All Saints

Revelation 7:7-17

⁹ After this I looked, and there was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, robed in white, with palm branches in their hands.
¹⁰ They cried out in a loud voice, saying,
‘Salvation belongs to our God who is seated on the throne, and to the Lamb!’
¹¹ And all the angels stood around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshipped God,
¹² singing,
‘Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom
and thanksgiving and honour
and power and might
be to our God for ever and ever! Amen.’
¹³ Then one of the elders addressed me, saying, ‘Who are these, robed in white, and where have they come from?’
¹⁴ I said to him, ‘Sir, you are the one that knows.’ Then he said to me, ‘These are they who have come out of the great ordeal; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.
¹⁵ For this reason they are before the throne of God,
     and worship him day and night within his temple,
     and the one who is seated on the throne will shelter them.
¹⁶ They will hunger no more, and thirst no more;
     the sun will not strike them,
     nor any scorching heat;
¹⁷ for the Lamb at the centre of the throne will be their shepherd,
     and he will guide them to springs of the water of life,
and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.’

Today we come together in celebration of “All Saints”, all those people who have loved and lived in the light of Christ throughout all of history. It is a time of celebration, but it is also a time of loss. We are people of hope, but hope does not preclude grief. We are resurrection people, but resurrection not the same as being able to magic the people we love back to life and wholeness. So this week is a week to hold the tension of lamenting and being a people who, even at the grave, make our song “alleluia, alleluia, alleluia”.

Within this reality, we are also called to find our identity as living saints. Each of us, by our baptism, has been called to this path. How do we live as saints of Christ, working God’s will in the world among all the temptations and corruption we are embedded in?

John’s revelation was a source of hope to the early Christians who were struggling with loss. We have all experienced loss of some sort – not just that of death, but loss that deserves notice and demands. It comes in leave-takings, as we depart for a new job and home and leave beloved friends and colleagues behind. It comes as you slowly lose a loved one to Alzheimer’s. It comes in the loss of employment or dignity. It comes from struggles with illness both of body and mind. It comes from the exhaustion of caring for a special needs child and the occasional recognition of all the things given up in order to offer that care. It comes from disappointment at home or work or school, of dreams deferred or hopes dashed. It comes from realising a Church community is still a place of human brokenness, and not the safe haven we needed it to be. It even comes from knowing that some of the most valued and loved people in your own life are not going to find the light of God on this side of death. Such loss comes at us from so many sources, and I think there may be value to wondering together how this day could address them as well.

The people this revelation was addressed at were surrounded by the fear and discouragement that comes from a dashing of hope. A time when the loss of a clear identity, independence and even life was imminent. A time when the multitude in white, freely proclaiming God in word and action, must have seemed like a beacon of peace and perfection.

Who were those people robed in white? Who are they?

The vision of the great multitude in Revelation is a startling one if we let it stand on its own. I think the majority view in mainline churches like ours has been to read this passage as if the great multitude were white, Anglo-Saxon, protestant Christian, well educated, liturgically conservative middle- to upper-class! What a pale vision that is! The seer of Revelation says that this multitude comes from every nation, from “all tribes and peoples and languages” (Rev. 7:9). In the First-Century world, I would imagine that as a description of just about every distinction that could divide the human family. In our day and time we have added some distinctions—creed, social class, sexual orientation, political affiliation, just to name a few. But the point of the vision is that the “great multitude” cuts across all of these ways in which we like to divide humanity and segregate others who are different from us.

This is the vision of the kingdom of God. Some people have tried to make it made only of Christians, worse, of the ‘right kind’ of Christians, but that is never said nor implied. When we limit our perceptions of who is welcome, we limit the expansiveness of God’s creative love. Who are we to deny any created creature access to the multitude when Gods very self has welcomed them? If we go back to the very beginning of God’s promise to Abraham, Abraham’s call reaches far beyond the chosen few - “in you all the families of the earth will be blessed”. The implication is clear: from start to finish, God’s purpose is to restore all people. And the vision of the vast and diverse crowd around the throne in Revelation gives us an idea of what that might look like.

In the presence of God, all tears will be wiped away. In the presence of God, all sins are gone. In the presence of God, there is no hunger or thirst, or any physical discomfort that could mar the celebration. The saints are active participants in the life of God, not passively waiting for God to serve them, but washing away the blood of sin and singing praises to our redeemer and Lamb. Such a vital, passionate image of worship and hope! Sheltered, cherished, led to the springs of life by the ultimate guide.

