What is important about the Gospel stories is the message held within the story.  When I was at high school I got frustrated at having to find the theme of a set book.  To me they were a good story or just boring. 

My reading has improved since then and when I saw a promotion for a new Ann Cleves novel featuring ‘The return of Jimmy Perez’ I grabbed my Whitcoulls Card and headed for the mall. 

On the back cover someone called Mick Herron had written, ‘Ann Cleeves is one of our secret chroniclers, charting,-under cover of a series of expertly plotted and mesmerizing crime novels, -how we live now.’  

The Gospel writers are also chroniclers of their times but also how Jesus lived and what he believed.  Furthermore, Luke was an expert at it, no word was ever wasted.  Meaning is layered upon meaning and the previous section about the blind man receiving sight leads into the man who couldn’t come near Jesus because of his separation by exploitation and wealth. 

Even the landscape has meaning.  When I first read that Zacchaeus climbed a sycamore tree, I envisioned one of those huge trees with seeds like little propellers.  However, when I checked out the use of the word sycamore in the Bible Commentary, I found that the tree referred to is not that kind of sycamore.   Those are Canadian sycamores that have leaves similar to fig trees.  Figs were quite common in Palestine and not all fig trees are like the one that feeds the birds in my garden.

A recent episode of Ben Bayley’s Food Story visited Te Mata Figs in the Hawkes Bay which grow 30 different types of figs.  So, the fig tree that Zacchaeus climbed was probably a type of fig that poor people grew because it had the advantage of fruiting three times a year.  We know that this tree was common because the verses in 1^st Kings and Chronicles that praise King Solomon say that cedars will be as numerous as sycamores.   The metaphor here is that the cedars are a tree of power that build temples, palaces and the masts of ships.  So, for Solomon these kingly trees are going to be as plentiful as the trees that sustain the poor ordinary folk. 

Amos said that he could not be a prophet because he was a simple herdsman and a dresser of sycamore trees.  Amos was saying he was an ordinary person who lived by his herds and by tending the sycamore trees that are a regular crop that sustained those who had very little. 

Understanding that helps us as we look at the contrast presented between Zacchaeus and the blind beggar in the previous story.  Two very different people in many ways but both outcasts from their society, both sinners, both unclean.  The blind beggar is unclean because he is blind and therefore as an incomplete human he is being punished by God.  So he must be a sinner. 

Zacchaeus is a sinner and therefore unclean because he collects tax for the occupying power, the Romans.  The blind beggar is poor and Zacchaeus is rich.  The blind man must beg for his living, but Zacchaeus lives off everyone else and gets rich. 

But the blind man understands what Jesus can do for him.  So, once he is told that Jesus is passing by he calls out to Jesus for help.  Zacchaeus on the other hand climbed up a poor man’s tree to see who Jesus was.

Zacchaeus was small of stature but big on wealth.  The blind man was shut off from the world because he could not see.  That is the story that Luke is telling us and the blind man found the answer simply by calling out to Jesus.  In answer to that plea he received salvation, his life was changed. 

The blind beggar had faith and knew that Jesus could restore is sight.  He trusted that knowledge and was saved by that trust.  His sight was saved by his faith because Lazer Surgery hadn’t been invented.

Zacchaeus was probably not used to trusting, what tax collector is!  Zacchaeus knew that you had to find your way up in life.  He was a chief tax collector in Jericho, which was a major customs point where anything that moved through got taxed.  They didn’t have new motorways, but they collect the toll anyway.  Jericho was a very good place to be chief tax collector.

Being chief tax collector meant that he got a percentage of all the tax collectors under him, it was a pyramid system.  Zacchaeus would collect the tax from the tax collectors under him and pass it on up the line where it would be used for all the costs of running an empire.  In many ways it was fair to tax trade goods at custom points.  Travel on Roman Roads was very safe from robbers and pirates because Roman soldiers patrolled them.  But just like our police they had to be paid. 

For collecting that tax Zacchaeus was allowed to keep a percentage so the more tax collectors he could recruit the more money he made and the less chance there was of anyone missing out on being taxed.  Those at the top of the pyramid would see it as fair and those on the bottom would feel they were being ripped off.

But there is nothing to say that Zacchaeus was dishonest because it was the system.  He was classed as unclean because people did not like the system and the system probably was unjust.  Working in banking is considered an honourable profession but people get niggly when interest on mortgages get too high at the same time as interest on savings is very low.

We certainly don’t like the merchant biting a surcharge of our morning tea and questions can be asked about banks that build a cashless society then charge us extra to use the cards they gave us.   

Roman Tax had much the same effect on the poor people of the empire and, here was this little man climbing over the very trees that sustained the ordinary poor people. Just like biting a surcharge out of your morning muffin.

The blind man had to ask who Jesus was because he could not see.  Zacchaeus was not blind but in spite of all his wealth Zacchaeus could not see because he was too small. 

In trying to find Jesus Zacchaeus behaved despicably.  How would any of us like strangers climbing our fruit trees?  Breaking branches, knocking off fruit.  Most of us have fruit trees just to supply a bit of extra luxury but imagine if we were relying on them to keep us alive between harvests.  For those who did the grumbling in this passage climbing the sycamore tree would just be another example of this sinner’s arrogance and exploitation. 

