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SERMON PREACHED AT CHRIST CHURCH, WHANGAREI
SECOND SUNDAY OF ADVENT
and Feast of St Nicholas of Myrna,
(6th December) 2009
Readings: Malachi 3.1-4
For the Psalm: Luke 1.68-79
Philippians 1.3-11
Luke 3.1-6
Luke sets himself up at the beginning of each of his two volumes as an objective historian, setting down ‘an orderly account of the events that have been fulfilled among us, just as they were handed on to us by those who were from the beginning eyewitnesses…’. He goes on to maintain for his supposed audience, ‘most excellent Theophilus’, that he has himself (objectively) assessed the truth of the reports before writing about them. This has often given biblical interpreters and preachers the idea that we can approach Luke as a kind of mechanistic data recorder, stating with all the objectivity of spiritual seismograph the events that he narrates.
History is a subjective art, shaped by the whims and prejudices, priorities, biases and other ingredients of the author’s and the reader’s lives. Even to compare Luke’s later accounts of Paul’s ministry with Paul’s own sketchy autobiographical accounts is to compare a billiard ball with a hedgehog. They are not the same, and barely reconcilable. They serve different purposes – even if they serve the same divine commission!
So we need to escape the obsession with Luke as spiritual seismological data-recorder. His dating of the events is – tantalisingly – both plausible and benevolently meaningless. It is impossible to know when the ‘fifteenth year of the Reign of Tiberius Caesar’ actually was, nor to pin down the remaining navigational chronological beacons that Luke provides. I suspect this was deliberate on Luke’s part, but it may have been no more than an accident that history has dug up no fewer than four ways of calculating the duration of a year, or that the date of commencement of Tiberius’ reign was in any case a movable feast, as he emerged from the shadows of Augustus Caesar. Either way we post-enlightenment seekers of objectivity are none the wiser: we don’t know what Luke is telling us.
For Luke is making a theological, not an historical point. The coming of God-in-Christ was an invasion by the timeless God into the time structures and strictures of human beings. The timeless became time-bound – but never mind exactly when, because that binding-in-time is to become beyond time once more, before too long, when Jesus breaks out of the tomb and ascends to the Creator-Father. Luke is setting chronology, the ticking of the clock, in contrast with the sacred ‘timeless time’ of God. This latter will not be anchored in small specifics of chronology even when it enters them. Time, as we sometimes say, stands still. It is no coincidence that Henri Bergson, the nineteenth century philosopher of time, had disappeared from the consciousness of academies and societies driven by a maxim that time is money. Bergson taught that time is perception: that if we perceive time to stand still, then it does. Bergson, like Luke, left room for an escape from the tyranny of chronology, opening a door for sacred time of the sort that I hope we can recreate, or at least hint at, for our city when eventually we create our sacred space at the south end of the church.
Luke, like Bergson, is generating holy play with the concept of time. This Lukan play reminds us that Christ is saviour of time. We celebrate and proclaim the same salvation of time early, before dawn on Easter morning, when we bless the paschal candle. That candle, now beside our font, names the risen Christ as the timeless one: in Christ the God of timelessness, Alpha and Omega, enters time, makes time itself holy, and each calendar year with its ticking clocks is embraced by endlessness and the eternities of God.
As John the Baptist explodes on to the pages of Luke story-telling We are yet see the adult Jesus. If we were reading Luke’s story sequentially we would have had glimpses of the Messiah’s birth, of his weirdness, and of his bemused mother ‘pondering these things in her heart’. We’ll catch those early glimpses in the weeks to come, for our lectionaries, too, distort and rearrange time in their sacred purpose. Today though we glimpse the predecessor of Jesus, the forerunner, in his self-effacing public ministry. Today we see the kinsman of Jesus, John, sharingwhanauatanga and whakapapa with Jesus, yet no more than foreshadowment of the Coming One. Luke wants us to see that John is essential to an understanding of Jesus. John, the radical, prickly, discomforting wild cousin is the last of the Hebrew prophets, the end of an era of faith. But here too sacred time plays games: the new era cannot stand without the old era. John is central to salvation history, God’s dealings with men and women. The Old Covenant People are inseparable from God’s plans for humankind – and – as Paul appears to be hinting when he wrote Romans (though not earlier, in Galatians), the two salvation plans, two ‘peoples Israel’ (by faith, not politics!), continue to co-exist discomfortingly in God sacred dealings.
