Luke 15:1-3, 11-24

Jesus upset the Pharisees, the good religious folk of his day.    What sort of God did he represent? He mixed with the wrong people, enjoyed life and parties, and worse openly welcomed people that were considered sinners and beyond the pail.  When the Pharisees grumbled he simply told some stories.  There was the story of the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the story we read this morning. 

It begins with a simple little opening.  A man had two sons and the younger comes and asks for his inheritance – half the farm.  “Give me the share of the property that will belong to me.” And so the father divides the property and gives him his share.    We read these words with ease but I invite you to stop and reflect what you might do if one of your children came and said, “I would like my inheritance now.”  I can almost guarantee you’ll react inside at least with some anger and hurt.  In Middle Eastern culture the father reigned supreme.  No true son would dream of asking this question, and if he did, he could expect a very clear message.  Asking for your inheritance now is rude, inappropriate, and unacceptable.  Further, this father knew the character of the son.  He was the wild impulsive one and the father would know that there was every chance that the land would be cashed up and the proceeds wasted and lost to the family forever.  Everyone listening would simply expect the father to say ‘no’ and to tell the disrespectful son to go jump! 

But this father is screw loose, crazy, different.  He simply let’s the son have his way.  He simply lets the son make his wild choices and instead of putting him in his place lets him freely choose his path.

It didn’t take long for the worst fears of everyone to be realized as the younger son cashed in the assets and head off to another country turning his back on his dad, his family, and his religion.  You can just imagine what the village gossips were saying about the crazy father, and maybe you can just imagine how the father felt as his younger son left possibly without even a word of farewell.  In the background the older son was absolutely fuming and would have gladly wrung his brother’s neck.  He could see his dad hurting.  The family had not only lost half their farm but were now deeply troubled and divided.

The younger son meanwhile was having a great time.    My Bible says he “squandered the money in dissolute living.”  That’s living without moral constraint, or as we might say loose living – parties, wild living, women, fast cars, and booze. 

It didn’t last, and just as the money ran out a severe famine hit the far off land and the son disassociated from any of the normal support networks finds himself at rock bottom.  A Jewish boy ends up feeding pigs wishing he could eat what the pigs were eating.  You can’t get much more desperate as a Jew.  He is in a distant country isolated and lonely.  There is it seems no-one who would know or care what was going on inside him.  He is lost.  He is far away from his father’s home.  Both literally and figuratively there is a deep void and emptiness within. The story simply says he came to his senses.  It is often the way that it takes a deep crises to face up to things in our lives.  For the son it was time to swallow whatever little pride he had  left and realize there was a better life back home.   This wasn’t going to be easy – he had no idea how he might be received.  There would be anger no doubt and judgment, and things could never be as they were.  But maybe there would also be some mercy , just a little mercy and he could serve as a labourer on the farm.  And so he prepares his little speech that comes from deep within.  Father I have sinned against heaven and against you.  I am no longer worthy to be called your son, treat me like one of your hired hands.  It’s his only hope of life, so this bedraggled, skin and bone lump of  flesh sets off with his last play of the dice. 

Word travels and while he was still  far off the scriptures tell us the father saw him and was “filled with compassion.”  Full up with Compassion.  The father ran to meet him….. no father in these times ran it simply wasn’t the done thing.  The queen would never run in public.  He immediately throws his arms around him and kisses him a sign of welcome and acceptance that even in our culture we understand well.  I might add that this welcome I believe would have saved the son from a stoning at the hands of the locals who would not want this boy back in their midst.  They remembered well how he had shamed his family and turned his back on them all and in typical middle eastern fashion they would ensure he didn’t come back into their midst. 

The boy however is oblivious.  He knows he’s really gone off the rails so even after the welcome from his Dad he splutters out his little speech.  Father I have sinned against heaven and against you.  I am no longer worthy to be called your son, treat me like one of your hired hands.  But the father simply doesn’t hear him.  He’s busy ordering his servants to bring a robe – the family robe- to put a ring on his finger and shoes on his feet. These are all the signs that this boy is not a servant but is one of the family, and not only one of the family but an important respected key member of the family- a son.  The father orders the fatted calf to be killed, – my Bible has a little note: meat was not often eaten so killing the fatted calf was a sign of a very special celebration, and of course this little episode has lived on in our language where still we use the metaphor of killing the fatted calf to signify a special celebration.

