Pentecost 8: life in God is where we are wealthy.

Sermon by Anne East
Readings: Luke 12: 13-21, Colossians 3: 1-11

There’s a cartoon from the comic strip ‘Peanuts” that has been doing the rounds recently on social media. It shows Charlie Brown and Snoopy sitting by the side of a lake, with their backs to us, looking out over the water. Charlie Brown is saying, “Some day, we will all die, Snoopy.” And Snoopy says, “True, but on all the other days, we will not.” It all depends how you look at it! The parable Jesus tells of the  rich fool and his barns, is not about death, but about life: about the way to live, not about the need to die.

Jesus is talking to his disciples about his mission and his identity when someone interrupts him and asks him to arbitrate in a property dispute, to sort out a family squabble. He asks Jesus to tell his brother to divide an inheritance with him. According to Judaic inheritance practices, an older brother would receive two thirds of an estate while the younger would receive one third. The questioner in this case is asking Jesus to help him possess his rightful share.

Jesus doesn’t get drawn into the details of this case, but says, “Well, let’s look at this differently – life is about more than possessions.” So, as he often did, Jesus tells a story, but unlike the stories of the Good Samaritan, the Lost Sheep, the Prodigal Son, this one doesn’t involve a last minute rescue and a happy ending. A rich man harvests a bumper crop, more than he can deal with. He plans to tear down his old barns, build larger ones to store his crops in and then sit back and enjoy the excess. He stands as a negative example, this is how not to live as a follower of Jesus. In the end, the man’s days are numbered, and death separates him from his overflowing barns.

Note that the man in the story is not just a simple farmer with a small plot of land, but someone who controls much of the agricultural produce of the whole district. And he doesn’t see his plentiful harvest as a generous blessing from God, but as something of a dilemma, because he doesn’t have enough storage space.

Of course it is prudent to gather in the bountiful harvest and save it for the future, that is exactly what Joseph instructed Pharaoh to do when the dreams showed that seven years of plenty would be followed by seven years of famine. But this particular rich man is no Joseph acting wisely for the benefit of those in need. This is about Greed, the desire for more, where enough is not enough. This rich man had enough and to spare - he had so much that he couldn’t store it all. Did others around him have enough food? Did he bother to find out? Did he call to mind God’s frequent insistence that we should feed the hungry, clothe the naked, give to the poor? No, he didn’t. He was only thinking of himself, of having all the good things stored up for years to come. And in future times of scarcity, of course, he would become even richer, as others became dependent on him and the price he sets for food.

There is nothing wrong with prudent planning for the future – we have to do that here at St Margaret’s to look after and repair our building, pay our bills. But we know it is important that we do more than that – we need to make provision for supporting other poorer churches, our local communities and charities.

Greed applies to more than money, it can be a craving for the things that our culture sees as bestowing status and privilege: this house, this car, this latest gadget.

Greed can give rise to oppression and exploitation. For example - I want to wear nice clothes, to feel smart and be well-dressed, but what if those clothes are made, packed and despatched by people working in dreadful conditions? Clothes are among the items most at risk of being produced through modern slavery, it’s an industry where women make up a staggering 80% of the global workforce. Does my greed allow me to think of that when I’m looking at a pretty shirt I want to buy? This challenges me.

When is ‘enough”? The text doesn’t tell me that! It doesn’t give specific answers to our questions about possessions, it doesn’t provide rues that define how much is ‘enough’, what I should limit, where I should draw the line. But it prods me to think about these things.

Paul offers some suggestions to the people of Colossae. He lists the things that we should get rid of: anger, wrath, malice, slander, abusive language and lying. He offers the image of stripping off our old self and putting on a new self. Paul encourages us to see that God is so near to us it’s like being newly clothed. I am reminded of that wonderful image from the writings of Julian of Norwich, “He is our clothing”. For Julia, it is an image of the closeness of God: “He is our clothing, He wraps and holds us. He enfolds us for love and will not let us go.” Here is treasure, here are riches. Our life in God is where we are wealthy.

Our Gospel reading ends with Jesus commenting on those who ‘store up treasures for themselves’ but are not ‘rich towards God’. How can we as individuals, and as a community, live richly towards God? One answer might be that it means to live as if we are already in heaven, bringing the values and priorities of God into our thoughts, our activities, our way of being in this world.

A final word on riches: The Blackfoot tribe of North American indigenous people used to have a Blanket Ceremony each year. Blankets represented wealth. They saved all the year round to buy blankets, and when the ceremony came, they gave them away. The person who was able to give away the most blankets was counted the richest. The richest person is not the one who possesses most, but who has given most away.

