Christ the King/Reign of Christ Sunday, exploring the restoration and healing of all creation

 

‘The King and I’ – the feast of Christ the King 2023

When the parish bought a new copy of the Prayer Book an errata slip fluttered like a cabbage white butterfly from between the brightly coloured ribbon markers and stiff paper.  Its not often that a reader is faced with an errata slip these days.

I was intrigued by this little slip of paper. It reminded me of the story of one of the early editions of the King James Bible in which by oversight the word ‘not’ had been omitted from ‘thou shalt not commit adultery.’  What an erratum Another edition had a misprint where the name Judas replaced Jesus.

What could be the mistake be in our new prayer books? The errata slip asked the owner to erase the name Queen Elizabeth and write the name King Charles into the prayers where the monarch is mentioned.

An erratum, the admission of an error, the invitation to take up a pen and make a change.

Over the past three weeks I have been engaged in a kind of changemaking as I have explored a series of parables told by Jesus. These parables are placed by the Matthew community, which gathered stories and teachings of Jesus, after Jesus’ entry into the temple to overthrow the tables of the money changers and sellers of pigeons, transactions required for the sacrifices mandated by the law. He continues with his blasphemy and excoriates (I love that word) or verbally rips into the religious as false guides and shepherds.  In so doing Jesus places himself within the tradition of the Spirit guided prophets in his words and actions. However, he seemed to his hearers to be going way beyond into new territory threatening the fragile and uneasy peace between the different religious allegiances but also to the shaky peace with the Romans.

The Church of Matthew, rather like the exiles visited by Ezekiel and rather like us lived in an era of anxiety and loss of hope where the people had lost the trust of their political and religious leaders. We too live in an era where the Church in nations like Australia are struggling to find a new identity.

What is a parable all about? A parable’s purpose is to overturn our assumptions. The treasure is sometimes buried deep within the story, or like a lustrous pearl hidden in a drab shell. A parable reminds of something we had forgotten we had lost. Hidden in the story is a little erratum slip inviting us to a course correction.

I have been suggesting that these Matthean parable seem to offer a moral lesson but can be read as overthrowing our assumptions. Last week I suggested that the lazy and wicked slave is the one who is in the right. He refuses to suck up to the rapacious absentee Landlord. Like Jesus this slave is thrown out into the darkness. Could such a Master be Christ? Matthew the tax gatherer who fleeced the people, had been turned by Jesus to the new path. How could Matthew commending a way of life that hurt especially the poor?

Today we hear the parable about the sheep and the goats and again I am suggesting that the straightforward story sounds a discordant note. These animals were religiously symbolic. The lamb of Passover, the sheep representing the people of God. The goat became a scapegoat to represent forgiveness driven out into the wilderness to die with the sins of the people.

Once again, the King seems at first sight to represent Christ. He rewards those sheep who do the right thing and the goats roast for ever in eternal punishment. But think more deeply about the wrongness of this story.  An unforgiving King contradicts Jesus own words to Peter about forgiving seventy times seven. It negates so much of Jesus own teaching especially in the Matthean Beatitudes. It is a punitive punishment, revenge beyond all revenge. Doing good seems to be incentivised by the promise of eternal life. It is a kind of snakes and ladders story, a bribing and blaming kind of lesson. The judge seems more like a tyrant than the Jesus who will welcome the woman who will anoint him in the house of Simon the Leper. My Kingdom Jesus seems to say is the reverse of this story.

However, the punishing God has been used by the Church often to promote law and order or to crush dissent. You will still hear people asking, if there is no God there is nothing to deter people from committing crime. When the last census results appeared writers in newspapers warned that the decline in Christians represented the moral corrosion of Australia.

So, I ask you, what kind of God is being promoted by identifying Christ with this punitive judge? It is true that the Matthew Church does this in verse 31 with another reference to the book of Daniel. Jesus is framed here in terms of the fulfilment of Jewish apocalyptic.

This however is not an interpretation of the parable that l that I can give my allegiance to since in its straightforward reading it contradicts the teaching of Jesus across all four gospels. The story read in a literal way contradicts the three denials given by Jesus to the adversary in the temptation story. The Good Samaritan story in Luke has Jesus commend a foreigner, a goat you might say who does the right thing from compassion without any expectation of a reward.  In fact, the Samaritan pays the bill of the injured person. Jesus likewise models a selfless compassion without looking for a reward. Jesus dies on the cross to call the world to a loving compassionate and just way of life seemingly without any hope as he calls in despair to a seemingly absent God.

