The readings on which
this sermon is based can be found at: http://frsparky.net/a/r066.htm
s066g14 Sunday 33 16/11/2014
‘it is as if a man, going on a journey’ Matthew 25:14
Traditionally God has been pictured as fixed, omnipotent,
omnipresent, and omniscient - all powerful, always present, knowing
everything. God can’t move, because there isn’t actually
anywhere else to move. And this has been a very
comfortable delusion where we all seek stability, harmony, a refuge
from the ‘changes and chances of this fleeting world’ as the final
Collect for Compline so gracefully puts it. (1)
One of the saving graces of monotheism is that humanity is not at
the mercy of competing deities found in the ancient Greek and Roman
pantheon. We don’t have to back the winner, the
strongest, the wisest or the more skilful manipulator.
So scripture and the church proclaims the identity of God the
parent, God the offspring and God the Spirit. And this
is vital because the ancient message of God’s love for all rather
than God’s love for just some cannot be compromised.
There is ‘nothing new under the sun’ (2) as the ancient teacher
proclaimed.
But this has the disadvantage that it presumes the world and the
laws which govern it are fixed. We are not static
creatures and neither is the earth static. The sight of
the snow-covered alps in the distance are testament, yes to the
beauty of creation, but yes also to the cataclysmic forces of nature
that happened to make them in the first place. And these
creative forces have not stopped, as we here in Christchurch have
been so rudely reminded over the last four years.
And God’s laws have changed. Laws which were interpreted
as defining God’s people, like male circumcision, sabbath observance
and clean and unclean foods - have from a christian perspective been
relativised.
My text for today is also testament to the reality that most of us
often think but are not game to express openly - that God seems
absent. There is that lovely prose by Mary Stevenson
titled ‘Footprints’ with the crunch line that when times were tough
there was but one set of footprints which was when God was carrying
the person. (3) However when one is ill, for instance, I
believe that God’s absence is real enough, for we are meant to give
other people the opportunity to minister to us. The old
story of the man on the roof waiting for God to rescue him as the
flood waters come higher and higher, comes to mind.
(4) When we need them, God sends doctors, surgeons,
nurses, all sorts of professionals, most of whom will not believe in
God in precisely our terms, if at all.
If our religion has the effect of exempting us from contributing to,
or receiving succour from, those around us, what earthly use is
served by the commandment to love one’s neighbours? If
our love is actually indifference it might as well be hate for all
the good it will do. To love, we actually have to be a
part of society and community, and again, this is far more
importantly true on a corporate level than it is on a personal
level. If the church is seen to be antagonistic to
society and disdainful of their efforts to promote peace, prosperity
and equality - where is the love? If our religion is
actually a flight from the world - how does this emulate Jesus’
incarnation?
And if my thesis about the absence of God on a personal level is
true, then it is quite likely to be equally as true on a corporate
level. God’s absence from the church corporate is meant
to force the church to be a part of the community; to not be
antagonistic and disdainful.
One does not have to go all that far back into history to remember a
time when Catholics were forbidden to marry Protestants and vice
versa. It was forbidden to enter a place of worship of
another denomination, let alone another faith. Were not
these rules designed to make sure we never heard any other version
of reality than what our parents taught us? Does our god
need so much protection? Is our orthodoxy so
fragile?
The church rightly took an active role in the abolition of apartheid
in South Africa achieved in 1991, blithely forgetting that most
parts of it practiced their own denominational apartheid not so very
long before. And there are still parts of the church who
practice apartheid on theological grounds, on gender roles, and in
terms of intimacy. Is our god so blinkered that he
(usually god was male) sees only our worship and overlooking our
selfishness and discrimination - but slighted by the world’s
neglecting worship or using the wrong name and overlooking the world
striving to establish peace, government and unity?
‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting others?’ (5)
If our God is so fixed that we as the church are exempted from
communion with society and that we as individuals are exempted from
regarding anyone else with respect, then our orthodoxy is
fallacious.
God isn’t our own personal, perennial baby-sitter. God
has others to care for, not just us. ‘Jesus is’ NOT JUST
‘a friend of mine’ (6) We as individuals are not the
centre of God’s universe, just as the earth is not at the centre,
but just on the very periphery, of a vast cosmos. To
suggest that we as Church are the sole recipients of God’s grace
smacks of a very convenient selfishness. We as humanity
are surely evolving even as we are using up the resources of the
earth exponentially.
And we lose out if we decide to limit our world view to the
cultural, religious and scientific perceptions of first century
Palestine. In fact our lives depend on our embracing
society around us, and this is what my text alerts us to, for God is
indeed elsewhere, not confined to the limits we arbitrarily, and
again selfishly, place on our idol we piously call God.
Our parable today tells us to use our talents in society, to be
involved, and results will come.
But will results come? It might be easy for a white
middle class Pakeha (european) straight male to claim that results
will come. We may have meaningful jobs, secure families,
and sufficient income to cushion times of hardship. What
about those not so blessed? Yet everyone has their place
in society. Each and every one of us has brought joy to
our parents, along with some angst. :-) Most of us have
siblings to support as well as with whom to spar. :-)
Some of us are blessed by bringing children to birth, but all have
the opportunity to nurture others and to be nurtured by
them. These are the talents and even the one who only
made two more was commended. These are the stuff of
life, intangible but vital. We don’t all have to be
Mother Theresas or Pope Francis’.
And finally I want to suggest that there is good news in the picture
of the divine being like a person going on a journey and leaving us
to get on with it, and that is that God is not the ever present
voyeur and critic of our attempts at intimacy and love.
There is no one alive whose attempts at intimacy as a teenager have
been the source of much embarrassment in later
life. Indeed some of us don’t learn much along the
way :-) To worship a god addicted to porn seems a particularly
unusual thing to do. This seems a good way of demeaning
God and others, and avoiding the gospel of affirmation and inclusion
of all.
1.
http://justus.anglican.org/resources/bcp/CofE1928/CofE1928_Appendix.htm#Compline
2. Ecclesiastes 1.9
3.
http://www.footprints-inthe-sand.com/index.php?page=Poem/Poem.php
4. http://truthbook.com/stories/funny-god/the-drowning-man
5. Acts 9.4
6. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonseed