Let mutual love continue

Reading
Hebrews 13.1–8, 15–16

Hebrews 13 could have been titled ‘Discipleship 101’. Right on the heels of otherworldly descriptions of trumpets and clouds in chapter 12 come ‘rubber meets the road’ instructions to these early Christians and to us. Love one another. ‘Let mutual love continue.’ (13.1). — Jill Duffield, Connections, Year C, Vol. 3

Any idiot can find God alone in the sunset. It takes a certain maturity to find God in the person sitting next to you who not only voted for the wrong political party but has a baby who is crying while you’re trying to listen to the sermon. Community is where the religious rubber meets the road. People challenge us, ask hard questions, disagree, need things from us, require our forgiveness. It’s where we get to practise all the things we preach. — Rev Lillian Daniel

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Fifty nine years ago to this very day, on 28 August 1963, Rev Dr Martin Luther King uttered the now-immortal words of the ‘I have a Dream’ speech.

‘I have a Dream’ is one of the great speeches of history. We may hear more about it next year, which will be its sixtieth anniversary. I don’t want to talk about having a dream today though. I do want to let you know that this speech may not have happened except for a beloved friend of Dr King’s.

If you read this speech online, the first part is fine, it’s better than I can do. But it’s not great. If you watch the speech online, you’ll see that around the eleven minute mark, Dr King looks to his left and pushes his papers aside. This is where the ‘I have a Dream’ speech really kicks off. 

What happened? King had some musicians there on that day as warm-up acts, people you may have heard of like oh, Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, and Peter, Paul and Mary; the last to sing was a famous gospel singer you may really never have heard of, Mahalia Jackson. In some recordings you can hear Mahalia’s voice calling to Dr King during his speech, 

Tell them about the dream, Martin. Tell them about the dream.

This is the point at which Martin Luther King really takes off. He delivers the rest of the speech off the cuff, in a truly impassioned way. It’s been said that in this speech he caught lightning in a bottle. King stopped simply addressing this crowd of a quarter of a million people, and he started preaching. He took them straight to church as he said: 

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the colour of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today.…

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together. 

The speech we remember was ignited by the encouragement of a friend, Mahalia Jackson. Without her, it wouldn’t have happened. 

Today I want to say this is what may happen when there is mutual affection between people. And with the writer of the Book of Hebrews, I want to say 

Let mutual affection continue. 

No room for boasting

Readings

2 Corinthians 12.2–10

Mark 6.1–13

… in the modern period, despite the efforts of the Reformers to recall the church to the gospel, the church — including the Protestant churches! — has by and large yielded to the temptation to secure its place in the modern world by accepting ‘its proper place in service to the new secular splendour of Western man’. We nevertheless ought not to despair, even though Christians will no doubt go right on seeking their security in strength rather than weakness, because Holy Scripture — as in this passage — recalls us again and again to the good news of the cross: ‘For when I am weak, then I am strong’. — Garrett Green, Feasting on the Word, Year B, Vol. 3

When the crucified Jesus is called the ‘image of the invisible God’, the meaning is that this is God, and God is like this. God is not greater than he is in this humiliation. God is not more glorious than he is in this self-surrender. God is not more powerful than he is in this helplessness. God is not more divine than he is in this humanity. — Jürgen Moltmann, The Crucified God

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The city of Corinth in the first century was 

a city where an enterprising person could rise quickly in society through the accumulation and judicious use of newfound wealth. (Ben Witherington, Conflict and Community in Corinth)

It was a place for entrepreneurs, wide boys, self-made men, for social climbers and the glitterati. A place that valued wealth and status and knowledge and power. 

When Paul came with the good news of Jesus, a Jewish teacher from the bush, he was coming with something very different. Very un-Corinthian. 

Paul could have begun in Corinth by teaching about the resurrection of Jesus, but the Corinthians might see that as something achieved by a particularly powerful soul — rather than God’s vindication of the life and teaching of Jesus, the peasant teacher who ended up on a cross. 

So when he brought the message to Corinth, Paul focussed on the cross rather than anything that could feed into any Corinthian bias. He told them 

I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified. (1 Corinthians 2.2)

The Corinthians valued eloquent speech; Paul came to them ‘in weakness and in fear and in much trembling’. (1 Cor. 2.3) 

Paul put the cross at the very centre of his message to them. 

In time, there was opposition to Paul. Other teachers came to Corinth without Paul’s sensitivity. They were flashy wonder workers who claimed to do miracles, who spoke with eloquence and a good command of rhetoric. The Corinthians just swooned. They fell for these new teachers, big time. 

Paul didn’t get along with these teachers, not at all. He caustically called them ‘super-apostles’. 