The father blesses him with the gift of amazing acceptance. Despite the hurt, the disaster of his life, there is grace and acceptance.  You are mine.  My son was dead but now he is alive, and they began to celebrate….well all but the faithful older son who was fuming…..judging…..and unbeknown to him as lost as the younger son was.  He has never left home.  He has always done the right thing.  He was a good boy and a model son.  He has never rebelled or turned his back on his dad or family, but sadly he has also never really got to know his father and the compassion that was key to his character.  There’s no way he’s going to accept this younger son – not after what he did and the hurt he’s caused.  There is no compassion, just judgment.

So why does Jesus tell this story and what do you make of the story?  Who do you think you resonate with in terms of your life?  The younger son, the older son, the father?  Maybe a bit of all of them.

I am the prodigal son every time I search for unconditional love where it cannot be found- in the search for success, in the making of money, in seeking the praise of others.   I know in my heart the far off place – the distant country.  I know the fathers love, but I forget.  My rebellion is Adam’s rebellion: the rejection of God in whose love we are created and by whose love we are sustained.  It is the rebellion of the world around me, where overflowing compassion is irrational and crazy.  It’s simply not how the world works…. But it is how God works.     

I am also the older son, the good boy who tries to please the father in the hope that this will earn my salvation.  I keep busy doing good things hoping this will please God and obtain the eternal stamp of approval my soul longs to know. 

But isn’t the story really about the father.  The crazy father.  I often call this story the story of the crazy father because that’s what the father was.  Absolutely crazy.  Irrationally compassionate.  Totally at odds with the way of the world.

But I do see.  I see the carving before us and am reminded that God is a crazy father who never stops believing and never stop longing, and never stops longing to bless.  Every so often it rubs off and I find my true self, I come to my senses and I live the life God intended.  I am no longer lost or alienated but caught up in the compassion of God I too am compassionate.  Praise God! 

Here in this story the spiritual mystery of my life is unveiled. I am loved so much that I am left free to leave home. But the crazy Father is always out looking for me and you with outstretched arms to welcome us back and whisper again in our ear: ‘You are my Beloved’.‘   Such is the Father that we see in Jesus Christ our Saviour.  Such is the good news of Jesus who invites us to put our trust in our God of crazy compassion.

The Banquet…. Isaiah 25: 6-10, Luke 14:15-24,

Have you ever noticed that Jesus liked a good nosh up.  He talks a lot about feasts.  He turned the water into wine at Cana to have a good banquet.  Zacchaeus had an interesting meal with him, Simon the Pharisee got more than he bargained for when he invited Jesus to a banquet.  The feeding of the 5000….The upright Pharisees accused him of eating and drinking too often and too much. 

Feasts still are an important part of most cultures.  Take a wedding feast for example.  Some of you will remember agonising over the guest list trying to decide who to invite and who to leave off.  Those you invite are honoured and those you leave off are … well sometimes it turns into major family issues.  Ouch….The insiders belong, the relationship with the host is strengthened, but for those on the outer there is a message that somehow they don’t matter so much.  That hurts.  Then there’s the food because you want the best for your guests, but there are also practical issues like costs.  The last thing you want is people going home hungry or thinking that was a stingy affair.  Feasts are a celebration and you want the assembled guests to have a good time.  There are all sorts of important messages being conveyed in feasts.

In Middle Eastern culture where hospitality is such an important virtue, magnify this by ten.  Feasts were and remain incredibly important.  

Our scriptures have stories and images about a special feast called the Messianic Banquet.  The idea is that sometime in the future when the earth is transformed according to the will of God, God will host a great feast.   In Christian imagery it also marks the return of Jesus although in my eyes Jesus remains with us in Spirit.  

Whenever we celebrate Communion we are remembering the Messianic banquet…. And our scriptures quote Jesus as saying at the Last supper that he looked forward to the time when he would share a meal with all people at the great reunion. I wonder if you have any thoughts of what that may look like?  (No more hunger because everyone well fed, healing of all the barriers, caring for creation, Shalom – Peace)

Our passage from Isaiah is pre Jesus but it’s typical of the images we have about this great banquet.  Remember as with so much of our scriptures you need to turn on your imaginary brain, your poetic brain, which we are not always good at.

On this mountain the Lord of all hosts will throw a feast for all the people of the world, a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wines, of rich food lavish with gourmet desserts.  And God will banish the pall of gloom hanging over all peoples, the shroud that is cast over all peoples, the sheet that is spread over all nations, and God will swallow up death forever.  God will wipe away the tears from all faces and every sign of disgrace of his people.  All will be well fed, and all the earth will be healed and resonate with the joy of salvation.  What an image.