So how can we read this story told by Jesus to overturn our understanding? Jesus here I believe mirrors back to us our desire to be loved, liked, and respected and we well thought of by people whose opinion we value. Jesus also mirrors back to us our human desire to see ourselves as good and others as bad. Matthew’s gospel struggles especially with this since it emerges from a bitter conflict between the Torah and the Jesus Jews. In fact, in the time of Jesus, domestic sheep and goats looked very alike from a distance and you had to get close to tell them apart. When we are honest, we might recognise both goat and sheep tendencies within us. We can push away part of ourselves we don’t like or lock up memories for life.

This sermon, I acknowledge is complex and perhaps uncomfortable so let me try and point you to a resolution.

I believe that the life and teaching of Jesus can only be seen through the lens of the resurrection and glorification of Jesus.  That is, the earthly rabbi of Galilee becomes one with the Christ, universal wisdom. The radiant light of Love illuminates justice and mercy ever present in our midst. We see this in the icon.  Justice is balanced by mercy and is held by the Christ, Love in its fullness.

Yes, there is heaven and hell. We look around at the planet we have trashed, peoples lives wrecked by war and injustice and the inequalities and challenges of our own society. Terrible things happen, we make terrible mistakes, and sometimes people do terrible things or say terrible things to us or people we love.  Yet we can be kind, compassionate creative and generous. Heaven and hell are close by and goats and sheep live together in the task of being human.

I believe in a final healing and restoration at the close of the age, a universal restoration. This has always been preached in the Church especially in parts of the Orthodox Church but also by some Anglican theologians. It is a minority view but for me it is the only belief consistent with the Gospel of Jesus and this final restoration gives me hope for ministry in this age of anxiety.

I am with those classic Anglican theologians who have promoted an intermediate state after death where we can be made whole, face up to our path and choose the Light. Those who have missed out can have another chance. Those who have died in despair and anger find healing. Beyond time there is all the time to travel further into God and this may indeed bring the pain of facing up to the damage I have done in my life. We could call this ‘purgatory’, a place of healing where eventually I with all of creation will be drawn into the love of God in Christ Jesus. That’s why I pray for the dead and encourage others to do the same.

Some of you will reject this as false teaching since the mainstream Church keeps on its theological books the carrot and stick of heaven and hell. Only good Christians with a few exceptions are saved, the goats forever roast on the BBQ

Christian Universalism for me brings hope, joy, and confidence since through the risen crucified One all can be made new.  Indeed, Matthew’s Gospel concludes with a reminder that he; Jesus will remain to the close of the age among his friends. He will always remain faithful and in their midst making whole and calling them to compassionate care. They are to immerse the world in the way of non-violent love and not lord it over others. In Ephesians 1:23. Paul writes of the Church less as an institution more as a vision ‘The fullness of all things with all things filling’ This is the completeness and the salvation of all even of the Adversary and the rebel angels. Jesus says in John, ‘when I am lifted up, I will draw all to myself.’ That means all, not some, the whole creation. That is the fiery love which is beyond my understanding.

The errata slip tells me to insert the name of the new King. May you and I write on our hearts the Christ of hope who cannot, who will not fail, the love that lets no one go.

An erratum can be corrected. The owner takes a pen and carefully makes the change which the publisher has indicated reflects the truth. Matthew seems to suggest an obvious conclusion. In fact, his community even during their trauma over mass killings and tearing down of the temple in 70 CE stretches us to Christ among us who is never a tyrant King but in fullness lives among us and sets us free to be witnesses of his eternal love in our age of anxiety and strife.

 

 

Lazy and wicked

 

The Parable of the Talents

In Matthew 21 Jesus makes a dramatic entrance to the holy place of the Temple. He overturns the tables of the money changers and the sellers of the sacrificial doves. Earlier as his ministry begins Jesus is led through three symbolic temptations by the adversary but refuses the bribe offered. Jesus the teacher and the embodiment of wisdom will walk the way of integrity.  He warns against gathering treasure, trying to serve God and wealth, and seeking first what he calls the Kingdom. Unlike the earthly authorities this Basilea is all about generosity and service, inclusion, and celebration. This gospel is named for Matthew, the tax collector, someone who has betrayed the community to collaborate with the Romans taxing the people and lining his own pockets.

This sleazy character alongside other no hopers, frauds and failures becomes a disciple and the church which gathers together stories and sayings about Jesus the wisdom teacher takes him as their patron.

That is why I want to offer another view of this parable, just as last week I linked the story of the foolish bridal attenders with the disciples who fail to watch and pray but are restored after the resurrection and are anointed with the oil of the Spirit.

The traditional reading is that the two go getting risk takers who enter the joy of the Lord are the kind of active engaged church people that God likes, good workers who win promotion entering the joy of their Lord. This is contrasted with the lazy, seemingly resentful disciple who hoards the money in a hole in the ground. Even the name ‘talent’ has a positive ring about it. We reward talented passionate people and hold them up as dazzling role models to the dull and dutiful, the drifters and disappointing.

