Wednesday 8 June 2016

Sermon Opoho Church Sunday 29 May 2016 Pentecost 2

Readings:  Galations 1: 1-12,  Luke 7: 1-10

Let us prayMay your word encourage, challenge and assure us today O God we pray – in the name of Jesus.  Amen.

Albert Einstein once said: ‘no problem can be solved by the same consciousness that caused it.’
In an online paper, Father Richard Rohr explores the way in which he believes a transformed soul is a necessary precursor to being the people of God in action. He suggests that without the complete change of perspective that knowing Jesus brings to our very hearts, any work we do to further the kingdom in this world will be flawed and will be likely to compound the problem because we will be working with the same rational, same wisdom, ours, that caused the problem in the first place. Hence his quoting of Einstein. 

I tend to think of the centurion of today’s Gospel reading in this way – as someone who is convicted in the heart of the transforming power of Jesus and it shows in his engagement with the community in which he lives. 
He would have been one of the unbaptised believers that we were talking about last week – in his case an uncircumcised one, one who believed in the teachings of this man Jesus but because of his context (Gentile, Roman) reluctant to abandon his ethnic group to the extent of circumcision.  Yet Jesus saw him as more faithful, more committed to the way than many of those who were ostensibly part of the community of faith.

For the soldier gets the love and compassion that is at the heart of the law.  He gets that it is all about looking out for each other in community.  He gets that this man Jesus is a transforming presence in his life and that he cannot but help but be the good neighbour, the generous host, the kind and welcoming and tolerant member of the community. 

And it is intriguing too that, at least in this version of the story, the soldier never actually gets to be in the presence of Jesus.  Matthew has the centurion approach Jesus directly but Luke keeps him away and through this absence is wanting to let us know a few things here.  One is that the authority of Jesus is such that his word is enough and there is no need for physical contact to ensure healing – there is a sense that the physical encounters that Jesus has in most of the other biblical stories of healing are to meet the needs of a people who need to see to believe – the centurion needs only to ask. 
And secondly he asks through the community – of which he is not - obviously at least - a part.  He trusts the community and they do not let him down.  They trust him and convey his depth of faith to Jesus in no uncertain terms.

And then Luke portrays faith as situated within a community of hospitality in which God and others are embraced.  There is that direct link again that Rohr was talking about of the need for the transformation of the heart to effectively live out the Gospel message.  And when this happens it creates a community not just of faith but also of trust and of great things happening.

Too often I suspect we don’t quite yield the control of how it is that we are to engage with community to God, and in fact have our own plan established before we take time to be still and listen to God’s voice in our hearts.  We need to allow that the love that we encounter when we sit quiet before God permeates every decision and vision that we have as the people of God.  Discerning the guidance of the Spirit in our relationship with the community and each other must come before actions for then the power to change the world will belong to God, not to us.  To misquote Einstein: We cause the problems, let the transforming presence of God in us be the solution.

For the issues that confront us are huge.  I am not going to try to list these but rather share this particular story.  The plight of our world was brought home to me in a different way when I was looking at a couple of headlines on Stuff online – what it is that makes the news.  Amongst all the Bachelor stories and the private traumas of the stars (yes you can see that I have high regard for the website) it seemed incredibly telling to me that acts of kindness are making the front page – are they that unusual?  There was the one of a woman helping a diabetic mum with a young child who was weaving across the road and everyone thought was drunk (familiar story here?)– it has had 500,000 hits.  And there was an article about a person who (and these were the words used) had become addicted to random acts of kindness – like it was a new game.  How sad that kindness is news!  Have we lost our way completely?

The Christian community is of this world– we cannot be separate and silent nor can we be judgemental, prejudiced or take the moral high ground. We can only be who we are called to be – the community of God active in this world.  So, we ask, do we have a voice that can speak out of an absolute heart conviction of the love of God within us and, through Jesus Christ and, in the power of the Spirit, take that transforming love into the community and the world in a way that will make a difference.       

Well maybe if we take the wisdom of the reading today with us into a time of contemplation we might discern ways in which we are already a voice of love in the world and other ways in which we can perhaps further explore living out God’s plan for the healing of the world. 

For I believe that the transformed community of Christ will be something like this.
Where we all take time to contemplate the presence of God in our lives, with ears to hear and peace to draw God’s love deep into who we are.
Where we have trust in God, in each other and in the community we are part of. 
Where we are generous – not just in material giving but also in forgiveness, tolerance, patience, hospitality and respect.

This is who we are and who we are to become.

I would invite you to come forward after a time of reflection and light a candle for the acts of kindness you are already addicted to (nothing random about them), and the trust that there will be more asked of us – in Jesus name.

Margaret Garland


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