Four Predictables

1 Everything costs.

2 Everything and everyone falls short.

3 Only bastards rule.

4 We all depend upon the unpredictable grace of the strong.

"On New and Risky Paths"

I’ve been co-opted to go to Synod 2011, held this year in Newcastle. My most recent Road Directory that included Newcastle was printed in 1990, so that would account for my getting hopelessly lost last time I drove up there. Besides, the spine was falling apart on this venerable, well-thumbed, stained Directory so it has finally sunk into my slow brain that a new one might be a good idea.

Journeying into unknown territory requires travelling on new and risky paths and that is the theme for the Synod of the Uniting Church in Australia this year. The cover of the Agenda shows a stick man walking on a road leading to mountains where it climbs and twists. Down from the mountains, the road divides into two, one heading into thick bush while the other disappears into a labyrinth city of dark mazes.

Should the traveller find his way through either the bush or the city, he will find himself at crossroads. One road sends him off to a dead end, another over a cliff (aaaagh!), while on the remaining road he will encounter spikes in the middle of the path. Surviving that, he will have to cross a stream (glug!) before the road winds on into open space.

Our Synod has some new and risky paths to travel. There are too many Presbyteries each trying with shrinking resources to replicate managing increasing needs. As in other Synods interstate, some will have to come together to share the road. Our Boards of Education and of Mission have also had to merge resulting in the pain of some loss of resources including the ELM centre. We will have to work smarter because we will have to work with less. As one minister used to say, “We can’t keep robbing St Peter’s to pay St Paul’s.”

Not that these challenges ahead of us are anything new. Our readings from the Hebrew Scriptures tell the story in the Book of Exodus of God’s people travelling on new and risky paths. The route from slavery in Egypt to the promised land of Israel was every bit as contorted as that depicted on the cover page of the Synod agenda. God’s people grumbled and wanted to turn back. They rejected leadership and broke all the laws but God saw them through sea crossings and wilderness, nourishing them all the while until the survivors arrived at their promised destination.

The Gospels reflect this Exodus journeys with the first disciples of Jesus wending their way with him on new and risky paths, with Jesus himself taking the greatest risk of all.

Coming to mind are words from our Uniting Church creed –

“We are a pilgrim people,

always on the way to a promised goal;

on the way Christ feeds us with word and sacraments,

and we have the gift of the Spirit

in order that we may not lose the way.”

We do not necessarily want to go down new and risky paths, but that is the way of discipleship, and best of all Jesus leads the way.

The UK Riots

Like others, I noticed the sheer absence of responsible leadership.

I guess all one could do at the time was to pray for rain.

It reminded me of the Cronulla and Redfern riots in NSW writ large - both also happened in the summer.

There is something about non-achieving &/or bored young people and hot weather which acts like a human bush fire, lit when the opportune spark is produced.

One thing I did notice as well was the similarly spontaneous response, reminiscent of the London Blitz in the 1940s, of citizens of all kinds, with brooms and mops coming out at first light to clean up the mess.

Maybe the church was there in ordinary persons some of whom may occupy Sunday pews.

That is where the leadership has emerged, and that was the good news of the week.

The Good Word

The season for Parables has come round again. In Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus comes out with pithy images followed by sometimes short but involved stories. Many arguments still abound about what they all mean. Even 2000 years on, Jesus still keeps us guessing. There never comes a time when we can say that we have him all tied up. Even today, he is far ahead of us, waving for us to lift our stumbling feet to follow.

I think I have mentioned before about the way these parables come in sets and layers. Jesus begins with snapshots of the Kingdom of Heaven – mustard seeds, buried treasure, pearls, and dragnets. Later, stories develop. Towards the end of Matthew’s Gospel we read of talents, wise and stupid bridesmaids, and the sorting out of sheep and goats.

Taken together the message is plain. True fulfillment is found by encountering and accepting God’s new Kingdom in the way Jesus has revealed. To turn one’s nose up at it leaves one stewing in one’s own juice.

We may find this sense of judgment harsh. We want an inclusive world where no one gets left out but we cannot escape life’s hard realities that behaviour does become unacceptable when it damages other lives. In the parable of the sheep and the goats, damage can be caused by neglect as well as by offensive action.

It is impossible to get to first base with Jesus until the penny drops that the Kingdom of Heaven could only be launched into the world once Jesus had sacrificed himself for it to happen. Far too many become fixed with the idea that for the “right” thing to happen, others must suffer. The Kingdom of Heaven was not to be ruled over by a monomaniacal control freak who would terrorise those within range. Jesus stood this evil notion on its head. The Kingdom of Heaven would be ruled over by one who endured torture rather than inflict it.

