A sermon for the Second Sunday in Advent

Readings: Luke 1:68-79;  Luke 3:1-6

What drives your greatest fear?  On a personal level, do you worry about not having enough money, enough love, enough security?  On a broader scale, do you worry about the global financial crisis, global warming, escalating nuclear capabilities?  And, what impact do the familiar words of the Christmas angels have on your fear?  “Fear not ... for behold I bring you tidings of great joy which shall be for all people ... Glory to God ... and peace for all people on earth.”  It is my firm belief that if the Good News of Jesus Christ is to be more than some sanitised Christmas jingle; if the essential story of Christmas is to have any bite at all; it must address those deep fears we hold. 

So, let’s try and place our feet in the shoes of our faith ancestors, with their particular hopes and fears. To do that, let’s first not go back – but allow our imaginations to enter some future time for this country.  Imagine, if you will, the army of China – or America – Indonesia or Fiji taking Aotearoa New Zealand into their Empire.  Imagine our country being ruled not from the Beehive, but by the Pentagon, or by the President of Indonesia, the Emperor of China, or Chief of the Fijian military.  Imagine our army and police, our city councils, stock exchange, reserve bank and media, our health and education services being in the control of a foreign power.  Imagine how leadership might be exercised by people probably not English speaking, certainly not NZ enculturated, not seeking to make NZ a better place for its people – but foreigners whose interest is in maintaining and growing the power of their Empire – powerful foreigners building their kingdom.  Imagine, on top of city and regional council rates, on top of income tax and GST, there’s another hefty tax for maintaining the US army, for building Indonesia’s border protection programmes, or developing Fiji’s nuclear capability, or supporting China’s infrastructure.  Imagine, no elections, a ruling elite making all the decisions and acquiring most of the wealth – and many church leaders supporting the foreign government – even declaring the structures to be ordered according to God’s will....How would you feel? What fears would you experience?  I guess it would depend where you sat within the hierarchy.  Do you have friends in high places?  Is your investment portfolio secure?  Do you speak Mandarin, Cantonese, Indonesia, Fijian or American?   

This imagined future is something like the reality of those living in the Ancient Near East in the time of Jesus In that world, only 1-2% of the population were in the ruling elite – so, if we were there, most of us would be experiencing political and economic oppression, often religiously legitimated.  In his Gospel, Luke locates the story of Jesus’ public activity very specifically within this context:

-          It’s the 15^th year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius

-          during Pilate’s Governorship of Judea

-          while Herod ruled Galilee

-          and Annas and Caiaphas were high priests.

At that time “The collision between Roman imperial...domination and the Jewish social world led to a variety of Jewish responses...from active collaboration to resigned and often resentful acceptance.  Some harboured hopes for an imminent dramatic divine intervention: God would soon act and set things right.  Others – and these responses often overlapped – were determined to preserve Jewish identity in spite of the pressures to assimilate.  Still others followed the path of violent rejection, ranging from social banditry to armed rebellion.

This is the world that shaped Jesus – the world in which he grew up and the world that he addressed.” [1] A world long on fear and short on peace.

Although it is a very different world from the one in which we live – there are enough echoes to invite comparison:  Like our ancient faith ancestors, we too are confronted with decisions about economic injustices and abuses of power (in our country and beyond our shores).  Will we collude with, or be resigned to, oppressive structures?  Will we sit back and hope God will act – will we resort to violence and hatred?  Or will we take up the challenge of the Gospel – to live and act as Jesus did: filling up valleys of poverty with hope and bringing down mountains of oppression into peacefulness?  The cry of Isaiah, the cry of John “prepare the way of God” is every bit as urgent today as it was 2000 years ago.  Out of the wilderness, out of the desert, out of the dungeons of life, we are called to join in bringing about God’s salvation.

We can listen to the familiar biblical words, we can sing along Tuesday night with the City Choir: Every valley shall be exalted, the crooked straight and the rough places plain – and all flesh shall see it together – the mouth of the Lord has spoken it – this salvation of God is at hand. Hallelujah! 

But singing along is not enough – we have to live the song.  And, oh this is where we can so easily get caught into old familiar and unhelpful models – assuming salvation is about a “wretch’ like me being saved from my bad deeds – assuming that after I’ve died, if I’ve been good enough, I will go to a heavenly place in the sky.   Such a view of salvation is escapist, selfish and a travesty of the Gospel.

God’s salvation comes from walking the path walked by Jesus, the one we name as saviour.  It’s a path of lived-out compassion, justice and peace.  God’s salvation – saving us from personal and communal fears– comes when we cooperate with God to bring about peace. 

I can’t stress this enough:  this salvation happens in the here and now – as a result of what you and I do in our everyday lives – about how we respond to the fears which surround us.   Peace on Earth will not come, while we live out a scarcity mentality – fearing we don’t have enough money, enough love or enough security.   No matter how much we experience oppression, abuse or injustice in our own lives, Peace on Earth will not come, if we respond to those who hurt us by way of violent actions or violent thoughts.   We follow the one who calls us not just to love God, not just to love ourselves, not just to love our neighbour, but to love our enemy.  If we do not practise loving kindness to all people on a day to day basis, there will be no peace on earth and God’s salvation will not come.