You can hear the resonance with the final passages in the book of Revelation.  There is a new intimacy between God and humanity.  The shroud referred to is the temple curtain that separated people and God.  Heaven and earth become one as all peoples sit down to the great feast hosted by God with the best wine and food.  Exquisite flavour, goodness, rich food.  MasterChef eat your heart out.

But note who is there…all peoples, all nations.

Actually that was too radical for the good religious folk in our past.  Around the time of Jesus there was a translation of some of the scriptures into Aramaic, the everyday language of the day.  This added text to try and explain what the original Hebrew said a little like the Living Bible or the Message does in our own day.  It was called the Targum and in the Targum this vision of Isaiah is given a whole new twist.  All people will come to the mountain but also that they would be inflicted with plagues, plagues from which there would be no escape and they will come to their end.  Where did that come from?  The universal welcome is changed into judgment and destruction for the outsiders.

About the same time another piece of writing called the book of Enoch emerged and that too speaks of a great banquet with the Messiah to which the Gentiles were invited.  But Enoch tells us the angel of death will be present and will use his sword to destroy the Gentiles.  The banquet hall will run with blood and the select few believers will have to wade through the gore to reach the meal and sit down with the Messiah to enjoy the feast.

The Qumran Community also active in the time of Jesus and from whom we got the Dead Sea Scrolls discovered last century has a number of writings about the Messianic banquet have yet another take on who would be invited.  It was a feast for the pure ones, the faithful ones who were part of the select community.  So the Gentiles didn’t even get a look in, but neither did anyone with a disability, the blind, the deaf, or anyone smitten with a visible blemish which clearly was a sign of God’s disfavour.  Oh dear,  people can so often get the wrong end of the stick.  Only the select few who are good enough will be invited.

We are good in all sorts of subtle ways if putting up fences, deciding that some are worthy and some are not.  Jesus seems to have very different ideas. 

He asks his servants to go out and invite others to the feast.  I have to admit I’m not the greatest at going out and inviting others but I’m in good company. 

In a typical Middle Eastern village the host of the banquet invites a group of friends.  On the basis of the acceptances they will design the menu and prepare the food.  On the appointed day the beast are slaughtered and the meal prepared.  When everything is ready the host will send his servants around the village with the message, “please come, everything is ready”.  We do it a little differently.  We invite people for drinks and nibbles and then at the appointed time we say, come let’s sit down to eat.  Whatever when the appointed time came in Jesus’ story there are excuses.  I have to go and inspect a piece of land that I’ve just purchased…. I have just purchased a new car and need to give it a spin….I’ve just married and I want to spend some time in the bedroom. 

Only if you think about it these excuses are not very genuine.  Have you ever purchased a house without looking at it first?  This is pre internet so there isn’t even a picture to look at.  No-one purchases without some sort of pre-inspection.  I guess it could be that there has been a negotiation in the wind for a while that needs to be settled immediately, but that isn’t what the text says.  The response in the text is simply lame and insulting.  So is the second.  You don’t buy a car without a test drive.  You certainly don’t buy yoked oxen without trialling them.  Do they work well together?  They will be hopeless if they don’t pull as a team.  As with props in a scrum you have to get balanced pulling or pushing power or else everything screws around.  No farmer will even bid on a pair of oxen without testing them carefully.  It is an insulting response.  And the third man doesn’t even ask to be excused.  I have a new woman in my bedroom and I am busy with her.   It is rude and insulting.

The master hears the three responses and is angry.  He has been stood up, and he is insulted.  Those invited simply don’t value the master and what he stands for.  The master has been slapped in the face and it hurts, but the anger is channelled into something positive.  Go out into the streets and byways and bring in the poor, the maimed, the blind, and the lame.  The master could have gone after the three so called friends and found some way to get back at them for their rude-ness but instead he channels the anger into grace.  Such is the character of the master.  The everyday people, the nobodies, the common-folk are invited and welcomed into the banquet.  There is no expectation of an invite back because it’s simply not possible for these folk. And despite the fact that there is many of them, there is still room, and so the invitation is issued wider to those who naturally will respond, ‘what me, impossible, look at who I am!”  Some gentle persuasion is required to convince these folk to accept the invitation because the master and they are poles apart.  Why would he invite me?  The Master is a gracious being who seems to care for everyone.