John comes making three solemn pronouncements. Like Isaiah before him, and as Isaiah prefigured and predicted, he is a prophet, a ‘voice, crying in the wilderness’. But his task is proclaim one greater, a lord, The Lord, that sacred title that comes from and points to the heart of God. To be open to receive that Messiah-Lord humans must set aside all injustice. The images of filled-in valleys and straightened roads are effectively socialistic images of the imbalances between the rich and poor eradicated, imbalances between the Third World (or misnomered Global South) and First World (or misnomered Global North) eradicated, of imbalances between the nations that will survive ecological crises such as rising ocean levels and denuded soils, and those that won’t survive these crises, eradicated. To see the Messiah-Christ John’s world must remove the scales of injustice from its eyes and from its business practices.
The same applies to us: can we really pray or long for the coming of the Christ while the poor nations of the world are on the brink of eradication by rising ice-melt tides, failing water supplies, and economic injustice, growing gas between rich and poor, beyond measure? Luke would go on to depict the later Christ community in Acts as a community of compassion, winning the respect of Luke’s Theophilus audience by its love and care. Can the same be said of us? Or are we the corrupted world whose valley and mountain ranges of corruption John challenges us to make smooth before the Messiah comes once more?
Yet this message is one of grace: for John’s third prophetic message is one of the universalising of salvation. Salvation is to be seen by all humankind, ‘all flesh’ as Luke puts it (Paul could never put it that way!), to the ends of the earth. You and I are the beneficiaries of that universalised the gospel, as God’s grace exploded out from the Hebrew people of John to the races and nations and cultures that have existed since. But the onus remains on us: make straight the paths, balance the imbalances, care for the broken.
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SERMON PREACHED AT CHRIST CHURCH, WHANGAREI
ORDINARY SUNDAY 33
(15th November) 2009
Readings:1 Samuel 1.4-20
for the Psalm: 1 Samuel 2.1-10 (Hannah’s Prayer)
Hebrews 10. 11-14, 19-25
Mark 13.1-8
History, it is often noted, has generally been written from the perspective of the victors, and the history of the People of God in the scriptures is not altogether an exception. Do we speak of the arrival of Europeans in the South Pacific as a settlement or an invasion? In current politics alone, Hone Harawira and Rodney Hide might offer differing answers! Where we stand culturally, historically, chronologically: all these will impact on our interpretation of the scriptures.
Because our scriptural history is not altogether an exception.The story of Hannah’s broken outpouring in prayer can be a source of hope to a woman who is similarly longing to bear a child. It can be a source of joy to a woman who bears one after a long struggle. Yet it can be a source of bitter disillusionment to a woman who never experiences her longed for outcome: such disillusionment can often lead to a loss of faith. As is so often the case, and as has been recently highlighted by on of our episcopal candidates, we need to approach our scriptures with a “license”, that is to say with pastoral and prophetic sensitivity: why was the historian writing this story of Hannah, and how can we interpret it nearly 3,000 years later? Certainly it is an obscenity, often heard in some church circles, to suggest that unanswered prayers are the fault of the one praying: sadly, more often than not, unanswered prayers are neither more nor less than the pain filled processes of nature.
What we see in Hannah’s prayer, though, is the desperation of an aching human heart. Her tears perhaps even more than her poetic words are an out-pouring of prayer. Does God hear her plight? I think we can safely say that, if there is a God, then God hears. Sometimes our prayers or the prayers of those we love remain unanswered. Then we, fellow travellers of the hurting human, must be at least the arms and ears of God’s love, travelling alongside the hurting one, being there for her or him in the valley. I remember with some sorrow an occasion back in ’96 when I was interviewed for a job in Auckland: one of my daughters told me that she prayed desperately that I would get it. In reality I was unsuited to the job, as the panel no doubt soon discovered: I fled the interview in abject shame and returned to Adelaide. She, I fear, gave up on God. I’ve often wondered how to interpret that moment, but regret that someone, somehow was not able to speak divine comfort to her in that moment.
Hannah reveals another side to prayer. In her case the prayer is answered, and she pours out her heart once more, this time in praise to her provider God. How many times, I wonder, have I prayed in heartfelt desperation (often “lord, help me find my keys”!) and forgotten to take the time to praise the God who delivers my longing! I am often reminded of the ten lepers healed by Jesus, of whom only one returns to thank him. How often am I one of the nine! We, the Christian community, are called to be the tenth leper, like Hannah rejoicing in the gifts and givings of God.
The book we know as Hebrews, probably a second century sermon, understands Christ and Christ alone to be the on-going priest, gathering together the prayers and longings and needs of his people and bringing them to the holiest heart of God. The English language, and indeed the Latin language too, have done all but irreparable damage to the word we know as “priest”. You may know that two words I loathe are “minister” and “reverend”. The first describes Rodney Hide or Phil Heatley. The second is an adjective and should never be used as a title or a name!