We celebrate this life for the saints, but how do we live it is saints on earth? How do we live out a life of such sanctity and perfection that we are worthy to take our place among the throng?

When we look at the lives of those saints who have gone before us, we find that though they were capable of great acts of mercy and compassion in the name and service of Christ, they were but human, flawed and broken just as we are today. It is here that Lawrence Hull Stookey’s perspective becomes helpful:

“…those we rightly revere are ‘God’s saints’ in the sense that God creates them by grace. Men and women do not by sheer determination and self-discipline become saints. Sanctity is a divine gift. It is indeed the power of the resurrection at work in human lives. Thus commemorating the saints is nothing other than a way of affirming that the transformative power of Christ is at work all about us in human lives…We are saints because God’s sanctity is at work in us, not because on our own we have come to great spiritual attainment. In exploring the lives of the historic saints, it is necessary to be thoroughly honest about their limitations and faults, for only in this way do we come to believe that God can also work in the people around us and even in us, whose faults we know fully well.”²

Such a relief, in a way. A relief to be reminded once again that God is working through my brokenness, shining through my cracks. A relief to know that I am a saint of God not by my virtues but by that of the divine. A relief to be able to continue my feeble and often seemingly ineffective moves to make the kingdom of God real today in the knowledge that it is not merely my will and energy that are directing the move but the force of the Spirit moving through me.

Above all this, there is the joy of knowing that I shall be made whole, and that all I love shall be made whole. That loss does not mark the end, but a new beginning. That even in the middle of pain and suffering, Jesus is there in the mud, sitting with us as we cry and mourning as we mourn, with God wiping every tear from our eye. That when are finally returned to our ultimate destination, we will join that multitude and truly sing

‘Blessing and glory and wisdom
and thanksgiving and honour
and power and might
be to our God for ever and ever!’

Amen.

Sermon 29-10-14 - Living Dangerously

Ephesians 6:1-9

¹ Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. ² ‘Honour your father and mother’—this is the first commandment with a promise: ³ ‘so that it may be well with you and you may live long on the earth.’ ⁴ And, fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. ⁵ Slaves, obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling, in singleness of heart, as you obey Christ; ⁶ not only while being watched, and in order to please them, but as slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart. ⁷ Render service with enthusiasm, as to the Lord and not to men and women, ⁸ knowing that whatever good we do, we will receive the same again from the Lord, whether we are slaves or free. ⁹ And, masters, do the same to them. Stop threatening them, for you know that both of you have the same Master in heaven, and with him there is no partiality.

Luke 13:30  ‘Indeed, some are last who will be first, and some are first who will be last.’

It is a dangerous thing, to read the Bible. Something that I believe should not be attempted alone. Look at the writings attributed to Paul. Paul was a revolutionary, a visionary, and a true man of God. He was also human, and a Jew, and an educated man in an age where to be a man was to be at the top of the privileged heap. Paul’s words have been used to prolong and justify the suppression of women, to deny acceptance, support and love for our Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender brothers and sisters and, as in this passage we heard today, to keep fellow humans in slavery. How do we, as part of a movement trying to eradicate the evil of slavery, inequality and violence, find our truth in such words?

For all of his radical and innovative ideas about the true nature of God as revealed in Christ, Paul as a proponent of the new Christian Church movement had no interest in stirring up an already hostile society to the point where this new fledged religion became a problem that had to be dealt with. Admittedly, Paul didn’t have the advantage of having the Bible in front of him for his perusal and guidance, and we don’t have the advantage of knowing the exact context in which Paul was writing his letters. We are people of the Word, and we have to take the Word of God as revealed in our Scriptures very seriously. Having said that, what do we worship – our bible or our God?

To understand how Jesus can be found in this passage we have to have a critical understanding of the context in which this matter was being addressed. In Ephesians 6:1-9, following his words to husbands and wives, Paul continues to give practical advice to those living under the one roof. Often a family home included three generations and slaves. Men were the masters of their households, and although some men and women undoubtedly loved each other, society required that the man exercised total control over his affairs and his family. This included the decision on whether infants of any kind, slave or free, were to be kept or discarded. As long as a child’s father lived, the child was under the father’s absolute power. The son or daughter could be a grown person and still be beaten, and or at the father’s whim have their very lives taken from them.

