RonBlog

Sunday 6th February, 2011 Fifth Sunday after Epiphany

Sentence
Let your light so shine before others that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.
Matthew 5: 16

Collect
Father of all, Who gave Your only-begotten Son to take upon Himself the form of a servant and to be obedient even to death on a cross; give us the same mind that was in Christ Jesus, that, sharing His humility, we may come to be with Him in His glory; where He lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God now and for ever. Amen

OLD TESTAMENT LESSON Isaiah 58: 1 – 12

Shout out, do not hold back! Lift up your voice like a trumpet! Announce to my people their rebellion, to the house of Jacob their sins. Yet day after day they seek me and delight to know my ways, as if they were a nation that practiced righteousness and did not forsake the ordinance of their God; they ask of me righteous judgments, they delight to draw near to God.
"Why do we fast, but you do not see? Why humble ourselves, but you do not notice?" Look, you serve your own interest on your fast day, and oppress all your workers. Look, you fast only to quarrel and to fight and to strike with a wicked fist. Such fasting as you do today will not make your voice heard on high. Is such the fast that I choose, a day to humble oneself? Is it to bow down the head like a bulrush, and to lie in sackcloth and ashes? Will you call this a fast, a day acceptable to the LORD? Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke? Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover them, and not to hide yourself from your own kin?
Then your light shall break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up quickly; your vindicator shall go before you, the glory of the LORD shall be your rear guard. Then you shall call, and the LORD will answer; you shall cry for help, and he will say, Here I am. If you remove the yoke from among you, the pointing of the finger, the speaking of evil, if you offer your food to the hungry and satisfy the needs of the afflicted, then your light shall rise in the darkness and your gloom be like the noonday.
The LORD will guide you continually, and satisfy your needs in parched places, and make your bones strong; and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters never fail. Your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt; you shall raise up the foundations of many generations; you shall be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of streets to live in.

PSALM 112

O praise the Lord, Blessed are they that fear the Lord
Their children shall be mighty in the land; an upright race who will be blessed
Riches and plenty shall be in their house: and their righteousness shall stand for ever
It goes well with those who act generously and lend: who guide their affairs with justice
Surely they shall never be moved: the righteous shall be held in everlasting remembrance
They will not fear bad tidings: their hearts are steadfast, trusting in the Lord
Their hearts are confident and will not fear: they will see the downfall of their enemies
They give freely to the poor: their righteousness stands for ever, their head is uplifted in glory
The wicked shall see it and be angry: they shall gnash their teeth and consume away: and the hope of the wicked shall fall

EPISTLE 1 Corinthians 2:1 – 13

When I came to you, brothers and sisters, I did not come proclaiming the mystery of God to you in lofty words or wisdom, for I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified. And I came to you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling. My speech and my proclamation were not with plausible words of wisdom, but with a demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith might rest not on human wisdom but on the power of God. Yet among the mature we do speak wisdom, though it is not wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are doomed to perish. But we speak God's wisdom, secret and hidden, which God decreed before the ages for our glory. None of the rulers of this age understood this; for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.
But, as it is written, "What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the human heart conceived, what God has prepared for those who love him"--these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit; for the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. For what human being knows what is truly human except the human spirit that is within? So also no one comprehends what is truly God's except the Spirit of God. Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit that is from God, so that we may understand the gifts bestowed on us by God.
And we speak of these things in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual things to those who are spiritual. Those who are unspiritual do not receive the gifts of God's Spirit, for they are foolishness to them, and they are unable to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. Those who are spiritual discern all things, and they are themselves subject to no one else's scrutiny. "For who has known the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?" But we have the mind of Christ.

GOSPEL Matthew 5: 13 – 20

Jesus said "You are the salt of the earth; but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything, but is thrown out and trampled under foot. You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid. No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lamp-stand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.
Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished. Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, will be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

© New Revised Standard Version of the Bible
Copyright 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the
Churches of Christ in the USA, and used by permission. All rights reserved
NOTES ON THE READINGS ……

Old Testament
As far as I know, the reputation of the Old Testament prophets with preachers of the past century or two – with many commentators as well – was down in the pits because of their doom and gloom expectations and predictions. My mother, brought up Methodist, told of loud pumping of pulpits and threats of hellfire; a fear that continued right up to the last years of her life. Even in my College career, some recommended commentators wrote of the same damaging messages.
I have mentioned before how my own reading of those ancient people came to a conclusion rather different. There was no threat of hell and punishment from God. There was often the challenge that continued selfish and extravagant living, and failure to respond to the needy, would result in the breakdown of community and collapse of country. That, of course, is palpably true and evident, but the same writers always pointed to positive directions to live, move and have being. This present prophet was no exception.

It would seem that human beings manage never to learn from history, and certainly not from the mistakes of history. This passage appears to be quite savage about normal religious observances, whereas the reality is that the savagery is directed to worship that runs by rote. Even modern Christians can relate to that, surely. Liturgy is designed to be instructive, challenging and pointing in optimum directions. Few there be who follow along those lines, sadly. But take note of the powerful impact of the imagery offered here; one’s relationship with people around about is just as important as worship, and in fact is a real factor of it.

Psalm
Pardon me, but there seems to be something in the way of propaganda mixed into this psalm. As I mention often, there is a clear and developing evolution in the decades and centuries of Jewish understanding of God, and while this psalm may well illustrate the hope and perception of one particular age, the passage of time would have drawn the necessity for thinking and observing further. The ideals are great, but rather unrealistic, are they not.
If you find yourself somewhat offended by such comments, I would simply ask you to ponder your own development as a Christian (or as a human come to that!) If you retain strong adherence to concepts, ideas and theologies from earlier in your life, then I would dare to wonder about the value of your pilgrimage. Marking time, in my experience, is actually a going backwards.

