Pentecost 12
Hebrews 11:29-12:2
Luke 12:49-56
(prayer)
Love your neighbour.
The LORD is my shepherd.
I see a new heaven and a new earth.
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Those are nice bible passages. Comforting, soothing, hopeful. Nice.
And then what does the Lectionary give us for today? They were stoned to death, they were sawn in two; they were killed by the sword. And ... Do you think I have come to bring peace on the earth? No, division!
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The truth is that following one’s faith often leads to hard roads. The degree of that difficulty can vary from being inconvenient to being life-threatening.
There was a time when the early Christians were a minority movement. That is the context of the writing of today’s two scripture readings from Hebrews and Luke. As the decades began to roll on (as ¾ of the first century passed), people’s level of intensity for the church and its message and mission was challenged. And so the writers of works like the gospel of Luke and the letter to the Hebrews highlighted characteristics that were needed among the believers.
This is the second Sunday of a four part series where I will be exploring some key characteristics of Discipleship. A disciple is a learner, a disciplined follower of a wise mentor. I am hoping that this time will allow us to ask: what is helpful when trying to learn Jesus’ way and which characteristics will we want embody as we follow Jesus’ path.
Last week, I spoke about the value of “attentiveness” – to be mindful of the activity of the Spirit in our midst – to look for, and notice, and appreciate, and react-to the glimpses of God’s work in the world. One important characteristic of discipleship is attentiveness.
Today the theme flows out of attentiveness: “commitment”.
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The author of Hebrews uses examples of the faithful from the past as encouragement for the people of the early church. The author highlights how the people of Moses’ time had to trust that God was leading them to freedom. There is also the example from Joshua’s time when the people had entered Canaan after the exodus and encountered resistance at the first major fortified city they ran into: Jericho. They faithful walked and waited until they witnessed the walls tumble down. And Hebrews also highlights the lesser known story of Rahab who aided Israelite spies trying to gain intelligence on Jericho’s defences. The author admits that many more examples could be drawn from the scripture.
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A message here? Sometimes faith requires risk. The letter to the Hebrews also honours those who refused to renounce their faith under threat of torture and death. They were stoned to death, they were sawn in two; they were killed by the sword.
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Something that it is true in any age is that Faith is easy when the sea is smooth and calm; it’s when the storms come that our commitment is put to the test.
Now I don’t mean that in the sense that I think God maliciously sends us calamity to test us. I really *dislike* that theology. The bad stuff that happens in the world is almost always the result of human activity and human “in-humanity”. I don't buy into the "the devil made me do it' or "God is testing me" theology. However, I believe that god's with us always and supports us in and through difficult times.
How we react to these faith challenges depends of the depth of our character as disciples.
There were certainly challenges for members of the early church. For some of them, it was life and death. For some the risk was too high and faith was set aside. The authors of our scriptures today wanted to encourage people to strengthen their commitment in times of difficulty.
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We (on the other hand) live in a relatively easy place and time to be a person of faith. There virtually no ‘danger’ to try and live out your faith in Leduc. Freedom of religious expression is a guaranteed right under the Canadian Constitution, as it is in many democratic societies.
Having said that, I would be naive (and wrong) to think that we live in a time void of religious tension. The truth is that within the so-called western countries, where there is by-and-large rights of religious freedom, practically, it can be easier to be Christian than non-Christian. Some people think that religious freedom means you can be Catholic or United or Baptist or Anglican. One the sad realities of our modern post-911 world is that there is subtle and not-so-subtle anti-islamic sentiments loose in society. Whether it is the call to ban head scarves or restrict where mosques can be built, religious persecution – even in the west - is alive and well.
In the middle-east where religious tensions are much more obvious and do lead to real and violent persecution far too often, we heard recently of Christian aid workers being killed in Afghanistan simply for being Christian; we see a wall being built in the west bank that cuts communities in half (a wall by the way that in many cases in well inside the border of the west bank, effectively shrinking the already disputed Palestinian territory).
Even today, in the most modern and advanced societies, religion is being used to justify discrimination and in some circles political pressure is exerted to attempt to make discrimination the law of the land.
The biggest fallback (I think) to democracy is that sometimes the will of 50%+1 of the people can dehumanize a minority. That’s why we have bills of rights and constitutions to ensure that fairness prevails, even (especially) when the majority think otherwise. Sometimes the mama grizzlies growl, but the majority is not always right when it comes to rights.
And so, even in our part of the world, in our North American, Euro-Australian culture, religious expression can lead to some hard situations.
The sad reality is that in our modern world, the threat of violence often comes from one religious group to another – sometimes with the same faith expression.
