with arms wide open

come as you are

SERMON PREACHED AT St JOHN’S, WAIKOUAITI

ORDINARY SUNDAY 13 (JUNE 28^th) 2020

READINGS:

Genesis 22: 1-14

Psalm 13

Romans 6: 12-23

Matthew 10: 40-42

‘Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me. ⁴¹ Whoever welcomes a prophet in the name of a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward; and whoever welcomes a righteous person in the name of a righteous person will receive the reward of the righteous; ⁴² and whoever gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones in the name of a disciple—truly I tell you, none of these will lose their reward.’

In a passage peculiar to Matthew, Jesus draws a long bow. In theological terms John’s gospel-account makes it clear that the absolute correlation between the words and the actions of Jesus – to the extent that John calls him “Word” – was the hallmark of his public ministry. The same can be said of few of the rest of us. I wrestle almost daily with the credibility gap between the ideals I espouse and the realities I practise, and quietly thank God for the rites of confession that are a part of our routines of worship. We have sinned in thought, word, and action, we solemnly intone, sometimes adding the observation “in what we have done and in what we have left undone.” Amen, alas.

The integrity of Jesus, even reaching to his execution and beyond, was such that his earliest followers could accept Matthew’s recounting of the words we just heard: “whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me,” welcomes God. The hope Jesus expresses is that to receive his followers, too, was to receive him and therefore to receive God and the grace which is God’s primary word of welcome: “come, receive.” Few of us, and probably few even of the first followers of Jesus in the New Testament era, would claim to be perfect renditions of Jesus or his gospel. In John’s gospel-account though we see the clear belief of Jesus that the primary work of the Spirit was to make all that we need of Jesus to be available to his followers throughout space and time. We may not be very good bearers of the gospel or its Christ, the New Testament writers seem to indicate, but we are the ones God has called to the task.

Which, I emphasize each time I refer to it, does not mean that those who don’t share our faith or our gospel are in some way irretrievably lost, as so many Christians seem to emphasize. Whatever “lost” means in the context of Christianity, it is not the final word emanating from the mouth of the creating, redeeming loving God. But more of that another time.

So, according to Matthew’s account, to welcome Jesus is to welcome the gospel – and to welcome the gospel is to welcome Jesus. To welcome gospel is to hear and receive God’s word of grace. God’s welcome: “come as you are” as Loretto sister Deidre Brown wrote in her hymn popular in the 1980s:

Come as you are, that’s how I love you

Come as you are, trust me again

Nothing can change, the love that I bear you

All will be well, just come as you are.

But Matthew wants to push the point further in his recording of Jesus’ words. We come, but there’s also a sense in which we become. As I often note though I have long since lost the source, it has been James K. Baxter who made this powerfully clear: he speaks of us becoming the body and blood of Christ in the world into which we are called. Matthew might want to put it in a different way: we become a (but not, I think “the”) vehicle, a channel of grace through which God exercises grace, love, hospitality. I often fail abysmally, yet even so … even so we are those God has touched and commanded to share Christlove with the world around us, however abysmally.

Yet how? I fear not only as individuals but as Church we do it poorly. We are called to exercise the almost unlimited embrace, the almost unlimited hospitality of God.  I say “almost” because in the New Testament there are one or two hints of a bridge too far. But they are not the bridge too far so often drawn by the church. The lines in the sand are not the skin-colour or clothing or theological correctnesses or sexual choices or impetuses of the people we are called to embrace and welcome. The one or two lines in the sand are drawn for those within the church whose behaviour reaches beyond the pale. Few in the New Testament are marked down in such a way: the boundaries of love and compassion are broad and wide indeed.

But we live in a very different age to that of Matthew. In some ways the centuries that dwell between us and the New Testament, are more unfamiliar still. For centuries we expected the world to tremble and obey. We’ve lost, and never should have had that expectation. Our Christian history, though sometimes not as bad as some critics will make out, is brutally scarred with misbehaviour, complacency, even predation (as the Royal Commission rightly but tragically reminds us). As a result, and rightly so, we are being forced back to the bedrock of our faith: our empty hands and words of welcome. 

Our task is to find out what we can offer and to offer it with such openness that we do become, as Jesus sought, one with him. Our task is to implore the Spirit to renew us in credibility, authenticity, simplicity. Our task is to learn again the languages of love: to learn graciousness and hospitality. To learn to the awe and the reverence for God, the sense of joy and delight in our encounters with God that have not altogether been the hallmark of Christian living through the centuries. To do this is to begin to “give a cup of cold water” to a society whose chemical addictions, cycles of suicide rates, of race- and gender- and sexuality-based intolerances suggest the thirst is great indeed. The task though begins and ends in prayer, and our turning again and again to the one who offers us the hospitalities of eternity in the first place.

fighting for integrity

REFLECTIONS FROM AN ATTIC

SHARED WITH A COMPUTER and a CAMERA

an INTERNET and YOU

(in that same friendly way)

ORDINARY SUNDAY 11 (June 14th) 2020

(one of those irritating pieces of writing that had to be re-written after I accidentally hit the power button - and discovered auto-save wasn't switched on ... ah well ... I hope there's a thought or two in for you as we begin a different phase of the church year)

READINGS

Genesis 18: 1-5

Psalm 116, 1, 10-17

Romans 5:1-8

Matthew 9:35 – 10:8

When Paul wrote to Rome he was desperately fighting for the integrity of Christianity – as we are today. Paul has few credentials in his own eyes, but he is prepared to point to his sufferings as a stamp of his credibility as a follower of Jesus. He is effectively saying “Guys, girls, I’m blowed if I would go through all that if I didn’t think this stuff was real.” That conviction was borne out by his deep sense of the Spirit making the risen Lord known to him in fellowship, ritual and reading, and by putting his life where his mouth was.

Paul fought hard against opportunists and charlatans throughout his ministry. There is no guarantee in the Christian journey that manipulators and opponents of the gospel, including those ostensibly within the church, won’t shout loudest. Yet Paul does his best, touting his credentials, but only insofar as they point to the work of the Spirit of God in his life. The Spirit of God does not wave magic wands: Paul was having to do hard spade work. Suffering was his credential, integrity was his trademark.

In the end he won the day – though he probably did so at the cost of his life and may never have known the degree to which he silenced the voices of distorters and pretenders. His writings survived despite his struggles with liars, manipulators, charlatans. We too can trust his integrity, though his world was often vastly different to ours, as he fights with questions of sin, with what he calls the “flesh,” questions of law and righteousness.

But what are these concepts? What is this “sin,” what are these struggles and distractions of which Paul writes? What are the challenges that Matthew’s Jesus warns his apostles and evangelists of? What are demons, what is it to heal the sick or raise from the dead? What is the peace the Christ-bearers of Matthew are to proclaim and embody? Is our world the same as theirs?

We have to translate much to make sense of it in our world. Sadly many peddlers (Paul’s word, not mine) of Christ so distort key words that they become an abomination. When some Christians shape to speak the word “sin” the word “sex” falls from its lips. Obsessions with genital correctness, embedded in obfuscations about who may have sex with whom, and by over-demonizing abortion, these blot out words of compassion or love. Integrity and responsibility, education and wisdom in sex and sexuality, yes. But such obsessions with externals drown out Jesus’ invitations to the lost and the lonely, those considered by society to be not good enough. There are forms of sexual injustice and predation, as the #MeToo movement and the current Royal Commission remind us. But let us not of sex and sin make synonyms.

Similarly when the so-called liberal wing of the church speaks of sin the words “e-coli” or “micro-plastics” or “global warming” form on its lips. Often there is no differentiation between the message of Jesus and the message of a left-wing activist. Yes, there are forms of economic predation, as Living Wage militants remind us. There is health and life expectation disparity marked by skin pigmentation, as George Floyd has tragically reminded us. (So too, lest we forget, did Rodney King and Emmett Till before him). Most recently, Covid-19 statistics around the world are grimly reinforcing the message that survival odds were not created equal (despite the astronomical efforts of health care professionals). And pigmentation continues to be a life quality indicator in this country too. General health, education, incarceration, domestic violence, and life expectancy statistics continue to tell us that opportunity is more equal for some than others. There is no room for complacency. “BlackLivesMatter” is a borderless reminder that the image of God is not pink skin. Righteous rage must be maintained, for street marches too often have a short half-life. But gospel and social activism do not a synonym make.

God’s bias is to the disadvantaged, as the Magnificat makes abundantly clear: God raises the humble and meek. But the (often illiberal) liberal wing of the church will all too often espouse fine theories about economic justice without ever sharing a chardonnay with or knowing the name of or holding the hand of a poor or disadvantaged person, black or otherwise.

To have integrity Gospel proclamation must stand with those who cry out for justice. Gospel proclamation must ignore the colour-blind obfuscation of those who mumble “all lives matter.” Fire fighters concentrate on burning and “at-risk” houses, not on safe villas further up the street. Privileged Christians like my pink-skinned self must constantly recall that the embrace of Jesus always reached beyond chic safety zones to restore the lives of those that were considered not to matter. Social change without change in human hearts is worthless: I can spout all I like about the poor or the homeless as a concept but, as one activist noted, if I cannot name a poor or a homeless person then my words, as Paul might say, are as a noisy cymbal or a clanging gong. It is worth noting that the funeral of George Floyd voiced personal and social hope.

Which in the end brings us back not only to Paul but to the apostles sent into the towns and villages by Jesus. All the big social matters can be – are – matters to which the gospel must be addressed. But Jesus precedes his commissioning of the twelve with demonstrations of love and compassion, then goes on to warn the apostles of their call to integrity. Paul stands no chance with the skeptical Roman Christians if his life has not already shown him suffering for his faith. Few of us will suffer more than the inconvenience of getting out of bed to worship occasionally – hopefully frequently. But the expectation of integrity remains, lest we become a clanging gong or noisy cymbal that we too often are.

