Bill Loader writes on his website that, what killed Stephen still snuffs out life, and we need to see that such activity appears wherever the appeal to love as the highest priority is resisted, and violence is preferred as somehow “right” or even as “just”. Jubilation, Loader says, at the killing of anyone, both saint and sinner, even a terrorist leader puts us among those who threw stones at Stephen.

It was the persistence of Jesus that love and truth have priority and that no one be deemed beyond God’s love that led to his demise and it leads to faith’s demise even today and even in Christchurch.^[1]

Faith is threatened with demise when, in the name of a god of their own making, people persecute those who are different to themselves because the world judges faith by the persecutors. 

When extreme ‘Christian’ sects demand the death penalty for homosexuals and Nigeria changes its laws accordingly then the whole church is blamed.  Some American ‘Christian’ states are even legislating the death penalty for abortion while lawyers are getting rich protecting wealthy paedophiles. 

I wrote my first letter to a politician who was seeking re-election with the promise of restoring the death penalty.  I got a very polite reply telling me that my opinion was in the minority, but thankfully the death penalty was never restored. 

Faith is also under threat when leaders of any faith respond with violence to any alternative understanding of what it means to be faithful.  and that is what the story of Stephen’s martyrdom is all about.

In John’s Gospel there is a discussion among the religious leadership, and Caiaphas the high priest for that year says, ‘You do not understand that it is better for you to have one man die for the people than to have the nation destroyed.’ (John 11:50)  Caiaphas was concerned that Jesus’ interpretation of their religious tradition would not only lead to widespread public disorder and Rome would act to violently repress any such unrest.

Like most leadership, particularly in societies that have a hereditary ruling class, Caiaphas and the other Jerusalem leaders saw themselves as the best people to lead.  From their perspective any challenge to their leadership was a threat, both to their privileged position and therefore to the whole nation. 

History vindicates Caiaphas’ fears because when a rebellion did occur the Romans destroyed the temple and killed and dispersed the people.  The nation then ceased to exist until the modern state of Israel was proclaimed on the14 May 1948. 

However, killing Jesus did not stop that happening and instead resulted in the founding of a faith that included non-Jews and became a major civilising force.  Unfortunately, once Christianity gained authority and status it also sought to maintain that authority through violence just as Caiaphas did.

Nevertheless, our justice system takes a reverse point of view to Caiaphas and that is probably because of the Christian influence on our culture. 

Our justice system insists on the right of an accused to a fair trial and in his Commentaries on the Laws of England William Blackstone wrote in 1760 ‘It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer’.

We can in fact trace that principle back to the book of Genesis where Abraham bargains with God for the lives of the people in Sodom.  In chapter 18 we read ‘Then Abraham came near and said, ‘Will you indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked?  Suppose there are fifty righteous within the city; will you then sweep away the place and not forgive it for the fifty righteous who are in it?  Far be it from you to do such a thing, to slay the righteous with the wicked, so that the righteous fair as the wicked!’  Then Abraham continues this argument until he gets the number down to ten righteous people and God replies ‘For the sake of ten I will not destroy it’. (Genesis18:23-32)

However, although our justice system has followed William Blackstone’s advice the people television interviews after a major crime often give the appearance of preferring to blame anybody in a quest for that mysterious closure we all seem to crave.  Indeed, history and myth are full of stories of mob justice where the innocent have been murdered so that vengeance is satisfied and that is where we come to the story of the stoning of Stephen.

Luke has linked this incident to Jesus’ crucifixion, but where the crucifixion was a legal execution Stephen’s stoning was a lynching, the mob administering their own understanding of justice.  Stephen had preached to a crowd and had insulted their religious sensibilities.  From the perspective of Stephen’s audience Stephen had blasphemed, taken God’s name in vain, and defamed God.  Therefore they decided to punish Stephen, not just on behalf of the authorities but also on God’s behalf. 

It always intrigues me when people feel the need to administer punishment on behalf of an all seeing all powerful God, particularly as those same people are often ready to attribute people’s misfortune as divine punishment.  Such a god would appear quite able to administer whatever punishment was required.

It was probably only a very few people who were enraged enough to stone Stephen to death.  But such rage is highly contagious.  People enjoy the feeling of belonging and are terrified of being out of step with everyone else.  So any mob can easily turn violent. 

That fear of being different is not completely unfounded because being out of step with popular opinion is what got Stephen killed. 

However, it is people who dare to move ahead of popular opinion that change the world.  But when we step out on our own we need to know where we are going.  That brings us to our Gospel reading.   

In Jesus’ farewell speech John has not only been portraying Jesus’ last words to his disciples, but also considering his readers both present and future, which of course includes us!

The disciple’s distress and confusion about Jesus’ fate represents the confusion and distress in our own experience and, by employing the individual disciples to enhance the drama, John creates a message that is simple and telling.

We live in a world where fitting in with the crowd is unlikely to drag us into a lynch mob but could well immerse us in conspiracy theories, misogyny or the criticism of minority or marginalised groups.  In such a world this gospel passage informs us that we should trust that God is just as Jesus told us and demonstrated to us.

