A Sermon for 8 July 2012 - Pentecost 6

Readings:  Ezekiel 1:1, 21-5; Mark 6:1-13

"A time is coming," said the desert dweller saint Anthony, "when [people] will go mad, and when they see someone who is not mad, they will attack [them], saying, 'You are mad, you are not like us.'"    It sounds like an Orwellian, or sci-fi perspective: the world going so crazy that it perceives madness as truth; wisdom as insanity.  But this is not Orwell, nor 20^th century science fiction, it’s St. Anthony in the 3^rd century.  Perhaps things don’t change.

Maybe even in Anthony’s times, the confusing of wisdom with folly was well entrenched.  For certainly, his sainted actions could be seen as crazy.  An “uneducated Copt born in 251 AD into a Christian family of peasant farmers, [Anthony] was eighteen, [when] his parents died, leaving him to care for his younger sister. Six months later, the gospel reading in church one Sunday was Matthew 19:2: "If you would be perfect, go, sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven." Anthony put his sister into the care of nuns, sold his possessions, and attached himself to an ascetic on the fringe of his village. Later, he went deep into the desert alone. [But] people followed him there for advice; and for a while he [provided a form of 3^rd century spiritual direction]. Later still, he returned to his life of solitary spirituality in the vast loneliness of the Egyptian desert.” [1]   Were his actions crazy?  I imagine plenty of his contemporaries thought so – and a number of us today would agree.

Just a few centuries earlier, the one they called Jesus of Nazareth seemed to have a similar problem; his actions were also considered crazy.  They’d known him since he was little; they knew his family; they’d played together as children; their mothers and fathers knew his mother and father; they had him sussed, this local boy; he was just the village carpenter.   Where did he get all his airs and his so-called wisdom?  In some ways, this morning’s reading is a repeat of what we read four weeks ago in Mark chapter 3, where we heard how his family and the scribes from Jerusalem had each separately come to the conclusion that Jesus was out of his mind.  You will remember how his family tried to take him into their custody – to protect him from his own madness and its inevitable outcomes.  And, now in today’s reading, as Mark, the gospel writer puts it, those who knew him best – the people with whom he had grown up, patronised him, refused to listen and ‘took offence at him’ - literally, they were scandalised by his behaviour.  His family didn’t believe in him; his neighbours thought him insane; the religious leaders said he was a glutton and a drunkard who mixed with the wrong people; those on the edge of society seemed to get his message more clearly than those in the centre; and that message provided a threat to the establishment; it’s not all that surprising he was executed. 

This One, whose actions and teaching seemed to many people to be plain madness, this is the One on whose life we pattern our own.  How wise is that – or, are we too insane?  (Risk management strategy almost compels me to put up a hazard-warning sign at this moment – for the gospel is extremely dangerous territory)

There’s a story told about “a colony of ants with only five legs.  Whenever they walked, they went ONE-TWO-HITCH, ONE-TWO-HITCH, all along the path. These ants lived on decayed banana leaves and nothing else.  I shouldn’t say they lived, for many of them died.  Banana leaves, especially in their rotten state, are rather hard to find, and so the ants had a very hard life.  Many of them died young from over-exertion and starvation.

Now, it happened one day that a very strange ant was born among them.  This ant had six legs. All the ants clicked their tongues in consternation.  Many tried their best to console the parents on their child’s deformity.  Some suggested that for the good of the community they ought to kill him in infancy, but the mother pleaded hard, so they let him live.

Strangely enough, this little ant was soon rushing around faster than his elders.  And, worse than that, he had a very awkward way of walking.  “Look,” they tried to tell him, “You don’t know how to walk correctly.  You have to go ONE-TWO-HITCH, ONE-TWO-HITCH.  Now, try it properly.”

So the little ant would try to put a little hitch in his step, but every time he tried, that sixth foot would come down [without a hitch] and he’d leave his teachers far behind. They gave up in disgust.  When he was half-grown, his elders noticed another peculiarity.  He was eating breadcrumbs.  ‘Stop’ they cried.  “They’re poison.  You mustn’t do that.  If you eat even two little pieces you’ll die.”  But the little ant continued eating.  They waited for him to fall over dead, but nothing happened.  Instead, as the days went by, he grew strong and big, bigger even than the biggest of grown-ups.  This was outrageous.

