RonBlog

Sunday 20th February, 2011 Seventh Sunday after Epiphany

Sentence
You shall be holy for the Lord your God is holy, You shall love your neighbour as yourself. Lev. 18:2f

Collect
Hidden God, Whose wisdom compels our love and unsettles our values; fill us with desire to search for truth, that we may transform the world, becoming fools for wisdom’s sake, through Jesus Christ, Your Word and Wisdom made flesh, to Whom be glory for ever. Amen

Old Testament Lesson Leviticus 19: 1 – 2 & 9 – 18

The LORD spoke to Moses, saying: Speak to all the congregation of the people of Israel and say to them: You shall be holy, for I the LORD your God am holy. When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap to the very edges of your field, or gather the gleanings of your harvest.You shall not strip your vineyard bare, or gather the fallen grapes of your vineyard; you shall leave them for the poor and the alien: I am the LORD your God.
You shall not steal; you shall not deal falsely; and you shall not lie to one another. And you shall not swear falsely by my name, profaning the name of your God: I am the LORD.
You shall not defraud your neighbour; you shall not steal; and you shall not keep for yourself the wages of a labourer until morning. You shall not revile the deaf or put a stumbling block before the blind; you shall fear your God: I am the LORD.
You shall not render an unjust judgment; you shall not be partial to the poor or defer to the great: with justice you shall judge your neighbour. You shall not go around as a slanderer among your people, and you shall not profit by the blood of your neighbour: I am the LORD.
You shall not hate in your heart anyone of your kin; you shall reprove your neighbour, or you will incur guilt yourself. You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against any of your people, but you shall love your neighbour as yourself: I am the LORD.

Psalm 119: 33- 40

Teach us O Lord the way of Your statutes: and I will honour it to the end
Give me understanding that I may keep Your Law: that I may keep it with my whole heart
Guide me in the paths of Your commandments: for therein is my delight
Incline my heart to Your commands: and not to selfish gain
Turn away my eyes from looking on vanities: as I walk in Your ways, give me life
Make good Your promise to Your servant: the promise that endures for all who fear You
Turn aside the taunts that I dread: for Your judgements are very good
Lord, I long for Your precepts: in Your righteousness, give me life.

Epistle 1 Corinthians 3: 10 – 17

According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation, and someone else is building on it. Each builder must choose with care how to build on it. For no one can lay any foundation other than the one that has been laid; that foundation is Jesus Christ. Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw-- the work of each builder will become visible, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each has done. If what has been built on the foundation survives, the builder will receive a reward. If the work is burned up, the builder will suffer loss; the builder will be saved, but only as through fire. Do you not know that you are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells in you? If anyone destroys God's temple, God will destroy that person. For God's temple is holy, and you are that temple.

GOSPEL Matthew 5: 38 – 48

Jesus said "You have heard that it was said, 'An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.' But I say to you, Do not resist an evildoer. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also; and if anyone wants to sue you and take your coat, give your cloak as well; and if anyone forces you to go one mile, go also the second mile.
Give to everyone who begs from you, and do not refuse anyone who wants to borrow from you.
You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbour and hate your enemy.' But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same?
Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

© 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

Before we go anywhere, I wonder if you noticed (how could you miss?) the constant attention give in today’s readings to God and to His Law. What is reiterated also is that business of being perfect as God is perfect. While that tends to be an impossible call, it all underlines where one needs to start when looking at both faith and life. It is no so much an impossible dream as it is an unshakeable foundation.

Old Testament
Now no one in their right mind could gainsay these ancient words from Leviticus. There is nothing vaguely ‘cultural’ to be sidestepped, or unreasonable to offer a chance to refuse attention. In fact there is that marvellous example of what we might regard as the focus for Centrelink. Whilst modern methods of pensions and dole tends to demean people, Israel was made of sterner and yet more generous stuff. Nobody seems to value what they get for nothing. Ancient Jews knew that, too. If you were starving, you had recourse to gleanings, but you had to get off your backside and get it. That has always delighted me.

Each of these imprecations ended with ‘I am the Lord your God.’ As early as Leviticus, this parallel of worship and caring about people was clearly factored in to what was considered a real response to God and to people. Most other religion is focussed on the person concerned and what is in it for them! This passage is worth re-reading and taking to heart all that is written, including ‘you shall reprove your neighbour or you will incur guilt yourself.’ Boom! Boom!

Psalm
There is an interesting dichotomy in this Psalm. On the one hand there is the clear recognition that the Law of the Lord is immensely valuable. On the other is the similar recognition that anyone who heads in such a direction is likely to wear the taunts and pressure from those who do not. Ponder that a moment or two.

