A sermon for All Saints 4 November 2012

Readings: Psalm 146; Mark 12:28-34

In giving his report on General Assembly to us last Sunday, John Elder – our Church Council Clerk – spoke about one of the difficult themes which seemed to run through the meeting of our church national governing body: that of attempting to regulate belief and behaviour.  I think the way John put it was:  Purity of belief by regulation and purity of behaviour by regulation.  This tendency to over-regulate is the reality of institutions struggling to cope in a changing context.  As societal behaviour and belief challenge past traditional ways of doing things, we find ourselves naturally asking: so how do we live within this changing context?  One way of responding to change is by building a wall, tightening rules, and limiting choice.   It brings to my mind an experience within the University of Otago in the 1960s.  I can’t remember all the details, but I do remember (even as a very law-abiding person) the outrage I felt when the University Council banned mixed flatting.  It all seems laughable today; but less than 50 years ago, in an attempt to protect and ensure the morality of students (and the community at large), flats were regulated to include students of only one sex, all university halls of residence (by constitution) were single sex institutions (with strict curfews and rules about visitors) and, a rule which particularly galled me, no female student was ever to enter the Knox College dining room!   Various demonstrations and strategies, including active disobedience and a mass sleep-over in the University Union, led fairly quickly to significant change, which was more appropriate for the growing freedoms of the 60s. 

Within any community, any institution, rules and regulations are essential; they enable a society to live well. But over-regulation can be abusive and destructive; for example:

·        when risk management strategies require two hours of paper-work to be done before emergency rescue could proceed in the collapsed CTV building[1];

·        when regulations suggest narrow norms which prevent the flourishing and fullness of life for all people;

·        when rules give privilege to the powerful majority and oppress further those have no voice

Then, questions must be asked and challenges made.

The ancient Israelites, like all communities, formulated rules for a way of living that made sense for their context. The Ten Commandments became a foundational understanding for that community.  Over the years and decades and centuries of evolving faith communities, other rules and regulations were added and developed to respond to changing contexts and situations.  Some of those regulations can be found in Leviticus where we hear of rules which make absolutely no sense today – but may have been appropriate for a different context.  None of us would feel constrained to live within these regulations today where eating meat that contained blood, wearing clothing of mixed fibre, appointing priests with a physical blemish, planting two types of grain in a field, and eating shellfish were all prohibited.

This morning’s Gospel offers a voice within the context of our day and its own day. One of the scribes – one of the church lawyers – impressed with Jesus’ wise and skilful debating asks him, “So which commandment is first of all.”  I understand that in Jesus’ time “there were over six hundred prescriptions in the Law.  Naturally, questions about priority arose.  Which was most important?  How would they be ordered and interrelated?[2]  And Jesus answered, “The first is that God is One”.  This understanding takes us beyond individual beliefs and theories of God-ness into the presence of the Holy Mystery, the Horizon of our Becoming. The One for whom we long and who calls us into relationship.  This is not a God that sits alongside, or above, other Gods; this is not a God that can be regulated – it is the Source of all Being – Holy Oneness in whom all of what we call creation (people, animals plants, planets, galaxies and cosmos) dwell.  The first commandment, Jesus says, is that God is One and that you shall love that God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength: heart, soul, mind and strength united into loving communion with this Holy Oneness. And when we are drawn into this Holy Oneness, we are propelled into loving others as ourselves. 

Love God and love neighbour as ourselves – “although these are two, they are inseparable.  Therefore, they form one commandment, ‘the first’ [-the one to which we dedicate ourselves wholly and unconditionally]. 

“This twofold ... commandment of [top priority] is engaged by an interior act of love.  This establishes the proper flow, from the inside to the outside, from unitive consciousness to unitive acts.” This flow from inner love to outer love ‘is what is threatened when believers are faced with many laws.”[3]  When church (or state) over-regulates, prescribes and proscribes, we find ourselves turned inside out – away from that first commandment to place ourselves first and foremost within the context of Holy Unity and Love.  There are two serious problems when we do not make the One God that is Love our beginning point.  First, we find ourselves, with the Scribe, asking the wrong question – what is the Law, and what does it entail, and how can it be kept.  With our consciousness firmly fixed on the exterior, the emphasis is on obedient behaviour (as set, often by fearful boundary-keepers).  So that dying people, hurting people, overlooked people are denied justice, hope and love.  Secondly, when the inner world that accompanies the behaviour is overlooked, the law can be kept with a hard heart, a dark mind, a sick soul, and only a minimum of strength.  So that highly respected people behave in anything but loving ways (as evidenced recently by the appalling sexual abuse perpetrated by Jimmy Savile[4] and the Kaitaia prominent businessman, church pastor and school principal.[5])