But the real crisis didn’t come until he was fully grown.

The colony had been told to move quickly from their home to another place, for the dreaded driver ants were marching against them.  The job of moving was very slow, for in order to move the nest, an egg had to be loaded on the back of an ant.  Then two other ants climbed on his back, holding the egg in place.  They had to keep it from rolling off at every hitch, you see.  So the egg was carried along and the ant under the egg would be more dead than alive when they arrived.

They had just started moving their eggs when they noticed the six-legged monstrosity coming towards them at a rapid rate.  “Hurry up, you lazy thing,” they cried between puffs, “You have work to do.”  They had barely got the words out of their mouths when he passed them on the double and was back again carrying an egg between – of all places – his two front feet.  “You can’t do that,” they screamed, “You’ll break it.  And anyway, you’ll never get there.”

“I’ve already been there and back twice,” he replied, “and I haven’t broken one yet.  Let me show you how to do it.”

This was the last straw. Almost choking with rage, they dropped their eggs in a heap and rushed at him.  “He has a devil,” cried his enemies.  “He is perverting the peace.  He is spoiling the nation.  He is teaching others this treason.  It is better that he should die than that our whole nation should perish.  Away with him.  Kill him.”

“There,” they growled in grim satisfaction some time later, “he’ll never try to teach us again.  We’ll solve our own problems, thank you.”

Then they went back to work.

ONE-TWO-HITCH, ONE-TWO-HITCH   ONE-TWO-HITCH.....[2]

As people of faith, seeking to live out the Way of Wisdom, these stories of St Anthony, Jesus and, yes, also the Ant colony, challenge and confront us.  They bring us to a compulsory stop – demanding that before we proceed, we consider where in our lives we catch glimpses of this ONE-TWO-HITCH-like madness attempting to supplant gospel wisdom.  Where are the places in our culture, our government, our families and our church that lead us into madness – even as they lay claims their way to be of the Truth?  Is it possible that, without realising it, our life patterns might be more aligned with Jesus’ family, his village, his faith community, the religious leaders of his day than with Jesus himself?  Could it be that we have been seduced into confusing wisdom with insanity? 

Where does the Christ-wisdom reside?

In an innocent and vulnerable baby, watched over by peasant folk,

gifted by foreigners, recognised by the very old

– a child who will bring destruction for some but liberation for many.

Speaking in the synagogue, preaching from the prophets,

discovering how his words do not please religious people.

Who does he think he is?  We’ve heard quite enough! 

Show him the door!  Show him the hill!

He’s walking through the streets which most decent folk avoid. 

Listening to the cries of all those who go unheard.

Touch me ... heal me ... let me see again ... make me well again .... it’s my child!

He’s confronting his fiercest critics. They have tongues as sharp as razors. 

They have plans in case their tongues are not enough.

Why do you eat with the riff-raff? Why do you violate our traditions? 

Why don’t you take us seriously?  Judas, Judas, we’ve got a job for you.

That’s him,

from Bethlehem to Bethany,

from Jerusalem to Jericho, from Capernaum to Calvary,

from Golgotha to the grave, from heaven to hell and back again; saying

I am the Way – follow me

I am the Truth .. believe me;

I am the Life ... receive me.[3]

I am the antithesis of madness, I am Holy Wisdom – come walk my way...

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[1] http://www.journeywithjesus.net/index.shtml Dan Clendinin, “They Took Offense at Him" Losing Your Mind to Find Your Way

[2] “Parable of the Ant” Stories for Sharing, Charles Arcodia, 1991, p.30-31

[3] “Behold the Lamb of God” Wild Goose Worship Group Present on Earth: Worship resources on the life of Jesus, 2002, p21-23. adapted .

Sermon for Pentecost 5: 1 July 2012

Readings: Wisdom of Solomon 1:13-15, 2:23-24; Mark 5:21-24, 35-43

It came to me quite surprisingly – and yet, it seems so very obvious – I was reading around about this morning’s readings, when I came across this sentence: “everyone that Jesus healed and brought back to life eventually became sick and died.”[1]  It’s obvious isn’t it – but I’d not quite thought of it that way before.  Yes, we all know the inevitability of death – one of the few certainties in our changing world.  And yet, we have within our faith tradition, these stories of Jesus healing and overcoming death.  The fact that every one of those who had been healed eventually will become sick again – will, eventually, die – puts paid to any idea that the main thrust of these gospel stories is about Jesus’ ability to prevent that inescapable fact: all living creatures do eventually die – sometimes very early, sometimes tragically, but always and inevitably.  We all die.  If there’s any truth to be drawn from this story for us today, it has to offer something more than that of simple miracle cure.