Epistle
And the process goes on. I have been in the building game myself for quite some years, and even since have become more aware of the capacity of some in that trade to attempt to avoid the normal standards of erection of buildings. Here Paul offers a contrast between those who would follow valid standards in their life and work, and those who would respond fraudulently. He is saying the same things as psalmist and lawyer (Leviticus!) Levite.

GOSPEL
And once again Jesus takes the whole issue into the light-years ahead.
It looks like entering an impossible world to turn the other cheek, and yet it was something that Jesus Himself was quite prepared to risk and do. Before you write this off as totally impracticable, stop and see that Jesus’ method of dealing with evil was to absorb it. The Cross illustrates this most completely. Yes, it cost Jesus His life, and yes, it would not be until post eventum that any perpetrator would realize the extent of his own evil, if then. But that is the nature of reconciliation, starting as it always must, with the one who is sinned against.

NOTES FOR A SERMON

I seem to recall that when apartheid was finally reversed in South Africa, that shock waves tended to emanate when those in charge of the country opted not for some sort of witch-hunt to get rid of the evildoers, but for a Truth and Reconciliation Commission. What was sought was not some punitive response, though anyone would have understood such a thing, but only the requirement that perpetrators confess their ugliness, after which forgiveness was offered. It has to be said that there were still those perpetrators who failed or refused to open their pasts, but stop a moment and see what came out of it.

I discovered many decades after the event, that one of my very prominent forebears, John Maynard Keynes, did his darnedest at the Versailles Conference after World War 1, to stop or at least limit this vengeful response of the Allies on to Germany, in retribution for the enormous personal and national cost of the war. Keynes’ constant plea was not responded to, for most of the Allies were determined. Keynes was painfully aware of the fact that while the Allies were determined to reduce Germany to shreds, the economist knew that the only foreseeable outcome of such an action was exactly what happened under Hitler. That was another war of even greater bitterness and destruction. No self-respecting nation would bow to such hideous demands, however well justified.

The terribly human response to such evils is to render enormous punishment on those who held the nation in thrall. Similar punitive measures are laid at the feet of all sorts of people, and it has to be said that even our own country, New South Wales in particular, is still recovering from the ugly convict past.

So how does the Judaic/Christian Faith approach this matter of human evil? The answer is interesting – and even may be seen by some as inadequate. Stop and ponder a while yourself if you will.
For our Lord, evil is destroyed by being shown for what it is. Once again, the Cross is the example par excellence of that. Once it is clear visible, evil is destroyed. And you then ask, how is that so?
The answer is somewhat demanding, but leaves the responsibility right where it ought. Once I can see evil uncovered, then I am freed to choose against it. Obviously, I am also free to ignore the evidence, but I am still in a position – however weakened – to take a stand against it. Like my Lord, such a stand may cost me my life, but evil has been disempowered.
One of the most depressing things that have been rattling away at me ever since I discovered that so many people on both side of conflicts have lost their faith is God is because He did nothing to stop the wars. Now who is really responsible for such ugliness, and it is not God. It is us. And who would appreciate the Divinity breaking in and stopping the wars? That would be to remove our humanity, our freedom of choice, and turn us into nothing more than robots, automatons, puppets-on- a-string. Would there not be yells of enormous noise if that approach was employed on us! It is noisy enough when Governments attempt to operate that way.

Last week we looked at the practicality or otherwise of Law, rules and regulations. This week the attention is pointed to the source of Law, or better still, the Source of reality, truth, common sense and – most of all – justice. As I wrote to the Atheist Foundation some months ago now, as a ‘religionist’ I remain loyal to Christ simply because no one else I have read about, encountered, or studied makes as much sense of life, history and relationships than Jesus.

It has to be said that, even in this post-modern and post-almost-everything-else world, all manner of old canons, standards and values seem to have lost the loyalty of very many people. For some, that seems to mean that God is dead, anything goes, and nothing matters anymore. People interested in history will be quite aware of the fact that this is not the first time that this stage has been reached by civilisations. They will be aware, also, that what tends to follow is not the end of the world but the end of that culture. Greek ruins, Roman ruins and lots of others too bear testament to the rise and fall of civilisations. And you may be interested to know that in times past it has been Christians that had both the faith and the awareness to become the glue that held people together through such dramatic times. St. Augustine’s City of God provided almost as much ammunition for Christians back then as did John’s Revelation before that time. Whilst we may, as Christians, feel a little like Port Power or the Crows or even the Cricket Team, the problem is simply to keep one’s nerve, keep the Faith – and understand and realize what it is truly all about, and weather the storm.

Those ancient verities, long held as sacrosanct by Christians will prove to be the solid rock on which anyone and everyone can stand. And that is just another way of saying that the God Whom we worship and the Lord Whom we follow will outlast any lesser philosophy or lack of it that humanity might choose or reject.