This is where Paul’s words become Christ like. Not only are children called to obey their parents, but fathers in particular are called to treat their children with love and respect. Once again we have a rule built on relationship, giving guidelines for how to treat each other with mutual love and respect. The promise of living in this way is that we will live long on this earth – which taken at face value belies our experience of even the most God honouring families who meet with turmoil and strife. Keeping in mind that the Jewish understanding of a long and prosperous life was based on male descendants, Paul’s reason for quoting this ‘promise’ was to draw attention to the ideal that as people grew older, parents and children would not go their separate ways, but care for each other in love.  Such a message was as important for the first century as it is for today.

Trickier than this is the next few verses dealing with slavery. These words, and those like it, were used to justify the practice of slavery for centuries. Indeed, slavery in accepted within the scriptures as a constant part of life and it is never explicitly condemned. American slaveholders in the 19th century felt vindicated by Old Testament passages regulating slavery and New Testament passages urging slaves to serve their masters faithfully. At the same time, American slaves drew strength from the Exodus story of the liberation of God’s people. Abolitionists founded their cause on the biblical calls for justice and the simple dictum to “do to others as you would have them do to you” (Matthew 7:12 and Luke 6:31).

Whether we like it or not, there are many instances in our Bible where the actions of God and God’s people seem to call into question our own understanding of right or wrong. How do we reconcile a God of love and liberation with one that could seemingly endorse such practices as genocide, violence towards women and slavery? There are many ways to do this. Some simply accept that God has reasons for things that are beyond our knowing, and that includes situations that we now see as intolerable. Others use these passages as a reason to rail against the Bible and all it stands for, or go to the opposite extreme and use the word of God to wound our brothers and sisters to the point where reconciliation can be impossible. In my research for this topic, many commentators used this passage to refer to the relationship between employee and employer, as if this we can just ‘update’ the language to make it more palatable to our modern ears.

For me, this is intolerable.

If we are to be authentic and faithful children of God, we have to acknowledge and accept that sometimes, even the best of us get it wrong. Sometimes, times change for the better – and we have to change with them. At the time this letter was written, most of the Roman Empire were either slaves or slave owners. It was a common, indeed, essential part of the Roman economy. It was a radical, almost unthinkable idea that masters should treat their slaves with any kind of empathy and compassion, let alone what we see as basic human rights. To assert that slaves and masters were somehow answerable to the same God, that indeed God shows no partiality to our earthly roles and distinctions, was to walk on dangerous grounds.

Are we really so different today? Certainly the Church as a whole has a long way to go before we are truly showing no partiality in our acknowledgment in the basic humanity of all people. Thinking of the ‘clobber texts’, as they are known, to justify the exclusion of people based on their race or sexual orientation, are we really that much better than those who saw slavery as not only a right but God given? How often do we allow the still small voice of God to be heard as we race to improve and retain our own status within society and the Church? What relationship dividers do we cling to because we are too frightened to change?

It is a dangerous thing, to read the bible. But it also contains the Good News. In God, there is no partiality. There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for we are all one in Christ Jesus. The last will be first, and the first will be last. No matter how we read the bible, this is clear. We are loved. And we are saved.

The sermon which I thought I'd lost, then found in the bin. Thanks, tidy person!

Matthew 22:15-21

Then the Pharisees went and plotted to entrap him in what he said.  So they sent their disciples to him, along with the Herodians, saying, ‘Teacher, we know that you are sincere, and teach the way of God in accordance with truth, and show deference to no one; for you do not regard people with partiality.  Tell us, then, what you think. Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, or not?’  But Jesus, aware of their malice, said, ‘Why are you putting me to the test, you hypocrites?  Show me the coin used for the tax.’ And they brought him a denarius.  Then he said to them, ‘Whose head is this, and whose title?’  They answered, ‘The emperor’s.’ Then he said to them, ‘Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s.’  When they heard this, they were amazed; and they left him and went away.  The same day some Sadducees came to him, saying there is no resurrection; and they asked him a question, saying,  ‘Teacher, Moses said, “If a man dies childless, his brother shall marry the widow, and raise up children for his brother.”  Now there were seven brothers among us; the first married, and died childless, leaving the widow to his brother.  The second did the same, so also the third, down to the seventh.  Last of all, the woman herself died.  In the resurrection, then, whose wife of the seven will she be? For all of them had married her.’  Jesus answered them, ‘You are wrong, because you know neither the scriptures nor the power of God.  For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven.  And as for the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was said to you by God,  “I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob”? He is God not of the dead, but of the living.’  And when the crowd heard it, they were astounded at his teaching.

