Pentecost 2

Sermon: Pentecost 2

Sunday 6^th June 2010

Text: Luke 7;11-17

In the name of God: Creator, Pain-bearer and Spirit of Life and Love

Country communities are very different from the city. People are not forced together as in urbanised areas. There is an entirely different feel when living in a country town or rural area as opposed to being in the midst of perhaps 4 to 5 million people such as Melbourne or Sydney. Lives are more closely intertwined. People may not live in such close physical proximity as in a big city but have a closer involvement in each others lives.

My experience has been, and my opinion remains, that people care more about each other in smaller communities. When a death occurs it affects the whole community. Death in a large city is a much more private affair. I recall when one often saw a long procession of cars, headlights on in the middle of the day, driving slower than normal traffic speed, on its way to the cemetery. People would pull over to the side of the road with respect for the deceased, even though their identity was unknown, to allow the funeral cortege to proceed unhindered. Once, whilst visiting Broken Hill we observed such a funeral procession and it was not only the traffic that stopped, the pedestrians also stopped in their tracks and removed their hats until the hearse had passed by. It all sounds very quaint now, doesn’t it? Try taking such a funeral procession through a large city today and it would probably be subjected to horn blowing and abuse for disrupting traffic and delaying people in their mad rush to get somewhere.

The funeral procession we read about in today’s Gospel is nothing like that. The story is unique to Luke. The story takes place in a small Galilean town – it’s in the country. Here is the place where people care and turn out to support those bereaved. Nothing much has changed in that respect; ancient country Israel or 21^st century country Australia.

This small and otherwise insignificant town has its only claim to fame in this story in Luke’s gospel – it is mentioned nowhere else in the bible. It could almost be like a town in our own Adelaide Hills – sitting in the shadow of Mount Lofty.

Mt Tabor near Nain is about the same height as our own hill. Nain means a pleasant place, beauty, and green pasture. It sounds pleasant and a good place to live. But like all places where people live pleasant or unpleasant, the bad and sad events of life still overtake us.

Here in Luke’s story the only son of a widow has died. “That’s sad,” you say “a tragedy – I do feel sorry for her”. But in those days it meant much more than that!

Here there is no superannuation; no widow’s pension; no social security. After her husband’s death her sole means of income and survival rested with the efforts of her only son. Now he has died – she is totally bereft, alone and without any source of income or support. It’s more than sad – it’s more than your average tragedy – it’s a total disaster for her! What is she to do?

Well, practicality says she must first give her son a proper burial – money or no money. It’s a good thing she didn’t live in our time when she would have had to find about $10,000 for a ‘decent funeral’.

This widow represents one of the ‘unseen’ people within our own present day community – those sleeping rough around the city and parklands – those without enough warm clothing or blankets in this time of winter. Notice that Jesus sees her (verse 13). He sees the invisible person – the unseen.

I have this last week been sorting through my vast array of worldly goods. I have come to the conclusion that I, like many of us here today, have far too much. I sorted out what I would need (probably more than) and took the rest including blankets and general linen down to The Magdalene Mission in Carrington street. They were most grateful and said there is a desperate need for blankets and such items at present. And I was just going to push the things into already full cupboards? I felt ashamed that I had even considered such a thing.

I suggest that we all go home and have a serious look at what we can offer.

In this story we also read that when Jesus saw the grieving widow “he had compassion on her” (v13). He saw, not just the immediate grieving at death but the untenable future situation she was facing. How often do we think beyond the obvious at times like these – for we have all experienced such events either in our own lives or in the lives of those we know? Who knows what may lie behind the immediate grief of a bereaved person? Does our compassion extend simply to the handshake and the mumbled ‘sorry for your loss’- or does it go far beyond that to touch and address the deeper needs?

Someone has written “A procession of daily death exits every city [but] a parade of compassion meets it.” People do care! And contrary to popular belief God cares.