But what if the wicked slothful and evil slave was the one in the right? What if the slave were correct in his assessment of the Master, the Kyrios that his wealth, prestige, and influence were at the expense of the poor?  The action of the slave in burying the silver, (a talent was about 15 years of wages) could be seen as a way of honouring the command to give to Ceasar that which belongs to him and to God, what belongs to God. Certainty the slave is punished, thrown out into the place of cursing and regret but of course this is exactly the punishment given to Jesus. Could Matthew the repentant tax collector, the object of hate and derision be commending the corruption of this unpleasant Lord?

My task is to get you to think again about this parable and not take the easy way out.  Matthew’s gospel often compares and contrasts different responses by individuals and groups to deep hidden wisdom. Parables are not meant to be moral stories with an easy answer but stories that twist and turn.

Jesus was regarded as evil, a traitor, too lazy to observe the ritual laws. He upset the religious people and praised integrity against entitled people seeking to bribe their way into God’s favour. Jesus was cast out and went to the place of shame and punishment to offer hope to people like us, foolish failures, doubters and drifters from which he fashions disciples.  He was buried like treasure in a field.  He commended turning within rather than an open demonstration of piety.

Friends in Christ

Does your life need some overturning like the temple tables? Its all too easy as we know to drift along and never question.  Perhaps the fact that those who call themselves Christians are becoming a small minority is quite a gift to us. It invites to ask what it really means to be a disciple of Jesus who was put to death as a blasphemer, a bad influence, and as a corrupting influence by getting people to think for themselves and teaching us to respect only integrity and compassion.

The Monastic Chapel at Fairacres Oxford a place where 'prayer has been made valid' (TS Eliot)

Eucharists and prayers on the South Coast for the Guardian Angels and to remember children of all ages who have died

Contemplating the Light

 Some reflections from my sermon for October 8th.

Here I discuss a visit to James Turrells work 'Within Without' at the NGA and my experience of entering across the water lined path into the stupa to stand within the light reflected from the 'eye' in the stupa, beyond description in mere words. As someone who has participated in Quaker meetings it is no surprise that Turrell is a life long Quaker. The Religious Society of Friends uses the metaphor of the Inward Light and 'Within Without' reminds me of a meeting house, a place of stillness and silence.

Today's readings included the ten invitations, the ten words or ten invitations of Exodus given as a gift. At the heart of words about the Holy One and the admonitions to live ethically is placed the command to observe the Sabbath.  The Sabbath a time for rest, renewal, contemplation, remembrance and realignment. When a Sabbath is kept, in whatever form we look to the Light, to the horizons of meaning and purpose. For Christians the Logos or Christ is the Light. Light is of course a metaphor as we know the path only through metaphors and reflections. Our Gospel was the vineyard and the tenants who forget their place. This speaks to me so vividly of the tragedy of  so much of life and our forgetting to live in harmony with each other and the planet.

The vineyard in the parable is planted, a wall and watchtower offer boundary spaces and the press a metaphor of transformation as the wine comes into being.

James Turrell's mission to assist people to find wonder, amazement and appreciation through his work is an inspiration, a sign of hope. May we in our sabbath keeping practice contemplation and participate in the Great Work of healing and hope bringing.

Thomas Traherne and the meditating inward eye

 Some reflections from my sermon on October 1st

'A meditating Inward Eye gazing at Quiet did within me lie. And everything delighted me that was their Heavenly King'

So wrote English poet and mystic Thomas Traherne, born in Hereford, the son of a shoemaker. For ten years he was parish priest at Credenhill (picture above)

 in the beautiful golden valleys near the border with Wales. He lived during the destructive and turbulent era of the Civil War when so much was torn down and destroyed by misplaced religious zeal.

So much of religion is noise, discord, outcry, refusal, complaint, argument and sheer meanness. So much of religion is experienced as the jabbing righteous finger and guilt. Let us no forget that the Church created cancel culture.

Paul sees Jesus as the one who became empty and Wesley that God emptied himself of all but love. Another story sees the Holy withdrawing in love to make space for creation to flourish freely.

Contemplation, the quiet gaze, becoming empty, open is never easy but beyond all becomes a joy and delight where the inner noise fades

SS Michael, Gabriel and Raphael and all Angels

https://neumz.us5.list-manage.com/track/click?u=dcc9686caa6e61732352a5989&id=199bbc5abc&e=4a7d97d3dc

Today is the Feast of Michael, Gabriel and Raphael Archangels and here is some wonderful music to take us into the day

The statue is from the Jesuit Church at Sevenhill South Australia