St Paul’s Canterbury , 8^th September 2013, Pentecost 16

Third in a Series of Brief Homilies:

Women Heroes of the Hebrew Scriptures

The Rt. Rev'd John Bayton, AM

Ruth

Ruth is the third in the list of six women of the Hebrew Scriptures I have chosen to speak about during my time with you .Miriam as Vocation, Rahab as Mission, Ruth as Communication, Jael as Word and Image, Judith as Intercession  and Esther as Prophecy. 

It is possible for you to read the Book of Ruth in 20 minutes if you read slowly.  It is in fact a ‘Short Story’ meant to be read in  a modern contemporary narrative.  Its purpose is to engage the reader in that  the heroine Ruth, like her Mother-in-Law Naomi, is a Refugee!  She is not an Israelite, she is from a universally despised tribe; a citizen of Moab, sworn enemies of the Jews.   Like so many foreign refugees today who leave their own homeland to come into our Land of Promise – Australia - Ruth leaves her homeland  Moab to go to Bethlehem in Judah, the Land of Promise.  “Your people shall be my people; your god, my god”   Sadly many contemporary refugees and asylum seekers become people of  the own homeland and culture, merely residing in Australia.  They have no intention of ‘leaving home, country, religion, to become integrated into Australian  culture.  Australia is a secular nation, so we cant blame them for wanting to retain their own heritage. Multi-culturalism is merely a change of geography.   The story of Ruth begins when Elimelek and his wife Naomi with their two sons Mahlon and Kilion leave Bethlehem during a famine and go to Moab.  The boys  marry Moabite women.  After about ten years Elimelek, Mahlon and Kilion die in the land of Moab.  The women, Naomi, Orpah and Ruth have to make a decision –  to stay in Moab or to go to Bethlehem.  Orpah decides to stay.  Ruth decides to go with Naomi to Bethlehem.   She does so  -  “Whither thou goest I will go; whither thou stayest I will stay.  Your people will be my people; your god will be my god; wherever you die I will die…and may the Lord be with me…” In  Bethlehem Ruth gleans the barley fields of Boaz; she “uncovers his feet” – a beautiful euphemism for something larger than life; he recognizes her, wants to marry her but there is another man who has a claim on her - her dead husband Kilion’s  un-named next of kin.  Shrewd Boaz works the story of redemption, according the  Law, and as ‘near of kin, Boaz marries Ruth.  Their son Obed, fathers Jesse, who fathers  David.   Thus a foreigner becomes the ancestor of  the Jewish race and through Joseph husband of the Virgin Mary Jesus is born into the ‘House of David”.  What do we mean by “the House of David”?  First it is a metaphor – the Dynasty of David.   But in Christian theology “house” means more than ‘Dynasty’  for it was in houses that the first Christians met to break bread, to read the letters and the gospels and to recite the liturgical prayers.  Ruth is not the first  foreign woman to appear in the Hebrew Scriptures.  Remember Abraham who fathered Ishmael by Hagar the Egyptian; Moses who married  first Zipporah a Midianite woman  daughter of  Jethro the priest of Midian woman.

Naomi and her husband Elimelek had been people of some importance when they left Bethlehem.  Naomi returns destitute, relying on Ruth to glean stubble from the barley fields.  We often forget that barley, not wheat was the important daily cereal of the people. In the ancient world wheat was a  primitive form of grain.  We remember that a thousand four hundred years after Ruth Jesus blesses five barley loaves and two small fish to feed the 5000 ! And it was in the barley fields that the shepherds watched their flocks by night.  And it was in the symbiosis of farmers and shepherds that at the end of September – early October Christ was born in Bethlehem the city of Naomi and Ruth.

St Paul’s Canterbury,1st September 2013, Pentecost 15

Second in a Series of Sermons

on the paintings of Sir Stanley Spencer

The Images used in this Series are taken from Sir Stanley Spencer’s Paintings of

“Christ in the Wilderness”, held in the Gallery of Western Australia in Perth.

The Rt. Rev'd John Bayton, AM

MISSION

The Readings:   Jeremiah 2 v 4-13.   Hebrews 13 v 1-16.   Luke 14 v 1 – 14

“Go out into the streets and Lanes”.

STANLEY SPENCER’S IMAGE: “Driven by the Spirit into the Wilderness”

 Originally Stanley Spencer intended to paint forty pictures, one for each day in Lent and place them in the ceiling of his parish church in Cookham on the Thames. He meant us to see all of the paintings in one scene rather like an Advent Calendar.    He wrote,

 “In these paintings I have regarded Christ’s dwelling in the Wilderness as a prelude forming part of his Ministry.  Apart from his last days when he was tempted, I don’t know of any statements, which refer to his life during this period except the reference to his fasting…”   ‘Christ in the wilderness” by Stephen Cottrell” p 11-12

Christ’s forty days and forty nights is both exile and pilgrimage.  His Mission is to draw the whole of creation including ourselves into a direct relationship with God our Father.