The final sentence is addressed to all of us.  For I tell you none of those men who were invited shall taste my banquet.  This sounds harsh and judgmental but they were invited and I believe the door would have been open had they changed their minds and come.  God is always invitational giving us the freedom to choose yes or no.

It’s sobering to realise that Jesus was aiming these remarks at good religious folk who one suspects had become well settled in their faith and were no longer open to the leading and activity of God in their midst.  We know it all.  We have God nicely boxed up.  This parable gives me a little jolt to open my eyes wider, to open my mind further, to know I have much more to learn and experience in my journey with God.  It’s actually easy for insiders to make themselves outsiders as their faith and religion becomes simply a settled place of comfort and not an ongoing journey of discovery, learning, and celebration of God’s grace. 

For Jesus the banquet is not just something in the future, but it has begun.  Remind yourself often of the great goodness and grace of God.  What an amazing earth we have been gifted with.   What opportunity we have been given in our lives.  What good fortune has been ours in fining a home in this land called Aotearoa.  What hope we have because God has reached out to invite us to join the feast and to look forward to the culmination when Shalom will be found in every corner of our planet.  

And knowing this  is not the challenge of this parable really to invite others to the banquet of grace and belonging where God welcomes us all. 

Dugald Wilson 8 September 2019

Hospitality Gen 18:1-14, Luke 14 7-14, Hebrews 13:1-3

Many years ago I decided to walk the Heaphy Track which runs across the northwest tip of the south island.  Not owning a vehicle and not having much to come and go on I was dependent on hitching rides to get there.  The tramp started from near Collingwood and I spent a glorious four days tramping and eventually arriving at the track end at Karamea on the West Coast in the early afternoon, with the plan to hitch back to Christchurch.   What I hadn’t contemplated was the almost complete absence of traffic on the West Coast in those days.  With about three cars passing every hour I realized that hitching a ride was not going to be easy.  To make matters worse a southerly front came through and it began to rain and in no time I was feeling like a drowned rat.  As I walked along and with the light began to fail I was looking for a suitable bridge or shelter to camp under.  In the gathering dusk an old farm truck approached.  It was obviously a local vehicle so I didn’t hold any hope of a ride, but it slowed and stopped.  He driver opened the cab door and suggested I throw my pack on the back.  “I’m not going far,” he said, “but I’ll give you a bed for the night.”  This was music to my ears for I was wet through, shivering, and cold.

What ensued was an interesting experience.  I was graciously welcomed into a home that was unlined on the inside as obviously the family had no money to finish the build. There were some old curtains pinned up against some of the exposed framing to give privacy. I don’t think there was running hot water but I was offered a towel to dry off.  I had a very simple meal with the mum dad and three kids with the food being stretched to include another mouth.  I quickly realized they were a devout Mormon family as we prayed together and talked a little about our lives.  We retired early but not before they had made a telephone call to the local mailman who they assured me would pass that way in the morning and would be happy to take an extra passenger into Westport.   I told them I was happy to sleep in the barn, but they would have none of it.  I suspect I ended up getting one of the children’s beds, and possibly they doubled up.  Whatever I slept well and in the morning not only was the sun shining again, but I made it to Christchurch.  I will always remember the hospitality of that family taking in an unknown drowned rat and treating him with open handed hospitality. They had so little but they were so gracious and kind. I sensed the presence of divine gracious love.  In their willingness to eat a little less tea that night, give up a bed, make space in their home for a drowned rat stranger I knew God alive in their home.  I might say in many travels in many places and most of the time I have discovered a gracious spirit of hospitality.  This spirit is of God.

Hospitality is a concept that is central to our scriptures especially hospitality to strangers. I love the story of Abraham and Sarah offering hospitality to the three strangers by the Oaks of Mamre.  In typical middle eastern fashion they really go to town with their hospitality, cancelling the planned activities of the day and cooking up a wonderful meal.  And something happens as they make space for these unknown travelers and engage in conversation.  A word from God is delivered. Sarah will have a child.  I think strangers who cross our paths often bring messages from God and what we may think of as random encounter is not quite so random as we think.

Jesus himself often talks about hospitality.  In Luke 14;12-14 he tells us that we should offer hospitality not just to our friends or those who might offer us something in return but to people beyond our normal circle.  “The next time you put on a dinner, don’t just invite your friends and family.  Invite some people who never get invited out, the misfits and the nobodies.  And when you do you’ll be and you’ll experience a blessing.  They may not be able to return the favour, but the favour will be returned.  Wait and see!”   offering hospitality, making space for others is absolutely central to life.  We have often forgotten this in our crazy busy western world.