So, let’s start with Jairus....

"Jairus is uncharacteristic of synagogue leaders.  Synagogue leaders do not beseech Jesus.  They stand and watch disapprovingly.  They discredit Jesus as a law breaker because he works on the sabbath or as unclean because of his contact with people who have transgressed the purity laws.  But [here, we meet] Jairus [as] supplicant begging Jesus repeatedly. The story does not tell us how this synagogue leader broke ranks, how he came to find himself at the feet of Jesus.  But the implication is that his [12 year old] dying daughter has made him desperate.”[2]  The fear and powerlessness of tragedy can do that for you.

Another person ... another century....Her sister was dying. There were no two ways about it.  Surgery, chemotherapy and radiotherapy had not contained the rampant aggressive cancer cells which had escaped through the lymph nodes.  Their ugly new growths were visible to the naked eye; the rapidly increasing cancerous cells had lodged in the brain. Yes, her sister was dying.  Their distraught mother, drawing on a life-time of literal faith belief, turned her understandable fear, powerlessness and anger towards the surviving daughter – “you are not praying enough, if only you would pray some more, the cancer would go away.”  The fear formed its own cancerous growth. The unspoken words: if she dies it will be your fault. 

Sometimes it’s in those desperate, awful crossroad moments, we are compelled to seek another way to understand reality.  When we find ourselves on the road of deathliness, when there’s nowhere else to turn, sometimes that’s when we’ll listen for the voice of Wisdom, who reminds us:  There are two paths – one leading to life and one to death. 

Her sister died.  Jairus’s daughter died. But as their stories unfold Jairus and his wife, the surviving sister, and her mother, are invited by Wisdom, into a place beyond fear and powerlessness, into a new understanding of life and healing that will change them forever. 

Being healed, becoming healthy is less about curing and much more about what 20^th century theologian Jurgen Moltmann describes as developing “the ability to cope with pain, sickness and death”.   Being healthy is about having the strength to be human.  In their loud commotion – their weeping and wailing – Jairus’ friends were certainly not providing such a healing environment; nor in our more contemporary story was the sister’s mother, with her blaming and anger.  In both the story of Jairus’ daughter – and the story of the haemorrhaging woman, which we did not hear this morning, but which is nested within and enveloped by the Jairus-daughter story – Jesus provides the Wisdom alternative of life by bringing Divine Love into the place of fear and powerlessness  – offering those in pain the strength to be human.

In her poem ‘Touched by an angel” Maya Angelou[3] describes the presence of this Divine Love

We, unaccustomed to courage

exiles from delight

live coiled in shells of loneliness

until love leaves its high holy temple

and comes into our sight

to liberate us into life.

Love arrives

and in its train come ecstasies

old memories of pleasure

ancient histories of pain. 

Yet if we are bold,

love strikes away the chains of fear

from our souls.

We are weaned from our timidity.

In the flush of love’s light

we dare be brave

and suddenly we see

that love costs all we are

and will ever be. 

Yet it is only love

which sets us free.

Rachel Remen, a doctor committed to bringing healing, wholeness and shalom into the medical world, provides an example of how such healing can be offered today. Very aware of the profound isolation experienced by those being hospitalized and treated for cancer, she recognises this sense of aloneness may even undermine the will to live.  “When we feel the support of others” she writes, “many of us can face the unknown with greater strength. …often before their radiation, chemotherapy, or surgery, I suggest they meet together with some of their closest friends and family.. It does not matter how large or small the group is, but it is important that it be made up of those who are connected to them through a bond of the heart.

The ritual begins by having everyone sit in a circle.  In any order they wish to speak, each person picks up a stone, which has been brought by the person facing the treatment, and tells the story of a time when they too faced a crisis.  People may talk about the death of important persons, the loss of jobs or of relationships, or even about their own illnesses.  When they finish telling their story of survival, they take a moment to reflect on the personal quality that they feel helped them come through that difficult time…. It might be determination – or humour – or faith.  When they have named the quality of that strength, they speak directly to the person preparing for surgery or treatment saying “I put determination into this stone for you” or “I put faith into this stone for you.”