But however he did it, the symbolism in the story is clear, and coupling this story with the blind beggar story makes it even clearer.  Zacchaeus and the blind beggar were both seeking Jesus and the result for both was the same.  Rich man and poor man were both accepted by Jesus, just because they sought him out. 

The blind man was able to ask the crowd who it was that was coming, and they were happy to tell him, although they did not like him calling out to Jesus.

The wealthy tax collector Zacchaeus sat in a common sycamore tree, the tree that feeds the common people, he must have felt silly.  Unlike the blind man he did not call out to Jesus.  Jesus called out to him.

‘Zacchaeus, hurry and come down; for I must stay at your house today.’

It’s the upside-down world of Jesus again.  Zacchaeus tries to see who Jesus is and Jesus demands to stay with him.  Zacchaeus is rich and powerful but Jesus, the wandering prophet, can give orders to Zacchaeus.  Now Zacchaeus can see who Jesus really is and he responds in the only way possible, with generosity!

Zacchaeus says if he has cheated anyone, he will repay them.  The ‘if’ indicates that Zacchaeus does not think he has cheated anyone, but he hands that decision to Jesus and in doing so acknowledges Jesus’ divinity. 

Who but God would know if anyone of us had unknowingly cheated anyone?  Faced with Jesus’ acceptance Zacchaeus will pay back anyone he may have unknowingly cheated and that’s quite hard to get a modern corporation to do.

But Zacchaeus is prepared to go even further, he will, without question, give half of everything he owns to the poor!

It is important to note that this is Zacchaeus’ offer not Jesus’ requirement.  Remember the rich ruler who makes his appearance in the previous chapter asked Jesus what he should do to gain eternal life.  Jesus told him to give everything he had to the poor. 

Zacchaeus simply seeks out Jesus.  Zacchaeus knows he is small and disliked but Jesus accepts him and says that he is coming to be with Zacchaeus.  Zacchaeus reacts to that acceptance with generosity.

That surely is the message that Luke has for us!   All we need to do is look for Jesus, ‘to see who Jesus is.’  It is as we seek Jesus that Jesus comes to us.  Comes to share our hospitality and make us part of his community.

There are no rules, no criteria to be measured against.  Jesus accepted Zacchaeus and he was someone who chose to work against his own people and in many ways as miserable wretch as you could imagine. 

His people would have got rid of him if they got the chance.  We can think of many parallels of Zacchaeus throughout history.  People who get rich by the misfortune of others, people who might not be dishonest but who get wealthy through aligning themselves to unjust systems. 

Just as Zacchaeus made that effort, we too can try to see who Jesus is.  Just by making that effort we will discover that, whoever Jesus was in first century Palestine, his death and resurrection allowed us all to discover Jesus as the Risen Christ—The risen Christ who, through our seeking, we discover is alive in us.

Through Christ we become part of God’s new way of being, and in reaction to that generosity we cannot help but be generous.

We cannot earn God’s favour by restoring the wrongs we have done.  We cannot earn God’s favour by giving away our possessions to the poor.  God, revealed in us through Jesus Christ, is more loving and more just than human beings can ever hope to be.  We are therefore only brought into relationship with God through God’s generous gift. 

We must accept that gift as Zacchaeus accepted it by looking to see who Jesus is.  When we discover the Trinitarian truth that Jesus is the revelation of God to us, we find the risen Christ alive within us. 

Our lives change and we cannot contain our loving generosity because we are part of the body of Christ.  In celebration we break bread and share with all Christians to remind us that Christ is alive in us.

Today’s gospel reading opens with a parable about a faith the size of a small seed transplanting a mulberry tree into the sea and it is important to understand that the parable is not about reversing the laws of nature.  We know that even though massive logging machinery can’t pull up fully grown trees there is nothing that can make the trees grow in the sea.  Certainly, we have witnessed massive storms wash trees down rivers, sweep away bridges and flow out to sea.  But they are more likely to end up bleached and beached on the shoreline than growing in the water.

Replanting trees in the sea would need the combined wizardry of Peter Jackson, James Cameron and Weta Workshop.  Furthermore, like all of us those wizards of cinematic magic had small beginnings. My neighbour in Hamilton grew up in Pukerua Bay. She remembered, a young Peter Jackson, playing on the beach with a paper mâché severed head and a movie camera.   

The reality is with rising sea levels and climate change many low-lying Pacific Islands are losing important arable land because sea water is seeping in and killing food crops.

What this parable does call us to understand is that even a small amount of faith will find some way of solving, even such terrifying life-threatening problems as global warming and rising sea level and the collapse of democracy.

History tells us that humanity is a fantastically resilient species.  We are a species that has migrated right across the globe and survived huge disasters and plagues that threatened to eradicate entire populations.

For instance, in the years 1348 to 1350 it is estimated the Black Death killed 30 to 60% of Europe’s population and reduced the world’s population from an estimated 450 million to between 350 and 375 million.[1]

Total deaths in the First World War are estimated at over sixty-five million [2] and in Mathew 24 verse 6 Jesus says that ‘you will hear of wars and rumours of wars; see that you are not alarmed; for this must take place but the end is not yet’. 

Furthermore, our reading from lamentations deals with the utter devastation of Jerusalem after the Babylonian invasion so it appears that humanity has survived its own destructiveness for a very long time.  Now the news shows Jerusalem destroying Palestine. Furthermore, the evening news not only shows our self-destruction through violence and economic disasters but regularly shows the loss of life in earthquakes and other natural disasters around the globe.