Pentecost 6: Stop and listen

6th Sunday after Pentecost
Sermon by the Reverend Doctor Brutus Green
Readings: Genesis 18:1-10a, Colossians 1:15-28, Luke 10:38-42

This week has made it very clear to me why Roman Catholic priests are not allowed to marry. Our boy, Oberon has had a tummy bug, which has caused him to be somewhat challenging. My current wife has been in the last week of rehearsals so gone long hours, and I’ve had friends staying from Chile, with their three children, who also proved susceptible to the tummy bug. And to cap it all my darling greyhound Zizi was savagely assaulted just yesterday by a marauding villainous cat, who took his gentle offer of friendship as an opportunity for a violent swipe across the nose. Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing. 

This Gospel text was used in earlier times as the basis for prioritising the religious life – think nuns and monks – over the life of ordinary parish clergy. In Joachim of Fiore’s twelfth century representation, it’s monks and nuns, the Benedictines, Franciscans, the Carmelites, the Discalced Carmelites – who populate the eternal city, with so-called ‘secular clergy’ – even then a dirty word – like vicars outside the city walls. Distracted by building works, printing contracts, playgroups and fencing, we, with our congregations are the Marthas of this world. The laity, God help them, in this design, live about 3 miles out in the New Jerusalem’s equivalent of Croydon. There he notes, they will all have their own craft, and simple food and clothing. Sounds heavenly doesn’t it?

Rudyard Kipling, that energetic soul, wrote in our defence a poem called the Sons of Martha, which begins:

THE Sons of Mary seldom bother, for they have inherited that good part;
But the Sons of Martha favour their Mother of the careful soul and the troubled heart.
And because she lost her temper once, and because she was rude to the Lord her Guest,
Her Sons must wait upon Mary's Sons, world without end, reprieve, or rest.

You might notice Anne East is away in North Wales doing some creative writing. She is our Mary earning the gold stars ‘which will not be taken away from her.’ Have we then chosen the worse part? Do we put works before faith, action before thought? Should we refuse to work, to go on rotas, to make coffee, out of fear of becoming a Martha?

There is though another tradition in the Bible that sees any spirituality, without social concern, as heresy. So the prophet Micah tells us that the Lord requires us only ‘to do justice, to love kindness and to walk humbly with God’; Isaiah to ‘learn to do good, seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow’. St James’ epistle famously says: ‘Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress’ and Jesus says, ‘I desire mercy and not sacrifice.’ St Paul is a little more stark, reminding his new churches that he also works as a tent maker, and those who don’t work, shouldn’t eat. For those of you currently not in employment don’t worry; you’ll still get biscuits with your coffee after the service.  

So perhaps there’s an overstating of the case with this passage. After all it’s simply the case that Mary has sat down to listen, while Martha is fussily getting on with being the perfect hostess and making the house nice. But, again, this is no denigration of hospitality. In the ancient world there is no higher calling, nor any crime greater than betraying it. Many of the direst warnings, Sodom and Gomorrah being one, are related to it, and in our Old Testament reading today, Abraham entertains angels without knowing it, and by his actions brings about the first covenant of the Old Testament.

But to begin with, there may be some very human, very relatable issues going on in today’s Gospel. For a start we’re dealing with sisters, and all sibling relationships all have that whiff of competition; families are wonderful things but habits, learned early in life, are not easily shaken no matter how holy, how sophisticated you become. You can never truly become a priest to your parents, for example, you will always first of all be the darling curly haired cherub or the moody teenager; which may not perfectly encapsulate how you feel about yourself at 40.

So what sister would not feel a smidgeon resentful seeing her sibling with Jesus while she was doing what she felt was necessary? And perhaps to make the point Martha in her outrage had been a little extra zealous in her duties to prove herself and to make her sister’s laziness the more apparent. Mentioning ‘Zeal’ I like Bertrand Russel’s observation: ‘Zeal is a bad mark for a cause. Nobody has zeal about arithmentic. It is not the vaccinationists but the anti-vaccinationists who generate zeal. People are zealous for a cause when they are not quite positive that it’s true.’ Plus ça change.

But there’s also a bigger question about means and ends here. From time to time Rhiannon has cooked dinner for friends. Her usual protocol is for guests to arrive around 7 but not to eat till shortly after 11. Sometime around 10.30 Rhiannon will burst in complaining of not having talked to anyone all night and demanding, midway through a vital discussion of C Company’s flanking attack on Argentinian positions at Goose Green, that I immediately finish off the potato dauphinoise. The dinner is always delicious but we have to move house afterwards because the kitchen is uninhabitable.

Now if creating a culinary masterpiece was your primary objective, this would be fine.  But if actually you wanted to spend a relaxed evening with friends, then a rudimentary slow cooked coq-au-vin, prepared in the morning is a better option, or even a hearty beans-on-toast. The vicarage cook-book is out in the Fall.