And this is not an easy task – Christianity has never been for the faint hearted, or for the ones who grasp to themselves, or desire riches, benefits and privilege.

And so I want to speak personally for a minute – because I know this call to live as inhabitants of God’s salvation, God’s shalom is challenging – it’s counter cultural – but when we live this way, the joy and blessing we give and receive is nothing short of a miracle.  I have found that making small changes can make huge differences.  Recently, I’ve been following a little spiritual exercise in loving kindness – it might be one you find helpful – in releasing fears and offering compassion, as you seek to cooperate in the bringing about of God’s salvation.  I often do this while I’m walking – or driving – or waiting for traffic lights to change.  First I offer myself a blessing:  May I be happy and healthy, safe and at peace.  I then bring to mind those whom I love – and offer that same blessing to them – may you be happy and healthy, safe and at peace.  I then extend that blessing to those I see around me – a young Mum struggling with a crying baby, a cyclist in the midst of busy traffic, or a person who comes to mind (far too often) because of the perceived hurts they have inflicted on me – may you be happy and healthy, safe and at peace.  And finally I shift my attention to people I don’t know – people in many parts of the world who struggle; people in armies, those in hospital, those struggling to make a living, those on whom we focus for this year’s Christian World Service Christmas Appeal in India, or Haiti, in South Sudan, or Palestine – may you be happy and healthy, safe and at peace.  And I find as I offer blessing, my heart and mind turn away from fear towards compassion and understanding ... and almost miraculously, as my focus shifts away from my own personal stuff, I find the people around me also change – and my own focus becomes much clearer about how my day to day living and giving helps bring about God’s salvation for all people.  Of course, it doesn’t always work, sometimes my own painfulness or self-centredness gets in the way.  But the echo of the angel’s song and the voice of the one crying in the wilderness summon me – and summon us all – to continue preparing the way of God so that the miracle of Peace on Earth might be known to all people.

In the silence, which follows, I invite you to consider how your life in these present days, might contribute to God’s salvation, God’s peace, God’s shalom,  The words Shirley Murray’s hymn – printed on the front of your Order of Service – may be helpful

“Let there be a moment held, as in one breath, when all the earth turns away from death, peace nursing creation, peace spreading her wing, O that we could know what Christmas is meant to bring”

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[1] “The shaping of Jesus” from Jesus: Uncovering the Life, Teaching and Relevance of a Religious Revolutionary by Marcus Borg, 2006

A Sermon for Advent Sunday

Readings: Jeremiah 33: 14-16; 1 Thessalonians 3:9-13

Today is the 8^th time, within this congregation, I’ve offered a sermon to launch the Christian World Service Christmas Appeal.  And, of course, that’s just during my ministry with you.  The Christmas Appeals have been running since 1945 – all of my life time and a little more.  Eight times we have considered together how healing and hope might be brought to the world.  And then, of course, there have been countless other times – on the Sundays in between - when we have focussed on the unfair and unnecessary deprivation and suffering experienced throughout the world, caused by crippling poverty, unjust systems and oppressive structures – and Jesus’ call to change this situation.   It all feels a little overwhelming – because if there’s one thing that’s sure, the poverty, deprivation and suffering have not gone away in those eight – or sixty-seven years.  People still suffer, people are still treated unjustly, people still live in appalling circumstances in this world where, if resources were allocated fairly, there would be enough for everyone’s need – just not enough for everyone’s greed.

Within this life-time context, it’s possible that we might all feel just a little hope-less. “What’s the point of yet another Appeal?” Why preach another Christian World Service sermon?  With poet Hayden Carruth, we might wonder whether there is any point in saying anything more about what seems a hopeless case...  Carruth’s poem comes out of the US context – at the time of the American war in Vietnam.  It’s entitled “On being asked to write a poem against the war in Vietnam”[1]

Well I have and in fact

more than one and I'll

tell you this too

I wrote one against

Algeria that nightmare

and another against

Korea and another

against the one

I was in

and I don't remember

how many against

the three

when I was a boy

Abyssinia Spain and

Harlan County

and not one

breath was restored

to one

shattered throat

mans womans or childs

not one not

one

but death went on and on

never looking aside

except now and then

with a furtive half-smile

to make sure I was noticing.

Reflecting on Carruth’s poem, and writing for today – for this HIV-AIDS Awareness Day – yes, more misery and anguish – Art Ammann, who founded Global Strategies for HIV Prevention writes “Upon reading the poem I felt an immediate sympathy, realizing that I too was having difficulty in writing a commentary about the pain and suffering of HIV because Ihad written about it so many times before — and the pain and suffering was still there.”

Ammann continues “I haven't written any poems, but I've written many narratives about an epidemic that seemed so perverse and persistent, with the horror of HIV taking its special toll on defenseless women and children. “Surely God would hear their pleas,” I often thought. But I do not pretend to understand these things. I only know that in spite of the intensity of the pain and suffering, the people I met could only endure with a belief and hope in God.”