Not only does history and contemporary news testify to human resilience but it is also witness to the truth contained in Jesus’ statement that ‘All this is but the beginning of the birth-pangs.’(Matthew 24:8)  

With Luke’s benefit of hindsight, he portrays the disciples looking for a faith in the face of impending disaster at the loss of their leader.  They are trying to imagine the faith needed to face the awesome challenge of spreading the Jesus message out into the world.  That faith is indeed what we all need to face the everyday calamities that confront our day to day lives. 

However, the parable of the mustard seed calls us to an even greater faith, a faith that claims that things do not always have to be the same.  This parable of the mustard seed is about encouraging seemingly impossible visions; it is a call to think outside the square.   

We so easily and so often accept longstanding injustice and hardship as the natural way of the world.  But the parable of the mustard seed reminds us that things do not always have to be the way they are.  Change is always possible even when faced with what appears to be overwhelming odds.^[3]

The Lamentation’s text gives us a very distressing view of the world of its author, but we must also remember that everything we know about Jesus and his effect on the world we know, grew out of that world of the author of Lamentations.  The Exodus Saga is certainly one of the foundation stories of Hebrew culture.  But the destruction of Jerusalem, the Exile and the rebuilding of the city under Nehemiah and the spiritual renewal under Ezra, are seen as a reflection of the Exodus journey.  Along with all the other sacred stories these accounts formed the tradition that nurtured Jesus to adulthood and formed the unique human being.  Jesus was the man with special spiritual insight that has given countless human beings over two millennia an image of a divine presence beyond themselves.

In the Roman world of his time, which indeed was part of an even wider world than the first century perceived, Jesus was a very tiny faith seed indeed.  Jesus was an insignificant Jew, an executed troublemaker from a subject people of the greatest civilisation the world had ever known.  To describe him as a single mustard seed in that great Greco-Roman culture of his time would probably be grossly exaggerating his importance among the great personalities of his age.

But it was Jesus’ faith that was significant, that tiny seed of faith he encouraged his apostles to hold.Through those apostles we are encouraged to also reach out and grasp such faith for ourselves.  A faith in God certainly, and we could equally claim, as good Trinitarian Christians, a faith that Jesus is the Christ, a human image of the divine being.

However, this mustard seed size Jesus faith can in fact be simplified and purified beyond the ecclesiastic language of the Christian community. 

Jesus had a faith that ‘things do not have to be the way they are, an assertion that even against what appears to be overwhelming odds, change is possible’[4].  

That is the faith that took Jesus to the cross and that is the faith that changed the course of human history. 

Through faith Jesus plucked the very complex and evolved tree of Hebrew spiritual culture from the Jerusalem temple.  Using skilled rabbinic exegesis and the expounding of scripture Jesus carefully pruned and shaped that tree to his unique design and purpose.  Then through his apostles, he cast that metaphorical faith tree into the eternal sea of time that flowed through his world into ours. 

It was indeed, mission impossible, the temple Judaism of his day was very much a hothouse plant unsuited for the competition of conflicting creeds that flowed like swirling currents through the Roman world.  Such a spiritual tree is certainly not the sort of plant that logic could understand would survive the cold chilled waters of the European dark ages that followed the collapse of Roman Civilisation. 

Yet here we are, perhaps the struggling remnant of the Christian faith drowning in the smothering secular sea. 

Or are we in fact the ripened fruit of two thousand years of growth of the Jesus tree about to plant ourselves in a new age of spiritual awareness?

There is plenty that we can lament about as we look back at the glory of our Christian past.  We can look at the church of today and quite freely say:

How lonely sits the church that once was filled with People!  How like a widow she has become’ (Lamentations 1:1). 

Many of us can remember the vibrant past life of the congregations that we have worshiped in.  We have also lived though, the hope of new beginnings that did not happen.  But the fact that we are meeting here this morning is a sign that we still have mustard seed potential.  We are people who dare to dream of a revitalised congregation and the rebirth of the Christian faith in a new world.

Surely all logic must tell us that we are hopeless dreamers, sinners pouring precious oil on the feet of a condemned Jesus. (John 12:1-8).  The world’s logic must cry out that surely these building could be sold and the money given to the poor or the homeless or both.  Parts of the church have demanded that remnant parishes that are only staying open through income from invested property money must be closed, and their money given to vibrant growing parishes with sound mission plans.

But across that sea of clambering, covetous, voices come the clear voice of the Jesus of Luke’s Gospel ‘if you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree ‘be uprooted and planted in the sea’ and it would obey you’ (Luke 17:6).  If you continue to have faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this wonderful, revitalised church building ‘be uprooted and planted in the sea of tomorrow’s spirituality, and it would obey you. 

We can hear that call through the Gospel pages not just because it is a message about our church buildings, but also because it is a message about the ripple of Christianity passing into the future in our part of the world.  Furthermore, we can still acknowledge that whatever we achieve in our apostolic quest to be involved in community facing mission St Martins may not be grand enough to be described as a tree grown in the ocean of secularism and disbelief.

But the effort we make may well be the mustard seed of faith that calls others to uproot the Kauri Tree of truly indigenous, inclusive, multi-cultural belief and plant it in a future rising tide of Aotearoa Christianity.