If we include more of the story of Jesus from the other gospels this means that we can trust in the God of compassion in which there’s a place for us within the process of transforming our world.  We are reassured by today’s passage that the meaning of life is to share Christ’s compassion in the world and ensure that it is a world that has a place for all.^[2] 

As we consider both these readings together, we can understand that the divine realm is an inclusive culture where different perspectives are valued and outcasts are welcomed back into the community.  The God we meet in the Christ image is not a God that needs us to punish or exclude those who have alternative perspectives.  The God we find in Christ Jesus calls us into dialogue with alternative perspectives because through such conversations we are all likely to find a greater truth. 

Jesus’ farewell speech to his disciples recognises that the discipleship way is a difficult journey but it provides a road map for that journey.  Through the beginning this chapter of John’s Gospel Jesus assures us of his closeness to God.  We are told that we can assume Jesus and God are one and so what we can learn of Jesus gives us an image of the divine unimaginable mystery. 

We live in a world where it is so easy to be swept along by popular opinion and to find acceptance by agreeing with the majority view.  In such a world it may well appear that conformity makes for a safe, if somewhat flat world.  But the reality is that it is those who dare to sail to the very edge of the known world that discover the world is a dynamic globe of shifting plates and extreme changes in climate and weather patterns. 

Our world is a world in which peoples are formed by migration upon migration as new orders are born from past chaos and death and despair is the prelude of resurrection and restored hope.

To make the discipleship journey through such a world we need to load the Gospels into our personal guidance system and with Christ as our destination.  We must live out the words of Jesus to Thomas in today’s Gospel reading.

Jesus said to him ‘I am the way, and the truth and the life.’ (John 14:6)

---

[1] http://wwwstaff.murdoch.edu.au/~loader/AActsEaster5.htm

[2] http://wwwstaff.murdoch.edu.au/~loader/MtEaster5.htm

‘He told you O mortal, what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and walk humbly with your God?’ (Micah 6:8)

That is one of my favourite readings.  From time-to-time Poto Willims would ask me for a reading because she was speaking at a church service and that is the reading I always gave her. I thought it was appropriate for a Labour MP.  And particularly suitable when she was Police Minister.

The reading also goes a long way to answer Bill Wallace’s question that asks ‘what image shall I use to give a face to God?’  It tells us what God requires of us.  Our Gospel reading fleshes out Michah’s words as Jesus gives us the Beatitudes.  .

Maurice Andrew suggests the Hebrew translated ‘humbly’ might be better translated as ‘circumspectly.’[1] Not being an Old Testament scholar like Maurice I could not possibly comment.  But perhaps the choice of words depends on the interpreters understanding of humanities image of God and the appropriate response to God. 

According to Collins English Dictionary ‘humble’ means conscious of one’s failings, unpretentious, lowly deferential and servile.  That suits a theology of sin and repentance that gives power to the clergy and the church hierarchy.   On the other hand, Collins defines ‘circumspect’ as cautious, prudent, or discreet, which may better reflect a relationship with a God who requires humanity to do justice, and love kindness.  When we take into account the previous verses in our reading that rebut extravagant worship then, as people who have a strong desire to worship, such worship may indeed need to be approached with caution.  Furthermore, when we consider humanity’s seeming reluctance to do justice and love kindness, being prudent and discreet in our relationship with God could well save us from accusations of hypocrisy. 

Rather than two alternative translations the different meanings may well inform each other and we should be both humble and circumspect in our relationship with God.

Certainly, we would not consider animal or human sacrifice as worship but perhaps we should ponder the possibility that the meaning of this reading is telling us that worship fulfils a human, rather than divine need.

God does not need our worship, but God certainly requires humanity to do justice, and to love kindness.  

Nevertheless, the fact that people have gathered for worship throughout history strongly suggests that worship is an important part of building human community. 

Furthermore different worship styles define different communities and strong involvement and enjoyment of worship are often signs of a strong community. 

But we must always remember that no matter how we might wish it to so, worship is not a way we can manipulate God.  Neither is worship, a way of appeasing God when we fail to do justice, and to love kindness.  Although lament and confession allow us to begin again and remind us that our faith is a resurrection faith of new beginnings.

Bill Wallace’s hymn asks if God is a God of ransom deals who buys us, heart and mind. That is a question about the theology that suggests that humankind was so sinful that only the death of God’s son could redeem us.  Micah’s theology rebuts that bargain. God does not want burnt offerings or the sacrifice of our firstborn.  Likewise in the second part of verse four Wallace rebuts that question by writing ‘or one who waits in hope to give what we ourselves must find’. 

Not only does Micah give us a clear statement of what God expects of humanity, but Jesus expounds what that means for his disciples in the Sermon on the Mount.  We could in fact head verses 3-12  ‘What does the LORD require of you’:

Walking humbly and circumspectly with our God the poor in spirit are blessed and are recognised as part of the divine realm and those who mourn are comforted.  In such understanding, it is the meek that inherit the earth, not the wealthy and powerful who cover their disregard for ordinary people by lavish pageantry, self-centred excessive worship and alternative facts.     