Often, what people say is surprising.  Sometimes they tell of crises that occurred when they were young or in wartime that others, even family members, may not have known before, or they attribute their survival to qualities that are not ordinarily seen as strengths.  It is usually a moving and intimate meeting and often all the people who participate say they feel strengthened and inspired by it.  After everyone has spoken, the stone is given back to the person, who takes it with them to the hospital, to keep nearby and hold in their hand when things get hard.

Several patients have gone to their chemotherapy, radiation, or even surgery, with their stones strapped with adhesive tape to the palm of one of their hands or the bottom of their foot.

In response to this practice, one surgeon commented I have seen people do badly after surgery and even die when there was no reason for it other than the fact that they believed they wouldn’t make it.  I need all the help I can get.”…  Ritual, suggests Remen, is one of the oldest ways to mobilize the power of community for healing.  It makes the caring of the community visible, tangible, real.[4]

“Don’t fear” said Jesus to Jairus, “only believe”.  We who seek the way of Holy Wisdom, we who follow the way of Jesus, believe it is important to choose life over death.  We believe in the power of the loving community to bring about healing – bringing into the deathly and fearful places of specific human situations, a Divine Love which will strike away the chains of fear and set people free.  Those who choose to seek Wisdom will find life. Thanks be to God.  Amen

---

[1] John Shea, Eating with the Bridegroom 2005, p.165

[2] John Shea, p.161

[3] Maya Angelou, 1928 http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/touched-by-an-angel/

[4] Making caring visible, Rachel Naomi Remen, in Kitchen Table Wisdom: stories that heal 1996, p.151-153

A Sermon for Matariki Sunday (Pentecost 4) June 24 2012

Readings: 1 Samuel 17: 1a, 4-11; Mark 4:35-41

I’m embarrassed to admit it, but I think if I’m honest, I have some Goliath-sympathising tendencies.  Oh yes, I like it when David, against all odds, comes out the victor; but there’s something solid and secure about Goliath (at the beginning of the story at least), which draws me to his side.  He’s the strong man, the giant warrior, the one on whom his people depended.  He knew what he was on about and he was the best.    I too, like success – I like winning arguments – I like doing things well – I like clarity and security – I think I’m often right too - don’t we all?  In some ways, Goliath was a great guy. 

Perhaps my sympathies can be traced back to what now seems a lifetime ago – about thirty years ago, when I was a youth worker and music teacher, when I led a children’s choir on the North Shore in Auckland.  I still remember the delight of those children as they sang the “Goliath Jazz”.  Perhaps not as well known as its contemporary “Jonah-Man Jazz” but every bit as much fun, the story is told with much energy and delight.  Some of Goliath’s phrases still ring in my ear: 

“I’m broader than a barrel and I’m taller than a tree,

twice around the gasworks is once round me. 

There’s no-one in your army who can take me on.

I’m Goliath I’m the greatest; I’m the champion!” 

As he is approached by David, Goliath sings confidently

“I hear the squeaking of a little flea. 

Can that young weakling be addressing me?

I’ll pulvervise him into a pulp. 

And then I’ll swallow up the lot in a single gulp.”  

Goliath – he’s the greatest, he’s the champion - he’s the kind of man you’d want to be on your side – because things always seemed to go his way.  Goliaths rule – don’t they?

That is, until that kid – that little child – that David boy broke all the rules of warfare:  discarding the king’s armour, turning to his advantage the disdain of his opponent – catapulting a stone with deadly accuracy – and changing dramatically the history of his people. “That’s how it ended” the Goliath Jazz concludes – “and you all must know as in the famous tale of David and Goliath, the old old tale of David and Goliath, it proves it’s not the biggest one who always steals the show.” 