Matthew’s Gospel reminds us that even with this self-sacrifice, there is no guarantee that everyone can be saved from stewing in their own juice, and too often the innocent are tragic victims of another’s evil acts. Jesus does not have his head in the clouds. He often comes out with hard realities and that choices have to be made. The good news is that these choices can be made, and the vicious spiral downwards can be halted once a change in direction occurs.

Coupled with the Matthew readings are those from Paul’s Epistle to the Romans. In my first years of conscious discipleship, I was guided by J B Phillips’ modern version of the Epistles which expressed Paul’s writings in English plain enough for a callow teenager to appreciate. My paperback has long disintegrated complete with my passionate underlinings of words, sentences and passages, and I must say that the Epistle to the Romans received the most attention.

For instance, Romans chapter 8 gave me much reassurance during my teenage mood swings constantly reminding me that nothing, no, nothing, could separate me from the love of God expressed in Christ Jesus. Romans chapter 12 presented me with the Disciple’s Charter for living and slowly channelled me into values and behaviour better fitting a dinkum disciple for life. I am sure this Epistle has been the most influential (for good) within the whole of human history. Martin Luther, John Wesley, and Karl Barth are just a few who had their lives re-routed, not to mention the common variety of disciples who quietly become salt of the earth.

Parables and an Epistle written nearly 2000 years ago are still influencing countless numbers of people to re-think their priorities. When we wake in the morning to the radio news of yet more violent slayings and other traumatic events, the good news has not yet done being spread. Let’s be part of the good news.

Parable of the Weeds

SERMON CNR 1060

PENTECOST 5a Mosman 17 July 2011, 9.30am

Gen 28:1-19a; Ps 139:1-12, 23f; Matt 13:24-30, 36-43

“PARABLE OF THE WEEDS”

Matt 13:24-30, 36-43

1 BACK TO THE GARDEN

1.1 From the Parable of the Seeds

This is our 2^nd week into the gardening season.

Last Sunday, we would have heard Matthew’s account of the Parable of the Sower, or more accurately the Parable of the Seeds.

After all it was about what happened to the seeds.

That was Matthew’s introduction to the feast of parables of the Kingdom of Heaven which today follows last week.

These parable will crop up again until the final parable of the Sheep and the Goats towards the end of chapter 25.

1.2 Why I am not a gardener

Many of us will have heard these parables often enough to have worked out how similar this Parable of the Weeds is to that final parable.

It’s the same problem.

How do you tell the weeds apart from the wheat?

The adults in my home life decided when I was a boy that I should get stuck into gardening.

In those days, little boys had to start off, not by planting, that was the grown-up’s privilege, but by weed-pulling.

I tried my hand at some weeds but they were tough and hard for little boys to pull out.

There were other green things nearby that were much easier to pull out so I started pulling them out with much more enthusiasm.

Besides, they were conveniently in neat rows, not higgled-piggledy like those tough things.

An adult in my life came to hover over me and I looked upwards to receive well-deserved praise.

High-pitched agitated tones were not what I was expecting.

“You’ve pulled out all the plants I put in just yesterday!”

My budding career in horticulture came to an abrupt end and my fingers have none of that green tinge you would expect of normal gardeners.

2 GETTING TO THE DILEMMA

2.1 Weeds just show up (Matt 13:25)

When reading this parable, I’ve always wondered why it was necessary to put in the bit (v25) about enemies coming in to sow weeds.

Weeds just seem to show up in gardens.

Maybe they were here beforehand all those centuries before we occupied this country and began growing things we liked.

Maybe they came from seeds that from overseas aboard the old sailing ships or their cargo.

I’ll let you tell me about the weeds in your garden over morning-coffee even though I know you won’t ever want to let me loose in it.

2.2 Finding the classroom culprit

The parable is not so much about weeds but that hard fact that not only are they sometimes hard, to me at least, to distinguish them from the real thing, but hard to separate out without damaging the growing plants.

We would be living under a rock if we’ve not experienced this dilemma sometime.

We’ve been in a class in school when one student, generally a boy, of course, gets up to mischief.

The teacher comes in, sees the disruption and the damage, calls for the little miscreant to own up, and then listens to the longest innocent silence heard in that classroom for ages.

What does the teacher do?

With no one to punish, and the teacher’s authority at stake, the whole class is kept in, or misses out on that promised trip next week.