Wesley White has written this poem about compassion.

compassion flows
like a gentle river
with the power of a flood
through a marching band in step
in random clown's feet

compassion flows
to counteract pain's presence
loss's agony
with a song for the heart
and a hope reborn

compassion flows
with an invitation
to risk joining
leaving expectations
behind

compassion flows
toward emptiness
touching what is not there
revealing
restoring

When the two groups (Jesus and his crowd of followers – not just the 12 and the crowd of locals following the funeral) meet at the city gate, we hear that "The Lord" is moved with compassion.

Sarah Henrich, Professor of New Testament, Luther Seminary, St. Paul, MN writes:
This is the first time that Luke has used the word "Lord" in relation to Jesus. He is at his most "lordly" as one who shows mercy. This is a very powerful message indeed. Compassion describes the reaction of the Samaritan in Luke 10:33 and the father in 15:20 (the Prodigal son parable).

Both of these parables are unique to Luke, suggesting the high importance of compassion and mercy as qualities of the Lord and of his disciples. Notice that this story does not turn on the presence or absence of faith. Jesus sees, is moved to compassion and acts, not allowing even death to stop him. How does such a Lord lead us? “

Now that’s a very good question. Does he touch us? Does he lead us to have compassion?

Luke portrays Jesus as a manifestation of the ancient God of Israel – here he is – ‘The Lord’ as the word is used in the Old Testament. His power is without limit in Luke’s writing, it even extends to conquer death – surely a power that only God alone may possess? He raises the widow’s son.

We cannot miss the strength of the crowd’s reaction in Luke’s powerful writing. First, they were afraid – an echo of the Old Testament awe of Yahweh perhaps – then saying that “God has visited His people” (V16). Here Luke puts God in their very midst.

We can ask ourselves how can we ‘see God’ today? Well, it’s often in the presence of people such as the ‘invisible and unseen’ in our communities – people like the grieving widow of Nain.

How about a bit of practical Christianity? It’s so easy to sit comfortably in our usual pew in ‘our’ church week by week – to comfort ourselves by partaking of the Eucharist and immersing ourselves in the familiar and beautiful ancient liturgy – then to refresh ourselves with tea and cake before wending our happy way home to a Sunday roast dinner and a quiet winter afternoon by the fire. It’s just so easy isn’t it?
But if we think about it too much we suddenly don’t feel so comfortable.

I challenge you to, like Jesus, reach out and figuratively take the hand of the dead son. God can be in us just as in that ancient story. It’s an uncomfortable thought to many. We can think about giving a few dollars a week to help starving children in stricken countries – we can sort through our cupboards and offer warm blankets or clothing to the Magdalene centre or Anglicare or some other organisation.

Could it even be said of us that through our compassion – our actions and our charity that “God has visited his people”?

The Lord be with you.

Good Friday Sermon

GOOD FRIDAY

2^nd April 2010

Reading: The Passion Gospel

Gospel of St John - Chapters 18 & 19

In the name of God: Creator, Pain bearer and Spirit of Life and Love.

In July 2008 Meredith and I travelled to the beautiful little town of Assisi in Umbria, Italy. We travelled up from Rome by train and then taxi to the top of the hill where the ancient town is set. We stayed there for a week and walked the narrow mediaeval streets and visited the basilica and the tomb of St Francis.

It was a wonderful experience which I will never forget.

Inevitably within the basilica is a shop (even the Queen has one at Buckingham Palace!). Within the shop was a mighty array of souvenirs, ranging from the exquisite and expensive to the downright tawdry – mass produced cheap tourist kitsch.

Prominent amongst this range was the San Damiano cross in a variety of sizes and materials – from the tiny pocket size version probably made in Taiwan and costing a few cents to the large expensive model suitable for the wall or church. I have made a copy of this crucifix and offer it to you for a little Easter reflection. There is a large one in Adelaide featured at the Catholic Church on St Bernard’s Road, Newton.

This morning it is most appropriate that I reflect on the cross and crucifixion. The cross has become the universally recognised symbol of Christianity. There are many styles of cross that people of varied cultures use as a focal point of reflection and worship. They range from the Protestant bare and simple cross, often mounted on the front wall of the church, to the most ornate and artistically contrived bearing the figure of Jesus – sometimes in grotesque agony as would befit a human body subjected to such barbarous treatment - sometimes as something approaching a God figure who is impervious to the physical agony and is reaching out to the peoples of the world in love and power.

