Sermon by Revd Penny Jones, 16.05.2010

ACTS 16.16-34; JOHN 17.20-26 16.05.10
"The glory that you have given me, I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me".

It's quite a sentence! - and it tells us, at the beginning of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity both why we are to seek unity (so that the world may know that you have sent me); and how that unity is possible - because, we all have a common experience of God's love.

There is disunity and strife throughout our world. Human beings are capable of falling out over many things, small and great, and violence is never far away. But Christians know that there is unity in and with God; and that is our deepest, mystical connection with God, no matter what our particular religious affiliations, we will always find Divine love. And it is our Christian calling, to seek to bring all people and all things - the whole created order - into harmonious relationship with each other and with the Divine Love. For it is in that Love, and only in that Love, that we can find our true freedom.

Our reading today from Acts, explores the dimension of human freedom. It is a story of binding and loosing played out on many levels. It is told in the idiom of its day but can still speak to us.

Firstly there's the slave girl. She's bound both physically to the masters who exploit her apparent gift; and spiritually to an ability to foretell the future. She is able to see a certain spiritual truth, which is that Paul and Silas are "slaves of the most High God" - a very different king of slavery to her own.

We are told that Paul becomes "very much annoyed" - not with the girl herself: but because she is unable to leave them alone; she effectively binds herself, attaches herself, leech-like, to them with the same message over many days. Finally Paul loses patience and casts the spirit out - thus setting her spiritually "free". We are not told what happens to her - a slave-girl without a "special talent" was undoubtedly less valuable than one with an exploitable gift, so the worry is that her last condition would be worse than her first; and this may be why it takes Paul several days to address the matter. We can hope that perhaps he manages to make provision for her in the household of Lydia, where she could be cared for.

But meanwhile Paul has troubles of his own, as the owners of the girl furious at losing their source of income, have him beaten and thrown into jail. Deprived of physical freedom, Paul and Silas maintain their inner freedom, singing and praying. This is the part of the story most familiar to us. We know, don't we, of the wonderful power of divine love to transform places of human degradation and imprisonment. Usually however those so imprisoned face may days and years of suffering - think of Terry Waite, or Dietrich Bonheoffer, or Nelson Mandela. Often those so imprisoned meet their death, and it is only through the testimony of others that we hear of the transformative power of their love in such situations. Others are eventually restored to physical freedom - their spiritual stature deepened and enhanced by their ordeal.
But in the story, liberation comes within a few hours. And this is why we love this story - not only does it have everything - girl (probably pretty), vicious, oppressive baddies; prison cells - it even throws in liberation by earthquake and it all happens at break-neck speed; not time for the reader to get bored - and of course, a satisfying sense that not only do the "goodies" escape, they carry on being "good", and set their jailer free as well They set him free from the burden of guilt and fear, that was going to result in him taking his own life; and then they baptise him, thus setting him free from bondage to sin and death into the bargain.
In this story, the reader is invited to see God as liberator; setting us free from all kinds of slavery, from every prison, whether physical or spiritual. Just in case we haven't got the message, it's pointed out eg that Paul and Silas are placed in the innermost cell and their feet in the stocks - humanly there is no hope for them.
But just when everything is at its worst, there is an earthquake. There's a literary echo there that every second century Christian would I think have heard - an echo back to the story of Jesus' crucifixion and death in Matthew's gospel. At the point of His death - when there is no hope humanly speaking - we're told that 'the earth shook and the rocks were split.' The earth itself enters into the great work of liberation, that Jesus' dying and rising effects. And here again "suddenly there was an earthquake so violent that the foundations of the prison were shaken; and immediately all the doors were opened and everyone's chains were unfastened!"
What's going on here? This isn't just an escape story for Paul and Silas - that would only have required that the two of them somehow get out. No - at the theological level, this tells the reader that Paul and Silas - by their prayer and their singing, by their way of life and their choices - have entered into unity, into oneness with the Divine Love, "I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one." And by doing so, they participate in the act of total liberation of which the earthquake is the symbol - that getting free which is the gospel - the setting free of everyone (everyone's chains were unfastened) and everything (all the doors were opened) forever. The Divine Love, and the experience of that love, sets us all free, and makes us all one - the unity and the freedom are part and parcel of one another.
But, I hear you say, what about all the disunity, the war, the injustice? What about those who languish in physical prisons and emotional prisons and never get out? How do we live with the reality - the now but not yet of what some have called "the peaceable realm of God."? - the kingdom of God in Jesus words?
The answer is not easy to find; but lies I believe in choosing every day, in light; a little more of the love; till all is accomplished. And some are beacons of hope on this way. And I want to end by reading you an incredible true story, of one who did not escape his physical prison - but who by his prayer and example shows us how to live within and transcend our own prisons, for the sake of others.
Tom Fox, aged 54, was a peace activist and Quaker working for peace in Iraq - in November 2005 he was taken hostage along with 3 other members of a Christian Peacemaker Team: Norman Kember, James Loney and Harmeet Singh Sooden. Fox was eventually separated from the other 3, and his dead body was discovered in Baghdad on March 9 2006. The other hostages were rescued two weeks later. What I'm going to read you is an excerpt from James Lowey's account of the team's time in captivity, which he eventually published in July f 2007 - and the full article is available on the internet.

