God’s world).

 

It is strange that we sanitise the great and prickly prophet Paul by reading his letter to the Corinthians as Advent begins. As he greets the Christians in Corinth he does so with heavy irony – irony that will grow as the exchange of letters between Ephesus and Corinth goes on. “I give thanks to my God always for you.” While it is clear he did just that, it is also clear that his thanks to God are uttered through increasingly clenched teeth as his relationship with Corinth goes on.  As if a precursor to the 19^th century Christians of Europe the Christians of Corinth have become increasingly full of their own self-importance. God is being pushed to the majestic outer echelons of performance.

 

Rituals and performances of Corinth were increasingly excluding and alienating the poor and the broken and the simple and the spat-upon of the very elitist town: “for in every way you have been enriched in him, in speech and knowledge of every kind” says Paul, with biting sarcasm. Later he will mock surprise: “yet I hear there are factions among you.” Hardly as macro as the nationalistic factions of Europe that would replace Christian love with the weapons of war after June 28^th, 1914, but still a part of the same tragic human propensity for self-importance: “I am for Apollos, I am for Paul, I am for Serbia or Syria or Islam or the great American way” announced the Christians, and the simple, factionless Lord Jesus was pushed to the peripheries. Paul was livid. The God of Isaiah’s Hebrew people had left them to suffer their own outcomes for their behaviour: was the story to be repeated in the new Jesus people? And the cycle goes on and on, like the whirling of dervishes.

 

Can the cycle be broken? Eventually the God of Isaiah’s Hebrews said “Enough is enough. Here I am.” As it happens, in the end, and probably after Paul’s death, the God of the Corinthians finally persuaded them that divine presence dwells not in might and power but in the brokenness that we see in the person of Jesus of manger and Cross. The God who left Europe to its own devices on June 28^th, 1914 is still watching and waiting.

The God of Christianity like the God of Isaiah (for this is the same God) is longing for the Global North, the powers that emerged from the reshuffled deckchairs of post-Empire Titanic-Europe, to learn compassion and justice and the significance of the simple message that the Messiah was born not in a palace but a manger. Perhaps we have to undergo ecological and economic collapse of unprecedented proportions (and that will include the loss of our entire ecclesiastical infrastructure) before we finally learn to cry with Isaiah “O that you would tear open the heavens and come down, so that the mountains would quake at your presence.” 

 

But this Advent as individuals and as a collective people of God we will re-enact at the very least a symbolic journey that reminds us that, when finally we give up our pretences of power and importance, we can be the people and the person to whom God will speak at last the words the words of the God of Isaiah, “I am here.” The question this advent is whether we will hear that voice, for it is a quiet one, easily drowned by own personal or collective chants of self-importance: “Keep awake”, says Jesus, and for centuries few people have noticed the fig tree.

 

TLBWY

Building a Church of Contrast

SERMON PREACHED AT ZILLMERE PARISH

YOUTH MASS, EVE OF TRINITY (25 May) 1999

 

“WHY BOTHER?”

 

Reading: John 6.60-69

 

Words of eternal life?

 

What happened to Peter? He is full of contradictions. He is full of bravado, full of an incurable belief in his own ability, full of self-worth, yet full of insecurity. In the end he is full too of seemingly ultimate cowardice and failure. First to profess his loyalty to Jesus, he is conspicu­ous in his categorical denial of him, too. “Lord I will follow you even if it should cost you my life” (Jn. 13.37) with one breath, then “I tell you, I never knew the man” (Jn. 18.25) with the next. Here he is seeing the essence of Jesus’ ministry: “Lord to whom we should go, your words are the words of eternal life.” In the end he is to be full of seemingly ultimate cowardice and failure, yet as the gospel writers knew, and as the first hearers of the gospel knew, he was in the end the “rock on whom Christ’s Church was built.” This man who failed so utterly, so conspicuously after so desperately wanting to succeed, this man becomes the bearer of leadership in the embryonic commun­ity of faith.