When Jesus left us he said remember me in this way and he invited his disciples to gather around a table and share a meal together.  Sharing food and drink together is a powerful act of reconciliation and trust. You don’t really eat together if there are outstanding issues, hurts that divide.   

Contemporary life is nomadic.  We pass one another as ships in the night – a sea of strangers.  Even here at church we may know names but we know little more about the lives we sit next to.  The frenetic pace of life means most of us are even alienated from our deep selves.  Our growing youth suicide figures are the canary in the mine telling us of the desperate need for a more hospitable society.  Henri Nouwen the great Catholic spiritual teacher of our time said “if there is any concept worth restoring to its true depth it is the concept of hospitality.”  Making space for each other, listening to the story of another.  A few days ago Janet and I engaged our neighbour and his son just outside our home.  The son is a shy difficult child who I think is really struggling at school and I suspect at home.  He often doesn’t engage at all when you say hello.  We were heading out but somehow the boy got talking about movies he had been watching and with some encouragement we got to hear about Angry Birds 2, ninja turtles, and a host of other characters I had never heard of.  Our cup of coffee at the café went by the board as we listened and engaged.  I think even dad learned something about his silent son as he just kept spouting forth about things that were important for him. 

Hospitality….. listening, making space…..  

In a fragmented anxious world hospitality is a spiritual practice we need to nurture. Nurturing life – building connection we say on our noticeboard. 

Scholars tell us that the remarkable explosion of Christianity in the first century was due not only to proclamation of the gospel, but also to the extraordinary quality of Christian hospitality.  Evangelism wasn’t standing at street corners haranguing people but making space for others, listening to their stories, reaching out over the boundaries of ‘you are different to me’.  Early Christians met around a table where the very wealthy sat next to nobody slaves as fellow and equal human beings.  Bread was broken as a sign that we are all broken and people could be honest about the hell they were going through, the bad mistakes they had made, or the joys they were blessed with.  There was a quality of welcome that patiently dismantled the fences we like to construct around ourselves.  There was some wonderful conflicts that emerged, but hospitality didn’t sweep those under the carpet.  Through this hospitality people knew they mattered, they were accepted, and as their lives were touched by human hospitality they sensed the divine love and healing of God.  Special places of hospitality and healing were created…. They were called hospitals… special places of hospitality. 

Saint Benedict who began many monasteries in the Middle Ages proclaimed that all guests to the monasteries should be welcomed as Christ, because he will say, “I was a stranger and you took me in.”  The heart of Benedictine spirituality is hospitality – a Christian community should warmly welcome anyone in the name of Christ regardless of status, looks, or respectability.

In our own midst I witness many wonderful acts of hospitality every week.  Our Elder Care programme, the listening in the walking group, the warm welcome as people gather on Sundays, the invitation to share a coffee or a meal together… there are many ways we create space for others and open our hearts to see in them the presence of God. 

Hospitality is a spiritual practice just like prayer.  It requires discipline and work.  Often we find it hard to open our hearts to others especially if they are different.  We know it’s hard to walk up to someone wearing a head covering and engage in conversation.  What do you say?  But it is not only dress and religion that causes us to hold back. Within our midst we have huge divides between generations.  Even I find myself saying sometimes “young people these days…!”  I had a young person call by the other day trying to sign me up to regular donations for UNICEF. I made it clear I had other projects I supported but complemented her on her commitment and affirmed her.  The encouragement opened the door to a significant conversation as she asked about what I did as a job.  Finding something to genuinely affirm in the other is a great way of opening the door of hospitality and deeper engagement. 

As Jesus said to us it is easy to offer hospitality to those who are just like us but as his followers we are invited to do more.  In the gracious gift of life God is wonderfully hospitable to all of us.  As Abraham and Sarah discovered when you offer hospitality to strangers you often discover a message from God.   The truth of this is found in that memorable verse from Hebrews 13:2 Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers.  In doing this many have discovered they entertained angels without knowing it. Angels are simply anyone with a message from God.

So I invite you to work at the spiritual practice of hospitality.  Notice more often the wonderful hospitality of God in your life. Be prepared to alter your planned day to make space for others.  Have more coffees and conversations and be prepared to meet angels who of course are broken human beings just like you and me.  Maybe you could think of yourself as an angel and what message of God would you like to pass on to those you meet today

.