Many who follow Jesus fail to catch the transformational enormity of his message; they miss his beginning point focussing on an interior commitment to Loving Oneness. We can see this lack of understanding in some of the early church documents – especially in some of the later Epistles found in the New Testament – this desire to start with the outside – to regulate and control.  But the Gospel is not rule-focussed – Jesus’ way of life and teaching was never about creating purity of belief and behaviour by regulation.  Rather, we are called to the much more challenging and transformative action of tuning and training our hearts and minds, our souls and our strengths to Universal Love – so that we might be that Love in the world. 

When we have turned our inner selves towards that focus, then questions of mixed flatting, same-sex marriage, leadership and sexuality, the substance of our faith – all these questions take on a different context – for they are seen first and foremost through the lens of love.

It is within that context that a group calling themselves “Christians for Marriage Equality” have made a submission to the Government – a very different submission from that of church bodies which have ruled that marriage can only be between different sexes.

In their submission, Christians for Marriage Equality, write:

“As members of Christian churches, we have an understanding of Christian sexual ethics that values the quality of the relationship. We believe that sexual relationships should be loving, committed, faithful, mutual and respectful. Same sex and different-sex relationships both have the potential to be ethical and therefore acceptable in the sight of God. Our experience as people in faith communities leads us to conclude that different-sex and same-sex relationships have more similarities than differences. Both have the capacity for love and both have the capacity for destructiveness. Both involve two people who share emotional interdependence and a sexual relationship. Both have the possibility of parenting responsibilities. Both require trust and commitment to flourish. Both entail social obligations. The similarities make it obvious that both need equivalent legal protection, social respect and encouragement.[6]

And the scribe said to Jesus, You are right Teacher; you have truly said that God is one and besides God there is no other – and to love God with all the heart, and with all the understanding, and with all the strength, and to love one’s neighbour as oneself – this is much more important than rules about burnt offerings and sacrifices.

And seeing that he answered wisely, Jesus said “You are not far from the kin-dom of God”  And after that, no one dared to ask him any question. May it be so.

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[1]  “a rescuer with vital listening equipment spent two hours filling out forms delaying their arrival at the building collapse. Jane Parfitt from Civil Defence admitted two hours was too long..” Coroner’s inquest into the collapse of CTV building during Christchurch Earthquake http://www.3news.co.nz/Machines-needed-in-CTV-rescue---demolition-expert/tabid/423/articleID/275071/Default.aspx 1 November 2012

[2] John Shea Eating with the Bridegroom: The Spiritual Wisdom of the Gospels for Christian Preachers and Teachers 2005, p.260

[3] John Shea p.260-261.

[4]http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/jimmy-savile/9620223/Jimmy-Savile-He-was-the-tip-of-the-iceberg.html 19 October 2012.   Sir James Wilson Vincent "Jimmy" Savile, OBE, KCSG was an English disc jockey, television presenter, media personality and charity fundraiser en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Savile

[5] Parents in Kaitaia have every right to feel apprehensive following the arrest last week of a businessman on 17 charges involving the sexual abuse of boys, according to ECPAT Child ALERT director Allan Bell, although its recent experiences were not unique.  He made his comments after the "prominent businessman" appeared before Kaitaia District Court last week. The accused entered no plea and was remanded in custody, for a second appearance today. His arrest by police in Kaitaia was the third in quick succession. Former school teacher James Parker, who had been the deputy principal at Pamapuria School until his arrest, is due to appear in Kaitaia District Court on Thursday next week for sentence on 49 convictions of sexually abusing boys, while 63-year-old church pastor Eric Reid was in the District Court at Kaikohe yesterday for call-over on sex-related offences involving two women, one of them a teenager. http://www.northlandage.co.nz/news/kaitaias-child-abuse-problem-not-unique/1605271/ November 1 2012

[6] Margaret Mayman representing Christians for Marriage Equality submission on the Marriage Amendment Bill. http://www.scribd.com/doc/111356591/Christians-for-Marriage-Equality