Mind you, he was prickly. Peter and that other prickly character, Paul, the later convert to Christianity, spent most of their careers at each other’s throats. The politics of apparent hatred so perfected by the Howards, Bea­zleys, Beatties, and Borbridges[1] of the world was not unique to our era. Glimpse between the lines of the records of Paul and Peter struggling for their vision of Christianity and we see real, red blooded, feisty opponents struggling for dominance of the Christian mind. “As for these agitators” says Paul, “Would that they would castrate themselves” (Gal 5.12). Peter was more polite: “Paul our friend and brother ... whenever he writes of salvation, write some ob­scure passages” says Peter through clenched teeth (2 Pet. 3.16).

Red blooded: I wonder if that’s it? There is so much that is saccharine in our society - and no less so much that is saccharine in contemporary Chris­tianity. Contemporary?  It’s had its saccharine elements at least since the fourth century, when the emperor Constantine declared Christianity to be an official religion of the Roman Empire. From that time on Christianity ran and often succumbed to the risk of becoming complacent - or worse, powerful and arrogant.  How far a cry this was from the struggling, powerless but feisty understandings of Peter, Paul, and Jesus himself. The red blood has been sapped out of Christianity (D.H. Lawrence noted something like this in 1905), and much of the spirit dwindled into triviality.

But fear not! No longer are we living in an era when it is chic or comforta­ble to be Christian. For you Christianity is a challenge, demanding commit­ment. The Church today in Australia is facing at least three forms of persecu­tion.

 

1.            A bitter lesson I learned out of my time in the ABC was the ease with which mainstream Christianity is marginalized. I was employed by the Religious Department of ABC Radio primarily to present the complexities of theological debate to the Australian public. While I had always known that it is not the task of the ABC to promote Christianity, I was amazed how quickly that Chris­tianity and its concerns were shouldered aside. I spent time interviewing witches, druids, Roshis, Imams and Rabbis, and tended to interview represen­tatives of the Christian faith only when they were defending the role of the Church in sexual abuse scandals, financial or numerical collapse. I interviewed  some great representatives of credible Christianity; but  attempts  to get work like that to air, and the defences I had to establish against  criti­cism  that such representatives of Christianity were “boring” and  ”old  hat,” soon wore me down.

2.            Media portrayals of mainstream Christianity are by and large mocking. On the whole clergy and worshippers are portrayed in entertainment as doddery and/or bigoted. An ABC Compass documentary in 1995 portrayed the entire Anglican Church of Australia as bankrupt, aged and corrupt. Because I was one of many representatives of other aspects of Anglican Christianity interviewed and discarded for that dokko, I am aware how jaundiced its agenda was. It was not atypical.

3.            Then also, like the early Church, we face a threat of relativism.  Choose your truth, rub the tricky bits out of the Christian story - if it’s intellectually difficult, and rid your selves of it. Resurrection, the Trinity;

 

[SING “WILL YOU COME AND FOLLOW ME.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8lOfMjtxdE]

 

Some  years ago, following the Port Arthur tragedy, Anne was told that  while the  opening verses which speak of the experiences of suffering are fine,  the resurrective, hope-filled  final verses were too simplistic is  to  deny  the gospel  of its entire meaning. It is incredible twentieth century arrogance to assume that St. Paul was a naive first century fool when he told his people “If there is no resurrection then we are to be more pitied than all  people.” We are bearers of a word of hope, and that ii itself is a sign to our commun­ity that can transform lives from darkness into light.

Peter was feisty. The gospel stories concentrate largely on his failings.

Constantly  he  gets  it  wrong, tries too hard, tries to do  in  all  in  the strength of his own power, tries to demonstrate to Jesus that he really is the smart guy. In our gospel reading just now Jesus poured out an incredible human pain:  So he asked the twelve disciples: “And you, would you like also to leave?”  Many had already. The rough edges of the way of the cross were too much for them to take. Peter though responded with what we tend to think was the right answer: “Lord, to whom would we go? You have the words that give eternal life. And now we believe and know that you are the Holy One who has come from God.”

Yet he too was soon to desert Christ. Peter’s desertion was no less of a failing than the betrayal of Judas. Jesus replied sadly: “I chose the twelve of you, didn’t I? Yet one of you is a devil.” He was, as our narrator said, referring to Judas Iscariot. But the only other person who gets called “Satan” or “a devil” in the gospels, is Peter himself. “Get behind me, Satan”, says Jesus, when bravadoed Peter once more tries to stop Jesus from taking the lonely, broken way of the Cross.