Dugald Wilson 1 September 2019

Gen 12:1-9, Heb 11:1-3, 8-16,

   Abraham is remembered for his faith.   It’s faith that motivates both him and Sarah to undertake a journey to  a new land where they will be a blessing to all humankind.

   Faith is central to our being here today.  Jesus talks about faith often, and praises people who have it.  Faith he claims is central to discovering the fullness of life he offers.  Often it seems that faith opens the door for the power of God to move as we see in the healing stories of Jesus.  Paul proclaims it is faith that will save us, and he is talking about the healing or salvation of the world.  Faith is vital stuff, faith is utterly central to the Christian life, but what do we mean by faith? 

   When I hear people talking it seems to me that the most common way of looking at faith in our time is believing that certain things are true.  Faith is believing that God is real, or that Jesus was God’s son, or maybe that Jesus was born of a virgin and walked on water.  Faith is about believing the resurrection.  People who believe these sorts of things happened usually some time in the past are called people of faith.  It is usually about believing that certain things are true which in the normal run of things might be considered odd or even impossible.  Equating faith with believing that certain things to be true was given prominence when Protestant traditions like ours were birthed in the Reformation.  The reformers were involved in all sorts of arguments about what was true and surprise, surprise, these arguments gave birth to a whole raft of churches that believed different things.  New creeds or statements about beliefs sprang up like the Westminster Confession which shaped our Presbyterian tradition.  I’ve seen the original confession now held at Westminster College Cambridge and seen the wonderful line in the confession that proclaims the Pope is the anti-Christ which I might add was a popular and common belief at the time among Protestants.  In those days people were burned at the stake because they refused to profess a belief in what the others in power believed.  Some believed that bishops and priests should run the church while others appointed elders who ruled as a group called the session.   Some believed the bread and wine in communion actually changed into the body and blood of Jesus while others said they were powerful symbols.   

To help maintain faith as believing certain things in the Presbyterian tradition catechisms became important.  The Shorter Catechism set out by the Westminster Assembly in 1647 is a series of 107 questions and answers with scriptural proofs which made the learning of faith easier.

Q. 1. What is the chief end of man?
A. Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever.

Q. 2. What rule hath God given to direct us how we may glorify and enjoy him?
A. The word of God, which is contained in the scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, is the only rule to direct us how we may glorify and enjoy him.

  If you learned and assented to the Shorter Catechism you had faith, and if you failed to assent you were a doubter and did not have faith.  Faith and doubt were hand in hand as opposites.

   I simply want to point out that Jesus never went around asking people about their beliefs.  Jesus to my knowledge never formulated a creed to express his faith.  He never really had arguments about what people he came across believed.  Now before you think I might be saying let’s tip all our beliefs down the plug hole I want to affirm beliefs are important, but when we use them to define what we see as faith we risk losing the heart and power of our religion.     

    When the writer of Hebrews holds up Abraham as a man of great faith, and I think the writer should have included Sarah as well, they weren’t talking about what Abraham and Sarah believed or didn’t believe.  Faith for them had a different meaning.  The ancient meanings of faith revolve around not what we believe in our heads but faith is about relationship.  Specifically there are two key parts of relationship – faithfulness and trust.  I invite you to think of what faithfulness means.  Commonly today we will think of faithfulness in terms of sexual behaviour.  Actually faithfulness has a much deeper and richer meaning.  It is about commitment,  allegiance, and attentiveness – working to uphold and build up the relationship.  Think of what commitment, allegiance, and attentiveness might mean in your journey of faith.  Commitment, allegiance, attentiveness.  It’s why you are here this morning committing time to maintaining and deepening relationship.  It’s what most spiritual disciplines in your life are about, like prayer and contemplation, or spiritual reading or discussion.  Upholding and building up the relationship.  Of course most of us, myself included, too easily slip into patterns that are lazy in the area of building up and growing our relationship with God. 

