SERMON PREACHED
at
TE POU HERENGA
WAKA O TE WHAKAPONO
(SOUTH NAPIER)
15TH
ORDINARY SUNDAY
(July 10th)
2016
Readings:
Amos
7:7-17
(Psalm 82)
Colossians
1:1-14
Luke 10:25-37
Kia tau ki a koutou,
te
atawhai me te rangimarie o te Atua
Tihe mauri ora!
E te whanau a te Karaiti
E ngā tupuna o tēnei whare karakia
Haere, haere, haere!
Ko Ruapehu taku maunga
Ko Whanganui taku awa
Ko Rangitane taku waka
Ko Mitsubishi Triton taku waka
Ko Hehu Karaiti toku Rangatira!
Ko ngāti pakeha taku iwi
Ko Mikaere te ingoa
No reira
Tena kotou
Tena kotou
Tena tatau katoa
If the teachings of Jesus were reduced to just one or
two best known stories, the Parable of the Good Samaritan (or as I would prefer
to call it, the Parable of the Exemplary Outsider) would remain. As it happens,
in the history of human religion this central teaching about mercy and
compassion is not altogether unusual: the teachings of Jesus had his own style
and context, but all the great faith-founders have preached compassion, mercy,
justice. As Christians we might make other claims about the uniqueness of the
life of Jesus, but we begin to slip into the role of the bad guys, the priest
and the Levite in this parable, if we start making claims that ignore the
sparks of God in other great prophets and faith leaders.
I happen to believe Jesus is unique, but not on the
basis of his teachings. The earliest Christians, like those addressed in the
letter to the Colossians, were suitably impressed by Jesus’ teachings, but they
were far more wowed by their experience of the Risen Lord in their midst as
they prayed, broke bread, explored the Hebrew Scriptures and generally worshipped
together. So great is this sense that when the great apostles and pastors like Paul
write to each other they encouraged each other again and again by rejoicing in that
shared, irreversible, irreplaceable knowledge: ‘the Lord be with you’ … which
actually should be translated ‘the Lord is with you’, to which the answer, even
in times of great trial, risk, suffering was ‘yup, and with you too.’ We say it
in slightly different ways when we worship but it’s there over and again in the
pukapuka karakia (prayer book). Those first Christians knew that to follow
Jesus would mean suffering, and knew too that the risen Lord would not desert
them when it happened:
“May
you be made strong with all the strength that comes from his glorious power,
and may you be prepared to endure everything with patience, while joyfully giving
thanks to the Father, who has enabled you to share in the inheritance of the
saints in the light.”
The strength those Christians
experienced was based on their mutual encouragement, fellowship, and practice,
like a sports team, of the experience of the Risen Christ. They came together
at least weekly, perhaps more, to support one another, build one another up,
and to be the hands and feet of God for each other and within the wider community,
practicing (at least at their best) compassionate justice and love. They didn’t
always get it right: Paul and his imitators often had to write stern corrective
letters where members of the Jesus community had fallen short of the
expectations they, on behalf of God, had of Jesus-people. Sometimes they had
become too much like the priest and the Levite in the Parable we read,
self-interested, rushed, maintaining purity rather than the radical forgiving
hospitality and embrace that is the gospel of Jesus Christ. Sometimes they
forgot the presence and compassionate yet stern glare of the God who judges,
they turned people away, by word or by attitude, or hurried past those in
physical or spiritual or emotional need, taking the other side of the road, or closing
the doors of welcome.
Jesus
empowers us to be compassionate, merciful and just. I believe God judges us on
our failures to do just that – but at the same time, when we recognize this or
any of our short-fallings, confess them to God, seek God’s healing strength,
God picks us up, nudges us further down the walk of the Way of the Cross, the
way of becoming Christlike, the way of redemption. Sometimes as individuals,
and often as an institution, we forget our vocation to compassion and love: that’s
why we say sorry to God every time we share Te Hakari Tapu (the holy feast),
practicing, learning over and over again how we should relate to God our judge
and redeemer. As we grow into those words and attitudes we will become less
like the priest and the Levite, and more like the complete outsider who Jesus
said was close indeed to the values of the Kingdom of God: "The one who showed him mercy." … "Go and do
likewise." If we get that right, powerfully right, then we might just
be the community of Christ, the community of welcome that we are called to be.
TLBWY
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