A man suffered a serious heart attack and had an open heart bypass surgery. He woke up from the surgery to find himself in the care of nuns at a Catholic Hospital.

As he was recovering, a nun asked him questions regarding how he was going to pay for his treatment. “Do you have health insurance?”

"No,” the man croaked. “No health insurance."

“Do you have any money in the bank?”

"No money in the bank."

"Do you have a relative who could help you?" asked the nun.

"I only have a spinster sister. She is a nun."

The nun bristled. "Nuns are not spinsters! Nuns are married to God."

“Alright, already!” croaked the patient. "Send the bill to my brother-in-law."

Does it seem to anyone else that the only time we talk about money in Church is when we’re asking for it? Money is a tricky and ultimately very personal subject – people are more likely to ask for intimate details of your baby making activities than about your paycheck. Yet Jesus mentions money more than any other topic we have recorded in the Gospels! The way we earn our money, the way we spend and give it, form a large part of our identity – as individuals, as a community and as a country.

People, both pastors and politicians, have used these verses in many, often dubious, ways. Some will tell you that Jesus was intending to keep religion and politics separate – forgetting that Jesus was the greatest proponent of political reform in history. Others say that this story proves that religion is a matter of the heart, and that Jesus doesn’t really care about mundane things like what you do with your money. And some have cited this passage as proof that Jesus taught that the law is the law, and our duty as Christians is to support the government no matter what.

Rubbish.

I am the first to admit that I am no expert in political or social studies – but I am trying really hard to become an expert (haha) on my relationship with God. And I can tell you know that the Jesus I know cares very much about the ‘mundane’ things of life, and was certainly not known for supporting a government that was prone to corruption and injustice.

Matthew’s Jesus has already spoken on the subject of money and divided loyalties: “No one can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth” (6:24).  Jesus is making a political statement right from the very beginning of this passage – he asks for a Roman denarius to be brought to him. This was the currency of the ruling invaders – no devoted and observant Jew would carry such an item on their person. He then asks them what ‘image’ there is on the coin. The image of course was of the Roman emperor, emphasising his divinity and status as the high priest of the state religion. The image was of a man who was also a God, who was present at every gathering and whose power was undisputed – sound familiar? 

By bearing and using this coin, a person was tagged and committed as participant in the Roman state and economy. Jesus’ words, ‘give to the emperor’, indicate the repaying of a debt. By owning and using this coin we benefit from the prevailing authorities. We must acknowledge our privilege as part of an economic majority before we can think to remove ourselves from it. The emperor gives and the emperor can take away – could we say the same for those who supply our currency?

The ruling powers give nothing for free. Whether we possess coins, prerogatives, influence, opportunities or status, they will demand some sort of fealty in return. Are we willing to pay that price? Where do our loyalties lie?

All of this makes it harder for us as individual Christians to decide where our loyalties lie. WE are competing with many loyalties and influences – and few of them are from God.

For one thing, to be a member of society -- simply to be in the game -- puts me at risk of becoming complicit in society's blasphemies. As a Lenten discipline 5 years ago I vowed to not purchase any new item of clothing for myself or my family unless I knew the makers had been paid a fair and reasonable wage. I have kept that up, because once the appalling practices and conditions behind cheap clothing was seen it could not be unseen. But still the war in my head and heart goes on – when I buy my milk, has the farmer been paid a fair price? When I buy my chocolate, have children lost their childhood and their lives in order to produce it? When I vote, how is the candidate and party I am supporting treating those most in need of our compassion?

Second, Jesus calls our attention to the dangers of seeking power or courting the establishment. As someone who is active within and restricted by the Anglican communion by which I am licenced, I have chosen to work within a structure that I see as being occasionally faulty and sometimes actually against God (I’m not talking about the parish level here, by the way, but the Anglican communion overall). I enjoy the benefits of having some power within this structure. If I was to decide that this structure had strayed so far beyond God’s will that it was irredeemable, would I be able to leave, with all the social, economic and spiritual pain that would ensue?

Finally, what is true for Churces is the same for individuals. Am I in danger of courting the worthy goals of safety, security, freedom and status for myself and my family at the expense of another?

Jesus is famous for his ambiguity. And here, as always, there is no clear pathway through the moral maze he has presented. But one thing is clear – as I negotiate and navigate my way, my overarching goal must always be to give to God all the things that are God’s. As a created being in the image of God, that would include me.