   The second meaning of faith is linked.  Faith is about putting our trust in God.  I sometimes talk of faith in terms of learning to swim.  You’ve heard me talk of this before, but swimming doesn’t come naturally to us humans.  We have to learn to trust the water and more specifically we have to learn to trust the buoyancy of the water.  I recall learning to swim in Dunedin.  We first learned to hold onto the side and let our legs float and then even putting our heads under the water and just holding onto the side.   But then we were asked to let go… I learned that as soon as I became afraid and tensed up and started thrashing around that I sank, but if I relaxed and simply lay there on the water I could float.  The secret was relaxing and trusting.  Faith is trusting in the buoyancy of God.   There are other biblical metaphors that may make more sense to you like trusting in God as our rock and fortress.  God is our solid ground, our safe place.  Interestingly the opposite of this way of looking at faith is not doubt or disbelief, but fear, worry, and anxiety.  Ever wondered why one of the most common statements of Jesus is, “do not be afraid”?  I know I get anxious and fearful.  I sometimes worry about what others might think, or I worry about failing in some way.  Sometimes I even think the world rest on my shoulders.  I know I have to keep learning to relax and trust God.  I know I need to let go, to be still and know that God holds me and yes things may be tough or messy, but I am not alone and I am not abandoned to sink into the depths.  I need to remind myself often that it doesn’t all depend on me but I’m walking with God.  I know one day I will have to let go of the gift of life.  Learning to trust the buoyancy of God is at the heart of faith.

But the writer of Hebrews takes us a step further in our thinking about faith.  Stage two of my learning to swim in that dismal Dunedin pool was to hear the instructor say, “now it’s time to learn to swim across the pool to the other side.”  Learning to trust the buoyancy of the water wasn’t enough, I had to learn to strike out across the unknown depths for the destination of the other side.  By an act of faith Abraham said yes to God’s call to travel to an unknown place that would become his home.   Faith opens the door to another place.  Faith tells us that this is not as good as it gets, but tells us there is another destination.  Faith unlocks the holy discontent of God and says there is a deeper life, a healthier life, a more just life for all.  Paul called this other side the new creation. Jesus called this new life the kingdom of heaven or the kingdom of God and asked us to pray that we would find this new life amongst us now, not in some distant place but here on earth.  As Abraham and Sarah looked for a new land where all life existed in a state of shalom or harmonious peace, we are called to seek a new earth.  A place where creation is nurtured instead of abused for gain, a place of respect for all people, where huge gaps between the haves and have nots are no more, where our God of justice and love reigns. 

   I know you have faith.  That is why you are here.  My prayer today is that we all may go from this time with our faith enlivened and your lamp relit. Ready to work at nurturing our relationship with God, ready to trust the buoyancy of God, ready to seek the life God is calling us to in the new creation… where heaven and earth are one.

Dugald Wilson 11 August 2019

Luke 12:13-21 (Contemplate Rembrandt’s painting the Rich Fool….)

Today I want to take a little time to dig into the parable Jesus confronts us with…. The story of the Rich Fool. 

The parable begins with a question in just the same way as the Good Samaritan parable.  The question is posed by a fellow whose father has died.  The family farm has been left to the two sons, and a dispute has arisen again because the two boys don’t see eye to eye.  The older son has no desire to break up the farm, but the younger one want’s his inheritance now.  It’s not an uncommon issue and one way to solve it was to get a rabbi on your side to push your case.  The younger son wants justice.  Jewish law was clear that if there was division over an inheritance then it should be split with both parties getting an equal share, but for whatever reason the older son is holding out.  Jesus however isn’t playing ball either.  He can sense there is a broken relationship here and responds that he hasn’t come to bring division between people but to be a reconciler.  “Man, who made me a judge or divider over you!”

Jesus then shares a word of wisdom.   “Take heed, and beware of every kind of insatiable desire, for life for a person does not consist in the surpluses of his possessions.”    It’s a bit of confrontational truth telling that most of us would shy away from.  Jesus is saying basically that the presenting inheritance stuff is just the pimple on the surface.  There’s something deeper going on.  Jesus is addressing the issue of the questioners heart and not the issue of his bank account.    The word ‘life’ is an important one.  Jesus often talks about finding life.    People are often filled with insatiable desires  and one of those is the desire to acquire more possessions.  They may think more possessions will give them a better quality of life but actually once you have a certain minimum more possessions just clog up your life.  If Jesus were addressing us today he might add with the natural resources of the earth being depleted we need to get a hold on our consumptive lifestyles because it’s literally screwing up the life of the earth.  If everyone on this earth lived the sort of lifestyle you and I live the earth is doomed.

He follows up with a parable.  “There was a certain rich man whose land brought forth plenty.”  The man was obviously wealthy, and the crop is a bumper one.  He has plenty, but he now has a whole lot more.  He doesn’t need it but life and good fortune has been good to him, so what to do with it is the obvious question?