In turn, these teachers said of Paul: 

Paul’s letters are severe and strong, but when he is with us in person, he is weak, and his words are nothing! (2 Corinthians 10.10)

Paul supported himself in Corinth by tent making, which some Corinthians looked down on. Paul was ‘trade’. They could relate more to these up and coming aspirational teachers who continually promised ‘bigger better brighter’. 

Problem: there is no room for the cross in bigger better brighter. 

I’m going to digress a little here, and tell you about something that happened to me over 45 years ago. I was a student, and a friend of mine had just become engaged. She was happier than she’d ever been, and she wanted to be thankful to God. The thing was, she’d never been taught anything about God. She asked me to tell her about God so she could direct her thanks godwards. 

So I told her what I knew. 

Meeting Jesus: A Testimony

Readings
Acts 10.34–43
Mark 16.1–8

 

Good Friday must give way to the triumphant music of Easter. — Martin Luther King, A Gift of Love

———————-

Remember this? 

Early morning, April 4
Shot rings out in the Memphis sky
Free at last, they took your life
They could not take your pride

Of course, it’s that great song Pride (In the Name of Love) by the Irish band U2, and it refers to the assassination of Martin Luther King, which happened fifty three years ago to this very day. 

(Did you know U2 got the time wrong? It wasn’t ‘early morning’, it was more like 6pm. I don’t know why they didn’t change the lyric to ‘early evening’.) 

It wasn’t quite Easter on 4 April 1968, when  Martin Luther King was shot dead. Easter was 14 April that year. 

So why am I preaching Martin Luther King and not Jesus Christ? Stay with me. And: I’m just preaching today, but I’m also giving an old-style testimony.

I remember Martin Luther King’s death. I was fourteen, thrilled by the vision of justice he had and naively believing that civil rights for African American people were just around the corner. 

4 April 1968 hit me hard. I felt lost. Devastated. Such a good man, gone forever. 

A man who said, 

I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. This is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant.

A man who said, 

Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.

A man who said, 

The quality, not the longevity, of one’s life is what is important.

And who proved it to be so.

A man who I’m sure inspired Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who wrote the words of our Introit today: 

Goodness is stronger than evil;
Love is stronger than hate;
Light is stronger than darkness;
Life is stronger than death;
Victory is ours through him who loves us.

So. I felt lost after Martin Luther King was killed. I don’t want to draw too trite a parallel today, but there is something similar here to the story of the cross. Jesus is taken and killed, and the disciples are shattered. Scattered to the four winds. Lost. 

And the story is told so many times through the centuries, as someone who has excited a sense of hope in others is silenced by those with hate in their hearts and power in their hands. 

Connecting

Readings
Acts 2.1–21
John 7.37–39

 

The whole of our uneasy debate about the meaning of the word ‘God’ for modern [people] cries out, I believe, for a recovery of a significant doctrine of the Holy Spirit. That is where we must now begin our talk about God — God working anonymously and on the inside: the beyond in the midst. If we had not relegated the Holy Spirit to the merest edges of our theology we might never have got ourselves into our present confusions — or, better still, we might have endured our present expansion of awareness without dismay. As it is, we seem to have rarified God out of existence.… Any insight which make us exclaim: ‘Oh, now I see the connection!’ is potentially a new revelation. — John V Taylor, The Go-Between God 

____________________

Someone asked me the other week how progressive Christians may speak of the Holy Spirit without sounding like Pentecostal™ wannabes or Evangelical® soundalikes. 

So today I’ll try to say something about how we might speak about the Holy Spirit, we who may feel shy about the Spirit. 

We need to speak of the Spirit, because the Spirit is central to our experience of faith. The Spirit is fire that purifies by burning off all our crud. The Spirit is wind that comes through like a cyclone to blow the chaff of our lives away. The Spirit is water that cleanses by half drowning us. 

The Spirit is a dove that swoops like a magpie in nesting season. 

Have you had an experience of the Holy Spirit? You probably have. Possibly, you don’t realise it. Or, you may be hesitant to talk about it. 

Let me tell you about the first time the Spirit took hold of me. The first time I know about, anyway. You may have heard this before. Apologies if so. 

Can these bones live?

Readings
Ezekiel 37.1–14
John 11.17–45

It’s 6 April in a few days’ time, on Thursday. I remember 6 April 1968 (forty nine years ago for the arithmetically challenged). It was a Saturday; 6 April was the first day I awoke after accepting Jesus into my life. I’ve already told you about that time, but today want to say a bit more.

The night before, 5 April, I had gone to the local Methodist youth group for the first time. I hadn’t known about this, but they were off to the Billy Graham rally in the Exhibition grounds that night.

