RonBlog

Sunday 30th October, 2011 Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost

Sentence
The greatest among you will be your servant. All who exalt themselves will be humbled, and all who humble themselves will be exalted. Matt. 23:11

Collect
God our Father, Whose will it is to bring all things to order and unity in our Lord Jesus Christ; may all the peoples of the world, now divided and torn apart by sin, be brought together under His sovereign rule of love; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen

Old Testament Lesson Joshua 1: 7 – 17

The LORD said to Joshua, "This day I will begin to exalt you in the sight of all Israel, so that they may know that I will be with you as I was with Moses. You are the one who shall command the priests who bear the Ark of the Covenant, 'When you come to the edge of the waters of the Jordan, you shall stand still in the Jordan.'"
Joshua then said to the Israelites, "Draw near and hear the words of the LORD your God."
Joshua said, "By this you shall know that among you is the living God who without fail will drive out from before you the Canaanites, Hittites, Hivites, Perizzites, Girgashites, Amorites, and Jebusites: the ark of the covenant of the Lord of all the earth is going to pass before you into the Jordan. So now select twelve men from the tribes of Israel, one from each tribe. When the soles of the feet of the priests who bear the ark of the LORD, the Lord of all the earth, rest in the waters of the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan flowing from above shall be cut off; they shall stand in a single heap."
When the people set out from their tents to cross over the Jordan, the priests bearing the Ark of the Covenant were in front of the people. Now the Jordan overflows all its banks throughout the time of harvest. So when those who bore the ark had come to the Jordan, and the feet of the priests bearing the ark were dipped in the edge of the water, the waters flowing from above stood still, rising up in a single heap far off at Adam, the city that is beside Zarethan, while those flowing toward the sea of the Arabah, the Dead Sea, were wholly cut off. Then the people crossed over opposite Jericho. While all Israel were crossing over on dry ground, the priests who bore the ark of the covenant of the LORD stood on dry ground in the middle of the Jordan, until the entire nation finished crossing over the Jordan.

Psalm 107: 1-7 & 33-37

O give thanks to the Lord for He is good: for His loving mercy is for ever
Let the Lord’s redeemed say so: whom He has redeemed from the hand of the enemy
And gathered in from every land, from the east and from the west: from the north and from the south
Some went astray in the wilderness and in the desert: and found no path to an inhabited city
They were hungry and thirsty: and their heart fainted in them
Then they cried to the Lord in their distress: and He took them out of their trouble
He led them by the right path: till they came to an inhabited city

He turns the rivers into desert: and the springs of water into thirsty ground
He makes of a fruitful land a salty waste: because its inhabitants are evil
He turns the wilderness into a pool of water: and parched ground into flowing springs
And there He settles the hungry: and they build a city to live in.
They sow fields and plant vineyards: which give them a fruitful harvest

Epistle 1 Thessalonians 3: 5 – 13

I could bear it no longer, so I sent to find out about your faith; I was afraid that somehow the tempter had tempted you and that our labour had been in vain. But Timothy has just now come to us from you, and has brought us the good news of your faith and love. He has told us also that you always remember us kindly and long to see us--just as we long to see you. For this reason, brothers and sisters, during all our distress and persecution we have been encouraged about you through your faith. For we now live, if you continue to stand firm in the Lord. How can we thank God enough for you in return for all the joy that we feel before our God because of you? Night and day we pray most earnestly that we may see you face to face and restore whatever is lacking in your faith. Now may our God and Father himself and our Lord Jesus direct our way to you. And may the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all, just as we abound in love for you. And may he so strengthen your hearts in holiness that you may be blameless before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints.

GOSPEL Matthew 23: 1 – 12

Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples, "The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses' seat; therefore, do whatever they teach you and follow it; but do not do as they do, for they do not practice what they teach. They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on the shoulders of others; but they themselves are unwilling to lift a finger to move them. They do all their deeds to be seen by others; for they make their phylacteries broad and their fringes long. They love to have the place of honour at banquets and the best seats in the synagogues, and to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces, and to have people call them rabbi. But you are not to be called rabbi, for you have one teacher, and you are all students. And call no one your father on earth, for you have one Father-- the one in heaven. Nor are you to be called instructors, for you have one instructor, the Messiah. The greatest among you will be your servant. All who exalt themselves will be humbled, and all who humble themselves will be exalted.

© 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
We become increasingly aware of the need in our own culture let alone any other, of the clear hand-over of authority and responsibility after the death or non-election of our leaders. It is always important for all people to see who is ‘it,’ – and so it was with the death of Moses and the anointing of Joshua.
The next ritual, the crossing of the Jordan, was similarly precise; and while you may be taken by the apparent miracle of crossing dry-shod, remind yourself of the similar situation when the Red Sea was crossed 4o years before. Please note that the issue is not so much the miracle as the symbolic business: water, and especially the sea has always been – I understand – the symbol in Jewish thought for all that is evil. (See my notes on Revelation for a fuller exposition.) Mind you, it has to be said that (a) the Jordan is or was a trickle compared to any real river. Australian creeks are a fairly clear parallel, and (b) the description here of the blocking of the river by landslide further upstream is indicative of quite a few miracles. All a matter of timing rather than some sort of great Divine intervention.

Psalm
Israel was very fond of singing the praises of God in their worship, constantly referring to His hand among them in the vicissitudes of life and history. This snippet shows references to the Exodus and also, I suspect, to the Exile. One of Israel’s great gifts to the rest of humanity was its capacity to recognize, from the events of their life, quite something of the nature of JHWH.