I share this allegory, not to take advantage of my wife being away, but to highlight the significance of mistaking ends for means. If the end you want is to spend time with friends, don’t arrange matters so that you’re in a different room from them the entire evening. If you want to spend time with Jesus, don’t run around hoovering and preparing the perfect canapes in the hope of impressing him. And on this subject, it’s perfectly possible to spend an entire life getting yourself, the house, the children ready for a vague end that never happens: to spend your hours, days, weeks, months tidying, cleaning, laundering, getting the admin, the emails done. But for what? If there’s not also that time to be enjoyed, when you are not preparing for the next thing, but simply in the moment, then you’ve put the means before the end.

Equally this applies quite immediately to church. Whether you come for the hymns, the sermons, communion, a moment of quiet, if you’ve ruled yourself out of all those things because you’re on three rotas; something’s gone wrong. And if you’re not getting anything out of church except the feeling of being useful, it’s not enough. That’s not a primary reason for coming to church. There is more on offer! Because actually this story is not an allegory for how the vita contemplativa is a higher calling than the vita activa. But a reminder that we need to stop and listen; that in a world that looks scornfully on those who aren’t busy; that seeks to fill the unforgiving minute with a relentless barrage of notifications, you’ll lose yourself if you cannot sit for a moment with Jesus. That is the better part.

So perhaps Jesus here is just asking what’s really important? Isn’t it just spending time together? And as time is our most valuable commodity, it’s a good indication of how much we value an aspect of our life. Surely, 5 minutes spent in prayer is not 5 minutes wasted. So even if we can’t give our entire lives over to contemplation perhaps we can find time, good time, to commit to prayer. Time that goes beyond a 10 minute slot where 8 minutes are spent looking for matches to light an unnecessary candle. We may even be surprised by what a brief spell of meditation and reflection each day can bring to our lives. Things have been going quite well for the politician who likened prayer to Magic FM in the chilterns.

But neither is that the only important use of our time. Mary sat with Jesus as a friend, and as a teacher. It’s easy to be frivolous with our time, when like the parable of the talents, it’s a gift given to us. We can use it for work, for friendship, for families, to extend ourselves in a thousand ways. We can also waste it, hide in it, watch it pass by. Spend it on Netflix. How you spend your time shows what you really value. Sometimes we might ask ourselves then whether we haven’t been distracted by many things, and whether we have missed the one thing, the better part.

Are we distracted Marthas? Are we present - to our friends – to our God – like Mary?

Pentecost 5: What must I do?

5th Sunday after Pentecost

Sermon by the Reverend Doctor Brutus Green

Readings: Deuteronomy 30:9-14, Colossians 1:1-14, Luke 10:25-37

What do I have to do to be a good person?

It’s the wrong question.

What must I do to inherit eternal life?

Again, you lawyers, the wrong question.

They are reasonable questions. Excellent lawyer questions. Am I good? Am I good enough? What should I be doing?

Today’s Gospel’s very familiar. Every child knows and instinctively understands it. A few times during show-and-tell when children are asked what can they do to be better, we hear “helping people when they fall over, or when they’re hurt.” Second usually to the washing up.

How well people take it in is another matter. There was a famous study done on seminarians in America.  A situation was set up where the students were gathered in a hall and given certain tasks.  They were then told to move to another building where they would give a short talk on the parable of the Good Samaritan. On the way a man had been placed slumped in an alleyway. According to the research, only 40% of the students stopped to help. When the students were told they must hurry to their next event, only 10% stopped.  One student even stepped over the prone man, on his way to give a talk on the Good Samaritan, so urgent did he feel was the need to share his insight on this important parable. But we shouldn’t judge. Should we?

The context here is important. Notice that it’s a lawyer who asks the question, to test Jesus. The question he asks, is what must I do to inherit eternal life? And his second question makes his concern even clearer “wanting to justify himself”, he asked, ‘who is my neighbour?’ The motivation of the man is concern over himself. He wants to be good. He wants to inherit eternal life. He wants to justify himself. What must I do?

If Jesus was straightforwardly answering the lawyer’s question you’d expect a different set up. You’d expect the man in the ditch to be the Samaritan. The Jews didn’t like Samaritans. They’d intermarried with the Assyrians, so weren’t fully Jewish;  and their religious practices varied from the Jews.  They had different Scripture and didn’t worship at the Temple in Jerusalem as all Jews did. They were something like the Mormons of their day. So if the guy in the ditch was the Samaritan that would give us the basic set up of: “Who’s your neighbour?” Even a Samaritan is your neighbour. Be nice.