That aside, there is much misunderstanding about “priests” in the church. I am not a sacrificial priest, though as apresbuteros I may serve to remind us all of the priesthood of Christ. As a pastor called to lead and to nurture a faith community I stand answerable before God – in fear and trembling, I might add – for the well-being of my slice of God’s people. The priesthood of Christ may well serve as a model for me: I do pray on behalf of both God’s busy people and God’s forgetful people when I pray the Office in the prayer chapel, but I am not the access point to God’s heart that an Old Testament priest was called to be. The Greek word for my job is presbuteros, from which ironically, we get the churchmanship extremes of “presbytery” and “Presbyterian”. The Greek word for the Old Testament priest is hieros, from which we get “hierarchy”. I am no closer in a hierarchy to God than you are! Both were translated by the Latin sacerdos, in turn translated by the English “priest”. Perhaps it is a happy reminder of the gravitas of my task, but you too are the priests of God’s creation.
We are together called to offer the comfort of God’s hope and God’s love to those around us. We are all called to whisper in God’s ear for the needs of those situations that are on our heart. Unlike the composed prayer of Hannah ours may not be poetic outpourings: stuttered gasps suffice! The strangely apocalyptic scenes that we glimpse in the gospel readings describe many periods in human history – not some millenialist moment when some politician or other coincides with our prejudices so that we can call him Beast or Antichrist! – but the millenialist moments are neither more nor less than an opportunity for us to recommit ourselves to the God who has history in safe hands. These moments are neither more or less than a reminder that without divine promise we are no more than thistledown panted on the wind. These cataclysmic moments in history or even in our small lives are reminders that God is the one who can breath New Heavens and New Earth out of cataclysms, even out of the Final Cataclysm, whatever it might be, of human and cosmic history. The strange scene of apocalyptic are meant to be comfort, not terror!
The readings then, as the church year winds up, journey through hints of the gamut of human experience and emotion. So let it be: God journeys with us, and we journey with one another, through all the range of life experience that befalls us. So may it be!
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From our Vicar 22-11-09
At a lively and edifying vestry meeting this past week we entered into a discussion about the ‘common cup’ of Anglican liturgy and questions of health and hygiene. In response I can only express my personal views – the views of faith and experience, not of science! Google the issue and a myriad views will surface, ranging from giving up communion rites altogether to ‘woteva!
Our own Diocese, since the emergence of the H1N1 virus, has recommended the practice of intinction be stopped. That practice took off in the early to mid-1980s, when confusion and misinformation gave many people the impression that the HIV virus could be transmitted by use of a common cup. In fact the HIV virus cannot survive outside the environment of warm body fluids, and there was no risk of transmission by liturgical cup sharing.
The downside of intinction, as the Diocese has now acknowledged, is that, instead of pouring wine from a safe environment directly into the mouth of the recipient, many germs may now be transmitted to the wine from the fingers of the intincting recipient. This can take place even if the fingers do not enter the wine (though some do!), as the fingers handle the wafer before intinction.
Roman Catholics, after reintroducing lay-access to the wine since Vatican II, are in many centres withdrawing that access on the basis not of sacramental theology but of microbiology. Similarly the Orthodox have never shared the cup with the faithful. In both traditions, however, the priest handles the wafer that is consumed by you, the recipient, and the wafer is an environment far more congenial to bacteria than a cold metal cup containing fortified wine! At this point the Protestant traditions that have individual communion ‘cuplets’ also strike a problem, as bread and wine are still handled by communion ministers. Pre-packaged grape-juice and bread sets, (packaging to be disposed of on completion of communion) are another solution that is emerging, though there remains the problem of handling during distribution, not to mention landfill issues!
I write as one who has had, for 20+ years, the enviable task of reverently consuming left over communion elements. My children assure me that, in any shared drinking vessel, the saliva residue settles in the last 10-15%, the domain of backwash! Put bluntly, this indicates that I have been reverently consuming Anglican saliva since my ordination in 1987. So far I have contracted no disease from the practice.
Communication of disease is in fact far more likely to occur at the ritual sharing of the Peace. Contact between sneezed on hands, or intimate sharing of airspace in the exchange of hugs, presents a far happier environment in which bacteria can set off on their family summer holidays. That is the case whether you are congregating in
FROM OUR VICAR 15 Nov '09
Internationally the Anglican Church is undergoing considerable paroxysms, with much talk of irreconcilable break-down and division. The Pope has recently brought these issues to the forefront by extending an invitation to some disaffected Anglican clergy to “swim the Tiber” and accept re-ordination in the Roman Catholic Church. Actually it was ever thus, and there have been many Tiber swimmers over the years, including some married clergy who have been given posts, after re-ordination, in Roman Catholic pastoral positions. Those swimming have generally been fringe-dwellers, from the very “high” and conservative (sometimes called “gin and lace”) wing of the Church, and they have generally left because of the ordination of women. As has pointed out in the media, many have been gay, and not all celibate. Roman Catholicism does not endorse non-celibate homosexual practice!
