Sermons
29th July 2007 - Trinity 8
The Old Testament presents so many different and contradictory images of God that it really is a good thing that Jesus came along to sort out the misunderstanding. I spoke two weeks ago, in the context of the Bishop of Carlisle’s reported remarks on the floods, about how we should be very wary of images that confirm in people’s mind the idea that God is somehow always trying to catch us out, waiting to punish us for our various wickednesses and misdemeanours, a vision in which God is a petulant divine being who gets so cross with gay people that he sends floods to shake them up a bit. This idea is tremendously difficult to dislodge in people’s minds and when it arises in public discourse the press follow it up with glee to show what odd things Christians believe. The vicar of Tewkesbury was interviewed on the radio recently as the flood waters threatened to invade his beautiful church, and he was asked by the interviewer whether he saw any evidence of the divine hand at work in the disaster. Resisting the bait he quickly replied that he saw much activity that spoke of God’s love for his people in the ways in which people were helping each other, coming to each other’s need, going out of their ways to look after one another.
But that picture of the angry God which we find in lazy press copy can be encountered in the Bible as well, particularly in the Old Testament. Today’s reading from Genesis not only has God ready to unleash untold misery on the people of Sodom and Gomorrah, it also has him changing his mind after a little ear-bending from Abraham (although they get the fire and brimstone in the next chapter).
When we turn to the gospel reading it is almost as if Jesus has to work against this grain when teaching on the loving nature of God, he has to convince the disciples that God’s love for each of them can be likened to the strongest of bonds that exist among people, such as those between parents and their children. God is a loving father who wants his children to flourish, who wants them to enjoy the good gifts of his creation, even giving the gift of his spirit to guide lives in his ways.
Perhaps it mystified Jesus that everyone seemed to misunderstand this message and indeed everything that he was doing. In the gospels Jesus is surrounded by people who seem to have no idea what is going on, the little band of disciples are awestruck by the healings and exorcisms but fail to see their true significance, Jesus’ opponents assume he is either a powerful ghost or working for Satan, and vast numbers of people fail to take up the call to discipleship, the Jesus movement seems to consist of the main character and a small group of keen but misguided fans. A sort of Rabbi-idol.
There is a sense in which the eternal word of God, the Christ who was present at the creation of all things, must have had to acclimatise to the reality of 1st century Palestine, a sense in which he is both fully engaged in the events of his ministry and also fully involved in the eternal life of the Trinity and theologians have managed to square this circle by ascribing to the man Jesus two distinct yet inseparable natures, he is fully God and fully human. He is not a divine apparition but a real man with a real past, but he is also the co-author of both past and future, he will be around until the end of the age and beyond. And for us, stuck in time, if we want to get a grasp of what Jesus is trying to teach the disciples, if we are to get inside the minds of Jesus’ followers and opponents in the gospel stories, we must also try to re-enter that 1st century world. A world and universe populated by an immense variety of spiritual beings, most of them unfriendly, a world where what we might see as illness is characterised as possession, a world certainly where natural disasters were seen as signs of divine displeasure, a world where wonder-workers were needed to carry out exorcisms and the whole of daily life was seen as an engagement with the forces of good and evil. In that world we can see why Jesus was so misunderstood.
Take, for example, the miracles of Jesus. The last thing Jesus seeks in performing miracles is fame. He does not seek followers keen to see more magic, and when he senses that this is beginning he tends to withdraw to pray alone. The significance of Jesus’ healing miracles and exorcisms lies not principally in making people feel better in body and mind, but in their proclamation of the proximity of the kingdom. The miracles show the awesome power of the proclamation by God in Jesus that the kingdom is being ushered in, and as a result they have also a Christological function, they tell those with faith to hear it, that Jesus is not just some wonder worker but carries unique identity and authority. Jesus heals out of compassion, but those who see only physical transformation have missed the import of what is going on. In these miracles the power of God’s kingdom is at work and they claim a response, they command belief and so can serve as a model for Christian faith.
Now, if we re-enter our own 21st century we see a transformed physical and mental environment. We do not go to wonder-workers when we are ill, we go to highly trained doctors, we do not think people who have fits are possessed or that demons lurk around every corner seeking to do us harm. And yet misunderstanding continues. If you watch the sad parodies of healing manufactured by American tele-evangelists, or people placing their hope in crystals, people avoiding the cracks in the pavement or turning over tarot cards with a mixture of mischievousness and excitement, people, even eminent people, putting bad weather down to a God who is a bit worked up over the liberal agenda, perhaps not so much has changed. Superstition remains attractive.
The Christian response to all this must be forthright and it must issue as with Jesus, from prayer. Our response must be to tell people abut a God whose love for them is boundless, whose desire is to see them flourishing within his glorious creation.
But remember that that other story, the one about the angry God is very popular and we are called to undermine it. Perhaps you might have a chance this week to offer something of the vision Jesus shared with his disciples with someone you know. In weeks where there seems to be so much bad news, people might like to hear some good news, and who is going to tell them if you don’t?