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Sermon: The Sixth Sunday after Pentecost (A) - 24th July 2011
St Aidan's Anglican Church West Epping 8:30 am
Readings: Genesis 29:15-28; Psalm 105:1-11; Romans 8:26-39; Matthew 13:44-58
SEEDS & WEEDS GROWING TOGETHER
~ ‘the forbearance of God’1 ~
Prayer: Living God,
may we encounter you this day
in the laughter of children
in the skills of those who create,
in the pauses of the elderly,
in the patience of those who teach,
in the loyalty of friends,
in the dedication of those who serve,
in the exuberance of animals,
in those willing to make fools of themselves.
May we be your blessing to one another.2
~~~~~~~~~
We come to what is traditionally called a “Sermon”, I prefer the word “Exploration” for we are exploring together. We think together, maybe re-think and probably disagree with some of thoughts I put into the arena. We are on a journey to discover what “the Spirit is saying to the churches”3 in this 21 st century.
The main point of the readings we have heard today is the forbearance of God, the amazing patience of God. The reading from Genesis was one incident in the life of Jacob. He was, to use a modern colloquialism, ‘a nasty piece of work’. Like many reported in the media with exponential disclosure in recent days4, Jacob was so ambitious that he was prepared to do anything to get ahead. A fortnight ago we heard the story of his birth in Genesis chapter 25:19-34. The patriarch Abraham’s son, Isaac was 40 when he married Rebekah, but she was barren for 20 years; then twins were born, first Esau and Jacob clinging to his heal. It’s a messy story of parental favouritism , brothers falling out, with Jacob cheating his brother.
Last week we heard the episode when Jacob lay down to sleep with his head on a rock. He had a dream of a step-like structure reaching up into the sky. Little doubt his dream was triggered by his familiarity with the many ziggurats that archeologists have found in the Mesopotamian Valley, with a temple on top to which men ascended to worship the deity – however they conceive that deity.
In his dream a voice encouraged Jacob, “Know that I am with you and will keep you wherever you go…” “Then Jacob woke from his sleep and said, ‘Surely the Lord is in this place – and I did not know it!’ that is the sort of experience many have. Flawed though we are, on some occasions we wake up, we become very aware of another dimension, an indefinable presence.
This week we heard how his uncle Laban cheated Jacob deceiving him into nuptial intercourse his elder daughter Leah instead of Rachel the girl Jacob wanted to marry. Uncle Laban then required that Jacob serve another seven years for Rachel.
Next week we shall hear the story of how flawed Jacob was profoundly changed by a nightmare of wrestling with a man and having his hip put out of joint. Jacob called the place Peniel saying, “For I have seen God face to face, and yet my life is preserved.” From then onwards his name was changed from Jacob to Israel.
Let me digress a moment and suggest we read all about the wheeler and dealer Jacob in Genesis chapters 24-36 . The stories give us a better perspective on some topics which often spark public political and media attention: deceit, greed, polygamy, sexual politics, misogyny, rape, revenge, fear, cunning, torture, sexual mutilation to incapacitate (in the Genesis story slaughter of those recovering from adult circumcision during a truce), ‘honour killings’ and vicious thrashings with wire (as reported in Sydney last week) by males alleging they are standing up for family name or religion. These are the legacy of the ‘nasty piece of work’ Jacob and others to posterity. What any one person does can affect and infect others.
We can learn so much from the flawed characters in Bible narratives
The poet who wrote Psalm 105 speaks of the role of “the forbearance of God” seen in the life of Jacob: O give thanks to the Lord and call upon his name:
tell among the peoples what things he has done.
Call to mind what wonders he has done: …
O seed of Abraham his servant:
O children of Jacob his chosen one.
For he is the Lord our God:
and his judgements are in all the earth. …
The covenant that he made with Abraham:
the oath that he swore to Isaac,
And confirmed it to Jacob as a statute:
to Israel as an everlasting covenant …
The Gospel reading last week was about ‘the forbearance of God’, God being patient with flawed human beings (Matthew 13:24-30 & 36-43) Jesus told a parable of good seeds being sown in a field but weeds immediately springing up as well. ‘The kingdom of heaven may be compared to someone who sowed good seed’… but weeds grew up among the wheat. The slaves asked if they should go and pull the weeds out. But the owner answered, “No; for in gathering the weeds you would uproot the wheat along with them.”
Today’s Gospel follows on from last week (Matthew 13: 44-59). Jesus’ told three little parables of treasure hidden in a field, a merchant in search of fine pearls, and a fishing net, to press the urgency of acting now, incorporating the new with the old. But Jesus fared no better than previous teachers of the wisdom of God, “Prophets are not without honour except in their own country and in their own house”.
Matthew’s account was written down some decades after Jesus first told his parable.
By the time it was penned by Matthew, Christians had been savagely persecuted by the Roman authorities, by Jewish leaders in Jerusalem and the local synagogues. A natural and prudent reaction of Christian communities, coping with what was happening at that time, was to try to root out of their ranks those who might betray them.
When groups or institutions are under pressure, it is easy to lose perspective. Reasonable precautions, due to the political or social environment, may become dogma like ‘you can only be a Christian if you adhere perfectly to our rules’.
Perfection ism is a false ideology, a belief-system that forgets that all human beings, like Jacob, are flawed to our very core. There are always some people who are so psychologically insecure that they seek out leaders or groups that peddle ‘certainty’ to members who will surrender their lives and possessions to the cult.
