SERMON 10 October 2004
Readings: Jeremiah 29: 1, 4-7 Psalm 66: 1-11 2 Timothy 2: 8-14 Luke 17: 11-19
In
the name of God who brings us wholeness. Amen.
This
has not been the easiest week. As I have sat through the General Synod of the
Anglican Church of Australia, as it lumbers along tearing itself apart and
lobbing a few grenades at the wider world as it goes, I have been deeply aware
that the media reports of some of the ‘decisions’ of the synod will be
bringing pain and anger to some, perhaps all, of you. Stranded on the other side
of the continent, distressed myself by the shortsightedness and bloodymindedness
of the church, I have wondered whether anyone would actually turn up for church
today. The only consoling thought has been that you can’t be an Anglican for
very long before coming up against these qualities in our corporate life and
that anyone looking for a perfect institution will have left long ago.
Anglicanism
does not gather around a particular doctrinal position and there are deep
differences of biblical and theological understanding between various parts of
the Anglican church. Every time the Anglican Church can’t deal with an issue
because of deep divisions within itself, it puts itself into a kind of holding
pattern. There are all sorts of legal mechanisms within our constitution which
can be used to ensure we don’t actually come to a decision about a particular
issue. We saw this 30 years ago when the church struggled with the question of
the remarriage of divorced people in church. We saw it again during the 1980s
over the ordination of women. And now it’s happening all over again on 3
questions:
Ø
the
consecration of women to be bishops,
Ø
the place
of gay and lesbian people in the life of the church, and
Ø
lay
presidency at the eucharist.
At
one level, this is understandable, and perhaps even healthy. Change takes time
and in a long term institution like the church, it will take a long time to
effect. To take time can be a helpful thing and gives us all a chance to discern
where God might be leading. BUT along the way our human inadequacies,
pettinesses, and insensitivity are on full display and people get hurt.
And
so, as one who was at Fremantle, I apologise to anyone who has been hurt by
things that were said there and by resolutions that were passed in an attempt
by one group or another to obtain a political advantage in future
debates. As a General Synod, we did not cover ourselves in glory. And let me say
categorically where I stand on these questions:
2)
The
homophobia which is fuelled by a highly dubious reading of Biblical texts has no
place within our life together as the people of God. I have no doubt that we
have been ordaining gay people for 2,000 years so why stop now?
3)
I do not
believe in lay presidency at the eucharist.
You
may disagree with me on all or anyone of these statements and I would welcome
discussion of them. I have changed my mind in the past and am open to changing
it again. But I thought it only fair that you should know where I do stand.
In
the midst of the cut and thrust of debate and the emotional rollercoaster of the
week, I looked at this morning’s readings and was comforted, blessed and
refreshed. In the midst of our human frailty, God’s grace and passionate love
for humanity are mediated through the unlikely vehicle of the compilers of the
lectionary.
Two
particular points brought me comfort, blessing and refreshment. The first is
from the Jeremiah reading, the second from the Gospel.
Jeremiah’s
text is addressed to the people in exile in Babylon, and encourages them not to
take an adversarial, self-destructive stand against the culture, but to live
fruitfully within it, seeking to contribute to it. Many of us are exiles in one
way or another. Perhaps as migrants or refugees within society, perhaps within
our families, perhaps within a church that does not welcome us, or perhaps today
as Labor voters in a society which has so resoundingly voted for the Liberal
Party.
Jeremiah
is very clear: we live within a society and our welfare is dependent on its
welfare, even if we feel we do not belong, even if we do not actually belong.
Whatever the situation, whether it be our church, our city, our workplace or our
family, we are to seek to live constructively and lovingly. And, unlikely though
it may seem, that process will lead us to the place of wellbeing for ourselves.
The place of the exile is within, not outside.
At a
time of confusion and alienation, this text brings guidance on how to walk the
next steps. Although it predates Christianity by many centuries, it is a
profoundly Christian response – wherever we are, whatever the circumstances,
we respond in love. We are called to love our enemies, we are called to seek the
welfare of the place in which we find ourselves. God is present. A salutary
reminder when confronted with the cynical politicking of some of the factions of
the Australian church!
The
gospel reading is one of the healing stories from Luke’s gospel. Jesus’
mission of salvation is a mission that brings wholeness at the most fundamental
level. It is a text which is deliciously subversive of religious authority and,
I must say, a great relief. The temple priests have their place – in this case
it was on the sidelines. They had the administrative role of attesting that the
lepers were now disease-free. But God’s action comes not through them, but
through direct contact with Jesus. Even more tellingly, the one leper who does
bother to come back and thank Jesus, is the very one the religious authorities
would have condemned – the Samaritan, the religious schismatic.
When God is present, wholeness can and does happen, whatever the religious authorities are doing or not doing.
This
is at once reassuring and, for someone in my position, deeply challenging. It
highlights the difficulties of institutionalising religion – the structures we
set up to encourage, nurture, teach and worship are the same structures that can
stand in the way of seeing God’s action in the world around us. The very
institution which brings the gospel of life and truth can also stop us from
seeing the full truth of the gospel.
There
is no way around this. It just is. If we do not recognise that we live in the
middle of this paradox we will retreat into self-satisfaction and cease to be
challenged either by sacred text or by God’s action in the world today.
Luther
argued that the church needs to be in a state of constant reform. The constant
calling of God on us is to be alive to our limitations and to reach beyond them
to the life of freedom and grace to which we are called. Only by knowing the
reality of who we are, can we hope to move towards that place of liberation.
Only by seeing where we fall short can we hope to reform and move towards
wholeness.
This
can only happen if we look and listen carefully – to each other and to the
world of which we are a part. Each of us has things to say about ways in which
the church fails us, fails to speak truth, life and hope. And the society
we’re part of certainly has things to say about ways in which we fail to speak
truth, life and hope.
If
we do not speak these things, surely we might as well pack up and go home. We
will have failed Jesus and lined ourselves up squarely with the temple priests.
But that is not the tradition of this congregation.
At
one particularly challenging moment last week, one of the other Canberra &
Goulburn representatives turned to me, deeply distressed, and expressed his
despair at the state of the church. By the grace of God, I was able to say that
the church is filled with good and godly people who show the love of God in
their lives and who, despite the follies of the institution, live the gospel. I
was able to say that because of you and because of the other parishes in which I
have been. Here, in our parish life together, I see the work of the Holy Spirit
and the impact of God on people’s lives.
May
we be open to each other, learn from each other’s differing experiences of
God’s mercy, and celebrate the God who loves us unconditionally.
Amen.
Sarah
Macneil