It is the Holy Spirit who ‘drives’ Jesus into the Wilderness of Judea, an inward ‘driving’.

Preparing this sermon I searched my own mind to discover times when I have been driven to do something or to be somewhere in the context of my own mission and ministry.   I discovered many occasions when I have acted intuitively.   This is also true of my own work as an artist; standing before a large blank canvas for hours, sometimes for days, then suddenly  attacking it with great speed, sometimes finishing it in less than an hour; then reflecting on it and realizing that all of the work has been in my mind, often for years.

Logically an unbeliever would say “that is instinct”.  I say “Intuition” the leading of the Holy Spirit; the result of patient meditation, contemplation of the Scriptures, of music, of poetry and of many lovely people.

An aspect of our vocation (about which we spoke last week) is to go into the desert.  Jesus said, “When you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your heavenly father who is in secret and your heavenly father will reward you”.  This has to do with the efficacy of prayer which is our Mission.  Often I have said to clergy, “If you have the option of visiting the parish for an hour or of studying Scripture in prayer, you do the latter”.  [I must add here, ‘but not every day!]

“Go into your room and shut the door”.  In darkness pray.   Jeremiah knew this (Jer 2 v  6) ”Where is the Lord who brought us up out of Egypt and led us through the barren wilderness, through a land of deserts and rifts, a land of drought and darkness”. 

It was in the absolute darkness of Mount Sinai that God who dwells in inexpressible light gave to Moses the Enlightened Torah.   Mount Sinai as I know it is the place of sheer majesty, a landscape of terror where God met with him in the darkness of Unknowing.

The Passover and Mount Sinai are of tremendous importance to us as Christians.  The Sinai moon presents herself to us every time we come to receive Holy Communion, for the Host which is the body of Christ has the form of the full-bodied Paschal Moon.

    Whether our days are in the Wilderness or in the shade of Paradise; in darkness or in light, the writer of today’s Epistle to the Hebrews reminds us, “Never will I leave you or forsake you”.  God is always faithful, more particularly so when we find ourselves metaphorically “in the Wilderness” for we are a People of the Covenant, called, as St Luke reminds us in today’s Gospel, “   We don’t do that very often do we.  Unlike the Jehovah’s Witnesses who called at our home last Saturday. 

When Stanley Spencer was painting his “Driven by the Spirit into the Wilderness” he was reminiscing on his wartime experiences of being in Macedonia and “...the personal terror of being cut off from home life….but the world is the place for our encounter with God”.  

This is also true for us.  Our neighborhood is the locus and focus for our Mission.  Going out into all the world in a romantic notion; but sadly, sharing faith with our neighbors is a fantasy.   Yet there is also a sense in which our daily vocation is also ‘the whole world’.

Our daily life is the landscape of our inner geography where that which is deeply ‘ME’ is joined to ‘The Other”.  “Take no thought for tomorrow….today is where we are to live out our Mission of responsible discipleship.    For many people today the homeless, street people, refugees, asylum seekers, the bullied, the demented, the so-alone unloved aged, the unvisited sick in hospices and places of palliative care, their physical landscape is despair.   These are they for whom our wilderness prayers are so needed.

The God of utter transcendence humbles Himself, takes upon himself the form of a servant to enable us to know how to engage in His Mission of Grace.     Perhaps it is for this reason, at Christ’s Transfiguration the two standing with him are both survivors of the terrors of the wild landscape image of Mount Sinai – Moses and Elijah.

It enables us to speak of the wonderful works of God.  And we can and must speak because it is God who first speaks to us, inviting a response.

Except through Jesus Christ our only mediator and advocate God is ultimately inaccessible to all forms of human control.   See Belden C. Lane op cit.

You know, I have a problem about revisions of Prayer Books designed to make God, religion and the Church more relevant.  (Whatever that means)  So?  “….cleanse the thoughts of our hearts…”  ‘thoughts of our hearts?  We say it at every Eucharist.

In Jewish anthropology the heart is the centre of all our Being.  Language! 

As a young priest, one day on a hospital visit I came across a man lying on his stomach. He was greatly discomforted.  I asked him, “What is wrong”.  He replied, “I’ve got boils on me bum…sorry Padre, I mean on me arse”.  

Christ is driven by the Spirit into the Wilderness.  All through his life he goes   “UP” to pray-“up into a mountain…up into a secret place, up into the eremos”, up to Jerusalem, up into the Galilee, and finally up onto the Cross to pray.  Always alone.           

In the long run knowledge about God is inconsequential, for God cannot be known, only worshipped.  Our deepest prayer has no language; we are not able to speak, yet we have to speak in the twisted language of metaphor if we are to comprehend the awesome-ness of our Mission.   

