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Sermon - Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost (B) - 11th October 2009
St Aidan's Anglican Church West Epping
Readings: Readings: Job 23: 1-9, 16-17; Psalm 22: 1-15; Hebrew 4: 12-16; Gospel according to Mark 10: 17-31
THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH WILL TEACH YOU
Prayer : Eternal Spirit of the living God, search us and scour us clean, transform our desires, that we may live.
The readings in Anglican Services for the last four and a half months, since Pentecost Sunday, have explored what Jesus taught about the mystery of GOD and how the Spirit of God works within people. In the readings today, we had part of the profound story about Job. In the story one of his religious friends had argued that Job’s great suffering can only mean that he is being punished for great wickedness. He counsels Job to turn to God in prayer and seek forgiveness. But this is advice Job cannot accept. He wishes to approach God not in prayer, but as a plaintiff in a court case. He imagines that if he could get a court hearing, he could reason with God and he could depend on God for a just verdict. But there is a problem, God is frustratingly elusive. “If I go forward, he is not there; or backward, I cannot perceive him; on the left he hides, and I cannot behold him; I turn to the right, but I cannot see him.” (23:8-9). Job will not be silenced, and despite all the odds he continued to believe in
God.
The cry of anguish in the first verse of Psalm 22 “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me”, resonates with the protests of Job against a God who seemed indifferent to his fate. In the Gospels according to Mark and Matthew, Jesus dying on the cross cried out with those same words; he is depicted as speaking for all who feel abandoned.
The young man in the Gospel reading had kept the basic commandment, but lacked the Spirit of God as the motivating force in his life, because he had money and possessions. That on which we depend, that which is central to our lives, can so easily become our “god”. People, animals or things we love can easily become “god” for any of us, at different times or persistently. Our “god” can be the body beautiful or physical prowess, sport agility or intellectual ability, exciting experiences or sexual thrills, our jobs or particular skills, acquiring power or influence. Jesus’ challenge to that young man, as to all people, is to sort out our PRIORITIES and not be derailed by the alluring appeal of the present or pressing moment.
We cannot live someone else’s life. Each of us can only live her or his life. We have to find our own way, remembering that “many who are first will be last, and the last will be first.”
In one way or another at some stage we find ourselves struggling like Job or that rich young man. How are we to decide what to believe and what to do?
Unfortunately the prevailing stance of many Christians is trying to decide what should be done now on the basis of what flawed human beings have believed or done in the past. Those who take the translated words of Scripture literally (“Literalists”) argue that the “the Bible” tells us what to do. One of our Sydney Anglican leaders is infamous for saying we must follow “the plain reading of Scripture” – as if there can ever be a plain reading of a text written in other languages and cultures 2000 to 3000 years ago!
As we study and explore for the wisdom of God in ancient texts, we are dependent on translators and their varied assumptions, situations and life experiences. Slogans like “the plain reading of Scripture” are essentially dishonest. Equally dishonest are appeals to “Tradition” and what “the Church teaches”.
The Holy Spirit in New Testament Greek is also called “The Paraclete”, meaning Advocate or Helper-alongside-us. The Gospel of John takes a very extended view of history. John had lived a long life and his Gospel was written down 50 or 60 years after Jesus crucifixion. He recognized that the church would be around for a long time without Jesus’ physical presence. In John’s account, the Spirit is Jesus’ successor and could not come fully until Jesus departed, and that is “to our advantage” (16:7). The Paraclete is the Spirit of truth who tells us what the earthly Jesus could not tell us (15:26).
Christians today need to recognize that the scriptures were written before HIV/AIDS, nuclear weapons, IVF, space travel and the internet, all these and other vast changes, have altered the way we think and act. The Spirit of truth empowers us to live in our times.
For the first time in human history a much bigger percentage of the world population has a chance of better, wider education. Individuals and groups with the internet are no longer dependent on a priest, presbyter or pastor to tell them what they should think or believe. That sort of leadership will no longer be respected or followed. We see around us the last gasp of leaders who are so hide-bound that they cannot see change as possibility. For a while they will continue to have a following among those who have been indoctrinated or are happy to live in dependency on others. But the Church of Jesus Christ is not a waiting room for eternity.
The clue to true leadership in the Church can be found by pondering deeply the conflict between Jesus and the religious leaders of his day, the Priests, Sadducees, Pharisees, who were determined to protect their positions and the power they had, and so put barriers in the way of outsiders and to exclude those they considered “undesirable”.
Then a few years later, we read of the sharp disagreements that Paul had with Peter and the leaders of the early Christian church in Jerusalem. They wanted to cling onto old customs and attach conditions as to who should be admitted into the Christian groups. But Paul did not cower under relentless pressure from those who could only see the outward husk of religion and could not grasp the inner essence of what Jesus was on about. Paul travelled in tough conditions to make known to any who would listen - children, women and men - how Jesus had lived and died, and what he taught about a loving God who wants to enable us to live a better way.
In the words of the 1963 song, “The time’s they are a changin’” We cannot go backwards into the future. Many sincere Christians, theologians and some of our nominal leaders want to ‘go backwards into the future’. We have to call the bluff of all forms of “fundamentalism”, “literalism” and “traditionalism” in religious circles as well as in economics and the theories of “the neo-cons” (neo-conservatism or economic rationalism). We have to call the bluff and name them for what they are: belief-systems (indicated by the suffix ‘…ism’) that try to reduce human life and thought to simplistic formulas with bogus “black and white” guesses about unpredictable events in this world or the infinite mystery regarding our understanding of the nature of God.