We will continue “to leave undone the things we should do, and to do the things we should not do.” We must surrender our lives again and again to the Jesus we encounter in scripture, in fellowship, in faith. We know when we fall short of the call of God upon our lives. In weeks to come we will delve deep into the words of scripture, not by waving a bible in front of a church that we do not attend, but by excavating the teachings of the one in whom there was no integrity gap.

The Lord be with you.

God’s bias

the prettiest girl in the world?

For the 17,674,322nd most beautiful girl in the world

REFLECTIONS FROM AN ATTIC

SHARED WITH A COMPUTER, A CAMERA,

a BIG SAND DUNE, an INTERNET and YOU

(in that same friendly way)

TRINITY SUNDAY (June 7th) 2020

For the second Sunday in a row I’m going to ignore the specifics of the set readings.  There are a myriad biblical writings, from at least Genesis 1:26 onwards, which might or might not serve as a basis for exploring the mysteries of Trinity. None of them are definitive. None of them are the final word. As every good Jehovah’s Witness, Muslim, Jew or Unitarian – (many of whom secrete themselves away in the pews and pulpits of Anglicanism) – will remind us, none of them refer to the word “Trinity.”

So perhaps that’s lay down misère for this great doctrine of Christianity? Maybe it’s antiquated baloney dreamed up by scheming or self-aggrandizing bishops (and I’ve known one or two of them) in the fourth and fifth centuries? 

Yet I don’t think so. Like many of the doctrines that the clever-clever theologians like to ditch, like the resurrection and the dual nature of Christ, the Doctrine of the Trinity is hinting, scratching to find words for something far beyond the limitations of your mind, my mind, Albert Einstein’s mind. Far beyond the imaginings of the greatest poetic minds as well, though perhaps they come closest.

“What no eye has seen, nor ear heard,

    nor the human heart conceived,

what God has prepared for those who love him.”

Paul, who was I suspect no slouch academically (though of course not as bright as the clever-clever theologians and clergy), Paul addressed these famous words to the clever-clever theologians of his day, the destroyers of the witness of the Corinthian Church. I think he was on to something. Does an ant comprehend the complexity of the Alpine Fault? Do I understand the complications of God? I feel God, worship God. On good days I read and study a bit about God, but understand God? Comprehend God? I don’t think so.

In my writings over the Holy Week and Easter period I have noted numerous occasions when biblical authors are striving to find words to express their trinitarian experience of God. The New Testament set readings on this day are just some examples.

Paul, at the end his cranky Corinthian correspondence, is striving to find words that express so complex an experience of God, embodied in the person of Jesus, made known in the experience of the Spirit making the risen Lord known to his followers, carrying the whole weight of the Creator God and making that God known to the Jesus-community. 

Words fail.

Matthew at the end of his gospel-telling, records Jesus commissioning his followers to proclaim the gospel in the triune name. Some scholars are reluctant to believe that these words are those of Jesus. Of course the clever scholars who get rid of the resurrection altogether have to emphasize that these are Matthew’s words. But that still means that Matthew was drawing on this sort of formula within a few years of the first Easter. And that usage had to resonate with the experience of those to whom he was writing: Father, Son, Spirit experienced in worship and in fellowship.

The language of the Trinity is, amongst other things, the language of love. We attach words-beyond-truth to those we love. We attach words beyond quantity to those we love. Every day my Facebook feed assures me that someone’s daughter, mum, partner is simply the best, most beautiful, most loving and loved in the world. If a little girl asks their dad if they are the most beautiful girl in the world – ignoring for a moment whether the stereotypes that produce the question are fair – he is unlikely to reply either by saying “Beauty is a social construct that you must jettison” or, “No darling, but according to my quantifiable assessment you are the  seventeen million, six hundred and seventy four thousand, three hundred and twenty second current most beautiful girl in the world.”

The language of the trinity is the language of love.

It is the language of poetry, too. Had Elizabeth Barrett Browning written “How do I love thee?” and responded to the hypothetical question with an assessment of her libidinal urges and sociological paradigms, her poem may have been less popular.

The language of the trinity is the language of love. It is the language of poetry. For many scientific rationalists, of the sort I am not, it can never be the language of science. Though the best of scientists may well concur with St. Paul that there is much yet that human eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor intellect comprehended, and that at the very least there are some matters still beyond our grasp.

Philosophers, too, may do the same, though some are not humble enough to believe that there exists a realm of possibility they cannot grasp. Trinitarian Christians like myself too should acknowledge that we may be misguided of course, but if it were so then our misguidance has inspired us to greater heights of awe, as well as, we pray, love, compassion, justice and social action in the face of evil.

In the end I have no difficulty believing that which I cannot rationally grasp. Or at least believing that I can believe. I happen to believe that there is a day beyond our sight when we will join with atheists and agnostics, Buddhists, Jews, Muslims, traditional religionists and all, even clever-clever theologians, and whisper in awe, “Oh, wait, so that’s it.” Yet I suspect even then in The City That Needs No Lamp, there will be an eternity of knowledge for us all to glean.

The Lord be with you.

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