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[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Death

[2] http://www.pbs.org/greatwar/resources/casdeath_pop.html

[3] http://wwwstaff.murdoch.edu.au/~loader/LkPentecost20.htm

[4] ibid.

‘Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes even life itself, cannot be my disciple’.  (Luke 14: 25 NRSV)

That is undoubtedly a challenging reading for Father’s Day.

The Good News Bible softens the verse somewhat by translation it. ‘Whoever comes to me cannot be my disciple unless he loves me more than he loves his father and his mother, his wife and his children, his brothers and his sisters, and himself as well’.  (Luke 14:25 GNB) 

Where the New Revised Standard Version translates as much as possible word for word, the Good News Bible translates a phrase, sentence or paragraph at a time and in this case you may have noticed it changed the order.  That method of translation is interpretive and, in this case, I think the translators have allowed their 20^th century western world view and sensibilities to take away some of shock of Luke’s recording of Jesus’ original rhetoric. 

This is the opening statement designed to shock the listeners into paying attention. It then leads into the short parables that follow. 

Writing of this passage in his online commentary Bill Loader makes the point that ‘To read Jesus as enjoining literal hatred of one’s family is to miss the point and mishear the rhetoric. Such shocking rhetoric reflects a view that families can constrict growth, become oppressive demons, and bring death rather than life’[1].

Furthermore, in his conclusion, Loader dispels any idea that Jesus’ call to discipleship is an ancient form of ‘doing your own thing’ or finding true happiness in spontaneous self-fulfilment adrift of all others’ claims and free of care.  

Jesus’ call to discipleship is a call to be on the journey that will lead to Jerusalem and the cross.  In this section of the Gospel Jesus is making it clear that his call is not to some self focussed, feel good philosophy but Jesus’ call is an invitation to engagement in radically inclusive love.  Jesus’ call to discipleship involves living immersed in the life of the God of love, and living in solidarity with all who share that love. 

The risk is that people will not always agree with making that choice because it is likely to conflict with their world view, ideologies and for some their cunning schemes. 

The gospels give us the call of the fishermen as an example of discipleship interfering with the expectations of a family business.

Both Tom Scott and Sir Edmond Hillary are heroes of mine and the opening episodes of Scott’s television series on Hillary’s life gives us one of many contemporary examples. 

Scott portrays Sir Edmond holding his father in great respect and his father determined to give his son the best of opportunity to do well in life.  There is evidence of a solid, if somewhat strict, Christian upbringing and commitment to peace.  However, Hillary senior’s vision was limited to his bee keeping enterprise and looked towards his son’s being settled with families and working in the family business in the best ‘Country Callender’ tradition. 

He wanted the best for his family but the vision of both his son, and his grandson in turn, standing on the world’s highest mountain would never have featured in his wildest dreams.  Neither would he have imagined the tremendous good that the work his son began with the Sherpa people would result from the values he installed in his son.

The film showed tense standoffs between a young Edmond and his father who felt his son was wasting too much time gallivanting around.  Yet in that family tension the biting icy winds of the Southern Alps brought the call to Sir Edmond Hillary that changed lives and immortalised him on our five-dollar bill. 

The link with our reading is the family tension Scott brings out in his movie, the call he illustrates with stunning views from mountain peaks and the lives transformed by the journey chosen. 

This year’s top selling book A Different Kind of Power tells us of a young women who stepped away from the faith that nurtured her because of its attituded to homosexuality. She went on, among other things, to appoint a gay man as minister of finance.  

As people of faith, we are called to see the hand of Jeremiah’s master potter who moulds our lives.  Moulds the lives of families, communities and nations. Our faith inspires us to see in Tom Scots biographical story of Sir Edmond Hillary, Dame Jacinda’s memoir, our Gospel reading, and many other stories the Divin Spirit breathing though our world.

The beauty of the image of the potter’s wheel is that the clay is moulded and reshaped.  Life may take us in a wrong direction, but God can always reshape from miss-direction, build on our changes and call us to new beginnings.  Jeremiah presents a judgement image in terms of God using other nations to destroy a sinful Israel and Judah but he also includes hope:

‘And at another moment I may declare concerning a nation or a kingdom that I will build and plant it.’ (Jeremiah 18:9)   

But the gospel image of the discipleship journey is an evolving journey just as our world is an evolving world.  

Some years ago Bishop Spong wrote on his Facebook page

There never was a time when we were created perfect and fell into sin and needed to be rescued. We are evolving people; we are not fallen people. We are not a little lower than the angels. We’re a little higher than the apes. It’s a very different perspective.[2]

It’s a perspective not only of an evolving people but an evolving world.  Our world is continually in the potter’s hand.  Like our world pottery is an art that is not always totally in the potter’s control. 

Glaze is painted on to pots but changes in the kiln.  The potter has some idea of how the glaze might change but, like any artist, is open to serendipity and has the ability to make the most of surprises.  Even on the wheel the skilled potter can be inspired but an unexpected change in the shape of the clay can turn it into something new and different. 

In any sort of logic Jesus’ arrest and execution was a disaster and vindicated the attempt of Jesus’ family to restrain him.  In Mark 3: 21 we read ‘When his family heard it, they went out to restrain him, for people were saying, ‘He is gone out of his mind.’) 