A sermon for Reformation Sunday

Readings: Job 42:1-6, 10; Mark 10:46-52

Today is Reformation Sunday - the birthday of the Protestant Church.  And, as with all birthdays, our celebrations carry memories, ritual and music. We’ve heard some of that music this morning (from Reformer Martin Luther’s hymn Ein’ Feste Burg and music by J.S. Bach, one of the foremost Reformation musicians). Tonight, in honour of this important church festival, the choir and Collegiate Orchestra will present one of Bach’s well-known Cantatas – Lobe den Herren – best known to us through the Reformation Hymn “Praise to the Lord, the Almighty, the King of creation”.   It’s a day when the church colours are celebratory red, beginning the season of celebrating the saints.  It’s a day to wear proudly the Presbyterian name – and the name of John Knox, our ancestor who sits in beauty in our glorious stained glass window at the back of the Church. It’s a day for celebrating the gifts of the past, which have made us who we are.

It’s on Reformation Sunday that Protestants are most likely to recall the great protestant motto:  Ecclesia reformata, semper reformanda! “Even to this day, these ancient words are a rallying cry for Presbyterians and other Reformed Christians. It is a motto that reminds us of who we are and who we intend to be.”  The Church reformed and always being reformed.[1]

On this day I invite you to pause, to ask ourselves how true we are to our heritage. 

If Luther, Calvin or Knox were to step into this church today, I think we could guarantee they would be shocked by the adornment, the ritual and the lack of decorum; things have changed mightily since the 16^th century! So have we abandoned our heritage?  And should my sermon today be calling us to the ways of our re-forming ancestors – keeping to the letter of the Re-formed way - nailing to the church door our challenges to the established church, shaping our faith lives on the sermons of Calvin, Luther and Knox - even holding to their particular prejudices against women, Catholics and Jews; singing only the music of Bach and his contemporaries?  Or does this motto of the Church reformed and always reforming call us into a place of change – perhaps challenging us to abandon all the old ways and adopt the new?  Whatever the answers to those questions, Reformation Sunday provides an opportunity for the 21^st century church to ask serious questions about its directions.

Anna Case-Winters, an American Presbyterian explains “Our Reformed motto, rightly understood, challenges both the conservative and the liberal impulses that characterize our diverse church today. It does not bless either preservation for preservation's sake or change for change's sake.  In the 16th-century context the impulse it reflected was neither liberal nor conservative, but radical, in the sense of returning to the "root." The Reformers believed the church had become corrupt, so change was needed. But it was a change in the interest of preservation and restoration of more authentic faith and life—a church reformed and always to be reformed according to the Word of God.”

...One of the serious charges church authorities hurled at the Reformers was that they were "innovating." In response, John Calvin wrote[2] "We are accused of rash and impious innovation for having ventured to propose any change at all [in] the former state of the Church." But, Calvin counters, these Reformers were not "innovating," but were restoring the church to its true nature, purified from the "innovations" that riddled the church through centuries of inattention to Scripture and theological laxity.... By submitting themselves to Scripture, the churches of the Reformation movement were purging themselves of these unwanted "innovations" and returning to a more ancient and therefore purer form of church life”[3] – closer to its source, the Way of Jesus.

This important Reformed-Presbyterian motto ecclesia reformata, semper reformanda summons us to our roots so that we too may be transformed to the likeness of Christ.  Like our ancestors of the 16^th century, we are invited to shed our blinkers, to cast off that which blinds us, and to trust the Holy Spirit to lead us into a new way of being.  All our rituals, all our traditions, all our ways of being are challenged by the Living Word so that we might become more faithful pilgrims on the Jesus Journey. 

So how do we as Reformed Christians – reformed and always reforming – open ourselves to the radical movement of the Holy Spirit?  How do we each on our daily life-journey ensure that the treasures we hold on to are of God-ness and not the corrupt ways of a human institution which has lost its way? 

Macrina Wiederkehr[4] offers a perspective on this dilemma.  “The most exasperating stranger I’ve had to walk with is myself” she writes.  I go through life juggling my tourist pilgrim heart.  There is a part of me that longs to be a pilgrim.  I was born a seeker.  I want to travel to all the holy places of the universe, including my own poor heart.  I long to stand barefoot on holy ground. ... But alas my tourist mentality begins to take over and the lens of my eye is not enough.  The memory of my heart is insufficient.  My albums fill up with pictures just in case my heart forgets.  My backpack turns into several suitcases as I begin to accumulate treasures from all these holy places.  I begin to plan for new trips and regret all of the things I’ve missed.” She tells the story of a man visiting Niagara Falls, who took out his camera, “snapped a few pictures and then rather impatiently turned to his wife and said, “OK Mabel, we’ve seen it.  Let’s go.” ... In sifting out the tourists from the pilgrims, Wiederkehr suggests “By their cameras you shall know them” (by the way we see, we will be known)... The true pilgrim is the one who has no need to capture every piece of beauty (every past tradition).  I’m always a bit envious, she reflects, as I see them sitting quietly receiving the beauty instead of trying to capture it.  They pray with the lens of their eyes and their hearts.  They are able to gaze upon, to reverence and adore.  They serve as wondrous models for those of us who find it easier to clutch, to possess, to collect.  I believe, she writes, there is a hidden pilgrim in every tourist.  I constantly juggle these two seekers in my life.  On some days the tourist wins out. But there are many times when the pilgrim in me feels at home.  Maybe I have to settle for being a tourist pilgrim.” [5]

