Farewell Sermon of Penny Jones & Jonathan Inkpin

Farewell Sermon at Woy Woy, Sunday 5 December 2010
(Isaiah 51.21 – 52.6 & Luke 1.57-68 (69-79) 80)
(PJ) ‘Now the time came for Elizabeth to give birth’….’Now the time came…’
Recognising the time is at the heart of Christian spirituality: recognising what is the meaning of any moment and what God is doing in it. So how are going at recognising this time and what God is doing in it? Are we - as journey through this Advent season – are we recognising the time: this time in which God is calling us to let go of the past so that we may enjoy new beginnings?
Recognising that God is calling us to a new beginning: that is not always easy, is it? Like the neighbours of Elizabeth and Zechariah in our Gospel story, we may find ourselves struggling to understand what is going on even when we are rejoicing at the new birth which has occurred. We can see and hear that something is happening but we cannot sometimes see their meaning and fresh purpose for us. We may be puzzled, concerned and even a little cast down. Strangely however we may actually then be at the point of resurrection, of fresh recognition. For nothing new comes without the passing of the old, if our eyes and ears are open to the new. Yet too often we remain trapped with the tired eyes and the blocked up ears of the past. This is very much the story of Elizabeth and Zechariah in our Gospel. But what a remarkable new beginning God brings out of it, not simply for Elizabeth and Zechariah, or their neighbours and relatives, but for the whole world.
Well, to explore this further, Jonathan and I are going to share in this homily. After all, our Gospel story does centre on two people, a married couple, and the meaning of the new gift which they are given by God, with all its implications for others. So, together, we are going to reflect on this great text of new beginning and its promise it holds for us all. Jonathan is going to share two stories and we will briefly draw out three key features of this new birth: that is, the significance of the naming of John; the vital importance of Zechariah’s silence; and the challenge to share in God’s purpose for us, preparing the way of God’s justice and peace. So let’s begin with Jonathan’s first story, which challenges us to open our eyes and ears to the surprising possibilities of God.
(JI) Yes, are we open to God’s way of bringing about a new beginning for us all? Perhaps you have already heard the story of the priest who was asked to visit an elderly man in intensive care? The old man had had a severe heart attack and his family were very anxious to speak with him. For just after he had had his heart attack the old man’s Lotto ticket came up as a winner, in a bumper jackpot week. So the family argued about who should go to speak with the old man. For whilst they were very keen to find out from him what we wanted to do with the millions of dollars – for the old man had no will – no one wanted to be the one to cause another heart attack by telling him the exciting news. So what could they do? Who would be such a mug as to take on the job? I know, said one of the daughters, let’s ask the local priest. We haven’t been seen near the church since we were baptized but, well, visiting the dying - priests are supposed to do that kind of thing aren’t they? It is an emergency after all and the priest is the last hope.
So the family approached the priest and, well, he wasn’t too keen to take on the job either. In fact, he was pretty exhausted and depressed. His parish was not going well with problems and changes mounting up. Financially, to be honest, the church was going down the gurgler. He had enough pastoral demands upon him and really did not need another one, still less one which could well involve him being the trigger of someone’s heart attack and death. It was a fool’s mission really which was not going to benefit him. Very gingerly therefore he approached his assignment. He was only allowed a few minutes with the old man but still circled around the issue for which he was sent. He was not enjoying the thought of bringing the question up and still less the possible response. Eventually, with nurses getting anxious, he grasped the nettle, at least indirectly. ‘If you were suddenly to win a very great deal of money – say on Lotto’, he asked the old man, ’how would you share that with your family?’ ‘Oh’, said the old firmly and immediately, ‘I wouldn’t be giving any money to that lot. They’d never really care for me, even on my death bed. No, I‘d give all the money to you, for your parish.’ At once, the priest had a heart attack, and died.
(PJ) How true is that of us, do you think? How often do we so dwell on our past or present problems that we are not open to new life and to the fresh, even very surprising, things which God seeks to give or lead us into? Like Elizabeth’s neighbours, and Zechariah too earlier in our Gospel story, are we too often stuck in attachment, grief and mourning for things that have gone, or which are passing or which never were? Like those neighbours in our story, we may even be encountering new birth but failing to see and understand it. To paraphrase the poet T.S.Eliot, like those neighbours of Elizabeth and Zechariah, we may be having the experience but missing its meaning.
I know that this is a difficult time of transition for many of us here today: not just for this church community as you farewell me as your parish priest, but also for several of us as we pass through griefs, losses, sadnesses and other trials in our personal lives. All those things are very real and hard to bear, but they are, our Advent Good News tell us, truly only passing things. The deeper reality is that, even in the hardest of our trials, God is present and is already creating new life for us. This is the Advent message proclaimed in the prophets, declared again in John the Baptist and fulfilled in Jesus. This is the promise of Isaiah in our first reading this afternoon: the call to us to ‘Awake, awake, put on your strength…Shake yourself from the dust, rise up… For God says to us, in the midst of all our trials and mourning, ‘my people shall know my name…they shall know that it is I who speak; here am I.’

(JI) ‘My people shall know my name.’ Wow, we shall know the name of God: what a significant thing that is in religious terms! Unfortunately, in our contemporary world, we are very blasé about names and naming people and things. In the Bible and our religious tradition however, names are sacred and they are powerful. When God speaks things change. God’s words are never idle. They make a difference. Especially this is the case with God’s naming. For if people know the name of God it means that God’s authority and power will be with them. This is not about describing anything but about making things happen: making God’s things happen! So it is with the naming of Elizabeth’s son. The neighbours expect the child to be called Zechariah, after his father, no doubt according to family tradition. Elizabeth says no, he is to be called ‘John’. The neighbours protest as that name is unknown among the extended family. When they appeal to Zechariah however, he confirms this surprising, even shocking, choice.