On this day on which we are invited to be aware of the way in which HIV-AIDS continues to devastate people’s lives in the poorest countries; and

on this day when we are invited to focus our attention on the way in which Christian World Service – particularly with its partners in Haiti, India, Fiji, Palestine and South Sudan – works toward healing and wholeness for the whole world,

on this day - we focus on that theological concept of hope.  It’s a hope we’ve sung about

Never alone, though human error, turmoil or terror shake every bone,

hope is our song: hope that is joyous, born with Christ Jesus, where we belong –

for nothing, nothing in all creation can separate us from the love of God.[2]

It’s a hope that goes way back in time – belief and hope in God, even when life is held by the merest thread.  The book of the prophet Jeremiah has, as its principal subject, survival.  It is an attempt to come to terms with and move beyond the destruction wrought by Babylon’s three invasions of Judah and its chief city, Jerusalem in the 6^th century before the Christian Era.  This prophetic book “sears the soul, challenges the conscience, and promises hope to the wounded in body and spirit” [3]

The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will fulfil the promise I made to the house of Israel and the house of Judah. … I will cause a righteous Branch to spring up for David; and he shall execute justice and righteousness in the land.

It’s this hope for justice and righteousness in the land, to which Christian World Service calls us this year.  This year, the Christmas Appeal theme is “Save my Place: my place to till and keep”.  We’re being asked to recognise “the powerful and profound desire for people to have a place to call “my place”.  When this need is met, it provides security and hope.  Deny this need to have a land or place, and the reverse is true.  Despair and fear result. We see it in our shared Judaeo-Christian heritage, where the bloody repercussions continue in a so-called Promised Land where assumptions were made of ownership while indigenous inhabitants ignored. It’s part of our shared history here in Aotearoa-New Zealand.  Land loss drove many European ancestors here, while for Maori the theft of land is still an issue.” 

“Globally, this battle about owning land continues to rage.  Land grabs are robbing people of their place to till and keep – in the Pacific, Africa, the Middle East, South America and Asia.  “My place” turns into ‘their place”, a modern scandal.  Commonly owned land is being seized or sold into private hands.  The equivalent of eight Great Britains, that is about 200 million hectares of land, has been land grabbed in the last ten years.”

“In Columbia, the UN reports that an area the size of Switzerland has been stolen from its rightful owners.  In Uganda a farmer woke up one day to find his ancestral land had been ‘sold’ when the bulldozers began crushing his crops.  Tragically, it’s a common story. Places ‘to till and keep’ are unjustly stolen again.  Big business ... big agriculture is pushing small farmers out of the way for monoculture and bio fuels. CWS tells us that in a world where we grow 50% more food than we need, nobody should go hungry, or lose ‘my place’. [4]

On this Advent Sunday – on this day in which we focus on hope – we’re not just being asked to write another poem or preach another sermon; we’re not being asked just to speak about the atrocities of land grabbing – or the lack of medication available for AIDS sufferers in Africa; and we’re certainly not being asked to have a warm fuzzy hopeful feeling.  As Christ’s body, we are being invited – encouraged - implored to be the Good News of Jesus Christ – to recognise the decisions we make in our lives can make a difference in bringing about justice and righteousness in the lands of this planet, our place, which we share with such a diverse community of peoples.

As Art Armann continues to work tirelessly for HIV prevention – and especially trying to reduce suffering and death for women and babies who suffer from this dreadful disease –he acknowledges that hope is not so much about waiting for God to intervene, as in recognising that God is waiting for us to intervene – to be the hands and feet, the hearts and minds of Christ, to bring about justice and righteousness for the land and its peoples.[5]

In spite of the overwhelming challenges, transformation can and does happen.  People like Art Armann – groups like CWS and its partners – Churches like Knox are standing up to and confronting the massive injustices of the world.  We have before us today, a banner and candle signifying Hope – to be joined by peace and joy and love in the weeks to come.  Let’s not leave these lying on the Table as pretty symbols; rather let their images burn into our hearts so that we may join the way of Jesus - becoming the hope for the world – preparing a place of welcome in the land where all can live in justice and peace.

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[1]  "On Being Asked to Write a Poem Against the War in Vietnam" by Hayden Carruth,  quoted in A Season of Difficult Hope http://www.journeywithjesus.net/index.shtml for 1 December 2012

[2] Shirley Murray “Nothing in all creation” Hope is our Song

[3] Kathleen M. O’Connor “Jeremiah” in The New Interpreter’s Study Bible 2003, p.1051

[4] Quoted from ”Save my Place” Christian World Service resources for 67^th Christmas Appeal 2012

[5] Art Ammann “A Season of Difficult Hope” http://www.journeywithjesus.net/index.shtml for 1 December 2012  Art Ammann, the former Director of the Pediatric Immunology and Clinical Research Center at the University of California Medical Center in San Francisco. ...In 1982, he documented the first cases of AIDS transmission from mother to infant, and also the first blood transfusion AIDS patients.  In 1998 Ammann founded Global Strategies for HIV Prevention, where today he ministers around the world. With a special focus on women and children to reduce maternal and infant mortality, Global Strategies implements simple, inexpensive interventions with high impact in the poorest regions of the world.