Certainly those who thirst for righteousness are blessed because they are indeed the people who love kindness, and walk humbly with God.  Those who thirst for righteousness are the pure in heart who regularly meet with the God within them and recognise the God in others. 

All these blessed people are indeed peacemakers, true children of God and for that they are likely to be interred or imprisoned.  Even tied to a post and shot as so many caring and frightened men were when the world wanted to be at war. 

People who want clean rivers and a world still fit for our grandchildren and their grandchildren are more than likely to be ridiculed.  Those scientists among them are likely lose their contracts because, in the most powerful nation on earth it is now official, climate change does not exist and that disease is spreading here.

Furthermore, when there was a deadly disease spreading across the world misogynists threatened to kill the biologist with pink hair and the prime minister.

Nevertheless, those who are still determined to take Micah’s words seriously Jesus has words of encouragement that begin in verse twelve. 

‘Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you’.  (Matthew 5:12)

Not overly encouraging if a lynch mob tries to occupy Parliament Grounds and hang effigies outside your office.  Nevertheless, that verse from Matthew’s Gospel is still a plan so cunning that you could tie a tail to it and call it a weasel. More importantly it has the potential to create better future.

The ICE raids in the United States are persecuting many people of colour as well as so called illegal immigrants, but we need to remember that both our nation and the USA are nations of immigrants.  We also need to remember that in protest of such persecution people like Martin Luther King, were martyred to an Assassin’s bullet.  There was also many more imprisoned during the civil rights struggles.  In the history of our faith many faithful people were also persecuted.  John Wycliffe, who was credited with the first English translation of the Bible, was charged with heresy.  He escaped serious consequences by dying of a heart attack.  Nevertheless his attack on the organised church was considered so serious that 44 years later his body was dug up and burned.  

But persecution can also be subtle and I am indebted to Martha Spong, cousin of Bishop Spong, who posted an essay on her Facebook page by Camille Dungy, a professor of English Literature.

Professor Dungy described her distress because when her Presbyterian minister prayed for all those who felt excluded or persecuted by the new administration he concluded by saying ‘let us pray for all those who are on the outside of our society looking in’.  Professor Dungy is a woman, and black, her daughter is a friend of the minister’s daughter, and she thought that she was part of her church.  What she heard her minister saying was that because she was a woman and black she was outside looking in.  The prayer reminded her that her family was the only black family in the congregation, probably the only black people the members of the congregation knew and the minister had just confirmed that they saw her as on the outside looking in.  Reading the essay made me realise just how lucky I have been that, as long as I can remember, I have always had friends of different ethnicity. 

She has not been back to that church since, and her daughter cries on Sunday’s because she misses her friends.   Professor Dungy may well be oversensitive, and ministers are always getting into strife over things like the words they use which were never intended to mean what people hear.  Nevertheless, persecution can be subtle. 

Yet it is a fact that the small group of people who make an exceptional difference are, like the first disciples, often the people on the outside looking in. 

But when someone, even unwittingly, excludes a professor of literature from a community it quickly becomes obvious that even in this keyboard age, the pen is mightier that the sword. 

George Orwell’s pen continues its work long after his death and his classic dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty Four is still widely read and quoted.  Ironically Orwell wrote that book about the threat of totalitarian communism but now the threat is totalitarian capitalism.  That threat has not only pulled creative thinking from the past but has set the keyboards of the current world’s thinkers into overdrive.

Furthermore the fact that the Rev Martha Spong chose to give Professor Dungy’s essay an extra boost to its global publication testifies that, as Jesus proclaimed, ‘The kingdom of heaven is at hand.’  Followers of Jesus and those who thirst for righteousness are more united in this communication age than ever before.

In verse six of Matthew 5 we read , ‘blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.  In today’s world those who hunger and thirst for righteousness are united and inspired by each other and those connections happen at the speed of light. 

People in power will always try to manipulate truth to retain power and avoid opposition to their policies but the assurance of the Beatitudes is that righteousness will prevail. 

The Sermon on the Mount was instruction to the disciples, and it was about their involvement, their risk taking and their participation in making sure righteousness prevailed.  The assurances were about overcoming opposition and apathy and reassurance that their actions would not be in vain.  Two thousand years of Christian history bears that out.  Jesus expounded the ideas and principles in the words of Micah and other writers in the Hebrew tradition.  Those ideas framed the mission planning for his disciples on the journey towards becoming the Apostles.  Matthew has recorded those ideas as instructions for all of us who claim to follow Jesus.  Put alongside our reading from Micah they are the basis of any congregation’s mission plan. 

The reading from Micah and the Beatitudes are instructions that keep a balance between worship and our actions in the world. 

The Beatitudes flesh out our understanding of the God we image in Jesus Christ and our reading from Micah tells us what that God requires of us. 

‘To do justice, and to love kindness, and walk humbly with your God?’ (Micah 6:8)

---

[1] Maurice Andrew, op.cit.

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.

---

[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.

---

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

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