As tourist pilgrims, we look back and forward at the same time – drawing on the wisdom and biblical interpretations of the past – and at the same time – doing in our day, what our faith ancestors have done in theirs – we travel with a spirit of pilgrim-“openness to the Word and the Spirit that formed and continues to re-form the church.”[6]

“There is a power in you, a truth in you that has not yet been tapped. 

You are blinded with a blindness that is deep for you’ve not loved the pilgrim in you yet. ...

To be a pilgrim means

to be on the move, slowly

to notice your luggage becoming lighter

to be seeking for treasures that do not rust

to be comfortable with your heart’s questions

to be moving toward the holy ground of home  with empty hands and bare feet ...

There’s a road that runs straight through your heart.  Walk on it.”[7]

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[1] Anna Case-Winters “What do Presbyterians believe about ‘Ecclesia Reformata, Semper Reformanda?’ Our misused motto”  Reprinted from the May 2004 issue of Presbyterians Today http://www.presbyterianmission.org/ministries/today/reformed/

[2] John Calvin "The Necessity of Reforming the Church”

[3] Anna Case-Winters

[4] Macrina Wiederkehr Seasons of your heart, 1991

[5] Macrina Wiederkehr “Tourists or Pilgrims?” Seasons of your heart, 1991 p.183-185

[6] Case-Winters

[7] Macrina Wiederkehr, Seasons of your heart, 1991 p.185

A sermon for October 14, 2012

Readings: Hebrews 4:12-16 ; Mark 10:17-31

I’m guessing that for most of us, at least initially, we can’t even begin to imagine ourselves in the role of the rich young ruler, who runs up to Jesus, kneels down before him and

asks, "Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?"  We’re also probably a little reluctant to look at this passage with its reference to wealth and riches – perhaps even a little embarrassed that this is the reading set down for this Sunday, on which we have our annual meeting where we will be reminded yet again of financial difficulties, which surprisingly, we never seem to be freed from in this congregation.  And, we of Knox Church might also feel rather uncomfortable in hearing this particular Gospel in the company of our guests from the Presbyterian Church of Myanmar, who by their very presence remind us of our common humanity and the embarrassing riches and freedoms we experience in this country of Aotearoa-New Zealand.

But then again, perhaps this juxtaposition of discomforts might be fruitful, in helping us hear the gospel anew – fresh for this day – at this time in our lives. 

There’s an urgency in this well-known story – an urgency to get an answer to a question – a question which probably doesn’t feature highly in the thinking of many Christian people today. Eternal life?  Many of us would be quick to discount this concept.  I doubt it would fire us at the heart of our being, making us put on our running shoes to catch up with a charismatic preacher at whose feet we would embarrassingly throw ourselves as we implore him to provide us with an answer to the burning question of how we might achieve eternal life. What possible relevance is there for us today in this story?

But let’s not get caught out by the language here.  When Mark writes about Eternal Life, he’s not talking about some life-state after we die.  Eternal life, for Mark, is another way of describing the ‘already-and-not-yet’ Kin-dom of God.  What must I do to inherit Eternal Life – what must I do to live life today within God’s eternal reign – what I must do to inherit full flourishing life – aah, when we use that kind of language, perhaps we can get inside the skin and the running shoes of the rich young ruler – perhaps we can now understand his distress, his haste and his urgency.

So, let’s take ourselves into the story, rephrasing his question just a little, being (like him) the one who recognises that in spite of trying to do everything right in our lives, we are still driven to despair.  Despite the many riches in our lives, despite trying to be good people, despite giving money time and commitment to many and various mission projects, like the rich young ruler, we still find within the depths of our being, a lack of meaning, a hopelessness, an emptiness.  With the rich young ruler, we throw ourselves at the feet of Jesus, this Wisdom teacher asking – what must I do to make this world a better place?  What must I do to bring about peace and justice in this world?  What must I do to make this life full and flourishing for the whole cosmos?