Only when Peter was finally utterly, utterly broken does he finally become the ne to whom Jesus commands the humble yet earth-changing task “Feed my sheep.” Only when we are broken can we truly be bearers of the living, loving God.

You and I are called to suffer. We’ll say that together later in this mass. We are called to the way of the Cross, and that is a way of challenge and suffer­ing, as well as joy and exhilaration. By being a people of faith we are called to rise, though not in our strength to be a sign to our world. The people of Israel, our ancestors in faith, were called out of Egypt not because they were particularly nice people, but because they were a people in pain; God chose to encounter them and breathe into their pain a sign of hope not only for them but for all people. And you and I are called to be Christ bearers in the same way. Peter wasn’t holy or nice. I’m not holy or nice. You’re probably not, either. But amidst all the darkness that we live amongst - amidst the dark pressures of education, sexuality, racism, unemployment and chemical (drug and alcohol) abuse, to name just a handful, we are called to shine a different light.

Even our worship must be different. So much that is Christian  seeks  to  be  noisier,  “funner”, brighter than the brightest lights of  Dreamworld,  sports extravaganza, but in the end risks producing only another form of noise,  fun, neon  or laser brightness. Peter’s mistake was to attempt to be a laser show for Jesus. Our responsibility is to be a people of contrast: amidst the noise, sow silence. Amidst the bustle, stillness. Amidst the false brightness, the laser shows of advertising, sports, entertainment, designed as they are to hide a deeper darkness of loneliness and emptiness, we are called to shine an unspectacular natural light of peace. Amidst the dog eat dog world of commerce and profit we are called to offer justice and compassion.

Peter learned that himself only when he was broken. Only then he became the person of love commissioned to build a Church of Contrast. We must likewise allow ourselves to be transformed as Paul put it into the likeness of Christ - changed into a people who contrast quietly, not imitate noisily, the emptiness of our world.

And to that end we place at the heart of our celebration this day the commun­ion. In a world that only does things that taste good, produce good money, or are spectacular, we shall simply break plain bread, be still, and allow an unusable and quiet Spirit of God to touch our lives again. The challenges are great. The rewards are God’s infilling of our hearts so that we no longer yearn for meaning, but instead become bearers of meaning to the world around us. Peter learned that eventually.

 

“Simon Peter, son of John, do you love me?”

---

[1] All high profile Australian politicians in 1999.

‘the earth is a witch and we still burn her’.

One of the by-products of deaning is that there are a plethora of Sundays in which I relinquish the pulpit to a variety of waifs, strays and dignitaries - on this occasion to the Bishop of Lynn (Jonathan Meyrick: see above: he's far more out there than I am). As it happens I can find no record of my preaching on the 33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time in Year A since my electronic records struggle to birth in about 1997, and if there are any other occasions prior to that I'd have to type them up. *Sigh.* So here's a sermon from three years and one week ago ... which I should have posted last week. *Sigh again.*

SERMON PREACHED AT

THE CHURCH OF THE GOOD SHEPHERD, FRED’S PASS

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 6^th 2011

(PENTECOST 21 / ORDINARY SUNDAY 32: CARE FOR CREATION SUNDAY)

          Readings:     Joshua 24.1-3a, 14-25

                      Psalm 78.1-7
                      1 Thessalonians 4.9-18
                      Matthew 25.1-13

 

Perhaps by way of apology I should begin by outlining my caution towards so-called special Sundays. A little like the ‘Year Of’ pronouncements that emanate, I suspect, from a small office in the labyrinthine corridors of the United Nations – with its religious ‘Year Of’ counterpart in the smaller but equally labyrinthine corridors of the World Council of Churches, these declarations can become a hailstorm of apocalyptic proportions, spitting passionate and often worthy concerns at us faster than the speed of light. It seems to me on any one day we can, if not exhausted, find ourselves in the Decade of Evangelism, the Year of the Child, the Year of Being Nice to Endangered Species, the Year of Looking Out For Nasty Weeds, The Month of Being Kind to Grandmothers, The Month of Protecting Endangered Rock Oysters, the Day of Remembering Dolphins and the Day of Making Sure You Are Proud of Your Prayer Book, all unawares. I’m a kind of Church Year and lectionary junky, not because I’m some sort of bombastic Anglo-Catholic (though I might be!) because I believe these are the best tools available to ensure that neither worship nor preaching becomes a cyclical focus on the Michael Godfrey personal obsession collection. By preaching and praying the liturgical calendar, imperfect though it may be, we are taken out of cosy comfort zones and forced to encounter the often discomforting regions of the scriptures of our faith. We are not forced into a form of dead mechanicalism, but are steered away from smorgasbord faith, popular in some churches (evangelical and liberal alike), where we pick and choose the flavours that we like.