However, the Spirit of the Resurrection turned disaster into victory and changed the world. That leaves us to ask what sort of world we would have without a determined Jesus and disciples inspired by his teaching and his faithfulness. Change, even in the face of a brutal Roman Empire, structured to resist change.

What would New Zealand and Nepal be like if a young Hillary had not resisted his father and his school’s efforts to press him into a predetermined shape. Moulded like an industrialised pressed pot rather than shaped by the creative spinning wheel of the artist potter? 

Where would our Antarctic research be if Hillary knew you couldn’t reach the South Pole on a Ferguson tractor.  What would have happened to that amazing adventure if Hillary had accepted his limited role of laying down fuel dumps for the planned British triumph of a motorised crossing of Antarctica. 

That call to amazing adventure and defiance came, not so much from the icy polar winds, as the persistent nagging of Peter Mulgrew,

‘Lets, go to the pole Ed’

Antarctica finally took the life of Peter Mulgrew on the 28^th of November 1979 when Air New Zealand Flight 901 ploughed into Mount Erebus, killing all 257 on board.  But in the ongoing turning of the master potter’s wheel Peter’s widow became the second Lady Hillary giving a renewed enthusiasm for life to both her and her new husband and ongoing inspiration to countless people. 

The clay on the potter’s wheel is all one clay and its interconnectedness brings amazing coincidences and connections into our lives.  As someone whose reading as an adolescent was improved by Hillarys books I can’t look at five dollar note without a quickening of the pulse.  Although inflation and bank cards mean I am mostly deprived of that experience these days.

Nevertheless, all of our actions and reactions have effects beyond our understanding and are part of the shaping of the clay by the divine hand.

Even so our own persistence and perseverance is part of our moulding and the shaping of our world.  Fitting into the carefully cotton wool cocoon of those most dear to us may not always be our best way forward, even if breaking out may cause family strife.

In his memoirs, an ancestor of mine, Joseph Masters outlined his plans to move to the Wairarapa and leave his Perry son in law in charge of their carpentry business in Wellington.  He does not describe any great family disagreement but tersely writes ‘My daughter came to me and said, ‘The business does not suit my husband, we are coming to the Wairarapa with you.’ 

Undoubtedly my life and the lives of many others would have been different if one of my distant forefathers had not, as an infant, made the three-day crossing of the Rimutaka Ranges in a basket strapped to Masters’ bullock.  There is also evidence in that account of a strong willed great, great, great grandmother whose genes have both blessed and cursed many of us.

Jesus calls us to plan and be aware of the risks but, when a young woman is happy working in the Cabinet Office of the British Parliament and a gay friend phones her and suggests she should put her name forward for the parliamentary list at home, did either of them know where that would lead, whose lives it would save and where the story goes next.  

The call of Christ is not limited by our faith community but it holds risks, tensions and possibilities which shape our future and shape our world. 

Christ calls us to the discipleship journey of tension, calamities and triumphs that are all moulded by the hand of a loving God into an ever-evolving loving future.

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[1] http://wwwstaff.murdoch.edu.au/~loader/LkPentecost16.htm

[2] John Shelby Spong https://www.facebook.com/JohnShelbySpong/?fref=ts

Peace Through Victory or Peace Through Justice and Loving Kindness

In his book In Search of Paul Dominic Crossan dramatically describes the sea battle where Octavian, who was later to be named Augustus, united the Roman Empire.  Augustus created peace through victory and therefore received the titles of Lord Saviour, Redeemer and Liberator. Divine Son of God.^[1] 

Crossan says those titles were Roman Imperial Theology and the glue that held the empire together.  The book then goes on to describe how Paul claimed all those titles for Jesus and spread a new vision of peace through justice and lovingkindness throughout the Roman Mediterranean.

That vision of peace seems most appropriate to explore when citizens of the land where Jesus was born walked and died are firing missiles at each other and children are starving to death.  Furthermore, Russia and Ukraine are also firing drones and missiles at each other and moving closer to dragging Europe into a bigger conflict and the United States is looking to profit from selling weapons.

In such a world of tension peace is not simply an absence of war.  Peace comes about through a creative process. We have to make peace.

Both our readings today point towards the suggestion that we begin making peace in our families.

The book of Hosea uses a dysfunctional and abusive household as a metaphor for a dysfunctional and disempowering nation.  Our Gospel reading begins with a dispute between brothers and then moves on to the parable that demonstrates the foolishness of hording possessions which is so often what causes disharmony in the family. 

Disputes over inheritances are often bitter and protracted and capable of destroying lifetime relationships.  Furthermore, when people start regarding other members of a household as possessions, family disputes can become lethal.

I have been doing a lot more reading since I retired and, as my mother taught me to read Agatha Christie, I have read all Ann Cleeves’ ?Vera Stanhope novels, all her Shetland series and impatiently await the next Vera book due this month.  None of those books feature shootouts, car chases or battles with sharks.  They reflect real life where most of the murders occur because of dysfunctional families.   I also moved on to Robert Galbraith who I quickly discovered is actually J. K. Rowling.   Through her superb wizardry she introduced her damaged, but astute, ex-military detective and his assistant who worked her way into and out of a dysfunctional marriage.  Certainly, her opening book began with a presumed suicide of a fashion model surrounded with wealth and glitz.  But when everything was unravelled, we discover the woman was part of a dysfunctional family and murdered over disputed inheritance.  