The Romans are conservatively estimated to have crucified around one hundred thousand people from the time of the Maccabean revolts in the second century B.C.E. up until Constantine the Great, the first Christian emperor, abolished crucifixion in the Roman Empire in 337 out of veneration for Jesus Christ, its most famous victim.

A cruel prelude to crucifixion was scourging, which would cause the condemned to lose a large amount of blood, and approach a state of shock. The convict then usually had to carry the horizontal beam, but not necessarily the whole cross to the place of execution.

Crucifixion was typically carried out by specialized teams, consisting of a commanding centurion and four soldiers. When it was done in an established place of execution, the vertical beam could even be permanently embedded in the ground. The condemned was usually stripped naked — all the New Testament gospels describe soldiers gambling for the robes of Jesus. (Matthew 27:35, Mark 15:24, Luke 23:34, John 19:23-25)

The 'nails' were tapered iron spikes approximately 5 to 7 inches long, with a square shaft ³⁄₈ inch across.

In his ‘Antiquities’ the Jewish historian Josephus reports that the Romans crucified many people by the walls of Jerusalem during the siege of 70 C.E. The idea was to terrorize the population and force surrender. The number reached 500 a day at one point until there was no suitable wood left in the area. We of this Australian westernised society of the 21^st century find it almost impossible to imagine such a scene of butchery and mayhem. Josephus mentions the crucifixion of Jesus.

Most scholars agree the passage is authentic. He writes:

‘Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, for he was a doer of wonderful works, a teacher. He drew over to him both many of the Jews and many of the Gentiles. And when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us [the Jewish leaders], had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him; And the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day.’

Little did Josephus imagine the turn that history would take so that today, some 1900 years later, the name of Jesus is still almost universally revered.

There is some conflict of opinion here. I am intrigued that Josephus records that Jesus’ disciples did not forsake him. Whereas in the earliest Gospel to be written, that of Mark, he writes in Ch14:50, “[at Jesus’ arrest]... All of them deserted him and fled”. If we accept for a moment the Gospel writer’s version, we see that when the ‘chips were down’ and Jesus and his little band of followers were facing imminent danger, danger whereby their very lives were in jeopardy, they fled.

Where to? Like the ancient story of Jonah, as far away as their feet could carry them – possibly back to Galilee. It is postulated that Jesus died alone, abandoned by his friends and followers.

This is the day when we, so far removed in time and culture from all this, can stop and reflect on these horrible events at Jerusalem. In our own time death is sanitized – the facts are often ‘brushed under the carpet’. Death now is usually a gentle affair, in hospital and made easier by the use of painkilling drugs – a far cry from those barbarous days of the Roman Empire.

But people are still executed in some less enlightened countries – fortunately the human race seems to have progressed at least to the extent that the shocking barbarity of crucifixion no longer exists. In my opinion execution has no place in a civilized society, certainly one that claims to be based on Christianity. It is really based on an ethic of revenge, an ethic that Jesus completely refuted.

Where do we stand amongst our friends and community? Have we, like the disciples, fled in fear from the embarrassment of associating with this Jesus of Nazareth?

Since ordination I have to admit to finding it a little confrontational to go out in public wearing my clerical collar. I am announcing to all and sundry that I am a priest of the Christian Church and a follower of the Nazarene. But I am proud to wear that ‘uniform’ and have found that everyone with whom I have come in contact respect it. I realize that may not always be so but will face that when and if it arises.

Good Friday sets before us a mighty challenge.

Forget the often maudlin manner in which this day is portrayed. The butchery and violence of the first century Roman Empire are in our face.

Jesus rose above that violence with a message of profound love and forgiveness – even to those who drove in the nails.

Where does that leave us today? The very least we can do is to live our lives in open acknowledgement of Christ’s sacrifice. That means living in love both for our loveable neighbour and also all those unlovable people in the community.

Contemplate the San Damiano cross, its intricacies and the direction made to St Francis – “Go out and rebuild the church”.

That’s the simple message of Good Friday.

Not the violence but the love!

THE LORD BE WITH YOU