For here, the champion has let us down – big was not better, might was not more powerful, brute force did not win; the innocent, the weak, the little one has saved the day.  Of course, if we delve deeper into the Biblical Story, we find it is much more complex than this superficial Goliath Jazz / Sunday School story.  There are many more layers to the story.  Any account which uses theology to justify death and destruction of enemies is always to be approached with much suspicion.  Other layers might expose an unrecognisable story – told from the perspective of the much-maligned Philistines. The Goliath Jazz /Sunday School tale with its emphasis on an innocent God-chosen shepherd boy being the saviour of his people belies the fuller biblical narrative where David demonstrates his ability to fulfil equally a potential for great success and dreadful failure.  We know that clearly delineated black and white/ good and evil interpretations are dangerous. 

Holding these warnings in our awareness so that we do not fall into the trap of just idealising the young and the weak, I invite you to place your story – our story – alongside this Goliath and David one.  For isn’t there a truth lying at the heart of this story – a truth that suggests our default position is to put our trust in the champions – in the institutions – in the power and traditions of our society; and yet, so often, those Goliaths let us down.  We are drawn to the Goliaths of our world – with their weapons of war and their protective armour – we trust them to win our battles for us.  One reason for coming to church each Sunday is to be reminded that this dominant story – this dominant voice from our culture – is unlikely to bring us through the winters of our lives into the more hopeful promised springtime.  For one of the constant threads – one might even say a golden thread – which can be traced through the Hebrew prophets, through the Gospels, through the belief-systems of many of the world religions and into the everyday lives of faith communities throughout the ages – is that the path of perceived weakness is the stronger way. 

Whether our guides be Aung San Suu Kyi, Mahatma Ghandi, Nelson Mandela or Jesus, we recognise the transforming power of non-violence, the incredible potential available through compassionate love and the amazing strength of forgiveness.  Within our own tradition, we acknowledge the way in which hopeful life emerges out of despairing death; we celebrate the way in which Godness is en-fleshed in a baby; we follow the teachings of the one who said ‘unless you become like a little child ... unless you are born anew, you will not – you cannot – enter God’s kin-dom.’ 

Today as we baptised Grace, I imagine many different thoughts went through your mind.  Many of us older ones find hope for the future of the church in the children of our congregation.  We are encouraged by the thirty or so children, who sang, danced and listened to stories by candlelight here on Friday night.  We delight in seeing our children graduate from babyhood to Sunday School and Youth Group. We watch the front rows of the choir, spilling over with cherubic children who start out, as Grace did, not really knowing what they were doing, but enjoying the participation – growing, as Grace and so many others have, into valuable, contributing members of the choir we treasure and which inspires us in our worship.  In a time when the church is beset with many challenges, we feel hopeful as we see these children becoming part of our tradition, our faith, our church.  While I share such hope and comfort; yet, I wonder whether our belief that the children are our future might, without our realising it, reflect a Goliath-like approach.  Are we just hoping that our children will maintain and carry into the future that which we have seen as most dependable and helpful for the past?  Or are we truly people of faith, open to becoming like the children – like the vulnerable and the weak ones, presently in our midst – learning from them, valuing their understandings of faith and ways of being.   Could the children be pointing us to a different way – a way that might cause some discomfort for we who prefer to conserve and maintain the ways of the past?

Deep in our hearts, some of us will recognise that sometimes our approach to children, young people and newcomers is a Goliath approach – we hear the “squeaking of a little flea” and we ask disdainfully “could that young weakling be addressing me?’ 

We forget that young David-like weaklings can shape new communities.

The Goliath-like approach of the church is seen in the media; and sometimes, it can even can be heard on our lips... (I speak in generalisations about some actual recent incidents.)

It rears its ugly head in those who explain kindly to questioning young people that ‘when they get older, they will understand better’

It comes disguised as “true theology” when a seeker is told she can’t be Christian because she doesn’t believe in the bodily resurrection of Jesus ... or because he isn’t baptised ...  

It emerges when church regulations make a mockery of love that is genuine

It sneaks into our way of being, so that a newcomer decides he can’t come back because our church reminds him of too many past negative experiences in other churches

On this Baptism Sunday – on this day of Matariki rising – on this life-sustaining mid-winter day, how wonderful it would be, if each and every one of us, made a commitment to take one small step towards listening to the surprising, the David-like non-dominant voices in this community – not the minister, not the elders, not the choir, not the council, not those who have been members for a long time; but the children, the seekers, the immigrants, the strangers in our midst – who may just have what is necessary for the next step on our journey together out of the cold winter darkness towards the light of spring and new growth.  

