SERMON
PREACHED AT ALL SAINTS’, GLADSTONE
ORDINARY
SUNDAY 25(22nd September) 2019
READINGS:
Jeremiah
8:18–9:1
Psalm 79:1-91 Timothy 2:1-7
Luke 16:1-13
If we were to look in the
scriptures for a sign that the God of the Cross is not beholden to Christian
(or any other) expectations, the signs would be found not least in the parables
of Jesus. Time and again the teachings of Jesus pluck from the world around him
unexpected symbols of the upside-down priorities of God. These crazy
upside-down priorities were foreshadowed in the Magnificat when the “Mighty”
shall be plucked down from their complacent thrones, and the “Humble” lifted up
into the heart of God. Some of the Jesus stories can seem cosy and “meh” to us
now: poor Lazarus and the once-powerful oppressor, Dives, with the unfathomable
gulf between them in an image of judgement. That, or cosy, now-saccharined
tales of shepherds and lambs. The stories weren’t cosy, then, but two thousand
years can deaden a lot of ear canals. But what do we do with corrupt villains who,
in the hands of Jesus the story-teller, become signs of the purposes of God?
Anyone who knows of my utter
contempt for the current leadership of the USA and indeed the UK would be a
little surprised if I suddenly proposed “the kingdom of God is like a failed
business tycoon who seized the White House.” Dig a little deeper and we might
find that there is something about the single-minded corrupt megalomania of the
current president of the USA that does speak of priorities and focus. Dig a
little deeper still and we might find that God is not limited to expectations
of pollical rights and lefts: as it happens I do believe that Trump, Boris and
others my well be instruments of the judgement of God on a complacent and
greedy world: we’ve got, internationally speaking, what we deserve. Perhaps we
need to learn to listen to the prophets in our midst: to Greta Thunberg and Gen
Z, who care about God’s planet. But more of that in a moment.
There is something desperate,
single-minded, about the corrupt servant of today’s parable. This is not a
suggestion that we should utilise greed and self-interest as agents of faith –
though God knows there are enough Lear-jet touting Christian hypocrites that do
just that. But this parable has been so disturbing enough for preachers and scholars
over the centuries that they have bent over backwards, trying to find ways to
water down the oddity of Jesus’ use of images of scheming and corruption as
vehicles of gospel meaning.
Jesus was less prudish. The
steward is desperate to gain possession of the trust and security he has lost.
Jesus raises some not altogether hypothetical issues about the degree to which
we desire the gifts of God, the gift of the knowledge and radical all-inclusive
embrace of the God who longs for our readiness. The parable demands that we
place our lives in the service of God’s love, no holds barred, desperate for
the encounter that can transform us. The parable demands urgency. There was a
business tycoon so narcissistic that he destroyed a world to gain the White
House.
Urgency is the very life
ingredient that Greta Thunberg is demanding of the world each time she speaks.
The gospel is not merely a programme of this worldly social activism, yet nor
is it blasé and nonchalant about the planet God has given us to love and to
care for. The gospel demands that we are urgent in our care for the gifts of
this life, at least as much if not more than the urgency we might ascribe to
that which dwells beyond our sight: be desperate, says the gospel. Nonchalance,
complacency: these are the enemies of the gospel. We all slip into them. We all
need the breaking and prompting and prodding of God’s urgent Spirit.
Greta Thunberg, this uncanny
prophet: we might recall that she is only the latest in a series of chosen
voices, female voices through history, that have spoken with cataclysmic
urgency from their position of vulnerability and desperation. Joan of Arc, Rosa
Park, Malala Yousufzai, Rachel Carson, to name just some. These are the
stewards of Jesus’ parable, looking into the abyss and calling us to respond
from our cosy laissez faire armchairs. Dare we, we are tempted to ask?
Dare we not, asks the steward. Jeremiah spoke out of the deep urgency of
apocalyptic grief as the world collapsed around him. So too does Greta
Thunberg. So too must we speak about material and spiritual concerns of God.
With urgency we are challenged
not to succumb to what Bob Dylan called the worst fear – the fear to bring
children into the world – though obviously population cautions are called for
on a groaning earth. We are called to speak of hope, not despair. Called to
seize faith amidst the emptiness of our community, and live it transcendently,
conspicuously, compassionately in the interests of God’s people and God’s
earth. We are called, like Greta Thunberg or Malala Yousufzai, to challenge
hopelessness and oppression, to seize purpose rather than remaining possums in
the headlights of degeneration. We are called to act, empowered by God’s Spirit
of hope and light and life. We are called to speak of hope against all odds,
but simultaneously to act to bring about the changes that voice that hope. We
are called to be as provocative and urgent as a steward facing the collapse of
his world.
May God help us all to be so.