{During those first days of relentless, terrifying, excruciating uncertainty, Tom Fox dove into prayer the way a warrior might charge into battle. He turned his captivity into a sustained, unbroken meditation.
The chain that bound his wrist became a kind of rosary, or sebha (the beads Muslims use to count the names of God). He would picture someone: a member of his family, a member of the Iraq team or the CPT office, one of the captors - whoever he felt needed a prayer. Holding a link of the chain, he would breathe in and out , slowly, so that you could hear the air gushing in and out of his lungs, praying for the person he was holding in his mind. With the completion of each breath he would pass a chain link through his thumb and index finger. During his first breath he would say to himself, with the warmth of my heart. In the second, with the stillness of my mind. In the third, with the fluidity of my body. And in the fourth, with the light of my soul. At the end of each series of four breaths, he would pause and simply rest in the light with the person he was praying for.
On December 23, day 29 of captivity, we began the discipline of a daily check-in in which we talked about how we were doing physically, emotionally and spiritually. I led our first worship service, and Tom led our first de memoriam, Bible-less Bible study. The format was simple. The leader would recall as best he could a Bible passage, and we would reflect together on it according to a series of four questions : What is the main point of the passage to me? Is it true in my experience? What is difficult, challenging or confusing about the passage? How might this passage change my life?
Tom's prayers were profound. They brought our suffering into dialogue with the vast suffering of the world. Again and again his prayers brought to mind other prisoners - security detainees in Iraq, illegal combatants in Guantanamo, the lost and forgotten souls in American penitentiaries. And every time we heard a bomb explode, near or far, Tom would stop to pray for those whose lives had just been destroyed. Every time, without fail.
Why are we here? It's the ultimate question, really. Tom reflected on that question in something he wrote titled "Why Are We Here?" on November 25, 2005, the evening before we were kidnapped.
"We are here to root out all aspects of dehumanization that exist within us. We are here to stand with those being dehumanized by oppressors and stand firm against that dehumanization. We are here to stop people, including ourselves, from dehumanizing any of God's children, no matter how much they dehumanize their own souls."}

Copyright (c) 2007 by the Christian Century. Reprinted by permission from the July 24,2007, issue of the Christian century. For more information about the Christian Century, please visit http://christiancentury.org
Seasons of the Spirit Congregational Life Lent*Easter

Sermon - Easter VI 9th May, 2010

EASTER VI .9.05.10 Acts 16; Revelations 21; John 14.23-29

As we continue in the Easter season, and begin to move towards the giving of the Spirit at Pentecost, we move in our readings and in our thinking towards a season of vision and imagination. We move also towards those weeks after Pentecost that speak of the mission and ministry of the church. Now 'vision' and 'church' are two words that do not always sit easily alongside each other! Some would go so far as to say they were an oxymoron - ie a conjunction of direct opposites like 'living death'! Edwina Gateley, a British laywoman and founder of the Volunteer Missionary movement, tells this story;

'Once upon a time we captured God and we put God in a box and we put a beautiful velvet curtain around the box. We placed candles and flowers around the box and we said to the poor and the dispossessed. 'Come! Come and see what we have! Come and see God!' And they knelt before the God in the box.