(PJ) So what is in the name John? Everything, it seems. This is God’s choice, not the usual family choice, because it points to the child as a new birth not only for his family but for the world. John in Hebrew means ‘God is gracious’ or ‘gift of God’. The child is therefore a gift of God for the world. We, like the neighbours in the story, are thus called to open our eyes and expand our horizons. In this new birth, something new is happening: a new reality is coming into being, for us and for our wider world.

That was Elizabeth’s time to give birth. Can we perhaps see changes in our own time as opportunities for God to help us give birth to something new, not just for ourselves but for others? Can we name these things as God seeks to name them, not as our usual human ideas would name them? Can we be open to God’s new creation?

(JI) So much for the naming of John, though there is much more there for us to reflect upon. Let us look, secondly. at the meaning of silence in our Gospel story: the silence of Zechariah. What is this about? Well, Zechariah was earlier plunged into silence by God when he argued vociferously with the angel Gabriel who came to speak to him, telling about the child he and Elizabeth were to have. ‘Right’, said Zechariah, ‘pull the other one, its got bells on. Elizabeth is way beyond child-bearing.’ For, although he was a priest, a supposed man of God, he, like all of us, couldn’t believe that God would do the seemingly impossible: bring about a new birth. So God, through Gabriel, said ‘right oh, if you are just going to protest about good news, you’d better just shut up until you can accept the good news’ and Zechariah thus became silent until he confirmed his child was indeed to be ‘John’, a name of good news, God’s choice. What does that silence of Zechariah mean to us, do you think? Perhaps it should suggest to us that, like Zechariah, we too shouldn’t be too hasty to rule out the possibility that God intends to bring us good news and new birth in the not too distant future. Like Zechariah, in the face of change, loss, disappointment or other challenge, we may be tempted not to believe, not to have hope in the future, not to trust that God is preparing something new and amazing for us. If so, perhaps we need to spend some more time in silence, in prayer and reflection, pondering the ever-renewing Word of God and allowing ourselves to experience God’s love for us all over again!

(PJ) God’s naming is powerful and in deep silence we can learn to be loved and live again. Which is all to the good, because God has a purpose for us: this is the third, final, and vital aspect of today’s Gospel which we want to highlight today.

What does Zechariah do when he receives his voice back again? He bursts into song, and what a song! Zechariah’s song – which we said together earlier – is a powerful expression of the all-powerful, all-redeeming love of God which he re-experienced in his silent retreat. It begins by affirming that the name of God is being known: as it was in the past, so it is now. And then it goes on to declare the purpose of John, the newly born child. You, he says, to John, but also I think to all of us too, you ‘will be called the prophet of the Most High; for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways, to give knowledge of salvation to his people by the forgiveness of their sins. By the tender mercy of our God, the dawn from on high will break upon us, to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.’ That, my friends, is the renewed purpose to which we are called at this time: this is our Advent calling. We are called, like John the Baptist, to be prophets of peace and justice and pointers to God in Jesus Christ: ‘to prepare his ways, to give knowledge of salvation to God’s people by the forgiveness of their sin… to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet (and those of others) into the way of peace.’ How are we going with that? Well let Jonathan tell his second, true, story to inspire us on our way: the story of Laurence and the ‘treasures of the Church’…

(JI) In the year 258 of the Christian era, the Roman Emperor Valerian issued an edict that all bishops, priests and deacons should at once be arrested and put on trial. The Pope at the time, Sixtus II, was one of the first to be seized. He had however entrusted the treasury of the Church to the deacon Laurence, with instructions to distribute everything to the widows and orphans. This Laurence did, even selling the sacred vessels.
As the Pope was being taken to execution, Laurence followed him in tears. ‘Where are you hurrying to, holy Father? And what have I done – why are you going to the sacrifice without your deacon? I have done your command with the treasures of the Church.’
The Pope replied gently, ‘I am not leaving you, my son. You will follow me in three days.’ (For let’s face it, folks, the good guys usually get it in the neck, sometime). Laurence was indeed soon arrested and the authorities demanded that he should produce the treasures of the Church. ‘The Church is indeed rich’, said Laurence, ‘and I will show you the treasures. Just give me a little time to gather them.’ Time was given, and Laurence went over the city seeking the widows and orphans and the lame and aged and all the outcast whom the Church supported. He gathered them all together in rows in front of the church building, and then went and brought the authorities. ‘Here’. He declared firmly and proudly, ‘here are the Church’s treasures!’

(PJ) You, my friends, are God’s treasures and you will remain as God’s treasures if you keep alert to the times and continue to share the purpose given to the one named John. As that story reminds the laity, you don’t need to worry about bishops, or whether you have particular priests or deacons with you, even though you can continue to give thanks for those, like Laurence and Sixtus II, who have been with you in that purpose. You are God’s treasures and you are called to witness to the love of God in Christ and to be prophets of peace and justice. So just keep on praying and working for peace; walking in solidarity with the poor of the world; sharing the journey of Reconciliation with Aboriginal people; welcoming refugees; caring for the hurting and the outcast; and healing God’s battered Creation. And when you’re feeling down and the best you can do is to waddle about in an ungainly manner, simply remember that you are a ‘pelican people’ and pelicans can never, ever, be kept on the ground: they can fly; boy, can they fly; and with God’s grace, you can fly too. So shake off your sad garments; put on your clown’s clothes; laugh, and, if you must, cry, with joy; and try to love one another as God loves you. As Advent tells us, as Elizabeth and Zechariah learnt, a new birth is always in God’s hands. Thank you so so much. Amen.