But Jesus doesn’t do that. The Samaritan is the hero, not the neighbour. Now parables on one level, are simply illustrations. You might ask, what does forgiveness look like? I’ll tell you the Prodigal Son. Does God love even lowly old me? I’ll tell you the shepherd who left his flock to seek out the one that got away. But Jesus’ parables are more than this. They have a very specific aim. To cut through self-deception. Parables should make you uncomfortable. They want to change you; to convert you. And to do this they come through a story. Because only a story has the subtlety, the ambiguity, the openness to interpretation to challenge the hearer not just on facts, on laws, on thou should, thou should not; but to challenge your presumptions. They have to surprise. The Word is very near you. But it’s not what you expect.

So our dear lawyer, wants to be good. He wants to inherit eternal life. He wants to be a good Jew. He knows he must love God and his neighbour. He keeps the commandments so he figures he’s ticked the God box. Now he’s asking how far, how many people, do I need to love in order to tick that neighbour box. A reasonable, lawyerly approach.

Like a fairy tale we have three characters. Our first on the highway is the priest. He’s in a compromising situation. On the one hand, he has official duties, which he cannot perform for a week if he touches a dead body. Although there’s equally an argument from Jewish law that preservation of life is a first principle and that despite becoming unclean his first duty is to help the man. You might think this is an ideal opportunity to take a justifiable week off work, but I’m not totally clear on whether the Temple had a policy for “unclean-pay” while people were off duty. Anyway, there’s an argument with the priest that he has a legal responsibility to walk on by. Of course, the very clear and present threat of bandits might be enough to hasten his steps. The Levite as a layman is free from public responsibilities, but will still wish to avoid becoming unclean and ruining his holiday. He is, after all, also on his way to Jerusalem, where unlike the Samaritan Jews go to worship. But both these figures are clearly Jews, who know the Law, and you should expect them to consider this left-for-dead man, their neighbour.

Now enter the Samaritan. And we’re told ‘he was moved with pity’. Not ‘he asked himself what does it mean to be good or how might I inherit eternal life?’ ‘Not he asked himself, “Who is my neighbour - is this man my neighbour.” He was moved with pity.

And look how he responds. He knows to use oil and wine on wounds — that is he has some basic first aid understanding, and the means with which to clean the wounds. He’s not just “trying to help, looking useful or trying to be nice” He has the skill to make a difference.  And then he spends time with him, makes sure he’s recovering and pays what would be several hundred pounds for someone to look after him. So he has the means to deal with this. He’s not trying to do something for which he’s ill-equipped or untrained, that might, despite intentions, make matters worse. And he’s not bothered to stick around to seek the reward, the thanks, the praise. He’s not sacrificing his entire life and so giving himself the chance to tell everyone how good he is, at what cost, or limiting the impact of other good he can achieve. He doesn’t need to be needed. He has not then troubled himself with the question of whether he should do this? Who is his neighbour? What will he receive for his actions? He was moved with pity. He recognised the human need and responded immediately with no desire, except to help the person in need. 

*** 

Jesus has shifted the conversation. The lawyer has asked, ‘What must I do’ ‘how can I be justified?’ The Samaritan has simply connected with the injured man. He was moved with pity. He’s not done it for the Law, to be good, justified, to inherit eternal life. He is not acting for himself, out of concern for himself, but for the other person.

The lawyer has asked ‘who is my neighbour’ to ascertain the loop holes. Like the priest and the Levite he wishes to be justified but doesn’t want to take unnecessary risk; get his hands unnecessarily dirty. What must I do to inherit eternal life. He is thinking of his virtue, his salvation as something he can achieve.

Jesus has told a story about a man who is not a Jew; who doesn’t follow the same law; doesn’t worship in the temple; is not socially acceptable to these people. And in the context of ‘what must I do to inherit eternal life? How may I be saved?’ It is this Samaritan, this man of another religion, this outcast, who is the paradigm. The law, the temple fall before the fact that this man was moved with pity, and responded spontaneously to human need. Jesus is asked ‘who is the neighbour I must love?’ He responds by pointing out ‘you haven’t yet worked out how to love.’ Loving begins with the other person.

So what does this mean for us? Well, firstly, it’s a warning against thinking that we’ve got it all sewn up; that you or St Margaret’s has nailed down what it means to be good, to follow Christ, to inherit eternal life. The parables are there to surprise us; to cut through our self-deception; they are a mirror to the laziness of our moral compass.

Secondly, it’s a reminder that we don’t inherit eternal life by racking up a list of good works, by ticking off our church and charity checklist. Jesus teaches us to pray for grace, and in that to find the love that enables us to connect with other people. And so be ready to respond when we meet that need on the road.

So what must I do? Connect - see that your salvation is bound up with your brothers and sisters. Salvation is like love, it begins when two or three are gathered. Try not to rush. People who are rushing are moving too fast to see the people in the road. And be ready. Ready to offer the crucial help, to have the skills and resources needed when the moment arises. Ready to be moved with pity; to see in the people you meet on the road, that need and vulnerability that is waiting for love. Go and do likewise.