SERMON PREACHED
AT St MARY’S, Nth OAMARU
and St Alban’s,
Kurow
THIRD SUNDAY of
EASTER (May 1st) 2022
a sign in a narthex (church entrance) that did not win the heart of the gatekeepers of a church |
READINGS:
Acts 9:
36-43
Psalm 23
Revelation
7: 9-17
John
10: 22-30
In the Jewish Calendar the Festival of Dedication, Festival of Lights, or Hanukkah, is one of the great festivals of faith. In the Book of Maccabees we are told various stories of the rededication of the First Temple, and by amalgamation of a couple of them we find the events that were the reason for the festival that Jesus was attending in Jerusalem. The Jewish people looked back with joy on the reestablishment of their Temple after its desecration by the oppressing Seleucid forces. We might imagine and hope that one day the people of Ukraine will rejoice in events celebrating the overthrow of Russian invaders, celebrating the restoration of sites pulverised and bestialised by marauders.
Jesus the observant Jew joined his people as they celebrated the eight
day feast of a light - nine lights - that miraculously burned for eight days despite their oil
running out. The feast as it happens is one still celebrated even by many non-observant
Jews, a kind of national party time of great joy.
We’re possibly looking a bit too far here if
we notice that this festival that Jesus attended was a festival of lights, and
that John is adamant that Jesus himself is the inextinguishable light who comes
into the world. Nothing would be too much to believe of John’s creative handling
of the Jesus story so we should not discount the possibility. But something
else is going on here, something important.
In the scene we have the Jews – unfortunate shorthand
in many ways in John’s gospel but we’ll stick with it – the opponents of Jesus
come with yet another cynical trap, rather more subtle than some. Obsequiously
they ask Jesus to tell them who is – they are of course not in the least interested
in who he is, but are determined to demonstrate that he is a fraud precisely
because he does not fit their ideas of who he should be or of how God should
reveal the self, the being of God. The enemies of Jesus have decided which box
God belongs in, and nothing will shake them.
Surely we don’t do this? Yet I have been in a church in which a person was nearly turned away because of their race – fortunately she was too feisty to retreat. I have watched countless times as church spokespeople pronounce in subtle ways or blatant who is worthy to attend: abandon hope all ye whose sexuality differs to mine, whose literacy differs to mine, whose clothing differs to mine.
Even the great
atheist poet R. A. K. Mason was more willing to find Jesus in a tramp’s clothes,
“his body doubled under the pack that sprawls untidily on his back,” more willing to welcome Jesus than are than such
gate-keepers of Christianity have too often been.
The opponents of Jesus were to some extent more
subtle than this. As Bishop Kelvin put it in our Gospel Conversations, “what theories
and proposition shall we fit God into?” As one who can be a bit academicky I
know only too well how dangerous that heresy can be. If you do not hold to my propositions
of who and where God or God’s people should be and how they should behave, then
may you be anathematized – cast out – to darkness and the gnashing of teeth! Pronouncements
from an Anglican diocese across the Tasman that effectively anathematize children
working to understand their sexuality, a precarious enough journey without pompous
church pronouncements – are one such example of pharisaic sin.
For Jesus the proof of the pudding of love, of
faith, of integrity, is action. John we might recall describes Jesus as “word”
in the first place, with the implication that Jesus is the creative word of
God, in which word and action are utterly superimposed, united. Let there be
light and there is light. In the beginning was God who is word, and light and
life and love and you and I came into being.
Is this rational? No.
It will never be rational. The opponents of Jesus come looking for a logical,
tidy, packageable Jesus-Messiah and they don’t get it. They mustn’t get it. If Jesus is to be saviour and God and vulnerable
and crucified, he will not be one size fits all, nor one size fits me. He will
wriggle out of my restrictions, hang out with the people I don’t want him to
hang out with. Hang out with them and redeem them. How annoying is that? Even when they don't wear designer labels.
And so be it. Because
at my best I might recognize that he hangs out with me and with you too, and
sometimes me and you are not the easiest people to love, redeem, offer
inextinguishable light to, either.
So I guess it wasn’t
an accident that John tells us of a moment when Jesus turns up at a feast of inextinguishable
light, was it?
TLBWY
Oh dear ... see what happens when you welcome strangers to a church? |
1 comment:
... they feel comfortable enough to lay their ever weary sodden body, spirit and mind on the couch. But the biggest question is will they come again and then again or would the park bench in the rain be a bettter choice.
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