Religious cults and sects flourish in times of uncertainty and upheaval, as is happening all over the world this century in the different economic and religious situations. Always a key strategy of cults, sects and increasingly large sections of Christian institutions and other religions, is to set up regimes that demand certain forms of “perfection” as defined by the high priests, rabbis, bishops, imans, pastors, leaders, etc . To meet those demands their ‘flock’ is to cut themselves off from those named as contaminated “weeds”, usually starting with parents and family.
At the heart of Jesus’ teaching is his insistence that it is not for us to try to separate good seed from weeds. My own observation as a member of the Anglican Diocese of Sydney for 49 years, a member of Synod for 30 years and on a range of Diocesan committees, and a national commission of the Anglican Church of Australia, is that all forms of ‘churchmanship’ (as it used to be called!) - from conservative evangelical, evangelical, liberal, middle-of-the-road “stole-wearing” churches, Oxford movement Anglicans, Anglo-Catholics aligned with Rome, etc., all have been contaminated by cult perfectionism and often try to do what the slaves in Jesus’ original parable wanted to do, “root out the weeds”.
In Sydney the nominally ‘wealthiest’ Anglican Diocese, fear of difference and fear of inclusiveness is entrenched and has been fostered even more in this last decade. Where do we find in our Diocese ‘the forbearance of God’ being modelled ?
From the hierarchy of lay and clerical ‘would-be controllers’ we get continuing forms of exclusion: e.g. a clergyman who has been divorced cannot become Rector of a parish, nor is it likely that an unmarried man will be appointed; women are still not recognised as equal with men.
I am increasingly ill-at-ease over public statements by bishops and others about homosexuality. What is said and how it is said has led young people, older men and women to leave the churches. It fosters intolerance and fuels brutal homophobia, leading to poofter bashings and murders in Australia, Nigeria, Kenya and around the world. I was five years old when the 1939 World War broke out. I remember vividly the warning slogan because of the danger of spies and Nazi sympathizers, “Loose tongues cost lives”. Loose tongues about homosexuality in the world today can cost lives. This should be disturbing the conscience of all who claim to try to follow Jesus the Christ.
Perhaps our Anglican Diocese of Sydney is far from being ‘wealthy’ because it has put its energies into encouraging attitudes that judge others and into making rules and regulations that exclude those who are ‘not the sort of people we want to associate with’. There is enough suffering in the world without ecclesiastical bodies inflicting more hurt, suffering, anxiety and rejection onto other people who also are “created in the image of God”. We like Jacob and countless characters in the Hebrew and Christian scriptures, are all flawed and scarred. Who are we to make spiritual judgements ?
In the epistle for today Romans 8:26-39, St.Paul insists on the need for constant prayer as taught by Jesus and practiced by the early Christians. “The Spirit [too] comes to help us in our weakness, for , when we do not know how to pray properly, then the Spirit personally makes our petitions for us in groans that cannot be put into words; and he who can see into all hearts knows what the Spirit mean because the prayers that the Spirit makes for God’s [holy] people are always in accordance with the mind of God.” 5
Paul himself after all he had endured was able to witness to what he had experienced: “We are well aware that God works with those who love him, those who have been called in accordance with his purpose; and turns everything to their good.” Paul did not shy away from the realities of living in a world of natural disasters and human conflicts. In what has been called ‘A hymn to God’s love’, he asks the rhetorical question, “Can anything cut us off from the love of Christ – can hardships or distress, or persecution, or lack of food and clothing, or threats or violence? … No; we come through all these things triumphantly victorious, by the power of him who loved us. For I am certain of this: neither death nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nothing already in existence and nothing still to come, nor any power, nor the heights nor the depths, nor any created thing whatever, will be able to come between us and the love of God, known to us in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
What magnificent, uplifting, inspiring thoughts in whatever language and translation! The words roll off the tongue. But after 76 years I am not able myself sincerely to declare them as expressing how I feel frequently. The poignant words of the Lord’s Prayer come into my head, “Save us from the time of trial and deliver us from evil.” I know, and all of us here surely know, that we are just like all other human beings, marred and flawed, often groaning inwardly because of our failures and misused opportunities.
But we are also aware that sometimes the Spirit of God is able to bring about through us some of the fruit of the Spirit:
“the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness,
generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.” 6
I will end with the words of Professor Tomas Halik of Charles University Prague, who is in Australia and on the ABC Radio National’s Encounter program a fortnight ago7:
Patience with others is love,
patience with self is hope,
patience with God is faith.
Those three virtues - love, hope and faith - are the heart of Christianity .
1 Reginald H Fuller, Preaching the Lectionary: The Word of God for the Church Today; Liturgical Press Collegeville, Minnesota; 1884 p.150.
2 Jim Cotter, Out of the Silence … Prayer’s Daily Round Cairns Publications Harlech 2006; Proceeding p.514; www.cottercairns.co.uk
3 The New Testament, The Revelation to John 2:7,11 ,17,29; 3:6,13,22 –‘Let anyone who has an ear listen to what the Spirit is saying to the churches.’
4 The News of the World’s violation of peoples’ privacy and the allegations of corrupt actions by the News International media empire of Rupert Murdoch and family.
5 for this and following references see: The New Jerusalem Bible translation (1985; Darton Longman & Todd) by Roman Catholic scholars; see translation of Romans 8:26-39, and extensive footnotes re Paul’s teaching about prayer, p.1879.
6 St Paul’s Letter to Galatians 4:22.
7 Tomas Halik, Professor of philosophy of religions at Charles University, Praque, on ABC Radio National 3July2011, Encounter program (printout available) abc.net.au
Enquiries, comments and criticisms are invited; also requests for additional copies of scripts or permission to quote / reproduce. The Reverend Clive H Norton, phone 9411 8606;
7 Dulwich Road, Chatswood , NSW 2067.
Email: chnorton@bigpond.com