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Sermon: The Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost (A) - 4th September 2011
St Aidan's Anglican Church West Epping 8:30 am
Readings: Exodus 12:1-14; Psalm 149 Romans 13:1-10; Matthew 18:10-20
The recent riots in England has forced politicians, church leaders, and communities to ask the difficult question of what kind of society are we and what kind of society do we want to be? Being such a large land mass, when we have experienced social problems in Australia it is far too easy to distance ourselves and declare that we are different from them “over there” wherever that may be. The second mistake is to be too quick to come to conclusions regarding the cause of those problems. We know there is high unemployed among the youth in the UK and there is little prospect of a quick solution. But coming to quick simple answers rarely addresses the problem. Blaming others rarely solves anything.
In this section of Matthew’s gospel, Jesus is discussing the Kingdom of Heaven. I always find that title far too vague, far too remote. Jesus is describing the society that will be established here on earth under the rule of God. We don’t know when it will happen. But we are assured that it will happen. And we are assured we will all be made part of that kingdom. But what will it be like? How will it run? What will be its general shape?
The disciples asked their brilliant question “Who will be the greatest in the Kingdom?” Who will be on top? At another time the mother of James and John dared to ask Jesus to give her two sons the top jobs. Jesus just said, “It is not my department.” But its like that in any organisation. We always want to know who’s on top. We want to know where the power is and how we can get it. It happens in any organisation and specially in churches. And when there is no simple answer, people will always fight for power. Even in prisons, among the inmates, there is a strict power structure. So how will it work in the Kingdom of Heaven. Where will the power lie? Who is most important.
And to answer that Jesus did what he always did. His answer turns the world upside down. The last will be first and the first will be last. The humble will be exalted but the rich will be sent away empty. So to answer their question of who would be greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven Jesus took a little child and said they must become like this child. Whoever humbles himself will be greatest in the kingdom. The Kingdom power structure will be very different to the world we know so well.
But this is not a new teaching. The ancient Spartans claimed that a society could be measured by the way they treated the weak and the vulnerable. The best society was the one that excelled in caring for children, for the sick and the elderly. When Israel was preparing to enter the Holy Land and take possession of it Moses lectured them about the type of society they would create there. These lectures have been preserved in a book we call Deuteronomy. He warned them that at harvest time if they missed a sheaf of wheat they should leave it for the widow, the orphan or the stranger in the land. When they beat their olive tress or when they harvested their grapes they weren’t to strip the branches of all the fruit. Rather, something had to be left for the widow, the fatherless and for the stranger. Moses knew that once they moved into Israel and prospered from the wealth of the land they could easily forget their origins, forget their humble background, forget they had once been slaves in Egypt, and they could become proud and arrogant. So they must remember who they are and remember the weak in their society.
And here Jesus tells of the special place that children and the vulnerable have in the Kingdom of Heaven. It seems they have a watching angel who always sees the face of their Father in heaven. This may seem odd language for us but in it time it was outrageous. No one was allowed to look on the face of God in heaven. Moses knew rom the cleft of the rock that no-one could see the face of God and live. when Isaiah had his vision of God in the temple of Jerusalem, God was accompanied by angels with three sets of wings. Two wings were used to cover their feet. Two wings covered their faces and two were used for flying. Even these angels could not look on the face of God. But these angels of the children have that special privilege.
So what can all this mean? Jesus is pointing to the special privilege children have in heaven, their special status. In our world, we may not be surprised by that. But in Jesus day children were not as valued or as cared for or as protected as they are today. Yet even with all the protections we try to impose children are always highly vulnerable, the sick are the elderly will always be vulnerable. And these are the ones who have special statue in God’s kingdom. And if we see ourselves as the people of God then those values must be our values. We prepared ourselves and our world for the coming Kingdom by living by those values now, by fringing the future into the present. We mustn’t be like those who say “When it gets closer to summer, then I plan to lose a few pounds.” These values must not be put off until tomorrow for we never know the hour when God’s kingdom will come. We must live now prepared for the Kingdom of tomorrow. We need to live by Kingdom standards now.
Jesus then gives more examples of Kingdom living. The first one is the lost sheep. But notice how Jesus tells this parable here. He is calling upon the disciples knowledge of how shepherds of their day behaved. In was common knowledge that shepherds were so committed to their sheep that if one were lost, they would not stop searching until it was found again. Shepherds of those days were very attached to every animal in their care. And here Jesus is saying that God shows that same commitment to his children. We get a similar idea as this in Matthew chapter 7
Is there anyone among you who, if your child asks for bread, will give a stone? Or if the child asks for a fish, will give a snake? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask him!
Jesus is using known examples of love to illustrate the love of God. But there is a scandalous element to this. In Jesus day shepherds were at the bottom of society. Because of their work with animals they were regarded as permanently unclean. They could never enter the Temple. They were thought to be always alienated from God. Yet of all people, Jesus uses shepherds as examples of love and compares their love to the love of God. But Jesus point is that if we know what love is and we know how to express that love, how much more will God love us. And then, turning this around, Jesus expects that love of God to be expressed among the people of God.
And here he includes his hardest teaching. Here is the case of where you brother sins against you. What do you do? We know how we are tempted to act. When someone harms us we are tempted to hurt back. We are tempted to end the relationship. We are tempted to take action against them. Yet Jesus urges us to consider another way. He wants us to attempt to restore the relationship. Now we may say that its not possible. We may say the other person will not reconcile with us. They may not admit they have done anything wrong. But that is not Jesus’ point. His teaching is that when someone offends against us our duty is to work towards a reconciliation, using all the skill and resources available to us. It is not a question of their response or their willingness. It is all about us.
The people of God are to be a reconciling community. And in that way they become a reflection of the character of God. In that way they are an incarnation of the way God acts in our world. The whole point of the cross was that it was God’s way of reconciling the world to himself. This is why we pray “Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” God’s will is for us to be reconciled with God and with each other. This is why Jesus says, “Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” Heaven and earth will be reconciled and what we do here will have heavenly consequences. What we do we do before God. As we reconcile on earth so they will rejoice in heaven. It may go against our ingrained nature, but through reconciliation the high standards of heaven will be enjoyed on earth.
Jesus has shown us what a good society is capable of. He has shown us what the world will be like one day. He now calls on us to prepare for that day by living according to the standards of heaven as we live each day as his people on planet earth.