Cathedral Sermons
Peace Sunday, 19th Sunday in Ordinary Time, August 8th, 2010
Readings: Isaiah 1:1,10-20; Hebrews 11:1-3, 8-16; Luke 12: 32-40
Although increasingly clichéd, how often have we heard the saying, ‘there can be no peace without justice’ . . . what exactly then are we to make of this on this day marked out for our renewal as the beacons and bringers of God’s justice in order that God’s peace might just stand a chance!
Last weekend I was privileged to bear witness in Fiji to the installation of my dear friend and long time colleague Winston Halapua, as Bishop of Polynesia and as the third Archbishop of this beloved three tikanga Church of ours.
In the midst of the festivities I couldn’t help but wonder about the moral and thus theological complexity of the entire event.
There were maybe 2000 good Anglicans and a few ecumenical friends in attendance. We were all finely dressed and very well behaved as we participated in a stunningly, unique Polynesian Eucharistic feast from within the safe confines of the Cathedral on the hill.
Meantime down the hill at the city gates of Suva, the poor, the wretched and the hungry quite literally and now very visibly cry out from within the insecurity of a militarized nation for the merest morsels of God’s justice.
Rampant crippling poverty, horrific levels of violence against women, gross economic inequalities, blatant suppression of public media – these are all the pressing matters of God’s mission imperative toward which Winston’s face is now turned and one to which surely we as Winston’s sisters and brothers must therefore also be powerfully obligated?
There can after all be no full measure of God’s peace in beautiful Fiji unless and until God’s justice prevails across the social, political, economic and spiritual expanse of the lives of all in the islands of our very near tikanga neighbours.
Closer in to our own immediate neighbourhood, the absence of God’s deep peace is becoming more readily evident as the politically established injustices of social and economic inequality now give rise to an even more substantial national underclass.
There are around 160,000 New Zealanders now unemployed and I wonder about the hidden impacts of unemployment upon the spouses and or the children of all of those families now rendered ever more economically vulnerable and thus socially insecure.
What too of the elderly, the elders of this land, those whose utterly deserved need for quality, trustworthy care and dependable compassionate support, appear now in spite of recent controversies, to be still of little or no national political concern?
What too of the young people seeking access to tertiary education, and for whom the 2011 sign on the door of the university is set to now read, ineligible, ill-prepared, no room at the educational inn especially for those who through no fault of their own were simply not born into families with ready access to the pathways of social and economic security?
And what are we to do for the little ones? How many more precious innocent lives will end in such unspeakable savagery as did that of little Cezar Taylor last week?
It is the inevitable socially and spiritually demeaning outcomes of these structural inequalities which now militate ever more powerfully, ever more insidiously against those least well equipped to either withstand, let alone to understand the politics of marginalization.
There can after all be no full measure of God’s deep peace unless and until God’s justice prevails across the social, political, economic and spiritual expanse of the lives of all in the land of the long white cloud!
Beyond our shores in the global village, wars and civil unrest abound. Military might is still the normative political response. Son of our soil, brave soldier Lieutenant Tim O’Donnell was this week killed in Afghanistan. May he rest in peace and rise in glory and may his loved ones be surrounded at this time with God’s peace which passes all understanding . . .
As the news of Lieutenant O’Donnell’s tragic death was reported, I was disturbed by the unseemly rush by our political and defence force leaders firstly to valorize this country’s role in the Afghanistan war and secondly to underscore our absolute commitment to maintaining a strong military presence in Afghanistan. All the usual variations on the same justificatory themes were readily advanced – we are acting in solidarity with our ‘allies’ in the fight against globalised terrorism; we are assisting our Afghani friends defend their national honour. Political arguments that are unambiguous and compelling, arguments, which provide ready justification for participation in war.
What I wonder are the theological counter arguments to be? Or are we to meekly accept the inevitability that others of our soldiers may also yet die in the various theatres of war, or in the oddly named processes of peace keeping, of military liaison and advising within which NZ soldiers also currently participate?
Where are we, and how are we in our time as God’s people to be as agents of God’s perfect peace?? How are we to act with integrity and with urgency as activists for peace and for the justice and compassion upon which God’s peace ultimately depends?
The Sermon on the Mount from which today’s Gospel reading is drawn provides us a comprehensive sample of Jesus expectations of his disciples and in this sense our understanding of today’s reading has to be located back within that more expansive account.
The basic thesis of the entire sermon comes n Matthew 5:20, ‘Unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the Kingdom of God’.
In our often bewildering and unpredictable world it is so much easier to be, as some of the Scribes and Pharisees would have us be. That is, as learned people who would outwardly exude devotion and piety and yet who inwardly would exude intrinsic pettiness in our insistence upon the letter of the law over and above its spirit.
For here in the world of uncontested legalisms and Biblical literalism is the realm of the human instinct for dominance, control, judgement, exclusion – here resides the very real potential for injustice.