One day, very long ago, the Spirit in the Box turned the key from in inside and she pushed it open. She looked around the church and saw that there was nobody there! They had all gone. Not a soul was in the place. She said to herself, 'I'm getting out!' The Spirit shot out of the box. She escaped and she has been sighted a few times since then. She was last seen with a bag lady in McDonald's.

(Prophetic Mission: Sniffing out the Kingdom,' Mystics, Visionaries and Prophets, edited by Shawn Madigan, Augsburg Press, Minneapolis:1998)

The Spirit and the Vision the Spirit gives, is certainly not confined to the church But - the foundational stories of our faith are still telling us that vision is of the essence. And that without vision, the church cannot be faithful to God. So today, I want to talk a little about the 3 texts that we've heard read, in relationship to the vision statement that we have as a parish. We haven't talked about this for a while, so now, (no looking) - what is our vision statement? (ok, look at the back of your bulletin)

Seeking to be

A welcoming Christian community

Sharing God's love

Creating a place to belong.

Welcoming, sharing, creating - They're all verbs - doing words; They are reminding us very clearly what it is we are seeking to do and to be about. We are striving in this direction. Now, we know quite well that we're not there yet - and never will be wholly there this side of heaven, because we're human and imperfect, and we keep making mistakes. But this is what we're striving for.

And over the next few weeks and months I'm hoping that we can focus that vision in a variety of ways. Some of you spent time at the Diocesan convention yesterday and, I know that you will have brought back resources that will help us in the task of welcoming new church members and helping them to feel a sense of belonging and incorporation. That is important work to our ability to function as the body of Christ here on the Peninsula. But within and beyond that work, is the need to open our eyes and ears to those to whom God is calling us.

Let's think back to the story from Acts. "During the night Paul had a vision". We cannot afford to discount vision. Without vision, nothing happens. And sometimes - as in this case - the vision may seem quite strange; outside our comfort zone. Being open to vision, means being willing to let go of our own ideas and assumptions. In this case, following the vision meant leaving the fruitful work in Syria, and going to northern Greece, to Macedonia. It also meant going outside the Roman city - which would still have been a fairly comfortable, familiar environment - to meet, beside a river, to meet with - of all things a group of women! - Gentile women at that - though we are told that they worshipped God. In that culture the company and testimony of women was not highly regarded. Yet, we are told God opened the heart of Lydia - a dealer in purple cloth - to listen eagerly, and to be baptised along with her household. And then she says to Paul, "if you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come and stay at my home."

I think we can see two kinds of 'welcome' occurring in the story. Firstly there is the welcome that Paul and Silas give to Lydia and her companions. It is a welcome to hear and share the Christian story. And it is given by them going out - out from any place of worship; out even from the 'civilised' city, to a riverbank, to meet the women, just where they were, and share the story of Jesus. And when the story is received, Lydia and her companions are at once baptised and welcomed into the church - entry into the Christian community is made very easy - and this I think is the lesson for us, as we seek to be a welcoming Christian community. How easy do we make it for others to hear the Christian story- and having heard it, how easy do we make it for them not just to be baptised, but truly to become part of us? Paul and Silas are here shown overcoming huge barriers of gender, class, culture and race - they show us indeed how to love and relate to the neighbour, who is different from us. I invite you just to reflect on the diversity - or perhaps the lack of it - present in our congregations; and just to ask "as we opening our eyes and our hearts to the needs of those who are not like us.' Maybe over coffee you'll have a few things to say about that.

That's the first kind of welcome. The second comes from Lydia as she says "if you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come and stay at my home' And they went - and a church established itself in Lydia's home - because not only was she happy to offer welcome; Paul and Silas were happy to accept it. Which offers another challenge to us, as we seek to be a welcoming Christian community - are we also ready to be welcomed? - realising that there is power in doing the welcoming; when we are being received by another, we have to give up some of that power, which can be scary for us. But a truly welcoming community has the king of mutuality, where welcome is sometime given and sometimes received, with equal generosity.