It may well be that what prevents us from participating in the kin-dom’s fullness of life is our possessions, our wealth and our attitude towards them.  It would be surprising if it wasn’t that, in this Western world where personal greed dominates our thinking and everything is measured in monetary terms.  As we approach our AGM, we might like to think about how our possessions and our wealth get in the way - preventing full and flourishing life for the world.  The answer to the question “What must I do to participate in the kin-dom of God” may well lie in a very careful consideration of personal attitudes to money and possessions.

But let us not limit our reading of this gospel passage. At the beginning of this week of prayer for world peace, we might extend our consideration to ask also about the feelings, thoughts and mindsets we refuse to let go, which prevent the blossoming of peace in this world.  Is the ‘one thing we lack’ our inability to let go of resentment, our refusal to see a different point of view, our desperate need to nurse our anger? 

A story from the Buddhist tradition

Jato, was the instructor to the Emperor’s sons.  He noticed that the oldest boy was given to outbursts of anger, which could prove dangerous in later life - especially when his turn came to be Emperor.  One day in the midst of the boy’s tantrum, Jato dragged the youth to a flowering bush and thrust the prince’s hand against a cluster of feeding bees until one bee stung the boy.

The prince was so surprised that anyone would treat him so roughly that he stopped his raging.  Cradling his stinging hand he yelled at Jato, “I am going to tell my father.” 

“When you tell your father, tell him this …”

“What”

“Look at the bee.”

Together they studied the bee writhing on a leaf with its entrails torn out with the stinger.  They watched the agonized insect until it died.

“That’s the outcome of anger,” said Jato.

That night the boy told his father, who rewarded the teacher.  The boy, learnt his lesson well, and when he became emperor, reigning for a long time during a very turbulent period, was known for his quiet judgment and his unwillingness to be provoked.[1]

Whether it be our rage or our riches that we are holding onto, wise teachers like Jato – and like Jesus – expose the gaps in our self-knowledge – taking us to places we might never have considered for ourselves.  The ‘one thing we lack’ comes as a surprise; it is the attachment we hadn’t even thought about.  When we throw ourselves at the feet of Jesus, begging to know what we can do to make this world more like God’s realm, we too might be caught unawares.  Under the microscope of Jesus’ teaching, we learn what it is in our way of living that prevents this world from being a place of love, justice and peace.

The amazing good news of the Gospel is that when we are ready to ask that question ‘what must I do?’ – we find not judgment, not guilt, not shame but a wise teacher who looks on us – as he looks on the rich young ruler – with deep love. (It’s interesting to note that this man is the only person in the Gospel of Mark, that Jesus is said to love).  And from a place of compassionate love, Jesus offers a challenge which penetrates the safety barriers we have erected around ourselves. 

Jesus looked at him, loved him and said… “you lack one thing…”

The end of the gospel story is a sad one – the young man wasn’t ready – wasn’t able to give up that which tied him to his protections and precautions.  Although inspired enough to ask the question, he found its answer too perceptive, too shocking…. And, deeply grieved, he turned away – unable to follow … 

How hard it is for those of us who have wealth … how hard it is for those of us attached to our anger and our many securities …. How hard it is to enter the kin-dom of God….

Perhaps this is a day to end the sermon abruptly … and to invite each of us into ongoing reflection and response ….

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[1] Zen story from Zen Fables for Today: Stories inspired by the Zen Masters by Richard McLean

Sermon on Ecclesiastes for 30 September 2012

Guest Preacher:  Rev. Dr. Judith McKinlay

Vanity of vanities – all is vanity. Shall we just go home now?! It is, of course, the opening and the cue for the biblical book we know as Ecclesiastes. “Vanity” has changed in meaning since the King James Version. But is it any better to say all is ephemeral – all as elusive as a breath, a whiff, a puff - or all is absurd -incomprehensible?

So what’s a book like this doing in the bible, you might well say?!  The early rabbis warned – read this & you might end up a heretic!!

But here it is - with this constant refrain all is ephemeral- all is elusive, - in our bible. Have you read it lately?

The writer, known as Qohelet, which may or may not mean “the teacher,” writes as if he’s king Solomon: “ I, ... when king over Israel… , applied my mind to seek and search out by wisdom all that is done under heaven” (1:12). Somewhat ambitious!