St Paul’s Canterbury, 1st September, 2013, Pentecost 15

Second in a Series of Brief Homilies:

Women Heroes of the Hebrew Scriptures

The Rt. Rev'd John Bayton, AM

Rahab

When I was a little boy I came home one Sunday from Sunday School and asked my Grandmother, “Granny, what is a Harlot?” She demurred and said, “I think you had better ask your grandfather”. I said to him “Grampy, what is a harlot”. He replied, “Good heavens, where did you learn that word?” I said, “At Sunday School. Don’t you remember the Lord told Joshua to march round the walls of Jericho for six days and on the seventh day to blow trumpets and the walls of Jericho would fall down? Well there was a woman named Rahab the harlot who befriended Joshua’s spies, and when Joshua’s trumpeters blew their trumpets and the walls fell down, Rahab and her family were saved.” “Well” said Grampy, A harlot is a strumpet!” I came away from that encounter believing a harlot was a person who blew a trumpet and made the walls of Jericho to fall down!

Let me set the scene for Jericho and Rahab. According to the bible at the end of the Late Bronze Age – about 1250 BC – Jericho was an outpost of the Egyptian Empire with an Egyptian Governor. The bible (Joshua Chapter 2 v 2) designates the Egyptian Governor as ‘King of Jericho”. Indeed there was no such thing.

Pharaoh Ahkenaton – 1364-1347 BC had imposed Monotheism on the people who had for millennia worshipped a range of gods. I have problem with dates here. Moses died on Mount Nebo about 1406 BC. If, as the scribes say, Joshua wrote his own Book sometime before 1000BC there is a gap of some 400 years. However the bible is not history but theology!

Joshua was Moses successor. He was a faithless man. What he should have done was to invade the land flowing with milk and honey as the Lord commanded him, but he did not. He sent spies into the land. Faithless. Disobedient. In Jericho he found a person who had more faith in the Lord than Joshua had. Her name was Rahab. She welcomed Joshua’s spies. She is challenged by her Rulers to explain her actions. In this period of history, the Late Bronze Age, the economy of Canaan was upheld by the production of flax which the Canaanites turned into rope and exported to Egypt.

Rahab and her family did not subscribe to the economic policies or the theology of ancient Canaan. The facts surrounding Rahab are political, not sexual. She prostituted herself to the wider demands of the Lord Yahweh. She knew that Joshua should have invaded the Land, despite the strength of Canaan. But Joshua (as I have noted) was a weak man. She hid the spies, covered up for them and thus became a prophet of Israel!

So, she was not a ‘harlot’ in the recognized sense of that word. She prostituted herself from the Canaanites, her own people in order to save the weak Joshua and his Israelite soldiers. In fact Rahab knew as much about the Exodus as Joshua did; and what is more, she worshipped Yahweh the God of the Israelites.

(Joshua 2 v 12) and without her devotion, military skill and faithfulness, Joshua would never have entered the Promised Land.

The rest of the story we all know; of how they marched around the walls of Jericho for six days and on the seventh day carried the Ark of the Covenant, blew trumpets and shouted with a great shout “And the walls came a tumbling down”.

How could they have possibly done this – profaning the Sabbath Day. Then followed the first holocaust. Apart from Rahab and her family they slaughtered every living thing- men, women, children, beasts and cattle. “….they put the silver and gold and the articles of bronze and iron into the house of the Lord..” At that time there was no ‘house of the Lord’. Remember this is a story, not history. In fact the walls of Jericho, the oldest city on the earth, fell down at least 2000 years before Joshua. 

St Paul’s Canterbury , 25^th August  2013, Pentecost 14

First in a Series of Sermons

on the paintings of Sir Stanley Spencer

The Images used in this Series are taken from
Sir Stanley Spencer’s Paintings of

“Christ in the Wilderness”, held in
the Gallery of Western Australia in Perth.

The Rt. Rev'd John Bayton, AM

VOCATION

Stanley Spencer’s Image:  "Consider the Lilies of the Field"

Jeremiah 1 v 4-10.  Psalm 71 v 1-6.  Hebrews 12 v 18-29.  Luke 13 v 10-17. 
During these weeks of the Vicars Long Service Leave at the 10.00 a.m. Eucharist I propose to introduce you to the works of eminent English artist Stanley Spencer in the context of our on-going discipleship. In particular I will refer to his paintings of Christ in the Wilderness, held in the Gallery of Western Australia in Perth.