A Sermon for Communion Sunday 10 June 2012

Introduction to Gospel

This morning's gospel reading provides us with two stories - one enclosed within the other. 

It's a favourite device of the writer. 

Mark often starts a story and then apparently digresses,

before returning to his original subject ...

Scholars would argue this is no digression - but a literary device to enhance meaning. 

As we listen to the reading, I invite you to hear the two stories –

I've asked two different people to read these, so we will hear them more clearly:

One, a story about Jesus and his family and the other about Jesus and the scribes from Jerusalem  - each group opposing what Jesus is doing - each embarrassed by the way Jesus is not playing by the established rules - each trying to exercise damage control - each thinking they are doing the right thing and yet, in thinking they are opposing evil, they are in fact opposing the work of the Holy Spirit. 

As we listen, we might ponder where we have seen others – or ourselves - acting like this...

Do we see the crowds attracted to Jesus, flocking to hear his wisdom, pushing into his home, wanting to hear and be near him, wanting to share his food - wanting to be part of this new kin-dom of God? Do we see his family thinking he's out of his mind with his crazy ideas; do we recognise the scribes from Jerusalem, clear about correct theological thinking, pointing out the errors of Jesus' way?  Let’s listen for the Gospel

Reading: Mark 3:19b-35

Sermon

I think the Minister of Social Development is a woman with a deep commitment to finding a way to deal with the horrifying and escalating problems of child abuse and neglect we are witnessing in New Zealand families - but I think her approach is deeply misguided.

I think the present government is (sometimes) seeking genuine solutions for our debt-riddled and dependent society - but I think its use of market values to make decisions about people is morally wrong.

I think the Presbyterian Church of Aotearoa New Zealand is desperately seeking ways to be the church for the 21st century - and yet I think it is regulating itself to death.

I think the Roman Catholic Church is doing the same - and I am appalled at this week's ruling that using iPads in worship might ‘confuse the sacred and secular’^[1]. 

As if technology stands somehow outside God-ness.

I'm a person of many opinions - and I hope each of you is too.  I recognize that sometimes my opinions are very wrong - and other times they are spot-on.  And, I guess that's your experience too.  This morning's gospel reading reminds us of how easy it is for us to get it wrong!  It also offers us a pointer as we seek to determine our responses to decisions being made by our Government, our Church, our workplace and our families.

Mark’s telling of these two encounters of Jesus with his family and Jesus with the interpreters of the law demonstrate clearly that the institutions you might expect to trust - the institutions of family, church and government - can get it very wrong.  The family, the scribes in Jerusalem, the MPs from Wellington, the General Assembly, the Vatican and NZ Conference of Bishops - all these institutions that we might reasonably expect to be trustworthy may be claiming they are working for good, when the exact opposite is the case.  

There is no indication in the gospel that Jesus’ family didn’t love him – quite the contrary.  If they didn’t care, they would have abandoned him by now– they think he’s out of his mind – he's not acting the way he should – they’ve come to protect him.  We’re only in chapter 3 of Mark’s gospel and already Jesus’ behaviour and teaching is drawing a great deal of attention.  From the multitudes that are following him, he’s just appointed an inner circle.  Perhaps this has been a trigger – maybe the power-base has shifted – whatever the reason, his family have now decided it’s time to take some action. They go stand outside the house, where the crowds have flocked – they don't go in; rather they summon him to come outside – they seek to ‘restrain’ him.  They want him to leave behind what he is becoming and to return to their way of being, their way of thinking.  They are convinced he is wrong – and they use the language of evil to describe his error.

The Scribes from Jerusalem descend on this little town where Jesus is based.  (Did they take this trip especially to deal with him?  Today, according to Google maps, this approximately 200km trip would take about 2 hours and 19 minutes.  I’m guessing it might have taken a great deal longer then, even if the scribes had taken the shorter 90km route through Samaria).  They come to level accusations against him: he is associating with the wrong people – people who are unclean, out of the minds; those who would make others unclean.  Jesus’ extraordinary and unacceptable behaviour is proof he is possessed by demons. 

All those institutions – of family, church and government – as they make and implement decisions for others – may do so with the best of intentions, even thinking they are opposing evil; but, says Jesus, there’s another, much more important criteria for assessing our actions: decisions that prevent and oppose life-giving outcomes are the ones that are evil.  When we prevent the enlivening, dancing, creating work of the Holy Spirit, we are the ones who are out of our minds – we are the ones whose behaviour is evil – and that, says Jesus, is unforgivable. 