But - a rather big ‘but’ - “I saw all the deeds that are done under the sun, and see, all is ephemeral and a chasing after wind … those who increase knowledge increase sorrow.”

Not altogether encouraging. Don’t listen if you are about to sit an exam!

So what Qohelet is doing, is seeing, observing & considering the world. AS someone says, it’s “the book of the Look” (to quote).[1]

What does Qohelet see? Contradiction upon contradiction – the wise have eyes in their heads but fools walk in darkness, Yet I perceived that the same fate befalls all of them. Then I said to myself, “What happens to the fool will happen to me also, why then have I been so very wise. And I said to myself this also is absurd (2:14-15). Moreover I have seen righteous people who perish in their righteousness, and there are wicked people who prolong their life in their evil doing. Do not be too righteous and do not act too wise, why should you destroy yourself! (7: 15-16).

Should we just be fools?  But the laughter of fools is like the crackling of thorns under a pot (7:6), Dead flies makes the perfumer’s ointment give off a foul odour, so a little folly outweighs wisdom and honour (10:1).

You can understand this writer being considered a pessimist and sceptic!

And wisdom? He has a small story: There was a little city with few people in it. A great king came against it and besieged it, building great siegeworks against it. Now there was found in it a poor wise man, and he by his wisdom delivered the city. Yet no one remembered that poor man. So I said, “Wisdom is better than might; yet the poor man’s wisdom is despised. Being Qohelet, he doesn’t leave it there but follows, wisdom is better than weapons of war, but one bungler destroys much good (9:14-18). 

What else does he see? The tears of the oppressed, but there is none to comfort them (4:1) - a world where money preoccupies everyone (10:19). Most probably the world of high rates of taxation enforced by Persia, with accompanying high interest rates – where all their days are full of pain, and their work is a vexation.[2] This also is absurd (2:23). Anxieties even for those who are well off. There is a grievous ill that I have seen … riches … lost in a bad venture, though (its owners) are parents of children, they have nothing in their hands (5:13-14). And, in any case, whatever one gains is left to be enjoyed by another who did not work for it. This also is absurd (2:21).

Are you making some connections? – bad business ventures & collapsing finance companies - schools providing breakfast, because parents have nothing in their hands? Profit margins and money put before people – a society with the rich, and the very clearly not rich.

So is Qohelet pessimistic or simply realistic? All this, he says, I have tested by wisdom. I said, I will be wise, but that is beyond me. All that happens is inaccessible and utterly unfathomable (7:23-24).

So what to do? Just accept it? Although he does include the call cast your bread upon the waters … give a portion to seven, or even to eight, for you don’t know what misfortune will occur on earth (11:1-2). Be generous – there may be a benefit – just may be.

Where is God in all of this? God is the creator – having made everything appropriate in its time (3:11), and is to be revered, but – Qohelet’s “but,” God is in heaven, humans are on earth (5:2) – the divide is clear.  Just as you do not know how the breath comes to the bones in the mother’s womb, so you do not know the work of God, who makes everything (11:5)

Yet– doesn’t there have to be a “yet” in all this?!– we can enjoy food and wine, & marriage – even work (5:20) & this is God’s gift. Jewish tradition reads Ecclesiastes during the season of Sukkot, when families build small temporary shelters, recalling the 40 years in the wilderness.[3]  A season when friends and family are invited in to eat our bread in gladness and drink our wine with joy, as God has long ago approved  (9:7). A time, as Rabbi Kushner writes, “to enjoy happiness with those we love – a time … to make the most of [it]” the life” we have,[4] albeit death is hovering.

So this is it?  Accepting absurdities, with a bit of enjoyment thrown in! Were the rabbis right – should this book not be in the bible?

And why would I choose to use Qohelet this morning? If your spirituality is one of warm relationship with God, you’re probably finding Qohelet bleak - if you’re committed to issues of social justice, you’re probably finding Qohelet quietist.

It is one voice among the many– but a voice that speaks to those who do find the meaning of life deeply mysterious, and accept that – a voice that speaks to those who constantly see the contradictions and accept life is like this. A voice that speaks to those whose spirituality is intellectually austere. But it is a spirituality – held with honesty and integrity. It is a faithful spirituality - and biblical.