Should the teacher have punished the whole class because that little weed couldn’t be found out, or should have the teacher ignored the whole incident?

Any teachers here can tell me the answer over morning coffee?

2.3 Human Shields and Collateral Damage

Worse still are the war situations and the collateral damage that comes with them.

What should one do when a dangerous enemy is using human shields?

How can one ensure that one’s bullets are marked with “enemy only” on them?

Close to home, my father was a bomb aimer on Lancasters in WW2.

How could he ensure that his bombs landed on the military targets without some innocent person getting in the way?

3 GETTING TO THE HEART OF THE GOSPEL

3.1 The Barbary Sheep

This is the heart of the Parable of the Weeds.

How does one punish the guilty without affecting the innocent?

How does one punish a bad parent without the child still suffering?

You may try to reassure me that the final Parable of the Sheep and the Goats will help me tell the difference.

After all who can mix up a merino with an angora?

Last time I visited the Zoo down the road, I saw this beastie with curved horns and a long beard perched up on the top of a large rock.

“What a magnificent goat,” I burst forth.

I then read the sign – “Barbary Sheep”.

Perhaps I should have stuck to horticulture.

3.2 Portia to our Shylock

It always amazes me how Jesus came to this dilemma so early in his life and ministry.

He puts the brakes on our passionate rush to judgement.

He becomes the Portia to our Shylock.

More than that, rather than inflict judgement that would harm the innocent, he was prepared to endure it himself.

Within the heart of the dilemma lies the heart of the Gospel.

4 WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?

4.1 Groans of Frustration

Where does this leave us on this cold winter’s morn?

In his Letter to the Romans, Paul writes about the groans of frustration that we all go through.

And we go through them, even when we seek what is good, but evil keeps using that good as its shield.

The Book of Revelation reminds us when the archangel Michael is used to conquer the dragon of evil, that only spiritual power can overcome this super-human sabotaging force of evil.

4.2 Sorting out the dilemmas

Paul reassures us that we have been adopted by God himself.

This leads us open to receive something of the wisdom Jesus himself showed, to receive that continuous growth in maturity of the spirit that will help us recognise more of these dilemmas before we fall into those traps.

In all, we are helped to love beyond the anger and to await those times when dilemmas can be eventually sorted out.

Meanwhile, garden in peace!

AMEN

"The Spirit Bond"

I was touched very recently by the visit to Crete of several very elderly returned soldiers who had returned to pay their respects to their fallen comrades.

On what would have been their last opportunity to do so, these frail but proud men struggled against their growing infirmities to walk shakily but independently down the path to visit the memorial headstones.

When each veteran saw each name upon a headstone, it was if the spirit of that young soldier had suddenly emerged into the vision of the visitor who became young again for a moment as the memories of comradeship flooded back. The returned soldiers would resume their shaky journey to return again to safety but with the reassurance that there was some closure with the spirit of the fallen soldiers now at peace.

I hope I’m not becoming doddery in my mind as I have relatives fallen somewhere overseas. Great-uncle Alec lies with mates somewhere at Pope’s Hill, Gallipoli. Grandpa’s two first cousins, memorialised at Villers-Bretonneux, were last seen at Bullecourt and off the Fremantle coast respectively. That was WW1. During the second global conflict, uncle Arthur fell somewhere in the swamps outside Buna, New Guinea. Dad’s cricketing cousin Ken went down in a Short Sunderland over the Mediterranean.

Several cousins of my mother, were found and buried appropriately. For so many war casualties, however, no final resting place was ever found. In many cultures around the world, there is the belief that their spirits cannot rest until proper respect is made. In many cultures and belief systems, respect is continually paid to the spirits of departed ancestors.

I used to disparage such practices in my youth but when one becomes old enough to experience bereavement a continuing bond remains with the departed out of respect. I saw this in the bearing of these veterans returning to Crete and this would be true for many as the years turn over.

There is still that sense of mystery regarding the afterlife. The body is farewelled to the elements with all its molecules dispersed and recycled into new forms of stardust. The spirit stays on in the memory of the mourners and often invigorates the lives of those now holding the baton passed to them.

We are about to leave the Easter season and move into Pentecost. In the latter parts of John’s Gospel, Jesus shocks his first disciples with the news of his coming death. He reassures them that, though his body will be gone, the bond of his spirit will stay with them if they carry out what the Father had sent him to do.

Pentecost reminds us that we, part of the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, remain with Jesus in spirit. We pray through his name, we read about him regularly, we hear what God has to say to us, and we commemorate him at the table.