Sometimes I have sat through church meetings and Synods that started with a prayer for God’s guidance, followed by an agenda and process so fixed beforehand that the Spirit of God has had no chance to affect the outcomes. That unfortunately is what institutions prefer. That is what happened to Jesus when he was tried and silenced. “When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth.” (John 16: 13)
When we come together in worship, we can have and enjoy different styles of music and liturgy. We can have and enjoy our aesthetic, architectural, artistic, dramatic and musical preferences. We may prefer the beauty of Shakespearean English and the 1662 Book of Common Prayer to the more precise translations of the 21 st century, but we also have to remember that such preferences are not the core of the Gospel of Jesus. Whatever we may prefer has to be tested by a question similar to that put by Jesus to the big fisherman Peter in the last chapter of John (21:15), “Do you love me more than these?”
Being a zealous Evangelical, a pious Puritan, a conservative Anglo-Catholic or a modernist Liberal, is ultimately irrelevant to the main game. Out of love for God and others we have to provide opportunities for all people to worship and explore what it means to follow the Way of Jesus, in languages, life-styles, music and idioms to which they can relate. No longer can one size fit all.
This requires great sensitivity, listening and prayer, so that we do not lose touch with the wisdom and experience that has come from the past. It begins with Jesus’ prayer (John 17: 20-21), “may they all be one. As you Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.”
The right question for us all to ask is: Where do we see the Spirit of God that was active in Jesus at work today?
Each person listening, or reading this talk later, will have their own differing thoughts in answer to that question. Allow me to share some of mine to stimulate discussion:
For me, I see God’s spirit working through Christianity and other religions, and in many individuals who claim not to be religious or say they are humanists, atheists or agnostics;
I see God’s spirit working in many church congregations and agencies, but also in other religious, secular and community organizations;
I see God’s spirit working in those who dedicate themselves to do dirty and risky jobs on behalf of others;
I see God’s spirit in meticulous research workers and those exploring dangerous situations that may yield important new knowledge;
I see God’s spirit at work among members of the Defence Forces, Peace-keepers, and those giving voluntary aid to those caught in disasters or forced into being refugees;
I see God’s spirit in a person giving a drink of water to one who thirsts or food to one who is hungry.
Wherever lies, deceit, spin, and corruption are being uncovered and being replaced by truth and honesty, there I believe the Spirit of God is at work. The Spirit of God is wherever genuine attempts are being made to include rather than exclude people. We note that Jesus had a reputation for befriending those who were marginalized or excluded from Jewish social life by religious laws, superstition or popular aversion: lepers, epileptics, the crippled, prostitutes, aliens, foreigners and tax collectors who were hated because they collaborated with the Roman occupation forces.
Jesus broke the outward ceremonial laws about the Sabbath, and went against convention by talking in public with women who were not related to him. No doubt some with whom he consorted were homosexuals and lesbians. But he is not recorded as condemning any of them.
Let us allow the Spirit of God that was active in Jesus to guide us into all truth.
Praise the restless, roving Spirit, breeze of Christ and breath of God, kindling faith and power to share it, quick to comfort, nudge, and prod!
Culture’s heroes tempt and lure us, smashing wrong with righteous force, but the wounds of Christ can cure us, marking out a wiser course.
Spirit, give us Christ’s persistence; raise us when our spirit cowers, freed for peaceful, firm, resistance to our world’s corrupted powers.
Keep us hopeful and forgiving, loving when we disagree, by our liturgy and living hinting how the world will be.
So as we conclude this time of exploring, we pray: Spirit of God well up within us. Spirit of God spin the threads that connect us with others. Spirit of God move beyond us in waves to touch those we bring now and this week into our mind’s eye and heart’s care.
We breathe out towards all the Spirit of Christ our Lord and our God: love, compassion, forgiveness, justice, mercy, wisdom, peace, and joy. AMEN
based on a prayer of Jim cotter, OUT OF THE SILENCE… Prayer’s Daily Round Cairns Publications 2006, p.25 www.cottercairns.co.uk
with acknowledgement to commentaries by Revd Dr John Miller, on Job 23 and Psalm 22 in WITH LOVE TO THE WORLD U.C.A., Vol.12, No.8 for 5 & 11 Oct 2009
Revd Dr Robert McFarlane, commentary on John 15:26-27,16:4b-15 in WITH LOVE TO THE WORLD U.C.A., Vol12, No7 Pentecost for 28 May 2009 wlwuca@bigpond.com
Words & Music by Bob Dylan, 1963
Hymn: words by Brian Wren, February 5 th 2000; tune “Harcourt” by Brett M. McKern. “For Clive and Ruth Harcourt Norton, to celebrate the continuing ministry of Clive Harcourt Norton on the occasion of his retirement from the parish of All Saints’, Hunters Hill, NSW, Australia. (c) Copyright Hope Publishing Company, Carol Stream, IL 60188, USA. May be used gratis in perpetuity by Clive and Ruth Harcourt Norton, and by the Parish of All Saints’, Hunters Hill, NSW, Australia in its worship and programmes.”
Jim Cotter, ibid section ‘In Solidarity’, prayer #4 p497
Enquiries, comments and criticisms are invited; also requests for additional copies of sermon scripts of permission to quote or reproduce:
The Reverend Clive H Norton (Anglican Priest),
phone (02) 9411 8606;
7 Dulwich Road, Chatswood, NSW 2067;
E-mail: chnorton@bigpond.com