A summary of statistics about victims of murder, manslaughter, and infanticide in a New Zealand police report published in September 2018 stated that around 1 in 5 homicides were committed by a current or ex-partner and 75% of victims were female. 

Furthermore, children under the age of five made up twelve percent of homicide victims.^[2]

Peace-making must begin in our homes, in families where individuals, regardless of age, gender or relationship are regarded as fully human persons.   Violent and abusive families create violent and abusive communities.  Children, who have been bullied, and their behaviour modified by violence, bully other children and grow into adults who seek to define their own space in the world by being violent to others. 

We know very little about what induced a young man to walk into two Christchurch mosques and murder unarmed people.  But from what we read about far-right ideology we can assume he felt threatened by people different to himself and reacted violently. 

What we can be totally proud of is the inclusive response of the wider community and the recognition that we truly are a diverse community.  

I have also read David Close’s small book about his father’s memories of being a prisoner in the First World War which reminded me of the absolute misery of that war.  That misery was also reflected in the film about J. R. R. Tolkien and, during the film, I wondered if writing fantasy was the way he dealt with his post-traumatic stress.  

Nations often form an image of a god that not only supports them in wars but is expected to inflict violent punishment on anyone who does not honour that god. Karin Armstrong suggests that Yahweh was originally such a god of war and so Maurice Andrew’s comment on our reading from Hosea demonstrates an evolution in the understanding of God.  

In today’s reading we can see that Yahweh begins to be understood, not just as the Hebrew war god but the God of all humanity.  The God who behaves in an unexpected way.  Israel is not preserved because of the nature of the people or their violent reaction to others, but because God’s nature is to stop doing what god’s or ideologies are usually understood to do.  Rather than a god of destruction and revenge God loves all people and seeks to restore all people.

In accepting such a God, we can learn that a family who loves each other with God’s unconditional love allows children to grow into members of a community that is equally loving.  A community that looks to restore the lost rather than seeking revenge for the consequences of their dysfunction.,

However, we appear to be returning to a time when our nation seeks peace through victory as a way of controlling crime.

Once again, our government is promising tougher policing, crushing kid’s cars, longer prison sentences, and more jails.  Meanwhile we are pulling back on social housing, restricting benefits and experiencing a growth in homelessness.

Many sports and other activities are becoming too expensive for most young people, who are genetically and hormonally charged, to seek adventure.  Meeting that need and providing hope of a fulfilling life could well be a more constructive path to community peace.  However, as someone who had boxing lessons at primary school, the growth of martial arts worries me.

But violence always seems more direct and one of the characteristics of the historic development of the nation state was that the state claims the monopoly on violence and uses that monopoly to control its citizens. It then uses violence to create a sense of national pride by inflicting violence on other states. 

In George Orwell book 1984 he had the world divided into three.  At any one time two of those super states were at war with each other while the third was neutral.  They swapped places regularly, so all three states had the advantage of blaming inadequate government and failed economic policy on ‘the war.’

1984 has past but the world still manages to shift its enemies and allies around to keep the focus off domestic justice issues like poverty, housing and health care. 

Up till now that shuffling of friend and foe has been cautious because, the bombing of Hiroshima was extra frightening.  That bomb was considerably more destructive than the bronze weapons of Hosea’s day. 

On the 50^th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima I heard the Reverend Professor Ian Dixon speaking of being stationed with a unit in Europe when the bomb was dropped.  The officer in charge of his unit was a young physicist who was devastated by the news.  He said that he would rather be shipped to the Pacific and face another four years of war than have that terrible weapon used on human beings. 

Through that dreadful act the world was given peace through victory at a huge cost in terms of human suffering. 

But now someone wants to make America Great again and that is a worry as it looks to join all the great empires, from the Babylonians that threatened Hosea’s people through the Romans of Jesus’ time.  All the empires of the past and the would-be empires of today, have discovered that the violence needed to maintain a forced peace finally succumbs to the rebellion of an ever-increasing number of repressed marginalised people. 

Just like abused children, who may grow to inflict abuse on others, violently repressed people cannot conceive any hope of liberation without violent revolution. 

The seeds of terrorism and the embryos of suicide bombers are nurtured in exploitation, hopelessness and injustice that is always the dark side of peace through victory.

The farmer in the parable was simply foolish and all his wealth was derived by favourable agricultural conditions.  But in our world farm income can come from trade with wealthy nations that makes New Zealand butter too expensive for kiwis. 

The message of Hosea was that no matter what idols we build, or create in our minds, to support what desperate, or threatened people may see as a just war, the true God’s nature is to seek peace.

Our God does not punish the unjust with the force of a Hiroshima bomb.  The God we Christians image in Jesus Christ forgives, restores, and transforms. 

As followers of that Christ we are called to live our lives as Christ to others, forgiving, restoring and transforming both our lives and the lives of those around us. 

We are called to be rich in the way God understands wealth by seeking peace through justice and lovingkindness, not just for us, but for all humanity.

Such a peace is true, eternal wealth where Christ and all humanity are one with God.

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[1] Dominic Crossan In Search of Paul (New York: HarperCollins 2004) p.4.