At the end, comes the call: fear God and keep God’s commandments, for that is the whole duty of everyone (12: 13). Really? From Qohelet? Or is this tacked on to make the book conform a little more? Does that matter? The point is that read as a whole, that is the call, fear God and keep God’s commandments, “[e]ven if everything is absurd.” To quote the Jewish Qohelet scholar Michael Fox:

We may stumble around bruised and bewildered. We may see the meaning of life crumble if we stare at it too carefully. But we can still do what we are supposed to do. And we know what this is, even if we are ignorant of its consequences. That is no small thing.[5]

We, who are Christian, have the Gospel commandments – we agree, that is no small thing.

Have I answered why I chose Qohelet? Perhaps not entirely. Two more reasons. Firstly, his work is part of a long international tradition – international in the Ancient Near Eastern sense. He is working on a wide map.  He never uses the Israelite name for God – what our Bibles translate as Lord. He simply writes God. Qohelet is writing on a wide map. It is an outward looking theology - & it is a theology – not closed off, not inward looking, not insular.

What he is also doing is challenging some long-held assumptions of that tradition, as Job had done before him. He’s constantly saying “yes, but,” and the “but” comes from his own observations – his own experience. He keeps saying I have looked and seen and this just isn’t so!

At the same time he remains part of this tradition. As Walter Brueggemann and his co-authors write: “Faith of the kind the wisdom teachers practice is never settled but is endlessly rethought, because lived experience finally is the grist of faith ... They refused to settle, because they knew that after the lived experience of today, there would be tomorrow with its own insistent questions … ”[6] 

Do we say amen to that? I think many of us would, and many of us have. Knox has a strong thinking and rethinking tradition, though we might not have linked this back to Qohelet.

Rethinking, challenging, daring to state the contradictions, daring to be honest, when life made no sense to him, but daring this with a faithful integrity. That is Qohelet.

The book ends with the observation that of making many books there is no end (12:12). I, personally, am grateful for this one. Can we say thanks be to God? I think so.

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[1] Mark Sneed, “(Dis)closure in Qohelet: Qohelet Deconstructed,” JSOT 27.1 (2002): 115-126 (122).

[2] See Choon Leong Seow, “Theology When Everything is Out of Control,” Interpretation 55.3 (2001): 237-249.

[3] See Leviticus 23:39-43.

[4] Harold S. Kushner, When All You’ve Ever Wanted Isn’t Enough (London: Pan Books, 1986), 190.

[5] Michael V. Fox, A Time to Tear Down and A Time to Build Up: A Rereading of Ecclesiastes (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999), 145.

[6] Bruce C. Birch et al., A Theological Introduction to the Old Testament (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1999), 413, 415.

A Sermon for 23 September 2012

Readings Psalm 1; James 3:13-4:3, 7-8a; Mark 9:30-37

“Show by your good life that your works are done with gentleness born of wisdom.”^[1]

All our readings this morning point us towards two very different forms of wisdom – the general and often unexamined wisdom of our culture and the contrasting wisdom of God, described by the letter writer James as “pure, peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without a trace of partiality or hypocrisy.”^[2] 

I wonder what the writer of the letter of James would have had to say about the story on the front page of the newspaper last Monday – the one about the Invercargill company executive who told a potential employee, whose ethnic origin was Syrian, that “he should change his name to something more Kiwi because conservative southerners would think twice about working with him. – ‘Unfortunately, [the executive’s email said] any southern NZer client in business would possibly think twice about dealing with anyone with a Middle Eastern name.’”^[3]

It’s a story grounded in the general wisdoms of our day and marketplace – one example of many news stories in our world today – writ large in the United States presidential election campaign, on the battlefields of Syria, Afghanistan, and Libya, in the debating chambers of the Beehive … and also experienced in our day to day living in our own homes and workplaces.  The general wisdoms of the world seep into our being, so that sometimes without even recognising it, we claim our experience, our circumstances and our very selves as the centre, from which all else should be measured and understood.  We expect others to see the world as we see it – to become like us, for we know best; we claim entitlement for our way, which is the best way of course; and we throw our tantrums, seeking revenge, making others pay when they have hurt us. 

There are two ways of living, the Psalmist, reminds us – those who follow the way of God “are like trees planted by streams of water, which yield their fruit in its season”.  Those who choose not to follow God’s way are “like chaff that the wind blows away”.^[4]

American farmer and poet Wendell Berry^[5] has had enough of so called wisdoms of our day. 