Epistle
I once knew a lady who had great difficulty reading the Epistle in Church if that day’s reading happened to be from St. Paul. She was a single lady of British background, and Land Army involvement during the war. Sadly, her views of the Apostle were somewhat jaundiced, and we would discuss the issues often. However, she was not to be convinced and retained her bias. She was sure that Paul was a misogynist.
This passage is one that may well have widened her vision a little, not in Marjorie’s field, but in this confession of his own perception of his inability and lack of skills. None of us are perfect either in capacities or abilities; we each much operate within the boundaries of our talents and skills.
But there was also a twin issue: and that had to do with the perceptions of those on the receiving end.
Jews seek signs, Greeks seek wisdom, you will recall being part of the reading a short time ago. And there was a world of difference between Jewish and Greek understanding of ‘wisdom.’ For Jews, it was a practical issue; for Greeks, it was rather more theoretical. Jewish ‘wisdom’ could be described as nous, common sense - something which lay within the common experience of people. For Greeks, their love of debate and discussion, preferably without reaching any clear conclusion, meant that wisdom was simply an exercise in their own mental agility. Paul’s address on the Areopagus underlined that issue rather well.
So here Paul is making it quite clear that the ‘wisdom of God’ is not something out of touch with reality, but is rather more so than any theorising can ever be. This is not some sort of statement that God’s wisdom never makes sense to ordinary people.
(I recall being appalled, some years ago, at a banner installed in one of the charismatic congregations where we lived. The banner read ‘Reason and logic are the enemies of faith.’ That is one of the scariest things I have even found in such groups – and no chance was offered to discuss the issue. I was relieved to find that the pastor of that group left the ministry some time afterwards.)

GOSPEL
Before you get all excited about being light and salt and all that stuff, stop to ponder a moment. The emphasis is not on salt, but you. Here lies a challenge of enormous proportion: as an old saying used to have it, God has no hands but your hands. So if you do not live up to the challenge, not only is God let down but so are those around you.
Salt has not had the greatest of wraps in recent years, and the reason for that requires attention. Abuse of salt in our generation tends to be the problem. From earliest times of human life and history, salt has been a most valuable commodity, without which life itself fades into a colourless or ailing pattern.
Light is also interesting. The first Creation Story begins with light, long before the usual sources of light, sun and moon, rate a mention. That, of course, is so because the real point of light is to provide the capacity to see and understand what is going on. It has more to do with what we may call insight – a capacity rather more available to those who are blind than those who are sighted.

One of the charges laid rather often at the feet of our Lord was that He ignored, bypassed or superseded the Torah, the Jewish Law. Whilst it may be true that He set aside some of the food laws and other matters that tended to be cultural rather than divine, He was never guilty of averting attention from the real and important issues. In fact, His attention to such shows up in His addition to the Shema Israel. Love God; love your neighbour is a sing-ularly powerful summary of the Torah, and encapsulates the faith once delivered.

NOTES FOR A SERMON

In all the plethora of screams, yells and complaints from atheistic people in our community, calling us believers as superstitious and pathetic, those who are against the Faith, any faith, seem to me to need to get their facts right before they push their buttons. Recently I wrote to the Atheist Foundation requesting a move from setting up caricatures and then blowing them over; far better to attack realities. I have had no reply – for there is no room at all for superstition or unreality in this faith once delivered. Nor has there ever been!

Just look at those readings, and ponder them awhile.
The first lesson is stunning for its impact even at a time when robot-like response to worship seemed to be the norm for many. Not long before the return from exile, and perhaps because of the length of time – 70 years – Israel had been in foreign territory, there were those who had reduced their worship to a matter of going through the motions. This has not been a sporadic problem for adherents to Jewish or Christian Faith. Such a reaction may not have a lot to do with liturgy, in fact, but for the apparently good reason that it can be a bother to take care of fellow-humans in the ordinary run of life. Far better, according to some, to make a quid, and stiff cheese to anyone who gets in the way. And that is the point: this problem has nothing to do with superstition; it has everything to do with natural justice. In fact the direction to which the prophet points is completely in terms of that Shema Israel; love God; love your neighbour. (My experience is that it is rather harder to love one’s neighbour than it is to love God!)

I have been bold enough to wonder if today’s Psalm had more to do with propaganda that with then-current realities; but even with that said, this passage shows concern for people at all sorts of levels and their sense of direction and purpose. It also conveys quite something about settledness and certainty.
For quite some years now I have been concerned at the extent to which modern society has turned its back on community and focussed on the individual. The outcome of such a change of direction shows up in the devaluation of the other person, who becomes reduced to being the rung on a ladder to my progress, or just an @#$%^& nuisance who is forever getting in my way. Small wonder that violence, robbery and total disregard is building to endemic proportion in our part of the world. And that is not superstition, now is it!!!!

Paul, bless him takes us along a very similar path, although we do need to see that he is not proposing some sort of superiority when he talks about being ‘spiritual.’ This Faith of ours offers a rather different look at life and realities, not distancing ourselves from the usual, but certainly offering distinction between what may be called ‘Adamic’ and ‘Christian.’ The latter Paul would describe as ‘spiritual,’ the latter as ‘world.’ That latter equates to caring about one’s fellow people; the latter may try and look like that, but in the final analysis is summed up in the common Australianism of ‘blow you, Jack I am all right!’

So when it comes to the Gospel, the same theme is held up in front of us. I am not called to be salt for my sake but for yours. I am not called on to be light for my sake but for yours. And none of that is to get you to heaven, but to offer a modus operandi in life that is rather more significant than where you are at the present.

There was a time when what I have written would be seen as heretical, and may still be by some. However the Biblical reality is otherwise, and if this makes sense to you, then I am heartened. It may take a while to sink in to others, but one day it will.