For here in Mark’s Gospel, we discover that forgiveness does have a limit – “and that limit is reached when those inspired by the Holy Spirit are maligned as being in league with evil”.  While compassionate forgiveness is extended to all who make the error of mistaking what is wrong and calling it good, “it is unforgiveable to judge the good as evil.”^[2]

I wonder how many times decisions are made – by others and ourselves – where that which is good and innocent is judged as evil and to be punished.  I think of pronouncements of an ‘axis of evil’ – of the slaughter of innocent civilians in many different countries – of the ongoing scourge of AIDS in Africa and Asia.  And closer to home, it’s not difficult to uncover instances of institutions

we should be able to trust, being so frightened of what they assume to be demons

that vulnerable people, and the systems which should provide their support, are abandoned.   

Like the crowds who followed Jesus 2000 years ago, today we have come into the house with him, wanting to share his food.  We don’t want to stand outside making judgements, turning our backs on the work of the Holy Spirit.  We bring with us our questions, our opinions and concerns about the directions being taken by our families, our church, our country and our world.  And we spread that all out here on the Table – alongside the elements of bread and wine, which remind us of the promise of healing, justice and peace for those who are broken – for those whose blood has been spilled – for those whose goodness has been misjudged as evil.  And here in the life-giving presence of the Holy Spirit we commit ourselves once more to work towards bringing about the kin-dom of God, as Jesus envisaged it to be.

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[1] “Mobile phones, iPads, no match for Missal” by Alison Rudd, Otago Daily Times June 2012 quoting Father John Harrison of St Joseph’s Cathedral Dunedin who “says he has no problem with a ruling [from the New Zealand Catholic Bishops Conference] that Catholic priests should not use electronic devices when leading Mass... ‘Using electronic devices, you could easily confuse the sacred and the secular.’”

[2] Mary Ann Tolbert commentary on Mark in The New Interpreter’s Study Bible 2003, p.1812.

Sermon for Trinity Sunday June 3 2012

Readings:  Isaiah 6:1-8; John 3:1-9

A Reflection to follow the Gospel Reading:  see  “A Curious Man (John 3:1-17)”  by Margaret B. Hess Christian Century, May 14, 1997, p. 475, http://www.religion-online.org/showarticle.asp?title=668

Sermon

Have you, like Nicodemus, been driven by your curiosity, your insatiable desire to figure out who this man Jesus really is for you? 

In other gospel stories, we hear Jesus probing this curiosity in his disciples. 

Jesus said, who do people say that I am?

And his disciples answered: some say you are John the Baptist returned from the dead; others say Elijah, or another of the old prophets.

And Jesus answered, But who do you say that I am? …

And, there’s a theological legend floating around, which imagines Peter’s answer as a little different from the biblical one:

And Peter said, "Thou art one persona of the Holy Trinity – the Logos, existing in the Father from the beginning of time as His rationality and then along with the also pre-existent Holy Ghost, by an act of the Father’s will, being generated as a co-equal, inseparable and interpenetrating member of the Trinity; each persona an economic subordination within God, but causing no division which would make the substance no longer simple.”

And Jesus answered, "What??!!"

Of course, that wasn’t the answer the Gospel writers tell us Peter or Martha gave – thank goodness.  But, there are times when one might be forgiven for thinking that some theologians consider it to be the answer Peter and Martha should have given!  As I prepared for this morning’s sermon, a friend urged me to steer clear of the doctrine of the Trinity – it’s a nonsense he reminded me.  And, as I continued my preparation, his words kept reverberating as I encountered more and more attempts to rationalize and explain that which really cannot be explained. Theological gobbledygook and mathematical gymnastics (“the trinity is more like multiplication 1x1x1 than addition 1+1+1”) each vied for attention and was discarded as I pondered where to focus our thoughts this morning.  It all seemed a long way away from the gospel encounter between Nicodemus and Jesus.

