Sermon Opoho Church Sunday 1 September 2019 Pentecost 12 Holy Communion

Readings: Psalm 8    Luke 14:1, 7-14

It’s a little like the beginning of an action novel isn’t it – ‘when Jesus was going to the house of a leader of the Pharisees to eat a meal on the sabbath, they were watching him closely.’

Because he was suspect, apt to behave in unexpected, unconventional ways and the authorities thought that they had best keep him under observation.

And maybe it was best to continue to invite him to table so that those who distrusted him could keep an eye on him.  I mean he knew how to behave (mostly)  and they agreed on obeying the Torah and keeping the Sabbath day holy – but Jesus is definitely and continually challenging their interpretations and priorities within that.
And in the part of Luke 14 sandwiched between the verses that we did hear today was yet another radical act – another healing on the Sabbath, this time of the man with palsy.  Jesus did not disappoint.  And the Pharisees had no reply – yet again. 

What is quite fascinating is where reading goes from there – to a seemingly random story which Luke introduces as a parable, something we know is intended to have a meaning that is deeper, more significant than everyday advice. 

For that is, on the surface, what we seem to have:  a rather pragmatic piece of advice from Jesus about how to avoid social embarrassment at one of the most formal of occasions, the public meal.  In these days of the meal often being treated in rather a casual manner, it is hard to realise how very important these events were for the maintaining of stature in the community. You had your place, worked hard at maintaining or improving your status in the community and losing face was almost like losing ones’ life.

And so being asked to move down the table would be of supreme embarrassment. Jesus appears to offer advice on how to avoid that, and in fact how their mana would be enhanced by being asked to move up.  So, is Jesus just telling them to put on superficial humility for self-interest’s sake?  It doesn’t sound quite right.  And then he truly confuses them and speaks about not inviting those who can return the favour, but instead the poor and the cripple and the lame and the blind - the ones who could never respond in kind – but in order to build up credit in heaven?  Again it appears to be about self-interest – a kind of use and abuse of the poor for our own capital gain – spiritual capitalism at its worst as one commentator said, and again it doesn’t sit well with us.

So….Bill Loader calls this a potentially very dangerous text – but full of blessing.  Dangerous when we use humility as a strategy, placing ourselves low only in order to benefit ourselves later. Or equally when we deny our strengths and gifts by considering ourselves valueless – the humility that God requires of us is positive, action filled, not self abasing.  And finally it is dangerous to deny the will of God and ignore the needs of others but equally dangerous to exploit the needs of others for our own end, to be do-gooders in the hope of reward only.

The blessing, says Loader, comes when we learn that the lines of love – for God, for others, for oneself – converge to form an inclusive love, all embracing, ever hopeful, and to engage in it fully in all directions, including towards ourselves.  And the promise of future reconciliation with God takes its place, not as reward but as coming home.

The blessing of grace: when we learn that our standing with God is a given and, held in that loving grace, our behaviour is a given – to care for each other and the world, to pour out our lives for healing and wholeness just as Jesus did.  Forget the hierarchies, ignore the naysayers, challenge the self interest of the world and find a new way.

And some thoughts for life today I continually ponder, and am horrified by, the place of self interest in the world we live in – as I am sure you are.  Looking out for self and doing whatever is needed has always been around but it seems to pervade our very bones these days.  And it is incredibly applicable to the mess we have made of our planet.  Self interest burns the forests in the Amazon, commercial self interest keeps money back from sustainable living solutions,  self interest and laziness sweeps the plastic out into the ocean for the marine life to ingest and get entangled in, self interest fills the skies with pollution and the land with extinct species. 

We have to cut through this attitude of ‘what can we do?’ and remind ourselves that while we are sitting comfortably the world around us is going down the gurgler.  There is no point chastising ourselves for letting it get to this point – it’s too late for that – but instead it’s about what we are to do now.  Asking if we are to continue sitting at that table Jesus was talking about, secure in our own lifetime and our own house on the hill or if we are getting up and seeing where we are needed and getting on with it?

For there are things to be done and we can all have a part in it.

We can only applaud the rhetoric of the youth on this issue, but we need to do more than applaud – we need to listen to them, take our lead from them, work alongside them – that is where the passion and the energy is coming from it seems to me.  

We can look to our personal habits and our channels of influence and see what can be done – surprising how many changes can come through our choices and our words and actions.

We can support the work of Chris Lambourne in Hastings wanting to get climate change up front and taken seriously at General Assembly next year.  As a church here in Opoho we can continue to put our energy and our voice into being aware and making good choices.

There is much we can and must do. 

So shall we start here and now, at the one place where self interest does not reign supreme – that would be around this table, this table where all are welcome, this table where the lines of love converge, where we are equally valued and where none of us are the more or less than the other.  This table where Jesus Christ equips us, transforms us, sends us into the world sure of our place as the people of God and prepared to disrupt and challenge the perspectives and priorities of a broken world, deeply in need of healing and wholeness.  In Jesus name.  Amen

Margaret Garland