Epistle
One gets the sneaky suspicion, reading between the lines of Paul’s letters to Thessalonica, that those Christians were not the brightest lot! There is some evidence to show that they grabbed hold of part of what the Apostle taught, but like many people today, adapted some of it to suit their somewhat laid-back culture. It is a very sad fact of Christian history that people and the Church have a capacity for what suits them, ignoring many other issues that present challenge or change of behavior or action.

GOSPEL
It is not just the ancient Pharisees who like to be seen and to show off. Modern humans in our culture are greatly given to such showmanship; it says little for the ordinary person who seems to be caught up in such charades, and copy their idols.
Jesus was not fooled by any of those people – especially when the Gospel He was upholding had far more to do with giving service rather than demanding it from others. This whole passage, like many others, is our Lord’s attempt to underline the necessity of both equality of all humans and the need of each of us to be servants of others. It may not be popular nor politically correct, but it is very much part of the Gospel of reconciliation.




NOTES FOR A SERMON

I am always rather painfully aware of the tendency of some Christians to be quite critical about anyone who dares to produce sermons that are not ‘the Gospel!’ It is a critique fairly often laid at my feet, but that is because I tend to see Gospel in terms wider than some. The Faith has far more to do with the issues of ordinary life than it does about getting me to heaven. This Sunday’s Readings encourage me in that wider scope …. And I hope that you can see that too.

If there is one particular issue that stands out for me in today’s readings, it has to do with the passing of responsibility from Moses to Joshua. I find echoes of that movement forward in the other readings as well. And it is an important issue, especially in this day and age where so many of the older Christians wonder quite what lies in front of faith and Church when we are pushing up daisies.

There is always a sense of loss and of disconnection when someone in leadership hands over the reins to a lesser light, a younger person, someone apparently inexperienced. If someone well-loved has been leading the show for a long time, there will always be those who try to hold on to the comfort of known directions and familiar patterns. Anything different is felt to be threatening. So the feet go to the brakes, and hesitancy tends to become the order of the day. As we express it these days, our comfort zone has become threatened and we like that NOT.

Try being a Joshua! You would know that you have huge shoes to fill, as the saying goes, and you will be painfully aware of resistance from all sorts of directions. But you will also be aware of the size of the task, and will almost certainly have some ideas that you would wish to pursue. Any young priest, or any new priest in a parish will know all about that.

I am fairly certain that I am not in that same situation again. Old age does have some advantages. I am also aware of the fact that so-called new ideas can be of valuable ….. or useless. I am also painfully aware of the fact that simply because something has been sanctified by long practice, it does not mean that it needs to be continued without variation. Or rejection.

I suspect that the point and purpose of this soliloquy is to encourage younger people in exploring quite where it is that God is leading us as we move into another century and into new territory. There is also a great sense that, while we need to move ahead, we need also to be VERY aware of the basic realities of the Faith. Retain what is important; let go of what is not. Remember, though, that individual visions of what is important may well be rather myopic ….. limited and narrow.

As a final and parting shot in all this, I find myself being hauled back to that quite ancient of expressions of the Faith, the Shema Israel. When all is boiled down, the Faith, Hebrew and Christian, is expressed in the Shema. Love God, love your neighbour, --- without losing sight of the need to love yourself, oddly enough. As we realize these days, if I despise my self I will, ipso facto, despise you, too.

Do you remember back in the olden days, when the priest had to read out the Old Testament Lessons and you had all those jaw-breaking names from early Israelite names? Attention seemed to head in that direction and the rather more important bits failed to register. It was ever so, and tends to remain the same, does it not?
The important thing to focus on today is – even way back then – there was a necessary transition of responsibility, if not power, and that tends to be a hard row to hoe for people of any time. It must have been far harder for Israel, after the long-range trek from Egypt. Remember, too, that the only person who had begun that exodus with Moses was the one being anointed new leader. None of the rest of the mob would have known anything else but Moses.
And ancient Israel was rather skilled at grumbling. Murmuring was the active word. And here was another water barrier to cross. And the people were able to cross dry-shod. Whatever did that mean? From the time of the Exodus or even before, large areas of water appeared to be symbols of evil; was the crossing of the sea escape from evil? Was the crossing of the Jordan another escape from evil? Even John, in Revelation, in the scene of the Throneroom of God saw the lake of water before God as indication of the fact that in the end, evil is still somehow under God’s feet. It will be destroyed; just as evil was – in a singular way- destroyed by the Cross. For evil has its sting removed when it is seen for what it is. Whatever the case. The picture of Israel crossing sea and river dry-shod indicates a lack of effect on the People. Or is that, like many of our prayers, in the language of hope?

From that idealism to the harsh reality - that is where the Gospel takes us. In other words, the tragedy lies in the way that the Moses Gospel finds its failure and let-down at the hands of Moses’ latter-day disciples. There the great tragedy lies in the way in which what was designed to be a faith to live by had been turned into an instrument of division, of separation of the good from the bad, though the reality is that such separation was the opposite to how the Pharisees would have understood it. When a living faith is turned into a destructive religion, it is a matter of the powerful controlling and demeaning the weak. There lies the horror of it all.

Small wonder that Jesus had little difficulty in putting His finger on the real issue and exposing it all. Even less wonder that He turned the tables when the emphasis of His preaching was to uphold the humble and remove the rug from under the feet of the powerful. Sadly, it is rare to find the Christian Church taking enough notice of the real Gospel.

I suspect there is enough there to ponder … and preach