You might well ask, “Why Stanley Spencer” and not, say Sidney Nolan or John Percival…. Simply because from his birth he had a vocation to paint works of religious significance. He lived and painted during the period of two great world wars and once wrote, “…the kind of heaven I enter when I do begin to paint I find not at all insipid”. Apart from his tremendous World War 1 paintings his field of inspiration was his own small village of Cookham in Berkshire where he was born in 1891 (30 August) . His biographer Duncan Robinson wrote of him, “He never lost the ability to translate the abstract into the reality of experience and locate the eternal in his own back yard….. His father conducted his informal education and augmented it with readings aloud from the Bible…the nursery was his universe and the parish church, the Garden of Eden.”

I have studied his religious works for any years. One of his Resurrection paintings is in our own NGV on St. Kilda road.

His genius lay in his ability to locate the great narratives of the Bible within the landscape of his own little Village. As an example he paints Christ preaching from the boat, on the River that runs by Cookham. Cookham churchyard was the setting for his “Visitation’, his Annunciation, Christ’s Betrayal and his Crucifixion. This was his vocation.

My vocation and yours is to live out the bible within the context of our own neighborhood. We do not have to be artists to do this. However, we are called by Christ to do it . When we examine Christ’s own preaching, teaching and healing miracles all were performed within that evangelical triangle along the Lake of Galilee, with 15km sides, bounding Capernaum, Chorazin and Beth Saida.

This preacher is speaking to the converted. Look around and see –EA the Organist, , June, Charles and Henrietta – Wardens, Kate, Members of Vestry, Readers, Servers, Eucharistic Assistants, choristers, teachers in Sunday School and Schools, administrators Members of Caritas, Welcomers , Men’s Group, providers of morning tea, washers-up, collection counters ………….– a wide and wonderful congregation, all responding to the ideal of Christian vocation.

“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you”. Before we were born God know what is in us; he gave us a life, he gave us free-will to choose right from wrong. He gave us the ability to respond to his calling to be disciples of Christ, that is ‘responsibility’.

I have often pondered on Jesus call. When did he know he was called to the salvation of all creation? For me this is perhaps the most important Christological questions. “Is it I” he asks. “Is it I”. Am I the “I AM” of all Revelation. . It is important because despite the occasional flashes of insight He came to Gethsemane with the question, “If there is any other way, let this cup pass from me”. Is Jesus obedience to the will of the Father the same thing as his knowledge of Himself as God? Despite the later end of 1st century intrusion into John’s Gospel – “I and the Father are One”, how do I reckon his anguished cry from the Cross, “My God, My God, Why…”

If Jesus knew all along that he truly was the second person of the blessed Trinity, that he knew that he was God, then (for me) the entire Incarnation is a joke!

He absolutely knew that he was called to proclaim the Kingdom of God, to teach the values of that Kingdom and he heal all manner of dis-ease. But is that all?!

“Consider the flowers of the field, they do not toil, they do not spin, yet Solomon in all his Glory was not arrayed like one of them!”

In Stanley Spencer’s paintings these weeks I am with you, we consider his time in the wilderness following his Baptism. His Calling. His vocation to be ‘at – one’ with the whole creation. At-One – Atonement. Gathering together all the fragments of a lost Universe. Yes he says to us, “In the same way as the Father has sent me, so I am sending you.” Imagine therefore the enormity of our own vocation - to BE what God has called us to BE from our mother’s Womb. To BE is not the same as to DO! ‘Doing’ is only part of our true vocation. Our vocation is to be One with Christ. Our outer life is to match our inner life.

How can this be ? We have a number of deep seated spiritual gifts that enable us to be constantly aware of our true vocation, (1) The Liturgy of the Eucharist with Holy communion on the Lord’s Day, week by week. (2) By Prayer, contemplation, meditation and reflection on how the Scriptures impinge upon our daily lives. (3) By fasting and abstinence and (4) by works of charity.

So far as we are concerned as Christians, Jesus is the only one who has ever lived whose outer life matches his inner life. Yet ours is the same vocation as His. To be at One with the entire Universe, knowing that we are made of the same stuff as the dust of the stars; therefore never to add to the violence of the world by thought or word or deed.

The Series of Stanley Spencer’s Paintings invite us to consider what it is to be in the wilderness. Unless you are totally at variance with my own spiritual life, you must know what it is to be “in the wilderness”. In my Spiritual Life I have known many times when I can’t even believe in god, let alone worship Him? Ever felt like this? I well remember ministering to a fellow priest who had faithfully read the Daily Offices, celebrated the Daily Eucharist; prayed the Intercessions, faithfully visited his parish, prepared children for confirmation, married couples, buried the dead and cared for their families. Lived a faithful life for 30 years. He had a heart attack, and suddenly found nothing. No joy in believing, no hope for the future, no comfort from the Daily Prayers. No fellowship with either his parish or the bishop or the diocese. Nothing. The cupboard was bare.

