SERMON PREACHED AT
St PAUL’S, ARROWTOWN,
and St PETER’S,
QUEENSTOWN
ORDINARY SUNDAY 17 (July
29th) 2018
READINGS:
2 Sam 11.1-15
Psalm 14
Ephesians 3.14-21
John 6.1-21
Even when I
(briefly!) moved in fundamentalist Pentecostal circles, in the late 1970s, I
felt deeply uncomfortable when I heard this psalm, and its near-counterpart in
Psalm 53. It was delivered as a sort of spiritual QED, the definitive put-down to anyone who does not believe there
is a God. Even in those heady first flushes of faith I felt uneasy. I had been
an atheist, and admired then as I continue to admire today those who’s
committed searching leads them to conclude that there is not and cannot be a God.
This is not the
same as lazy disinterest. This is the weighing up of probability and eventual
decision that, despite the complexity of the question, we must decide that we
are going to live on in a universe without a Creator, without any external source
or guide. It is a brave finding, and one in the end that I was and am unable to
maintain. To those atheists I apologize that solitary texts have been torn from
their context by adherents of Christian traditions, used as a weapon in a war
of spiritual dogma.
The context of
this psalm was far more complex that such sneering dismissal of atheism
indicates. The psalmist was writing for those for whom there was no question
that there is a God. His QED is more
akin to what I would prefer to deliver to those who continue to practice within
the context of faith, but who dismantle the faith of those around them. Such
people declare that, for example, there is no such thing as resurrection (and
you have heard me on that before) or that “God” is no more than a useful
construct of human intellect.
While I am not
altogether a believer in hell, I could despatch such as these to the Judecca,
the deepest human realm of Dante’s Inferno.
There they would meet with those who have used religious prestige to persecute
and prey on the vulnerable. I am in good company: Saint Paul poured contempt on
those who considered themselves strong enough in faith to trample on the beliefs
of those more vulnerable, more dependent on God and God’s grace (see e.g. the
heavy sarcasm of 2 Cor 12.9-12, 13.9). Resurrection may not be comprehensible,
and never was, but to stand within a community of faith and debunk it from
pulpits and other soapboxes (very different to expressing personal and
understandable doubts) is a crime far more despicable than professing a love of
cricket while sand-papering the match ball.
Contemporary
evildoers akin to those of the psalm, then, are not atheists, but those who
stand within a faith-filled world-view and then dismantle the faith and hope of
believers. To stand with a family who have lost a child and declare only a
bleak and empty universe, when such a family are clinging to some hope of
future reunion, this is betrayal. It is not the same as standing and with those
who have no other-worldly beliefs. There
are other ways for non-believers to find hope amidst grief, and we can affirm
their search, with love.
Our psalm can
be allied in a similar way to religious leaders who use their power within a
faith-institution to build up their own wealth, prestige or sexual
gratification. This is common, and is deeply evil. Those who exploit the poor
with imposed prosperity gospels (be faithful to my version of God and grow
rich), who impose tithing (a bitter distortion of Hebrew Scriptural teachings),
those who use religious influence to gain sexual gratification, these are deeply
evil; these are the focus of our psalm.
Such as these
stand, as biblical commentator Hans-Joachim Krauss eloquently put it, under the
“scrutinizing look of God.” Unless we completely cauterize our hearts and souls
(and many, sadly do) that scrutinizing look is an uncomfortable place to stand.
For those that do cauterize their souls I suggest there may be some awkward
truths in the doctrine of divine judgement. That doctrine is often conveniently
dismantled by those same people, modern day Sadducees.
Our primary task
is to scrutinize our own lives. What in me is hypocritical, abusive, predatory?
I’m not going to tell you! Yet I must always turn Krauss’s “scrutinizing look
of God” on myself. What in me takes a chance on the universe and acts as if
there is no scrutinizing look of God? Can I, having deadened that searing
scrutiny, then exploit, abuse, pillage without fear of judgement? The truly
great atheist, agnostic, Hindu or Muslim can utilise the same criterion. What
in me exploits, abuses, pillages, lives comfortably at the expense of the
comfort and security of others around me or others yet to come? Psalm 14 put that
question to us, not to the authentic adherent
of other faiths or none. Psalm 14 challenges hypocrisy, not, as was implied
when I moved in fundamentalist circles all those years ago, honest dis- or
unbelief.
Our liturgy
implies that. This is why we undergo a representative rite of confession before
we break open the word – or, I suggest in Lent and Advent, after we have broken
open the word. We have undertaken that symbolic rite today. So where now – if
for a moment we accept that we have opened our lives to the scrutinizing look
of God?
The psalmist
recognizes that the prevalence of religious hypocrisy should throw us back on
our knees. He challenges us to pray that God will exorcise the double standards
in our own lives. In liturgy we go on to enter a sort of pre-enactment of the
grace-filled world to which God’s energies are drawing us, the world in which
we gather with all redeemed sinners and hypocrites around the table of
God. We gather knowing that God is
drawing us towards that glorious, all-inclusive eternity. The processes remain
mystery und unfulfilled as yet, but we will remember that we personally are
unworthy and need a whole lot of fine-tuning in our lives. We should remember
and lament too that there is some spectacular evil-doing still continued in the
name of Christ, not least by those who use the name of Jesus to exploit others
to buy their Lear jets, or build their mansions, or satisfy their depraved
appetites.
Having pre-enacted
that completion we will offer our flawed selves, “soul and body,” to go out in
the world and live out God’s love and justice. To the author of Ephesians that
means we go out, having “bent our knees to the Father” and touched “the love of
Christ that surpasses knowledge.” We go out to be channels of the power not of
our own egos but of “him who is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all
we can ask or imagine.” Then and only then can our self-sacrificing love begin
to be that love that feeds the bellies and the souls of the thousands who are
hungry on the hillsides of human existence.[1] May we go out cleansed of
all hypocrisy and renewed in the faith of Christ.
TLBWY
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