For that kind of mutuality, is part of the second term of our parish vision - "Sharing God's love." To share truly in God's love is to be part of the heavenly Jerusalem, that place of endless uncreated light described in our second reading, from Revelation 21. The "glory and honour of the nations" is brought there, and healing and life abound for all. It is a tremendous vision of the reconciling of all things, through the love of God. And it is a vision which needs to inspire us, as we week to share the love of God with others. For we humans have a great tendency to domesticate the love of God - to reduce it to warm, fuzzy feelings - largely towards those whom we already like. We can see a classic instance of this, in the way that : Mother's Day" has been reduced from a celebration of women's active seeking for peace, and decrying war, into a somewhat pious recognition of women's place in family life. Indeed its foundress Julia Ward Howe, protested its takeover by the forces of conservatism. I have given you just a taste of her writing in your bulletin - it is a great call to all women, eg "as men have often forsaken the plow and the anvil at the summons of war let women now leave all that may be left of home for a great and earnest day of council. Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead. Let them solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means whereby the great human family can live in peace."

The women to whom she appealed would expect women to be marching in the streets today; to be protesting the war in Iraq and Afghanistan; to be demonstrating - as I'm proud to say our daughter did yesterday on Bondi Beach - the scandalous about face our government has made on refugee policy - every woman here should be ­marching today; not eating with their families in restaurants. This day was not by foundation, any kind of celebration of a mother's devotion to her family, however admirable that may be.

We domesticate things - but God's love is not to be so domesticated. Yes, of course, we share God's love when we are kind to one another, when we care for those we know and greet others warmly.

But the love of God demands rather more. Jesus in the gospel tells us it demands that we love our enemies; that we lend without expectation of return; that we forgive 70 x 7 and give without wanting thanks.

He also tells us that when we love we are to cleanse the temples; and is challenge corruption and deceit - which is likely to get us into all kinds of trouble - and that we are to confront with naked honesty the hypocrisies of all religions - especially our own; that we are to welcome outcasts and sinners; and that sometimes we will be misunderstood and rejected no matter how holy our efforts.

This is what it is to share God's love; no wonder that St. Theresa of Avila remarked to God, "if this is how you treat your friends, no wonder you have so few of them' - and no wonder, that in a culture of comfort and success, it is very difficult to promote the numerical growth of the church. But surely numbers are not the point - as Lydia said, "if you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord' - the real question is not, 'how many people come to church?', but 'how many of us are faithful to the command to love as God loves us?'

For when we are faithful to that command, then 'vision' and 'church', go hand in hand. But it is not always comfortable - As the great El Salvadorian Archbishop Oscar Romero wrote

'A church that doesn't provoke any crises, a gospel that doesn't unsettle, a word of God that doesn't get under anyone's skin, a word of God that doesn't touch the real sin of the society in which it is being proclaimed - what gospel is that? Very nice, pious considerations that don't bother anyone, that's the way many would like preaching to be. Those preachers who avoid every thorny matter so as not to be harassed, so as not to have conflicts and difficulties, do not light up the world they live in. They don't have Peter's courage, who told the crowd where the bloodstained hands still were that had killed Christ: 'You killed him' Even though the charge could cost him his life as well, he made it. The gospel is courageous; It's the good news of him who came to take away the world's sins.

Archbishop Oscar Romero, April 16th 1978.

That is what it takes to "share God's Love."

So, our vision is to be a welcoming Christian community, Sharing God's love - with all that implies and demands; and finally to be "creating a place to belong". All of us long for a place to belong - but so often we look for it in the wrong place; in particular locations - geographical, social, relational or professional - and the bonds and ties of place and family and friend and work are very important. But they are not of ultimate importance. Even our connection to our church - our denomination, our parish, is not of any ultimate importance. It's only a means to an end - for as Jesus says in our Gospel, "those who love me will keep my word", (we've already talked about what that kind of loving means), "and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them”- and Jesus goes on to promise the gift of the Spirit. This tells us that our true and ultimate place of belonging, is in and with the God who loves us and makes a home with us. Imperfectly in this world, perfectly in the heavenly Jerusalem, the dwelling place of God is with human kind; God belongs in us and we belong in God -

As a parish as we seek to re-create a little of heaven on earth, we can seek only a pale imitation of the ultimate reality of total community within and with the Godhead. But if in this place, we can give those who come looking, a taste of that belonging in God, then indeed we will have fulfilled our vision; and made of the church in this place a meeting place of earth and heaven.

Amen