Our bond with him is strengthened because it is a bond of spirit. We can continue doing some of the things that Jesus used to do when we continue with his values. We may ourselves walk shakily one way or another but with our insight we have seen his face and we know we are a part of him and he with us.

SERMON CNR1059

EASTER 4a Mosman 15 May 2011, 9.30am

Ps 23; John 10:1-10; Acts 2:42-47; 1 Peter 2:19-25

“GOOD SHEPHERDS”

John 10:1-18

Sheep Congestion

When I’ve been here, we’ve often talked about the traffic congestion along Military Road and how we’ve had to fight the good fight through the traffic. It may surprise you when I say that I’ve encountered congestion along rural roads across Australia. They weren’t other cars, but sheep, hundreds of sheep surrounding my little car as farmers and sheepdogs drove these woolly things along the road. I was tempted to bring one of these large flocks here this morning to add rural atmosphere and so they could hear about themselves. Baaaa!

The Good Shepherd Laying Down His Life

Adding the eight verses (Jn 10:11-18)

This morning, I’ve added 8 verses to the Gospel reading as it would be a shame to break off a good story before it gets to the punch line.

This whole story has become well engrained in our churches. There are stained glass windows of Jesus as the good shepherd, and this part of the story does not begin until v11 so really all the first 10 verses are leading up to this point.

Being a shepherd as the young David was before he became king of Israel is no easy job. You had to fend off wild beasts and sheep rustlers. Farmers used to tell me about foxes and wild dogs along with the occasional 2 footed predator. Our national song, “Waltzing Matilda” is all about a swagman shoving a jolly jumbuck into his tucker-bag.

Over my dead body

Sheep were guarded with one’s life. Jesus is described as the Door (v9) and the Good Shepherd (v11). To guard the sheep in their sheepfold, the shepherd would curl up in the doorway between his sheep and any predator. Literally, no one would take his sheep except over his dead body. Jesus is saying just that. “No one gets to my sheep except over my dead body.” Easter is all about what Jesus did to keep us secure in God.

Not a safe world

This is not a safe world. My alarm clock radio wakes me in the morning with the news, and it is mostly about bad news happening to people while I’ve been sleeping. People do such bad things to other people. It’s so tempting to bury my head under my warm doona and retreat into more sleep. But the good news is that our Good Shepherd has laid down his life for us sheep. We have not been fleeced, neither has the wool been pulled over our eyes. The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.

From Sheep To Shepherd

Breakfast on the beach

Another reason why I included the extra verses is that the story leads even further. One of the surprises about John’s Gospel is the way themes like this re-surface later on with a twist. You remember the story near the end of this Gospel in ch 21 where the risen Jesus meets his disciples for breakfast on the beach. He charges Peter to feed and tend his lambs and sheep. The disciples now become more than sheep. They become shepherds themselves, good shepherds.

“Other sheep that are not of this fold” (Jn 10:16a)

Back to this passage, from v16, Jesus talks about “other sheep that are not of this fold”.It was left to the first disciples to continue the good shepherding, and it is also left to us as his 21^st century disciples to be good shepherds.

“One flock, one shepherd” (Jn 10:16z)

The vision of Jesus remains, “one flock, one shepherd”. His sheepfold is too big for our imagination because he doesn’t want any of his flock to be left out. In ch 3, John writes of God loving the whole world, so that’s a big sheepfold. If we can look at this from God’s point of view, it does make sense. The strife we keep hearing and seeing on the news is caused because human beings want to define the sheepfold boundaries. Human beings want to keep defining who is in and who is out.

Defining black sheep

We have our own ways of defining who are the black sheep who must be kept out of our fold. Our church has spoken out, and quite rightly, too, about the way our successive governments have kept wanting to process asylum seekers offshore. All this excluding never works, of course. All that happens is pain and anguish, and we keep hearing from among them the voice of Jesus as he suffers with them yet again. We have to find ways of ensuring how this world can become an open sheepfold so that our first Good Shepherd can be recognised.

Ecumenical Convocation for Peace

Next week, three Uniting Church ministers, Terence Corkin, Tara Curlewis, and Chris Walker, will be travelling to Jamaica on our behalf to attend the International Ecumenical Convocation for Peace held between 17-25 May. The convocation calls for peace so that the world may know an open sheepfold where the sheep of this world may not be wolves to one another. For this to happen requires a lot of good shepherding. As the Father has sent the Son, so we are sent as good shepherds.