chief end of "man"?

 

HOMILY at St PAUL’S, ARROWTOWN 
and St PETER’S, QUEENSTOWN
FEAST OF CHRIST THE KING 
(November 26^th) 2023

READINGS 

Ezekiel 34: 7-14, 16
Psalm 100
Ephesians 1: 15-23
Matthew 25: 14-3

 
When I was an undergraduate, in both my first year of faith and my first year of university, I was hanging out with an energized group of similarly enthusiastic young Christians. Though much of my theology has changed, become more nuanced since then, I have never regretted that first flush of enthusiasm, and remain in contact in a digital age with many of those friends.

I remember well one such friend wandering across the Massey campus with me. Out of the blue he put to me a question. “Who is this God who goes around constantly demanding that we worship him?” Strangely it was a question I’d not  ever put to myself before, and I have no idea how I handled it. But over the years that followed I returned to it time and time again.

I did so not with a deep sense of scepticism, or desire to be rid of God, but because I was fascinated by this obscure demand made of those who opt for the tag “Christian.” Couldn’t we after all just do a few nice things, enjoy a sense of purpose in life or perhaps even a ticket to something beyond life, perhaps a hotline to a few important requests sent out into a big universe, but cut out all the obsequious praise, praise, praise? Though I guess even then I had a vague sense that it is an only fair that the God who had invaded my life deserved a little bit of acclamation.

Still: it is an awfully big part of this Christian journey. Praise, praise, praise. And certainly part of the answer that I grew into was the glorious sense of self surrender that comes from pouring oneself out in worship, adoration, praise. Of knowing that my smallness in an impossibly vast universe was not, is not the end of the story. Praise seemed appropriate. Or at least some of the time.

As I went on through theological study, which has in fact never stopped, and active ministry I found myself … (as it happened as I wrote this very line my co-conversationalist from 1979 messaged me on Facebook. I sometimes wonder at the humour of our God. But I digress). I found myself focusing more and more on the ways in which God’s being is made known to those who choose to walk in the way of the cross. And it was precisely that terminology, that centrality of a symbol of execution, of inhuman suffering, that began to elicit my deepest gasps and most heartfelt expressions of praise.

For as I studied the doctrine of the Trinity and its anchorage in the biblical texts – because no matter what our Jehovah’s Witness friends might tell us that 4th century doctrine is firmly anchored in the texts of earlier centuries – as I studied that doctrine I found myself increasingly awed that the absolute power of the Creator of heavens and earth, of solar systems, galaxies, perhaps even parallel universes, that creator of chromosomes, grains of sand, majestic mountains, brain synapses and unfathomed mysteries of 10 kilometre deep marine trenches, that Creator came to be absolutely identified with the unimaginable though not unique suffering of an eloquent and compassionate young Middle Eastern man on the cross in a corrupt and crumbling empire.

Slowly, and then repeatedly, it came to me that the extent of this self-revelation of God in such horrendous vulnerability, could only be the ultimate expression of good news, of hope. Hope for all life even in the darkest corridors of human and cosmic experience.

For there on the cross, that most pain filled, lonely location, I find God in Christ entering into the torrid places of those who Bob Dylan calls “the countless confused, accused, misused, strung-out ones and worse.”

I don’t always remember to worship, to give thanks, to pray. If I were in Ukraine or Yemen or Sudan or Israel-Gaza right now I would probably forget. But I’m not and so in lucid moments of faith I find at least some sort of an answer to that question put to me some 45 years ago. But I’m not sure I’ve found ways to express the answer.

My guru Dylan helps me again a little, and he tells me that I am “hanging in the balance of the reality of man, like every sparrow falling, like every grain of sand.” Ultimately though when I find that God in Christ executed on a cross is able from the depths of human being to cry out with the psalmist “my God my God, why have you forsaken me?” and then turn that godforsaken cry into the hope of Easter and resurrection joy (as we shall reenact in a few months’ time), then I get the feeling a few stuttered words of praise, praise, praise are probably appropriate.

Though in the end I find perhaps the deepest praise is expressed in moments of silence as we connect with the still point of the turning and sometimes even crumbling world, crumbling universe even.

Let’s spend a few moments in silence.