Have you ever felt this? I well remember my own mother. Dad died or his war wounds when I was a baby. She brought us up on the Dole when there was no such thing as War Widows’ Pensions. My brother died at age 18. Her parents died. There was nothing! She had nothing, yet she taught us to care for the poor and she tithed her meager income week by week for the Church. As children our favorite Sunday evening meal; was toast and dripping. Years later I asked her, “How did you continue to believe in God all these years ?” She replied, - “Faith overcomes all things”. Years in the Wilderness with Christ and Nothing. Many years later when the government allowed for the War Widows Pension she would say, “When I needed it I did not have it. Now that I have it I do not need it”.

“Christ in the Wilderness” is not an abstraction. It is a reality.

St Paul’s Canterbury , 25^th August  2013, Pentecost 14

First in a Series of Brief Homilies:

Women Heroes of the Hebrew Scriptures

The Rt. Rev'd John Bayton, AM

Miriam

The First Reading from today’s Lections challenges us to consider our own vocation as Baptized Believers. We aim to do that in the context of the first of Sir Stanley Spencer’s great paintings “Christ in the Wilderness” During the Vicar’s Long Service Leave I intend to preach a brief Homily at 8 o’clock on some of the great women heroes of the Old Testament. Today we will look at Miriam.

The account of her remarkable life is found in the Book of Exodus. When Pharaoh demand that all boy-children should be thrown into the Nile Jochabed, mother of her little boy hid him for three months. But the time came when she could not hide him any longer, she bought a papyrus basket, such as women used for shopping, lined it with tar, put him in it and floated him out amongst the reeds near Pharaoh’s palace. Pharaoh’s daughter came to bathe in the river and saw the basket. The little boy’s sister, Miriam asked her if she could get one of the Hebrew women to nurse him. This she did and two years later Miriam took him to Pharaoh’s un-named daughter and he grew up in the Palace as her son. She called him ‘Moses” –Mosche = “I drew him out of the water”

Thus Miriam becomes the savior of the Hebrew Race. This is her Vocation “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you; before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations”.

Exodus 15 designates her ‘a prophet’ and as the narrative of the Exodus unfolds she certainly takes on this role.

Strangely enough she is not mentioned as Moses’ sister in Exodus, only in Numbers 26. However she is clearly one of the three – Moses, Aaron and Miriam, who have distinct leadership roles and incidentally like Moses and Aaron, quite likely a legendary character. ‘Miriam’ is not a Hebrew name – it derives from the Egyptian –‘mer’ meaning ‘love’.

There is no doubt at all in my mind that her vocation as ‘prophet’ also included the cultic ministry of priesthood. How is that? Because the cult of the Torah (10 commandments etc) is distinctively patriarchal and male- dominated. What was there of Women’s cultic worship? Again, quite distinctive. Miriam had her liturgy – singing, dancing and storytelling . It is these three that keep alive the moth of the tribe… ad lib. You will remember when after the passage of the Red Sea when Pharaoh’s hosts were drowned, it is Miriam who leads the Israelites in thanksgiving for their deliverance - read Exodus 15.

There was great animosity between the Patriarchal cult and the cult of the Women. In the book of Numbers, this animosity reaches its peak when Miriam and Aaron oppose Moses.

God comes down to speak with them to say. .”I reveal myself to prophets in visions and in dreams; but not with Mosses to whom I speak face to face. Miriam is turned into a leper. She is healed but we hear no more of her until the Israelites come to Kadesh where she died and was buried.

Why is she important in the context of vocation? Because she was prophet-priest, leader of the Israelite women, the one who had the courage to face the Daughter of Pharaoh and save Moses for his vocation.

St Paul’s Canterbury , 11^th August  2013, Pentecost 12

Second Stewardship Sermon in Series of Three

The Rev'd Jonathan Chambers

Luke 12: 32-40

Watchful Slaves

It looks like we will meet our budget this year – first time for years. So if we are tracking alright  – you may well ask

“Why would you want to be bringing up the unseemly subject of giving and money?”

What I want to talk about this morning is not about fund raising or what the church needs to make ends meet. It’s about Spirituality and what it means to be a Christian.

I’ve been reading a book called “Radical Hospitality” – about Benedictine spirituality and our need to be hospitable to strangers. Written by an American Benedictine monk and a lay woman in the wake of the attacks on the World Trade Centre, the book acknowledges the anxiety of being attacked again but clearly tackles the spiritual dangers of living in fear. 

“Fear is a thief. It will steal our peace of mind and that’s a lot to lose. But it also high jacked our relationships, keeping us sealed up in our plastic world with a fragile sense of security.

Being people who fear the stranger, we have drained the life juices out of hospitality….Benedictine hospitality is not about sipping tea and making bland talk with people who live next door or work with you. Hospitality is a lively, courageous, and convivial way of living that challenges our compulsion to either turn away or turn inward and disconnect from others” P.9

So what’s this got to do with Stewardship and giving to the Parish? ……Everything.