It is indisputably much, much harder to struggle with the demands of being Christlike. How am I to love those who are my enemies? How am I to curb my instinct for revenge in the face of intense provocation? How am I to control my anger at the injustices I see all around me – in Fiji, in Aotearoa New Zealand, in the world beyond our shores?
In thinking and in praying anew about our particular Gospel text, I have for the first time seen past what I confess has always appeared to me as an almost impossible ask, especially as one who has lived for the past 20 or so years knowing that even as I am dearly loved by friends and whanau, by those who are most like me, so too I know I am often intensely disliked.
For example I have lost count of the verbal and usually anonymously written missives I have received indicating why some fervently believe I am profoundly unsuited to the church leadership role I hold – some say it is because I am a woman, others because I am a lay person, a Maori person, a divorced person, a liberal theologian and every variation of all of the above! I have lost count therefore of the times I have been so angered at those I have then determined to be my ‘enemies’ as a result.
And yet as I now reflect upon this timeless and enduring Gospel teaching moment in Jesus ministry, I am reminded afresh that all in my life counts for nothing if it is not ultimately to do with the good news of God’s coming kingdom and of my responsibility to be an active peacemaking agent toward ushering that in.
Therefore while my human instinct for retaliation, for self-protection, for payback opportunities, for self-satisfaction is not unusual, I do recognize that it does require radical adjustment!
For this instruction from Jesus for us to love our enemies and to pray for those who persecute us is not one based merely on the known frailty of our human nature but rather on the example of God.
I recognize therefore that as self-evident as we imagine these things to be, we do need reminding that it is God alone who makes the sun to shine and the rain to fall on all of humanity and not just on some. It is God alone who so loved all in God’s world that he gave his only begotten Son for all and not just some . . . It is God alone who has control of the heavens and the earth, of all that is seen and unseen . . . And so just as the disciples perfection was to be measured by God’s perfection, so too is the same perfection measure required of us by God, in our time.
And please don’t worry for even as I share my new understandings of the perfection I know I ought always aspire to, I am daunted, for this still appears right now as a very hard ask!
The prophet Micah picks up this same Matthean theme – the promise of God’s peace he insists is founded on the prior promise that God’s reign on earth is first inaugurated. In other words our longing for peace cannot exist as hope if it is separated from the expectation of the coming divine kingdom – the theological integrity of Micah’s beautiful prophecy lies in its unity.
And then of course as if for further reinforcement, Paul’s letter to Timothy produces a stark reminder that we Christians are to pray for all rulers even for bad ones!
So there is no escaping the fact that we are at all times to do what is right and acceptable not in our sight but in the sight of God our Saviour whose grace as Paul reminds us, is universally intended, for all in the world.
And so what of my thoughts for Fiji, for the deep social injustices here at home, for the global wars being fought often so perversely, in God’s name?
My own thinking is that we are each by our baptism, clearly mandated to act against injustice. As Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori said recently, we are all invited to join the band of prophets, share the meal and drink the cup. It can be dangerous work, but most prophets [she says] are also filled with joy. Prophets generally decide that it’s not worth living in a system without dignity. Better to lose that life, and exchange it for one that builds up, because we lose our own dignity when we tolerate indignity for some.
The search therefore for God’s peace with justice is work that all members of Christ’s body share.
The earlier part of the Sermon on the Mount containing the timeless wisdom of the Beatitudes attests to this: Blessed are the merciful, the clean of heart, the peacemakers, those who are persecuted . . . here God’s blessing is pronounced upon those who suffer on account of their activist search for justice.
It seems to me also that crucially here in this portion of the text is contained advice on the attitude we must therefore adopt in our activism for God’s justice. Attitudes of humility, selflessness, piety, mercy are required in order to ensure our natural human instincts for outrage, revenge and or retaliation are at least kept in check if not entirely subsumed.
The final part of the Beatitudes underscores Jesus teaching on the costly implications of being involved in the struggles for God’s justice. ‘Blessed are you when they insult you and persecute you’ - here the inevitability of persecution for those following Christian belief is articulated.
It seems to me that here in this portion of the text is contained God’s blessed assurance that while we will be hurt, we are not alone in our experiences of persecution.
And so as we commit afresh to living out the values of the kingdom of heaven here on earth, to standing with Bishop Winston, to challenging the myriad social injustices here in our own homeland, to actively advocating for world peace, let us take courage in knowing we stand alongside the great pantheon of former prophets, saints and martyrs in our faith filled and necessarily selfless quest for God’s endless peace.
Many of you know the Desiderata well – it seemed appropriate to end with a short excerpt from it:
Go placidly amid the noise and haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence . . . As far as possible without surrender be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others . . .
Avoid loud and aggressive persons; they are vexatious to the spirit.
The world is full of trickery . . . but let this not blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive for high ideals; and everywhere life is full of heroism.
Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth. be gentle with yourself. And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should. Therefore be at peace with God, in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul. With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Amen.
Dr Jenny Plane Te Paa
8 August 2010.