The trouble with – the nonsense of – the Trinity is that in attempting to explore and explain who and what God is, theological tradition has tied itself in knots – complicating and destroying the heart of what it was trying to do.  A doctrine which, at its best, invited people into the depths of unknowable holy mystery has become at its worst, a litmus test for ‘correct belief’ for ‘proper’ Christians.  Some would say that unless the correct and exact Trinitarian formula (God as Father Son and Holy Spirit) is used within every service of worship –– then it’s not truly Christian.

In his recent book The Future of Faith, Harvey Cox suggests we’ve reached a point in Christianity, where there’s been a major theological swing “away from a more belief-and-doctrinal formulation of religion into a more experiential [and] practical … understanding.”[1] He argues that the Christian church is moving away from what he calls the Age of Belief to a new phase, the Age of the Spirit.  Cox contends that this Age of the Spirit is closer to how things were in the first centuries of the Early Church.  He points out “that for roughly the first 300 years, early Christianity was [not a belief-movement but] a faith movement. They didn’t have creeds until the early fourth century, until Constantine. They didn’t have hierarchies. There was an enormous variety of different expressions of Christianity... Then, around the early fourth century, with Constantine in particular, there was a massive movement toward hierarchy, a clerical elite, and a creed. ... insisted upon not by the bishops, not by the pope but by the emperor. [Constantine wanted something that would bring the empire together - a uniform expression of Christianity, the formulation of a creed, became an imperial project.]  This creedal, doctrinal, hierarchical understanding of what it means to be Christian was a pattern set under Constantine and held for many centuries.[2]  And, Harvey Cox argues, it is out of this pattern we are now breaking into an Age of the Spirit.

When we are no longer in Christendom – no longer in a place where Christianity authorizes imperial power; the old weekly recited Nicene or Apostles Creeds with their intricate propositions of belief in one God the Father Almighty, one only-begotten Son and a Holy Ghost, who proceeds from the Father and the Son[3] can appear a nonsense.  When we are in this new/old phase, this Age of the Spirit, Jesus’ question ‘who do you say that I am’ enters different territory – opening other possibilities – ones enlivened by the Spirit, whose dancing and constant presence we celebrated last Sunday.

In the Age of the Spirit, rather than attempting to define and seek uniformity, we join Nicodemus entering that curious questioning space of unknowing, where we trust the experience of the Spirit – which, like wind “blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes.’

So, maybe the probing and curious questions for today will not be about defining the Trinity – but about how in our busy, demanding lives we can make space to recognise the Spirit at work – about how we might participate with the Spirit in bringing about justice, peace and love in this complex, complicated world in which we live.

Rev. Dr. Nancy Kraft, a North American Lutheran preacher suggests that her favourite definition of God is: as a circle whose center is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere. She points out that “Our Trinitarian understanding of God isn’t the only way God is experienced in the world. For us Christians, it is our center, but there are other centers for other peoples. And while our centers may be different, often our circles overlap so that those of us who have moved far from the center may find ourselves in more than one circle at the same time.

Way back before the Nicene Creed told us what we have to believe about God, the metaphor of the dance was used to describe [what we call] the Triune God. It’s a dynamic faith image. It’s relational, it moves, it grows, it includes. [God-ness inviting us to dance within the Holy Mystery – some of us dancing close around the center, some way out on the fringes, some weaving in and out – but all of us in the dance][4] – all of us held by “the music, the movement of God’s energy and art”[5]. 

Some of us call that participating in the Trinity – I think Jesus called it being born again in the Spirit.  Perhaps that’s what Harvey Cox is talking about in this new Age of the Spirit.  What we call it, is probably not that important. Much more important is how we live this new reality… “Born again? The mere thought of it sweeps through us and sends us reeling. You mean to tell us that our lives might be different?”[6]   That’s far from a nonsense!

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[1] Bob Abernethy’s September 15, 2009 interview in Cambridge, Massachusetts with theologian Harvey Cox: http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/episodes/september-25-2009/harvey-cox-extended-interview/4342/  accessed 2 June 2012

[2] Abernethy interview

[3] Nicene Creed

[4] Rev. Dr. Nancy Kraft http://liberallectionaryresources.com/Trinity%20Sunday%20Year%20B.html

[5] “Creation sings! And we are in the music, the movement of God’s energy and art” Shirley Murray

[6] A Curious Man (John 3:1-17) by Margaret B. Hess Christian Century, May 14, 1997, p. 475, http://www.religion-online.org/showarticle.asp?title=668