It is the hardest thing for me to try and defend to people outside the church – why do people who profess a religion of peace, or specifically in our case as Christians, to follow one we call the Prince of Peace, why do we find ourselves embroiled in so much conflict and destruction? I don’t have a good answer, other than to say that some of us are so convinced that we have a monopoly on the truth that we do not respect the humanity of others who think or believe differently than us. I would suggest that this goes against the very nature of Jesus' ministry.
In two weeks, I will speak about the discipleship characteristic of “humility”, which address that dilemma to some degree, but for today, I am on the tightrope of commitment.
As my friend David Wilcox sings “you gotta wonder why religion can make people so insane?”
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Ironically, it is some people’s commitment to their particular dogma that they use to justify their actions, which can include violence. They would read today’s passages as encouragement to stay the course and remain adamant that if others are allowed to be different, it is a threat to their faith.
So, I say that it is not enough to simply be committed. What we are committed to is central to who we are and who we can be.
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This is tricky because it’s all a matter of interpretation. And so I build from the big themes that are central to what I have come to believe. For me, I am drawn to the image of God as the loving creator: the one whom an ancient storyteller proclaimed created a world to be “good”; and whom another storyteller invited humanity to tend and care for the world and its creatures as if they were a gardener; a steward of something valuable that belonged to God. I am inspired by the stories of Jesus risking ridicule by opening doors of involvement. To play with Jesus’ own words: He was willing to suffer to let the children come to him. He defended the woman who broke protocol and wiped his head and feet with oil.
To the Corinthian Christian, the apostle Paul wrote eloquently about the value of a variety of gifts and skills and activities – all of which are from the spirit. Paul would go on to proclaim Love as the greatest of all gifts – even greater than Faith and Hope.
What is the greatest commandment?, Jesus was asked. Love God with all your heart, soul and strength. And as well, love your neighbour as yourself.
I think the centre of a disciple’s character is a commitment to this radical notion of love without reserve: Love that recognizes that all whom we encounter are founded in goodness in the eyes of the creator. The spark of the spirit is alive within all and that effects how we relate to others and the world we share.
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My suggestion is that we resist the path of building walls around our comfort and making enemies of all who are not where we are in terms of our world view. We are to live love by example. That takes a strong commitment in a world and a culture that seems to enjoy and thrive on division.
I hope and prayer that, in the church, disciples of Christ will remain committed to this basic call to be people living out the love of God!
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Certainly bucking the trend of divisive fundamentalism is challenging enough, but I also know that there is another significant challenge to our commitment.
The relative calmness of religious practice in our neck of the woods can make the other distractions of life a challenge to faithful discipleship. In fact, our faith has more to fear from apathy than from persecution.
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How do we remain committed in a world that doesn’t usually honour the rest and attention that spirituality needs. We struggle against the notion that even an hour on Sunday, might be too much time to sacrifice to one’s faith. It’s ironic that I am saying that to you, who have committed to this time today. I hope you don’t hear this a critical of people’s choices. In fact, as person from a home where both adults work anything but Monday to Friday, 9-5 jobs, as a parent of young busy children, as a minister who has more time to lead worship than to truly worship myself, I understand how hard it is to find time for faith.
I simply want to name that the busyness of this life, the varied demands on our finite time can be a challenge to the commitment we can offer as disciples of Jesus.
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Being aware of that, is our first best step in trying to find the time to be committed to a mission of love and compassion.
The other side of that is because everyone is busy, we can sometime feel as if we are not able to make much difference. That brings to mind an old story about a boy who came across a beach at a particularly low tide, where hundreds and hundreds of starfish were drying out in the sun. The reality is that not all of them would survive until the waters rose enough to take them back out to sea. So the boy started throwing starfish out into the surf. A passerby felt compelled to comment, you’re wasting your time, you’ll never get them all, you can’t really make a difference. The boy looked at the starfish in his hand and tossed it out to sea anyway and said, “I made a difference to that one.” And he kept tossing out starfish.
It can be hard to be committed to a mission of love and compassion if we feel that our impact barely scratches the surface of what the world needs. But as Maragaret Mead said, Don’t believe that small groups cn change the world, they’re the only ones who ever do. It was Ghandi who encourage people to be the change you want to see in the world. And of course Jesus simply calls us to love as he loves.
To be serious about learning from Christ, of being a modern disciple of Jesus, we need to be attentive to the spirit in our lives and we need to honour that presence with our commitment to live and love as Jesus did.
Not easy, but things that are truly important seldom are.
Let us pray: >>>
Come near to us God to show us the Way. Encourage us to be faithful to our calling as disciples of Christ. Amen.
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