[2]https://www.police.govt.nz/about-us/publication/homicide-victims-report-2017-and-historic-nz-murder-rate-report-1926-2017

Looking forward….. Revelation

The Book of Revelation…I wonder what you think of it.  For most people it’s  weird and wonderful but frankly not my cup of tea.  Martin Luther the great reformer and leader of our protestant faith wanted the book removed from scripture claiming it was an ‘epistle of straw’. 

It is what is known as Apocalyptic Literature.  That’s a big word so let AI explain… Apocalyptic literature is a genre characterized by strange images with hidden realities, often related to the end times or divine revelation. It’s marked by symbolic language, a pessimistic view of the present, and a focus on imminent cataclysmic events. 

The book of Revelation fits well.  There are strange images and symbolic language ….There are visions of beasts, four horsemen, angels blowing trumpets, wars, dragons, special numbers, Much of it seems to be focused on end times and Armageddon, There are lakes of fire and the present age is doomed.…. I could go on.   

What we need to understand is that this is written by someone who is experiencing visions that are often quite bizarre.  But hidden in the images are truths to challenge and deepen our faith….

John the writer of the book wants to tell us about Jesus and what he had done. He tells us there are evil forces at work in the world and Jesus has come to challenge those forces.  That challenge will inevitably involve conflict and bring persecution and ridicule, but kia kaha be strong, remain faithful for the God we know in Jesus will win.  Good will triumph over evil.

Let’s read some passages…

Rev 6:1-8  John has a vision of being transported to heaven where the one sitting on the throne has a scroll with 7 seals.  It seems the scroll contains details of what is about to happen.  Jesus is the only one who can open the seals. 

Rev 19: 11-16  After the evil powers are defeated John has a vision about Jesus which is quite shocking if you have been brought up to believe Jesus is only a mild mannered friend of little children.

Rev 21: 11-7, Rev 22: 12-14, 16,17.  After the great judgment John has a remarkable vision about the earth transformed.  God now makes his home with the people of earth. And the final passage is an invitation to come and join Jesus on the road to a transformed earth.

Back at the end of the 15^th century in Europe Albrecht Durer was using an artform that could be reproduced on the newly discovered printing presses.  He made woodcuts and became the first artist to publish a book and create a copyright.  His book, The Apocalypse with Pictures,  contained 15 woodcuts all depicting scenes from the book of Revelation.  Just why he chose to represent these scenes is explained by the world he lived in.  European society was falling apart. The Church, corrupt to the core, was about to face a revolution in the form of the Protestant Reformation.  The Ottoman empire was a new world power.  Many believed the world was facing a great day of judgment that would come as the 16^th century came to an end and the year 1500 dawned.  Durer saw what was happening as a sign that the book of Revelation was playing out before their eyes.  In maybe the most well known woodcut from his book we see the scene portrayed from the opening verses of Chapter six with the four horsemen:   

The first horseman (furthest right) is Pestilence and Plague. Dürer denotes Pestilance with his bow and arrow (Rev 6:1–2). The second horseman representing war has a long sword and is ready for battle. Famine is the horseman third from the right. The rider brandishes scales as his weapon which speaks of how wheat and barley would be tightly rationed and highly priced during the Apocalypse.  The final horseman is Death. This rider is the most distinctive horseman as he is noticeably older than the other horseman and incredibly malnourished. Unlike the other horsemen, Death is not given a tangible weapon. Instead, Death is charged with killing whoever is left alive when Plague, War, and Famine have completed their rides. Interestingly trampled under death is a bishop symbolic of the church.

   Many Christians claim the Book of Revelation offers a picture of how the world will end.  There will be a great cataclysmic final period of history before God steps in and the faithful will be rescued to live on for eternity in heaven.   The codes and signs tell us what will happen in these end times and all through history there have been people like Durer who have seen it happening in their time.

  I recall a few years ago books by Hal Lindsay.  Hal said the end times were upon us now.   He pointed to the setting up of the state of Israel and four key players – Russia, China, The Middle Eastern nations, and the European Economic Union which was seen to be the ten horned beast of Revelation because there were ten countries in the union at that time.   Hal did well with over 25 million copies of his Late Great Planet Earth sold, and is partly responsible for the reality that in the United States something like 4 in 10 people think the end times are upon us – 40%!

    I confess I don’t think the book of Revelation offers us a coded road map of the future.  I don’t believe there is a set plan that details every event in the future that if we can just crack the code we will know all about.  I don’t believe everything that happens in my life is pre-planned.  I do believe God has some dreams and purposes for my life, but I have freedom of choice and can head along different paths if I choose.  There is an insistence of God that speaks into my life and the life of the world, but I can be very deaf and blind.  I often head down other paths to what God might hope.  Life is a mysterious mix of God’s will and chaos. 

So do we ditch Revelation as Luther hoped.  I want to say a resounding NO!

   I believe the Book of Revelation with its dramatic images of battles between good and evil actually is a huge wake up call for us.  In our comfortable liberal western world  we have forgotten the reality that evil exists, and we keep pretending all is well.  We are blind to the idea of consequences and judgment, and we think we can sail merrily on and everything will be fine and dandy while the earth literally burns up around us with hate and heat.  