What stops us from reaching out and offering acceptance or hospitality to the unknown stranger?

What stops us giving sacrificially to our church and others???

FEAR . FEAR that we won’t have enough for ourselves. Fear that what we do have may be taken away.

The book goes on

“Hospitality is not optional for a well balanced and healthy life. It meets the most basic need of the human being to be known and to know others. It addresses the core loneliness that we avoid with the bustle and hast of our hectic lives. There is the big loneliness at the centre of every person. It is universal. There’s a reason for the loneliness. It’s meant to lead somewhere. Even if you are unconscious of it, the big lonely is driving you homeward”

The big loneliness is that empty feeling, which can persist; even when we are surrounded by a room full of people or a house full of all the gadgets and creature comforts imaginable.

Stewardship is most importantly about our spiritual journey and our need to give, in the same way as the “big lonely empty feeling can only be satiated by giving of ourselves in a relationship to God and our Neighbour.

You may or may not recall ….that at your baptism you or your Godparents promised on your behalf

 “..by God’s grace I will strive to live as a disciple of Christ, loving God with my whole heart, and my neighbour as myself, until my life’s end”

Stewardship is about living out that promise. It’s not about the church needing money, but about your need to give, if you are really serious about satiating that big empty feeling at your centre.

Three weeks ago the Men’s Spirituality Group had a weekend away at Toolangi.  Fr John Stewart led us on Saturday for a quiet Day and talked about God who loves us unconditionally  – who continually takes the initiative to enter our lives and transform us , if only  if we are open to listening and seeing.

He started off with Leunig cartoon and story about Daffodils and Transformation

(See Pew Sheet)

NEAR DEATH EXPERIENCE - He had heard of near death experiences and their transforming power, but he had never had one. It seemed to him that much of humanity was near death - the way people watched so much television! The living dead, he thought. While he was out walking, it occurred to him that modern existence itself might be a constant, near death experience. A flower truck turned a corner and a load of daffodils spilled from the back and buried him. He lay bewildered for a moment under the glowing yellow heap, and then poked his head out into the sunshine. He saw his reflection in a shop window. He smelled the daffodils. How lovely! He thought. It was a near life experience, and already a transformation was in progress.                        Leunig

 

`

So you might say what’s the  evidence of Transformation here at St Pauls??

Well that fact that the number of people pledging has increased from 63 to 84 in the last 3 years is great and to be celebrated. On the other hand the average weekly giving at St Paul’s is $25 per week.

Frankly this doesn’t seem to be much, and it suggests that there may be a lot of fear around.

Stewardship and giving is about our relationship with God and our neighbour. How much are you able to risk? Giving of ourselves in relationships as well as in our possessions can be  scary. But in today’s Gospel Jesus says

Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.

The Kingdom of God is the place where God rules. Being part of the Kingdom and receiving the Kingdom is only achieved by following Jesus and taking the risk- that’s what “living by faith” is actually about. Like Abraham, taking God at his promise and setting out into the unknown. Its about putting your trust in Jesus and seeing what happens.

The passage goes on

“Sell your possessions, and give alms. Make purses for yourselves that do not wear out, an unfailing treasure in heaven, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys”.

So what does this mean in today’s context? Do I have to give everything away? Is the Datsun up for gabs again this year? What about my family and responsibilities?

How much you give is between you and God to talk about. God doesn’t expect us to be stupid, but God does expect us to give sacrificially, regularly and as the first priority from our income – not just what’s left over.

If 100% of all that I have comes from God, how much am I willing to give back? The Bible talks of a tithe or 10%; which is  a fairly confronting starting point.

You may say “what about my family”- God wouldn’t expect them to miss out?

I’m sure God wouldn’t, Gods wants us to love and care for our families,  however for all of us there is a difference between what we need and what we want. What messages are we giving to our children about where true values lie, if we are consumed by consumerism?

The values of the Kingdom are so contrary to all the messages I hear in the media - particularly advertising

 "You’ve got to have this Big TV, car, spa, pool, GPS, Home Theatre, Coffee Maker, Ipod, Ipad, Lounge suite…or to win Lotto to be happy"

It’s very difficult to resist isn’t it?

Yet I know that my regular giving to my church is the best proof that I have to myself that I’m not consumed by consumerism.

It also helps deal with the deluge of demands I receive from so many other worthy causes.

(Like the people who try to sell me ballpoint pens over the phone at tea time)

When I know that I have a regular commitment to my parish that is then used for local ministry and beyond, then I know that I’m doing my bit. I’m doing what God wants and I can say No to others without those languishing feelings of guilt.

By giving regularly and sacrificially I know that I’m engaging life. I’m doing something to overcome the excesses and inequalities of our society. As a Christian I’m not just a passive victim who feels overwhelmed by the enormity of the problems; I can say- to the extent of my ability  I’m contributing to the solution - and thank God I can. In this there is real freedom.