At the other end of Anglicanism conservative evangelicals, centred on the two figures of Jensen (Sydney) and Akinola (recently retired from Nigeria), are deeply angered by the ordination of homosexuals, particularly in the United States. This version of conservative Anglicanism (far removed from gin and lace: orange juice and safari suits, perhaps!) has formed a body called Gafcon (one candidate for our bishopric somewhat wittily pointed out that a “gaffe” is a mistake, and a “con” is, among other things … well you get the idea), the Global Anglican Future Conference. They too are threatening separation from Canterbury.
Does it affect us? Possibly. We must stay in communion with the See of Canterbury. But equally we must find a way for gay and lesbian people, monogamous or celibate, to enjoy full membership of the Body of Christ. Lest this shock you, the New Testament makes far more reference to financial responsibility (at least 23 times; see especially Acts 4) or the evils of factionalism, strife and jealousy (some 47, especially Gal. 5.20), than to homosexuality (three or four references), and that references to the latter do not address monogamous relationship but libertine and exploitative or violent sexual practice. Let’s not major in the minors.
These are big enough issues for a parish priest to face, let alone a bishop. But our bishop must face more. As the Anglican Communion struggles to find its common ground, I fear New Zealand Anglicanism is becoming increasingly isolated – or isolationist. While thetikanga toru structure has led the world as a model of multicultural co-operative mission it must dialogue with the world, allowing itself to be critiqued even whilst offering critique for others. I am increasingly suspicious that, whilst rightly rejoicing in the pioneering ecclesiology that gave us tikanga toru, we are slipping into a form of self-satisfaction that makes us, not Jesus, the heart of our faith. And that ishubris.
So pray for our bishop-elect!
Michael Godfrey
FROM OUR VICAR ~ 6 NOV '09
It was a strange experience to find myself walking nonchalantly (more or less) around in places familiar because heard of since childhood, yet which I had never previously seen. Riding the infamous New York Subway, sauntering around Central Park, or looking up in awe at the signage of the iconic Route 66 felt like that: am I really here? I am not a jet-setter, and have (25 years in Australia excepted!) rarely been overseas: life has had other plans, so far, for me. Were these really the shores of Lake Michigan, on which we were walking? Were these the sands of a California Beach on my sandals? Was that actually a wolf, skulking off into the roadside forests (believe it or not, it was!). Was this Hibbing, Minnesota?
The people in the US were overwhelmingly friendly – even the Homeland Security Officer at LA International Airport. Sure I often had the “oh – y’all from Noo Zealand? I’ve got friends in Sydney, d’y’all know them?” response to our “cute” accents, but the response was genuinely warm. It reflected a deep and heartfelt pride that we would visit their country (experienced even on the NY Subway!). That was the upside of US Nationalism. Yet was there a downside?
Many signs and the countless US flags (outnumbered only by the innumerable pumpkins, real and artificial) hinted at an unshakeable belief that the USA was, by divine appointment, the Kingdom of God on earth. “In God We Trust”, borrowed, infamously from the currency, was emblazoned on countless houses and churches. Great, we might say. Yet there was always a clear indication that the God in whom “we” trusted was a domestic God of Americanism, not the prophetic and unsettling God who might just demand that God, not America, holds a higher place in human lives.
The vitriol, often meaningless but deeply dangerous, expressed in some circles towards President Obama was nothing short of terrifying. Many so-called Christians (not those with whom we stayed) genuinely believe that Obama is an anti-Christ, subverting the true gospel of American values. A cartoon of Obama sporting a Hitler moustache, paradoxically identifying him as Communist (Hitler the rightwing National Socialist would be surprised at that sobriquet: perhaps in the end the extremes of Right and Left are one and the same) epitomized the idiocy.
From a quick micro-glance I suspect huge issue the US faces is health. Notreactive, but proactive health. 58 Million Americans are overweight; 40 million obese, and 3 million morbidly obese. Food is fast, plentiful (tasteless!); the “faster” the food the more aggressively it is advertised. Advertising money is not spent when advertising doesn’t work. Reliant on only four major crops, and devouring chemically modified foodstuffs at an alarming rate, the US health system, revised or otherwise, may yet implode. Try finding a home-grown lettuce in the USA! Try finding an over the counter breakfast cereal that has not been modified out of all relationship to the crops on which it was once based! There are issues there -serious issues, for the USA and for the world.
So, here’s to a wonderful, friendly, but insular and at risk people. I will reflect over the next few weeks on my impression of the churches I visited, and on the glorious scenes we saw, and the place of “terror” in the public US psyche.
Michael Godfrey