I decided that I was glad to be going there. I had been wondering about God. I thought Jesus was a good man, the best who’d ever lived. I was shocked and distressed that Martin Luther King had just been assassinated just the day before, 4 April 1968. I felt confused about life.

I listened to Billy Graham preach. I didn’t understand much, but I did note he spoke well of Martin Luther King’s legacy. And that was important to me. But the rhetorical flourishes of a preacher from the South of the good ol’ US of A were really quite foreign to me. And he did go on a bit (over 40 minutes as I recall!).

Billy Graham finished (finally!), and there was an altar call. I felt an irresistible magnetic pull on me. I can recall the feeling still. I had to leave my seat—me, quite possibly the most introverted kid in the whole place that night. I knew I had to leave the people who had brought me, not yet knowing the leaders’ names, not even knowing how to find them later.

But I just couldn’t stay in my seat.

It strikes me that I can identify with Lazarus. When Jesus says, ‘Lazarus, come out!’, he just came. It wasn’t a suggestion—it was a command, a summons. Just so, I felt summoned that day. I had to come.

Jesus summons each one of us. Sometimes, we might even have given up on life when he summons us. We may as well have been dead.

As I reflect on identifying with Lazarus, I think How was I dead? In the story, Lazarus was just dead. As a doornail. How was I dead?

It’s all Jesus’ fault (Easter Vigil, Year B, 4 April 2015)

Readings
Exodus 14.10-31; 15.20-21
Responsive Reading: Exodus 15.1b-6, 11-13, 17-18 (Canticle of Miriam and Moses)
Mark 16.1–8

“You can safely assume you’ve created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.” ― Anne Lamott

It’s all Jesus’ fault.

I can’t read the bible the way I used to, and it’s all Jesus’ fault.

Let me give you an example. One of our readings tonight was from Exodus 15. This reading is always included in an Easter Vigil. It’s a great reading, particularly if you like God utterly crushing his enemies in absolutely spectacular ways.

Horse and rider
are thrown into the sea!

True to the name ‘Lord’,
our God leads in battle,
hurls Pharaoh’s chariots
and army into the sea!

When I was a boy, I could believe in a god who punished his people’s enemies, a god who expected his people to rejoice at the deaths of their enemies.

Not any more.

Not since I realised that Jesus died as an enemy of God’s people. As our enemy. The priests, the crowd saw in Jesus a danger to public safety that needed to be eliminated. Having him put to the grisly death of crucifixion was the surest way to restore public order.

Jesus died as an outlaw, as someone rejected by God, as public enemy number one—but God vindicated him. Any rejoicing at the death of Jesus was short-lived.

The death of Jesus was the crucifixion of God’s incarnate Son. God the Father wept as God the Son suffered, and God the Father still weeps with everyone who suffers.

Jesus calls for his Father to forgive those who are crucifying him. Risen from the grave, he speaks words of peace to disciples who had deserted him.

If Jesus is the Son of God, then God does not throw people into the sea. Perhaps the people of Israel interpreted their victory as the victory of God, as indeed our own countries did at least up until World War One.

But I can’t see it that way anymore, and it’s all Jesus’ fault. Oh, and I blame some of Jesus’ followers too. In particular, today—4 April—I blame Rev Dr Martin Luther King.

Today, 4 April, gives us another reason to remember that God’s ways are peace and non-violence, and to stand with those who suffer. Today is the day the Church remembers Martin Luther King. It was on this day in 1968 that he was shot dead in Memphis, and entered into the peace of his Lord. If you want to gain a little more insight into this disciple of Jesus, I suggest that you see the film Selma when it comes out on DVD if you haven’t seen it yet.

Martin Luther King practised a way of non-violence that has done more to advance the cause of God’s kingdom than any number of acts of violence or terrorism or retaliation against these things. King found the joy of God as he walked this way.

And God’s joy is now for all people too. When prophets like Zephaniah cry,

Sing aloud, O daughter Zion;
shout, O Israel!,

God intends all people on earth to hear it whoever and wherever they are. God says

I will save the lame
and gather the outcast,
and I will change their shame into praise
and renown in all the earth.

Not just the outcasts of Israel, but the outcasts of all nations! Everyone is included, and that’s why we can’t read the Exodus story or any other part of the Bible as a simple tale of goodies and baddies. Not any more.

The Exodus story does act as a kind of historical parable of how God deals with the sin and evil in the world, how completely and utterly God deals with it. It is dead and buried. And God says, Step away from evil. Stop your fascination with sin. Join my way.

The Christ of the cross identifies with the suffering and the outcast and the sinner, and calls me and you to join him in doing that. The joy of the risen Christ is for all people on earth, whoever and wherever they are.

I can’t read the bible the way I used to, and it’s all Jesus’ fault.

Thanks be to God.