Stewardship and sacrificial giving isn’t however just for your own good in enabling you to enter the kingdom of Heaven. Importantly it’s also about doing justice and including others.

By giving, you enable ministry in the Canterbury area. We are the church charged with the awesome responsibility of giving voice to the unspeakable, of providing rituals which enable healing; of conducting the funerals and giving hope to the frightened. We are called to be light and salt- a people that bring hope and affirmation of all that is good.

Each year in UFTG we invited the CFA Volunteers with their trucks and the community to Church. We have a thanksgiving service, put on morning tea and provide a place for the Community to come and to say thanks for the selfless work of the CFA members. We bless the volunteers and their trucks recognising that they are contributing to the “commonwealth” of our community; that they too are part of the Kingdom of God

As the Anglican Church here we have a responsibility not to look after ourselves but primarily,  to provide for the spiritual care of this community. In a society obsessed with wealth creation and individualism, which leaves such an aching wound of loneliness, you are called to bless, affirm and celebrate all that is good. In a society which is primarily driven by “the market”, you are called to advocate for those who are marginalised by it.

This is a place of Transformation where people have ‘near life experiences’ and are regularly released from a life of ‘near death experiences”.

If I think of the new comers in the last 3 years who have visited St Pauls and who have made this their home,  and have been transformed. I think of Henrietta who has found a home and care here,  at a time when her other home has been in turmoil. I think of the trust and transformations that have been experienced  in the Men’s Spirituality Group as it meets fortnightly.  We had one member who said after the weekend away that… he’d..” been to church camps all his life and this was the first one that he wasn’t required  to bring his Bible; and yet it was as though Jesus was present with us,  in a way that I’ve never experienced at a camp before”.

Three years ago when we talked about stewardship Eric Jensen said, I’d love to give more, but I expect that like many others, I’m asset rich but income poor. He said “It struck me that we could encourage people to consider a bequest to St Pauls in their Will when property is sold”. And so we now have a brochure about Bequests and Eric has indicated  that he would be happy to talk to anybody else about Bequests and share his thoughts if you would like.

 These are stories about transformations – of growing to wholeness and seeing things in a new way … that enables us and those around us to live in Hope.

At a Diocesan level, contributing to the parish enables money to be spent in speaking the prophetic and countercultural voice like the  banner on the cathedral which instead of

vilification says, ”Lets welcome Refugees”

Stewardship and giving is not about fundraising so that the church can keep going. It’s about your spiritual survival and the spiritual survival of our community. May God bless us as part of this community in the activity of Transformations and wholeness.

“Do not be afraid… for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom”.

A Sermon by The Reverend Susanne Chambers, 4th August, 2013

First Stewardship sermon for 2013

in a series of three.

By The Rev’d Susanne Chambers

4th August, 2013

Luke 12:13-21

Today I will speak in broad terms of our response to money, to each other and to God.

Next week, Jonathan will enlarge on our Mission here at St Paul’s and what finances are needed for us to be financially self-sufficient.

And then the following Sunday the 18^th August, Commitment Sunday we will have a guest speaker: Alison Preston who is the Middle East Program Manager for Anglican Overseas Aid.

I hope you will find each of these Sundays helpful in your reflections and prayers as we each consider our time, talent and our treasures all which come from God.

For those of you who have been fortunate to have lived or visited developing countries, you may like me, find it incredible that the people are so generous with the little they have.

When we first arrived in Malawi, the four of us women were given a single rose and then I, as the priest, was given a bunch of roses.   Roses are not seen very much in Malawi! This was indeed a generous gift to welcome us!

The meals that were provided on the two Sundays after church in our honour, were all the foods one could get in Malawi…at least in Zomba…vegetables, n-seema, chicken, meat and fish. 

Chicken, the meat and fish are becoming too expensive for most to be able to buy.  One night, one of the women was going home for her dinner which was a corn cob.

It wasn’t just the food that was so generously given. Each day, someone had to come and pick us up and drive us home at the end of the day.

This could take up to one hour depending on how busy the village markets were as we passed through.

When greeted, there would be big smiles, a hand ready to take yours in theirs and a genuine delight that we were with them.

To quote just a small portion of a letter from the Mothers’ Union of St Georges’ in Zomba.

“Dear Rev’d Susanne,

We greet you in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.  We write on behalf of all the Christians and more specifically on behalf of the mother’s union guild at St George’s Anglican Church to thank you most sincerely for the visit that you and the other charming ladies, Jennifer, Rose and Lizzie accorded our church.  The Christians at St George looked at the visit as a spiritual revival and wish they did not end here…”

And from the first letter when we arrived “we are therefore very grateful and we will never take this support for granted and please receive our ZIKOMO KWAMBIRI from the sweet and warm hearts of St George’s mothers.”