That whinge aside, however, I am on this occasion allowing a degree of special focus in our thoughts, for Care of and Hope for what I call ‘God’s Garden’, Creation, is a fundamental mission of the Christian Community. For many years now the Anglican Consultative Council has recognized and affirmed five marks of mission:

·                     to proclaim the Good News of the Reign of God

·                     to teach, baptize and nurture new believers,

·                     to respond to human need by loving service,

·                     to seek to transform unjust structures of society, and

·                    to strive to safeguard the integrity of creation and sustain and renew the life of the earth.

In fact the fifth – (which incidentally reads like a sentence put together by a working party!) – was a late addition to the first four, and arrived on the scene in 1990. Nevertheless it is an important acknowledgement that Creation is an act of God’s sharing love, that the nurture of Creation is a commission given to humanity in the very creation stories, and that the lives of many of our sisters and brothers in the human race lie perilously balanced as we often selfishly devour and destroy the resources of God’s earth.

There is then a sense that all our interpretation and application of scripture at all times must incorporate a degree of concern for the garden God has entrusted to us. It would be forced to pretend it was there all the time – it would be forced to pretend every scripture selection commissions us to evangelize or to strive for justice – but it is there. And strangely it is there by implication on this day, as our readings towards the close of the liturgical year begin to pick up the crescendo of apocalyptic expectation. Even Paul’s impassioned and moving address to the Thessalonians, while hardly a Green Party manifesto, for as ever Paul commissions his audience to live their lives in such a way of love that they benefit and enhance the lives of those around them: ‘live quietly, … mind your own affairs, … work with your hands, as we directed you, so that you may behave properly toward outsiders and be dependent on no one’. Paul was far from considering ecological issues, but if we are to read Paul in the 21^st century we must ask whether our western lifestyles really demonstrate propriety towards others. Many analysts suggest that the fury that runs through the veins of El Qaida is nurtured at least in part by the bitter gaps in economic status between the West (or, as it is now called, ‘the global north’), as we gobble up resources that could fuel and feed and clothe all the world. It is simplistic, but it is a partial truth.

Sadly, as the Christian community read its apocalyptic texts, as I have mentioned now many times, it read them from a listening or reading site vastly different to that in which they were written. Those of us engaging in the Advent studies will be reminded of this yet again during December. Too often, though, Christians, especially those with an apocalyptic or millenarianist bent,  have used expectation of a glorious Second Coming as an excuse to disregard or, more shamefully still, to hasten the desecration of the earth. Consequently that Christianity-averse writers such as Seattle songwriter Charlie Murphy can remind us bitterly ‘the earth is a witch and we still burn her’.

To ignore our responsibility to nature is to drive a wedge between the miracle of our origins, in which God commands us to ‘husband’ creation, and the expectation of Christ’s return. To drive a wedge in such a way is blithely to forget the doctrine of judgement, and to forget those parables in which Jesus warns us that will be asked to account for the gifts we have had entrusted to us. It is to forget, too, that while we often emphasize the ‘friendship’ of Jesus, parables such as that of the ten maidens are texts that remind us of our obligation constantly to evaluate and re-evaluate our lives in the light of the glare of Christ.

I do not believe we are called to follow any political party line in approach to these questions. I do believe, though, that we are called over and again to re-focus our lives to ensure that we nurture and care for the gifts that God has given us, and use them constantly in ways which glorify God. We are called to ensure that our lifestyles are not destroying God’s earth, and where they are, or where they are denying the livelihood and the very existence of our fellow humans and other species, to seek forgiveness, make alteration, and in that way to ensure our candles burn with eagerness as the bridegroom arrives. May God help us so to do.

 

TLBWY