Sermon Opoho Church Sunday 9th November, 2014 Pentecost 22 Remembrance Sunday

Readings:  Amos 5:18-24,  Matthew 25:1-13

We pray:  May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight O God, our rock and our redeemer.  Amen.

Amos was one angry man, was he not -  furious with the attitude of those around him, aggressively and vigorously provoking them with his ‘no holds barred’ rhetoric.  And he mixes his own rage with the rage of God into a particularly potent explosion of wrath. 

 Why do you do this, why is everything you do all about sitting secure in your rightness, waiting till you can come together on the Lord’s day, to celebrate and sing and offer your wealth and rituals to God.  You can almost hear him saying ‘A pox on you!’  They are stark images he uses as he seeks to hammer the message home (escaping a lion only to run straight into a bear and finding a place of safety only to be bitten by a snake), images deliberately to shock them into at least questioning their attitude towards how they worship their God.   He mocks their solemnity, their celebration, their idea of ritual sacrifice and offering, their idea of preparedness for living as God’s people.  If that is all you do then you are mocking God says Amos.  There is more to your preparedness for the coming of the Lord  - there is the living into ways of justice and righteousness too.

The Gospel reading too is about preparedness.  Some were wise, says the parable, and some foolish and the foolish were defined by their unpreparedness.  They seemed to be doing everything that they were required to do – but it came unstuck when the unexpected happened and the bridegroom was late. 

Both sets of people in these readings today were living in a sacred space separated from the realities of ordinary daily life. 

Amos understood this and threw some brutal words at his people.  He was wanting them to take a reality check – to realise that a God focussed life was not about just sitting and waiting but was also about engaging with the reality of the world as well – life out there was not pretty, in fact it is downright ugly and unfair and sad and we cannot shut ourselves off from that – to use modern day analogies – fleeing from a war torn country to NZ only to be  randomly murdered in your new ‘safe’ country or moving house and family to a new job only to be made redundant after 6 months. 

Likewise the foolish bridesmaids were living in a bit of a cocoon of unreality – expecting life to be as they had ordered it, and who consequently were unprepared for the unexpected reality that is life, left scrambling when the groom eventually came. 

Neither were realising that whilst they might be really good at celebrating together as the people of God, their passive attitude, their concentration on what was coming to the neglect of what was, had no place in a life of engaged faith.

Does this have relevance for us?

I remember as a child (and probably as an adult for a while too) thinking that if we prayed for a situation then it was job done.  If we spoke sympathetically about a downtrodden people, then it was appropriate stance registered.  If we came to church on Sunday then it was week solved, God time accomplished.  There is a book I have on my bookshelf written by Alistair Mackenzie and Wayne Kirkland called ‘Where’s God on Monday?’[1] which addresses this very issue, suggesting that for many there is very little connection between Sunday and heading off into the week – they are different worlds, disparate places.  And among other things they tackle the issue that we somehow think not only that the spiritual and the secular realms are separate but that that the spiritual realm is important and the secular less so – for some Christians it’s just about treading water on the things like jobs and ordinary weekday stuff until Sunday or church programmes or bible studies come around. 

Now I know that everyone here  is jumping up and down with impatience for all church gatherings – meetings, services, practices, working bees – but seriously what is there to our gathering if it is not followed by our sending out into the week and the world.  Where is the Christ in our lives if he is not part of our relationships at work and exercise group and family time?  What use our celebration and praise and hearing of scripture and story if we do not apply it to our everyday lives, our decisions and our attitudes.

Maybe, just maybe taking Christ with us into each and every moment of our living as well as our worship will be the preparation needed to speak into the unexpected and not always pretty aspects of living where there is desperate need for Christ’s love, grace and mercy to be shared through us.  We are Christ’s people, baptised into living every day in faith, not just Sundays!  Amen.  So be it.

Margaret Garland

Remembrance Day 100 years on from the beginning of the Great War

As Christians we are probably more used than most to putting ourselves into the stories of another time, of trying to imagine how life was once upon a time and why choices were made.  And so on this day, one hundred years on from the beginning of World War 1, I suggest we take a moment to put ourselves into that place at the beginning of a war that decimated humanity on a scale never before seen.  What might it have been like?  An adventure for some, a strong sense of doing what was just and right for others, a culture of doing as you were ordered to do, a sense of helplessness at finding any response other than violence to the threat.  Did anyone really know the horrors ahead – those who ordered and those who obeyed?  I doubt it.  I’m not sure how many of you are Blackadder watchers but in ‘Blackadder Goes Forth’ set in the trenches of the western front, that scene in the last episode where, with a sense of the inevitable hopelessness and stupidity of the act, he leads them over the edge is firmly ensconced in my mind as the epitome of the futility of war. 

And the Christian in the midst? Their response?  History can give us the distance to be somewhat disdainful, judgemental of the inadequacy of the faithful to stand up and speak out about the wrongness of war but who of us would be sure of our response given the same circumstances. 

And so we here today remember and honour those who gave their lives in the pursuit of  justice and right and obedience – and we affirm our belief that there are better ways of resolving conflict than war and violence and that Jesus Christ is our guide and our light for that path to peace and reconciliation.

A peace litany:

May God hold them in peace,

For those who were killed in battle,

For those who gave up their lives to save others

For those who came home carrying disturbing scars all their lives

For those who stood against war at great cost

For those who cared for the wounded and broken

For those who stayed home and wept for the loss

For those who spoke out against the horror,

For those who tried to make the peace,

For those who prayed when others had no time to pray
For all humanity, we will pray:
May God hold them in peace and may God’s love flow over all the earth

bringing cleansing and peace to us all.  This day and for always.  Amen

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[1] Mackenzie, Alistair and Kirkland, Wayne Where’s God on Monday (Christchurch, NZ: NavPress NZ, 2002)