It is moments like these in life, that being part of a parish community and a worldwide church community show the reason why we are here. We are here not just for ourselves, but for one another and to give thanks to God that this is so.

In today’s gospel what caught my attention was the response Jesus gave to the person in the crowd who wanted Jesus to fix a problem about money.  In broad terms Jesus answered his question. ‘Take care! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.”

In the parable that Jesus then tells them and in life as well, he basically says: ‘it’s not all about money’.

He warns against greed, about the insatiable feeling of never having enough.  And the parable he tells illustrates this.  The farmer’s problem isn’t that he’s had a great harvest, or that he’s rich, or that he wants to plan for the future. The farmer’s problem is that his good fortune has curved his vision so that everything he sees starts and ends with himself.

Listen again to the conversation he has with, not a spouse or friend or parent or neighbour, but only with himself. “I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build larger ones and these I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, ‘Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years: relax, eat, drink, be merry.”

Do you see what I mean? It is an absolutely egocentric conversation, even including a conversation with himself inside the conversation he is already having with himself!  This is why he is a fool. 

The rich man’s land has produced abundantly, yet he expresses no sense of gratitude to God or to the workers who have helped him plant and harvest this bumper crop.  He has more grain and goods in storage than he could ever hope to use, yet seems to have no thought of sharing it with others, and no thought of what God might require of him.  He is blind to the fact that his life is not his own to secure, that his life belongs to God.

The rich man learns the hard way what the writer of Ecclesiastes realized- quite simply, that you can’t take it with you.  All that we work so hard for in life will end up in someone else’s hands, and as Ecclesiastes puts it, ‘who knows whether they will be wise or foolish? Yet, they will be master of all for which I toiled and used my wisdom under the sun.  This also is vanity.” (2:19)

Like the rich farmer, we are tempted to think that having large amounts of money and possessions stored up will make us secure.  Sooner or later, however, we learn that no amount of wealth or property can secure our lives.  No amount of wealth can protect us from cancer, or from a genetically inherited disease, or from a tragic accident.

No amount of wealth can keep our relationships healthy and our families from falling apart. In fact, wealth and property can easily drive a wedge between family members, as in the case of the brothers fighting over their inheritance at the beginning of this text.

Most importantly, no amount of wealth, can secure our lives with God.  In fact, Jesus repeatedly warns that wealth can get in the way of our relationship with God. 

It is not that God doesn’t want us to save for retirement or future needs.  It is not that God doesn’t want us to eat, drink and be merry and enjoy what God has given us.  We know from the Gospels that Jesus spent time eating and drinking with people and enjoying life.  But he was also clear about where his true security lay.

It is all about priorities.  It is about who is truly God in our lives.  It is about how we invest our lives and the gifts that God has given us.  It is about how our lives are fundamentally aligned: toward ourselves and our passing desires, or toward God and our neighbour, towards God’s mission to bless and redeem the world.

Our lives and possessions are not our own.  They belong to God.  We are merely stewards of them for the time God has given us on this earth.  We rebel against this truth because we want to be in charge of our lives and our stuff.

Archbishop Philip said in last month’s TMA  “we know the importance of money and how we use it as a consumer. The trouble with all of this is that it puts us in a place where it is easy to act as if it is our money, not God’s money that we are dealing with. We are so used to being in the middle of the decision that we naturally ask questions about benefit and most easily answer them from our own perspective.

This fact distorts many of the discussions that Christians have about money.”  Archbishop Philip also said “what we are dealing with (when looking at parish finances) is foremost a gift of God’s generous provisions for us to apply to the work we continue to Jesus’ name.”  TMA July 2013

I wonder if we sometimes forget that all this belongs to God here at St Paul’s. We are merely stewards to care for the spiritual nurture of people through worship and groups that meet here, through the continual maintenance of the buildings, in looking beyond ourselves to other people in our community and the wider community, to continue God’s mission to bless and redeem the world. We are stewards of all of this.

This truth that all belongs to God is good news. Because all that we are and all that we have belong to God, our future is secure beyond all measure. So Jesus tells us, “Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” (12:32)

Money isn’t the problem; St Augustine once said that God gave us people to love and things to use, and sin, in short, is the confusion of these two things.

St Paul’s community of faith is a place where we enjoy worshipping God together, we enjoy each other’s company, and we contribute to the needs of the wider community at home and abroad.

This is a great place to be! A place to grow spiritually, to be confronted personally when reflecting on how other’s live in God’s world(like in Malawi) and the challenge also for each of us to radiate the compassion and love of God in all we do and say. None of this is done in isolation…we need community…we need each other.

I give thanks that we all belong to God!      [i]

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Commentary on Luke 12:13-21 by Elizabeth Johnson

And notes from David Lose ‘working preacher’