Sermons Online ...
Sermon: The Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost Year C - 05th September 2010
St Alban's Anglican Church Epping 7, 8, 10am and 6pm
Readings: Jeremiah 18:1-11 Psalm 139:1-5, 12-18 Philemon 1-25 Luke 14:25-35
Jeremiah announces that we are all flawed people. That is something daily news reports illustrate in painful abundance. However, like a master potter, says Jeremiah, God is not finished with us yet as the wet clay of our lives is still being reformed. Left there, it would be fine, but the reading also reports God as saying "Turn now, all of you from your evil ways, amend your ways and your doings”.
Add to that Jesus' troubling words in the Gospel. They are words of caution, words most of us wish he had never said, words about hating mother and father, spouse, child, sister and brother, carrying a cross, giving up possessions. They certainly don't make the preaching task on this day easy.
One is tempted to preach only on the epistle, but think about that for a moment. In it Paul encourages his friend Philemon to take back his runaway slave, Onesimus, who has now become a Christian. Not only does Paul say, "take him back", but also, he adds, "do so without so much as a whit of punishment". In fact, Philemon is not only to take him back, but also he is to welcome Onesimus as a brother in Christ! It doesn't take a great deal of reflection to realize that Paul is simply pressing on his friend Philemon the very principles behind Jesus' words in the gospel. After all, taking back a runaway slave without punishment, much less setting him free, is about as scandalous and culturally dangerous a thing as could have been done in the first century. Not only does it challenge the entire socioeconomic order, but also as one commentator asks, "What was Philemon to do if the rest of his servants suddenly developed an interest in the faith?” Certainly they would expect to be treated in precisely the same way. No, the epistle is no comfortable place either, for it is as troublesome as the other two lessons.
Therefore, those called to preach using these readings have no option but to preach the gospel that we might hear the Word of God. That is the advice of Karl Barth, one of the most prominent theologians of the last century. Barth reminds us that God speaks to us in three ways: revelation in Jesus Christ who is the living Word, revelation in scripture, which is the written Word and revelation in preaching, which is the proclaimed Word. It is not until God's Spirit engages you and me in moments when we are open to receive Jesus Christ, to scripture and to preaching, so that they become God's Word to us. Still, says Barth, the preacher is to preach, confident that in doing so the Spirit will engage each one of us so that we may hear God speak to us.
What then is God's Word to us in these readings? Are they really telling us that the only way for us to be acceptable to God is by turning on our parents and family, selling everything we have, and intentionally going forth into the world seeking crosses in the form of various hardships? That is, of course, what we initially hear when the gospel lesson is read. If you are anything like me, you shudder, fall under the words' inherent judgment and think with Jesus' other followers "Who then Lord can be saved?” It is a desperation that everyone who has ever tried to follow Jesus Christ knows all too well.
Does it help you to know that Jesus' use of the word "hate" is a Jewish way of putting things, a piece of hyperbole? As someone once said, it is a "rhetorical flourish" that is offered up as a word of caution. It is designed to alert us to the seriousness of following him and the possible consequences of doing so in a world hostile to the ways of God. Further, remember that these words were included in Luke's gospel at a time when Christians literally had to choose between their family loyalties and their commitments to the faith, and some were dying for it. That explains Jesus' use of the word hate. We don't have to hate our family to authentically love Jesus Christ. We just need to love him more.
Who of us have given up all of our possessions to follow him? Again, it is a word of caution. A few people in the course of Christian history have managed it. They have gone out into a deserted place as hermits and eaten only what they could find at hand as food. However, even most of them depended to some extent on the generosity of other Christians who did still hold some possessions. In fact, it was the generosity of such affluence that enabled the church of the New Testament to flourish, the generosity of the men like Philemon and women like his wife Apphia, people who were grasped by the power of the gospel and saw their resources as opportunities to express their faith and serve their Lord. Paul's letters are filled with the list of such saints who opened their homes and gave their wealth to support those early churches. It is the continuing faithfulness of men and women today, like so many of you, who give generously, even sacrificially, to enable this place to remain a vibrant witness to the gospel in a world dead set against its challenges and promises.
In the Gospel, Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem and crowds filled with enthusiasm at being in his presence surround him. On the crest of such excitement many are ready to sign up and follow, in many cases for the wrong reasons. Jesus warns them of precisely what following him will mean. It will force them to make a choice between him and family. It will drive a wedge between belonging to him and his ways and belonging to loved ones so absorbed and committed to the Greco-Roman world they will beg the new followers to renounce their faith rather than be persecuted for it. It will force them to begin to look at their lives in radically different ways. Life will no longer be a right or a possession. It will be understood as a gift from God. They will no longer be able to live as if they are in control. Rather, they will be called to live in response to another's control. They will no longer chart the destination or cast the shape of their lives. For as Christ's followers they will have entered a way of life in which they are being remade, remoulded, reformed into his disciple.
Is it something they can do on their own? Absolutely, it’s not. Who of us can, out of our own strength, out of our own desire, out of our own will, do what Jesus requires of us? Try and you will find yourself falling into a desperation born of your own self-interest. The Word we must hear in these readings is that God is at work in us, on us, to make us new. In doing so, God is remaking us. In short God is converting us. Conversion is God's business. Our business is to respond. God sits at the master potter's wheel, with divine hands pressing in and down upon us to centre us in Jesus Christ and his way for life. God is reworking us. For as our lives take shape, many flaws appear which need correction. We are unduly attached to people and things. We do violate all sorts of God's prescriptions for how life is to be lived, in relationships, with possessions, in the focus and purpose of our lives. None the less, the master potter continues the work shaping and reshaping us. In God’s working we are changing. Maybe we should wear a sign bearing the words, “Caution: Conversion in progress!
God pressed down on the clay of Philemon's life and shaped him so that Onesimus would be set free, so that he would be treated like a brother in Christ, rather than a runaway slave. Whether or not Onesimus returned to Paul to assist with the work of preaching, we do not know. What we do know is that some fifty years later that a Bishop of the church at Ephesus is named Onesimus. That person is considered by many scholars to be the one-time slave of Philemon. During the reign of Roman Emperor Domitian and the persecution of Trajan, Bishop Onesimus was imprisoned in Rome and martyred by stoning (although some sources claim that he was beheaded). Philemon was being converted by God and the result was change: change in relationship to those around him, to all his possessions and to his life's purpose.
That is what the gospel says to us today. God's sure hands are upon our lives, pressing down, pushing here, pulling there, extending us beyond our comprehension. Do we fall short, or turn up flawed? Of course we do. God is not done with any of us yet. Day by day, with each turn of the wheel, we are being made new. One day we wake up and realise that harbouring anger against another, no matter how they might have wronged us, is not good for us. We give it up. One day we realise that the way we are relating to our family, our friends, our job, our co-workers, employees, this church, is not good enough. The gospel requires more of us and we suddenly find the resources to live into such change. One day we realise that everything in life is God's. They are gifts given to us as resources and occasions through which we express our faith and serve our Lord. We find ourselves beginning to think about, actually considering tithing, committing to a particular ministry or saying, "yes" to membership of a parish committee. Another's hand has been on us all along, forming us into the people we were created to be, in spite of those other powers and forces in this world which also strive to work on us.
Caution! Conversion in progress. God is at work in you, in me, in us, in this church. That being the case, I offer this one additional sign we may hang up: Patience! God is not done with any of us yet.
This sermon based upon one to be found at www.mapc.com. Material also sourced from www.wikipedia.org.