SERMON 24 October 2004   St Michael and All Angels 

Readings:      Joel 2: 23-32        Psalm 65        2 Timothy 4: 6-8, 16-18        Luke 18: 18-30 

In the name of Jesus, after whom we hasten with faint but eager steps. Amen. 

I have been asked to provide an abstract of each of these sermons so that when they are put on the website, people can see quickly what they are about. When I thought about this one, I thought that the abstract is probably ‘rules, bloody rules!’ 

It’s been another difficult week in the life of the Anglican communion – both within Australia and around the world. The Windsor Report on homosexuality, published this week, tries to paper over huge differences within the worldwide Anglican communion. As an exercise, it has been remarkably similar to the Eames Commission some years ago which dealt with the seemingly intractable issue of whether women could or should be bishops. 

Of all the comments that have crossed my desk over the last week, the most sensible came from the retired North American bishop John Shelby Spong.  

Taking a very ‘Spongian’ swipe at former Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey on the way through, he pointed to the enormous diversity within the Anglican communion and the futility of trying to reach a uniformity of view in such circumstances. He noted that the Anglican Communion is made up both of Churches with women bishops, living in nations where women occupy top positions in law, politics, business and education, as well as Churches in lands that still practice polygamy and female circumcision and who do not allow women to be ordained or to receive equal education. Attitudes toward homosexuality run a similar gamut. In the United States, gay males from both political parties are elected to the Congress. In parts of Africa and South East Asia, an openly homosexual person runs the risk of being murdered. Spong argues that only those with a limited understanding of modern life could ever imagine that a debate about homosexuality could be settled by quoting the Bible.

The Windsor Report wants every province of the Anglican Communion to be bound by current practice until a worldwide consensus has formed. This always has been and remains an impossible demand. The developing consensus on this subject in Western countries could never be bound by the culture of the Anglican Church in Chad or the Sudan.  

In this I agree completely with Bishop Spong. Not only is worldwide consensus on such an issue an impossible demand, but the attempt to find a false unity in such matters undermines the integrity of all those involved. It rests on the assumption that, over time, people will find their views moving closer together and will find themselves more able to accept alternate points of view or, perhaps even move to a consensus.  

This is unrealistic. The desire for such a uniformity within the Anglican communion is a noble one but I believe it to be radically mistaken. Indeed, it inhibits our capacity to follow the leading of the spirit and severely impedes the capacity of each member church to preach the gospel and to minister in ways that are culturally appropriate to the societies in which we find ourselves. I suspect that we in the Anglican Church are putting too much weight on the notion of unity, or, at the very least, interpreting far too narrowly what we mean by unity. The price of confusing unity and uniformity is surely irrelevance, not to mention hypocrisy. And is this the witness that we are called to as Christians – irrelevance and hypocrisy? 

We are, after all, meant to be disciples of Jesus Christ. There doesn’t seem to be much evidence that Jesus was deeply into rules, or indeed, into unity. The counter case can in fact be argued. The gospel accounts suggest that Jesus’ teaching and actions constantly flouted the religious rules that his society had constructed. He challenged their theological assumptions and rejected the imposition of overarching rules designed to promote righteousness. The ban on working on the Sabbath, on fraternising with Samaritans, on men having friendships with women – all were tossed aside by the one who revealed the true nature of God.  

The man from the ruling class who approached Jesus in today’s Gospel story was, in the eyes of his society, someone who had it all. The reading from Joel shows us that the Jewish people associated material wealth with divine approval: abundant rain, threshing floors full of grain, vats overflowing with wine and oil – these were all signs of the day of God’s favour. Materially wealthy, spiritually devout – this was surely a man of depth and substance in every way. When he asked Jesus what he must do to inherit eternal life, was he sincere? Or was he fishing for compliments,  looking for his ego to be stroked - expecting to be told he was already righteous and need do nothing more? How human is that? Did he perhaps even feel that he was doing Jesus, this itinerant preacher, a favour by talking to him? Maybe, maybe not. 

But Jesus’ response suggests that he was suspicious of this man’s motives. He is uncharacteristically snappy – ‘why do you call me good?’ and then tells him to go off and sell his goods. In a couple of pithy sentences, he pulls the spiritual rug out from underneath this man, demolishing the assumptions on which he has built his life. Clearly, the social and religious rules the ruler had lived by were not reliable guides to the life that Jesus was calling people to. Righteousness, eternal life were not to be attained by a simple following of the rules, nor was prosperity a sign from God that you’d got it right. But the ruler’s wealth and knowledge of his piety stood in the way of him being able to hear the true call of God. Far from being the sign of eternal life (as it was in the Joel reading), material wealth is seen as an encumbrance, an obstacle to entering the kingdom. Paradoxically, in this reading of the story, the ruler’s careful following of the religious rules is an obstacle to his discipleship. 

It is, of course, possible to read this story in a different way. The ambivalence of the Scriptures are part of their richness. We could see in the ruler’s question a true sense that despite all his wealth, despite his careful spiritual discipline, there was still something lacking in his life. His question to Jesus then becomes without guile – a genuine desire to find eternal life.  

In both readings, however, the inadequacy of the prevailing religious assumptions is highlighted. Eternal life is not about following rules, nor is material wealth a sign of divine favour. Indeed, material wealth gets in the way of spiritual wealth. Eternal life is about the encounter with the divine and our response to the demands that God puts on our lives. At times that means moving beyond our preconceptions, even our religious preconceptions, and seeing the world through different eyes. The ruler was not able to do this. And I suspect that, a the moment, the Anglican communion is not able to do this. 

But are we? Am I? Are you? It is my prayer for each of us that we will know God’s call on our lives and be willing to follow it, no matter how countercultural, no matter how challenging, knowing that only in God will we find our ultimate truth, ultimate security, eternal life.  Amen.