The parable continues.  “And he discussed with himself, saying what should  do for I have no place to store my crops.”  I wonder what you notice?  He discussed with himself …. In communal middle eastern culture which is a very communal culture where everything is discussed with family and friends that is a particularly telling statement.  Where is his family and where are his friends?   We’ve all seen it many times….wealth especially excess wealth isolates.  The more wealth we have the more distance there is between us and our neighbours.   It seems he is a lonely isolated man whose big issue in life is finding somewhere to store ‘my’ crops.  There is no sense that these crops are a gift from God.

“And he said I will do this:  I will pull down my barns and build larger ones.  And I will store all my grain and my goods”.  My barns, my grain, my goods….the word my is a telling one.  The Christian ideal that everything we have is a gift, and we are trustees of everything we ‘own’,  is simply absent. 

What follows is rather sad.  “And I will say to my soul, Soul! You have ample goods laid up for many years.  Relax, eat, drink, sit back and enjoy yourself.”   He is isolated.  Where are the family and friends?  It’s such a sad speech.  The use of the word soul is interesting.  Some English translations simply have him saying to himself, but there is a deeper conversation going on here.    This man thinks that good food, a fine house and other trappings of wealth will give him peace.   He is mistaken for into this little internal conversation thunders God.

“But God said to him, Fool.  This night your life is required of you, and what you have prepared, whose will these things be?”   Your life is required of you uses words that are commonly used for the return of a loan.   It’s as if our lives are a loan from God and at some point the loan will be called in and some account expected of how we have put the gifts to use.  But there is no accusation.  There is no why have you not helped your community more, or what have you done for others.  There is simply the confronting truth that this man faces a sad reality.  He plans alone, he builds alone, he indulges alone, and he dies alone, and we are all left pondering how things could have been different if he had seen his wealth as a gift to be used to serve God and bring life to his community.

And that’s hammered home in the final words of wisdom.  “So is he who stores up treasures for himself, and is not gathering riches for God.”   I wonder if you have ever thought of your life as gathering riches for God.  It’s an odd way of putting things.  Other translations talk of storing up treasures for self but not being rich towards God.  I don’t think God has a bank account that we are supposed to put wealth into, but doesn’t this mean we are supposed to commit our wealth to doing the things that honour God.  When the Bill and Melinda gates Foundation commits to the education of women and girls to help overcome poverty and help third world communities take responsibility for themselves God is honoured.  When you and I make a decision to use our wealth to help promote a better future for the earth God is enriched.   Just putting it in the bank to guard against a rainy day, or storing it up so the kids have a good inheritance….I’m not so sure that is enriching God. 

Jesus refuses to lay it out black and white, and so must I.  What he is saying is that we have to look beyond self and selfish need and security.   Eugene Peterson translates this last verse of wisdom and advice which sum up the rich fool’s predicament as “That’s what happens when you fill your barn with Self and not with God.”  This word self appears often in our scriptures.  If you want to be a flowerer of mine you need to leave self behind.   What Jesus is talking about is the outer self.   We have an outer self the self that wants the biggest bit of cake, the self that wants a bigger bank balance, the self that likes to impress others, the self that feeds on the adulation of others.  It’s the ego self that is grasping, greedy, and shallow.  It’s the me and mine self.  But deeper within us is another self.  The true self, the God infused self.   This true self is found in each of us, because each of us is God infused.  The story invites us to resist the ‘me and my’ self the ego self,  and instead nurture the growth of the true self speaking into and directing our lives.  That true self will tell us that life is a gift.  We are simply trustees of all we have including our wealth and our very lives. 

We live in a ‘me and mine’ world, and it’s not easy to resist this world.  The good news is that I see amongst you signs of resistance.  Selfless acts, consideration of others, concern for the common good.  But we all need to adopt religious practices that continue to re-orientate ourselves.   Listening to the stories of Jesus is a good place to start.  Chewing them over like we’ve been doing today.  Coming to communion where we break bread together and reinforce the truth that life is not about me but we.  It speaks of the death of the outer ego self and the nurturing of a the true self that is treasured by God.  Simple practices that nurture thankfulness as we sit down to eat reminding us that food is a gift or  spending time at the end of the day to be thankful for all that has been in the day.  Practices like meditation and prayer that take our focus away from self and allow allows the true deeper self to whisper into our lives.  Practices like acts of generosity and kindness that offer things to others without seeking anything in return.   These things help re-orientate our hearts in the way Jesus was seeking.

How are you/I, we gathering riches for God.  That’s a good question Jesus asks.