   John saw the visions in the Book of Revelation at a time when the persecution of Christians had begun under the reign of the Roman emperor Nero around 60 AD but intensified under the reign of Domitian in the AD 90’s.  The events depicted in the visions revolve around the persecutions and evil events that were unfolding right before John the author’s eyes. The Christians were still a tiny tiny minority of the population.   In Christchurch (if it existed) maybe there would have been 50 Christians.  But they were a significant fringe group who proclaimed that not all was well.  When others literally worshiped the  emperor and the great Roman dream of Pax Romana, the peace of the mighty Roman empire, the Christians said ‘we follow another way and another Lord’.    ‘We see another future’.  That got them into trouble!

   Imagine yourself part of such a group.   With a mad dictator in Rome you are now being singled out.  All mad leaders know the value of having scapegoats.  (Jews, Palestinians, Mexican refugees, Muslims…)  Christians are being targeted, and some are being brutally killed.  You meet in secret, and you talk in ways that that are not openly understood.  The rotten Roman empire becomes a ‘beast’ and we all know what we are talking about.

   John in his visions sees the real power of evil in the world, but kia kaha, remain strong. God is still at work.   And this is a key message of Revelation.  God will not be defeated.  The cross and suffering are real but this is not the final word.  The empty tomb is.  In picturesque language the book of Revelation talks of great battles.   Instead of saying the Emperor is a fraud and his violent regime is rotten and evil. John tells a strange story about a monster who comes out of the sea, a place of evil, and is defeated.  Instead of saying the established religions of Rome are corrupt it tells a story about a whore.  Instead of saying the Empire is doomed, it talks of an empire which reached glorious heights but which collapses inwards into a cess pit of violence, greed, and inhumanity – Babylon.  The language is rich in symbolism.  It talks of a beast with seven heads.  The great city of Rome was located on seven mountains or hills.. and the writer is saying this city, the toast of the empire, is a godless city built on the subjugation of many.  Most of the population lived as slaves in grinding poverty.  The rich and wealthy elite lived in luxury with little thought of welfare of others.  ..ring any bells?  The message of Revelation is it wont survive…. The four horsemen are coming.

   Later after we read of the vision of Jesus coming on a great white horse and you may think it doesn’t fit with the Jesus I know in the gospels.  This Jesus of Revelation seems to be a warrior of brute strength and violence.  But read these visions carefully.   Even before the battle begins Jesus’s robe is blood stained with his own self giving love, and the sword he carries is in his mouth not in his hand.  The vision of the Messiah is of someone who has shed his own blood, and who fights not with guns and bombs, but with words of love and with judgements about what is right and wrong.    This Messiah fights with the power and sword of truth to bring healing, reconciliation, and sustainable life into our world. 

   The sword of truth…. Our ways of living are wrecking this planet. Witness the reality of climate change.  Witness the imbalance between rich and poor which sees huge divisions – we are no longer interconnected as a society but living in glorious isolation which opens the door for uncaring random violence.  Anxiety has reached epic proportions particularly amongst younger generations.  And we consume, consume, consume and amass stuff, lots of stuff.  The seductive powers of evil are alive and well, calling us to death, destruction, and darkness.  The four horsemen are still roaming.

   Come Lord Jesus and open our eyes, unblock our ears with your truth.

    We may read passages in Revelation and think God is going to destroy the earth.  Some Christians, and many Christians in the United States, say we don’t need to worry about climate change, or polluting the earth, living sustainably, or being concerned about the plight of so many who have so little.  God is going to destroy it all anyway, and because we go to church we will be saved.  But that negates the message of Revelation and of Jesus.  I have not come to condemn.  I love the earth. I have come to transform lives, I have come to save and rescue, to bring life to all the earth. 

   At the end of the Book of Revelation we have a beautiful visionary scene   which pictures a New Jerusalem, or holy city, descending from heaven to engage in a new relationship with the earth.  “See the home of God is now fully amongst us, and the earth is renewed.  God’s home is now the very earth itself.  He will wipe every tear from their eyes, and violence and destruction will be no more.  No more will people cry out with the pain of injustice.  For the earth has been transformed and made new.” 

   The poetic picture is striking.   This transformed earth doesn’t need a temple because God’s presence is found everywhere.  It doesn’t need a sun or moon because the light of Christ burns bright in every corner.  Its gates are never shut and it welcomes people from all round the world to receive and bring blessings and treasures to one another.  From the centre of the city, from God’s own throne, a river flows. But it’s not any old river, it is a river of life or aliveness.  Along its banks grows trees of Life with fruit available every month of the year.  True peace reigns as people of all races live in harmony with one another and with all creation as children of God.  The picture of the end of the world is not destruction but renewal.  Everything made whole. Life in all its fullness has come.  I read this and I have hope.  This is where Jesus is leading us.  This is the earth God dreams of, and it is the earth that one day will come into being!  It’s where our Christian faith should be leading us.

   And the final word of the Book of Revelation is compelling.   That word is the word, “COME”.  Come and join those walking the road of Jesus that leads us to a union of earth and heaven.  Come join those who are battling the powers of evil, working for good.  Expect terrible conflicts and expect hopelessness.  The road will be hard and costly, the powers of evil are terrifying.  Witness what is happening in Gaza.  I could weep.  Often evil is more subtle – we know that in our own lives!  But the final word of John is Come join the team that is fighting for life, fighting for Jesus.  Come, keep walking, keep loving, keep wielding the sword of truth for the victory will be ours.