SERMON
PREACHED at St PETER’S, QUEENSTOWN
ORDINARY
SUNDAY 22 (September 2nd) 2018
READINGS:
Song of Solomon 2: 8-13
Psalm 45: 1-2, 6-9
James 1: 17-27
Mark 7: 1-8, 14-15, 21-33
If you wondered why we end up with a hotchpotch selection of verses from
a chapter in Mark it is because we are forced by our worship patterns to bend
his writings into an unsuitable form. We have for several weeks been loitering
with intent amongst the writings of John. His dense cyclical and poetic prose
makes scene selections almost impossible. Similarly we now are confronted with
the much more instinctive writer Mark. His different technique is to knit
together fire-side yarns in a way that gave his original listeners a sense of
the momentum of the journey of Jesus towards Good Friday (and eventual hints of
the day of resurrection). His pace is relentless.
Mark takes stories, splits them open, somewhat clumsily at times, and
inserts other stories into them. But, while he is an instinctive storyteller,
he is like most story tellers, no fool. He always has his eyes on the
implication of the Jesus moments he narrates. His insertions of stories within
stories always serve not only to make their own narrative- or “story-point” but
to expand and develop missiological points in the story: how then, he is always
asking, should we behave? What priorities appear in these scenes?
In the verses we omit we find Jesus delivering some telling blows to the
hypocrisy of religious leaders of his day. It appears that those who design the
lectionary are wary of litigation, neatly sidestepping verses that might be
used by preachers to expose double standards in places of religious leadership.
Ironically the nuances of Jesus and Mark are probably wasted on those who
exercise hypocrisy from ivory towers and carved seats of authority: in my
experience hypocritical religious leaders never quite discern any way in which
harsh sayings of Jesus might apply to them. But we are called to rise above
hypocrisy.
Always a primary tool of interpreting the scriptures must be that of
asking what the Spirit of God might be saying to the hidden recesses of our own
lives. What behaviours of mine might Jesus be highlighting when he speaks of
those who “honour God with their lips but set their hearts far from God”? Do I
have dark recesses in my life where I am not keen for the light of Christ to
shine?
The suggestion of much of our Scripture is that if we hide our true
selves, our true colours from the searing light of Christ, we can be fairly
sure that any merit in our public profession will be deeply tarnished. The
searing gaze of Christ focusses on all of us who dare to call ourselves
Christian. Do I publicly wring my hands about global warming, injustice,
racism, sexism – while quietly doing little or nothing about it? Do I stand
crippled by my immobility, while lives are torn around me? I fear so, and
whisper words of thanks for a forgiving God. But I must whisper words asking
that I be changed, too, journeying towards the likeness of Christ.
We all fall short, and we as an institution fall short. In large part
this is because of our self-absorption, our selfish survival obsession, our
determination to rely on a crumbling infrastructure. God is currently
stripping away our Linus blankets, our reliance on false gods. The
Syrophoenician woman is desperate, with nowhere else to turn. ‘To whom else
shall I turn for words of salvation,’ asked Peter last week.
We are called to throw ourselves at the mercy of the God who always has reached
and always will reach out to those who throw themselves at God’s feet in the
search for hope and comfort. We are also called to be there for those who come
into our orbit, seeking compassion, love, and hope. We must give as we have
received.
We must do all in the power that God gives us to be truly compassionate.
We learn from Jesus, and we are empowered by the Spirit of Jesus, to touch the
lives of the broken. Where are the Syrophoenician women of our society crying
out for children they cannot sustain, households they cannot hold together? Do
we dare ask God to show us?
It is this call to compassionate action that James sees so clearly as he
somewhat sternly addresses his church: “every generous act of giving … is from
above.” Bitter struggles between wings of the church (in all its forms, but
ours, too) that claim theirs is the true gospel, these are demonic distortions.
We are called to be truly evangelical, truly liberal, truly catholic, truly all
those things that point to a God prepared to touch and transform the
untouchables and the lonely and the broken. We are called to give: to give
hospitality, to give justice, to give light and love and hope to those around
us. We can do that, those who have the skills, through the big institutional methodologies
of social change. Others amongst us might offer water to a stranger, a lift to
a hitch-hiker, a coin to a busker or a smile to passing eyes. The saying is
right: it does no harm to practice random acts of kindness.
The searing light of divine judgement that I refer to often, is
currently turning on our institutions. Where we have been hypocritical we are
being exposed. Where we have relied on false securities we are being exposed. Where
we have been too quick to judge others we are being exposed. This applies to us
as individuals, too of course.
The challenge put to us by the gospel is the challenge of rumouring the
compassion and the life and the light of Jesus wherever God places us. If we
dare to ask how we might do that in Queenstown we might find answers.
TLBWY
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