He argues that the many guises of the modern world separate us from nature and place; he contrasts the "world made without hands" to "industrial humanity," which he considers an "alien species" with a death wish. Berry wants to deconstruct the deathly wisdom of the world in favour of new life-giving narratives.  “He deplores our "idiot luxury," "our economy of greed," "fantasy capitalism," "fashionable lies," the destruction of mountains to mine coal, idiot politicians, the violence of war, and the imperative of technology….. “He’s searching for "a language that can make us whole" and that can help us live as "true human beings."^[6]

In his poem Look Out, Berry invites us to stand at the window of our world to see what is actually there before us – both the beauty of this amazing creation and the shadow, cast upon its splendour.

Come to the window, look out, and see

the valley turning green in remembrance

of all springs past and to come, the woods

perfecting with immortal patience

the leaves that are the work of all of time,

the sycamore whose white limbs shed

the history of a man's life with their old bark,

the river quivering under the morning's breath

like the touched skin of a horse, and you will see

also the shadow cast upon it by fire, the war

that lights its way by burning the earth.

Of course, if we stay within our own comforts and don’t go to the windows of our world, we will never see what Berry invites us to see:  we will never see how, what James describes as the wisdoms of ‘envy and selfish ambition’, have created “disorder and wickedness of every kind.”^[7]

Come to your windows, people of the world,

look out at whatever you see wherever you are,

and you will see dancing upon it that shadow.

You will see that your place, wherever it is,

your house, your garden, your shop, your forest, your farm,

bears the shadow of its destruction by war

which is the economy of greed which is plunder

which is the economy of wrath which is fire.

The Lords of War sell the earth to buy fire,

they sell the water and air of life to buy fire.

They are little men grown great by willingness

to drive whatever exists into its perfect absence.

Their intention to destroy any place is solidly founded

upon their willingness to destroy every place.

Every household of the world is at their mercy,

the households of the farmer and the otter and the owl

are at their mercy. They have no mercy.

Having hate, they can have no mercy.

Their greed is the hatred of mercy.

Their pockets jingle with the small change of the poor.

Their power is the willingness to destroy

everything for knowledge which is money

which is power which is victory

which is ashes sown by the wind.

Like the writers of our readings for this morning, Wendell Berry urges us to the window of our world so that we will recognise and "say no" to the deathly wisdoms which surround us.  And in that time of recognition– despite all that we see – we who follow the way of life-giving wisdom are strengthened to move from our place at the window, to go into the world and "say yes" to all that is good and true.

Leave your windows and go out, people of the world,

go into the streets, go into the fields, go into the woods

and along the streams. Go together, go alone.

Say no to the Lords of War which is Money

which is Fire. Say no by saying yes

to the air, to the earth, to the trees,

yes to the grasses, to the rivers, to the birds

and the animals and every living thing, yes

to the small houses, yes to the children. Yes.

A simple message, and yet, like our faith ancestors, Jesus’ disciples, we often miss the point. In today’s gospel reading we find a further example of the misunderstandings we addressed last Sunday – here the two wisdom ways are spelt out.  Jesus is predicting his betrayal and death, while his disciples argue about who is the greatest.  In response to their misunderstanding, Jesus offers a word of Wisdom:  “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all”.  He quickly illustrates his teaching with a piece of dramatic street theatre – taking a little child out of the crowd, he says “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me, welcomes not me but the one who sent me.”

It’s another life-giving message which provides us with new scripts to write better stories about our world and ourselves.My illustration isn’t quite as immediate as Jesus – it will happen during the notices -and the one to be placed in our midst is not quite a child – although most of us would not recognise a fourteen year old as adult.  But I have invited Mhairi later in the service to take her vantage point at the window of the world and offer her vision in saying ‘yes’ to the children.  I invite you to hear Mhairi’s words, along with the words of Jesus, James, the Psalmist and Wendell Berry calling us into a way of being in which we look out on the world and go out into the world, where we say ‘yes’ to life-giving Holy Wisdom – and ‘no’ to the wisdoms of death which surround us. 

“Show by your good life that your works are done with gentleness born of wisdom.”^[8]

---

[1] James 3:13b

[2] James 3:17

[3] ODT “Syrian job applicant advised to change name” ODT Monday 17 Sept 2012, p.1

[4] Psalm 1:3-4

[5] See Wendell Berry, New Collected Poems (Berkeley: Counterpoint, 2012),

[6] This paragraph and the material which follows, including the Wendell Berry poem quotes from and uses the material of Dan Clendenin “Saying Yes to Women and Children: Contrarian Wisdom for a Fallen World” essay for September 23, 2012 http://www.journeywithjesus.net/index.shtml

[7] James 3:16

[8] James 3:13b