Monday 19 September 2016

Honour is No Little Thing


Luke 16:1-13

Sometimes Jesus doesn’t make it easy for us. Today’s parable is often described as one of the more difficult of Jesus’ little stories. It is obtuse and confusing, asking us to accept Jesus as endorsing fraudulent and deceitful practice. If we interpret the master as God then we have a major issue, does God endorse such behaviour and how do we make sense of such. If we interpret this story from the worldview of capitalism we will be sympathetic to punishing the crooked manager?

Over the years we have witnessed many situations where people have acted in appropriately with other peoples money. The Global Financial Crisis is one alongside the collapse of a number of investment and banking institutions where one or more of the staff have acted to deceive others and to benefit from their actions. If you have had money as when you suffer great losses due to the actions of another.

So we may have sympathy with the Master and little for the manager. He deserves to be fired and get what is coming to him for his laziness, ineptitude and his decision to discount people’s debts just so he could gain favour when he finally loses his job. We have sympathy with a person who has been shamed by the actions of one he trusted for, as John Pettypoints out, “In the first century world, a person's wealth was connected to 'honour.' In fact, wealth was not necessarily an end in itself, but rather a means to get honour. Money could buy respect, or so it was thought. A person could be 'dishonoured' for any number of things, but two of them included having an unscrupulous servant, and taking back a gift."

Yet what was the manager to do? To lose his job meant facing the indignation of two dishonourable options - becoming a slave and digging roads or sitting on the side of the road and begging. His life was at an end. He had no more options, and unless he acted quickly and decisively he would be left homeless, penniless and without friends and family. So he gets creative, he demonstrates his business and strategic acumen by calling in his master’s debtors and giving them a gift – a discount on their debts.

Now as Petty points out, this was a very shrewd move by a very shrewd business man. He had won himself some very powerful friends, had placed his Master in the situation where he either accepted his manager’s decision or took back the gift given in his name. The latter would result in him losing face, customers, suppliers and more. He would become a man who could not be trusted and, possibly, join his manager on the scrap heap. So doing the only thing he can, he accepts his mangers decision.

Yet there is more to this story. Bernard Scott suggests that word “diaballein in 16:2 has the sense "accuse" in the sense of "falsely accuse, slander, lie about." So the manager has been innocent all along, but sees no way to prove his innocence other than by demonstrating what a shrewd operator he really is (and always has been).” (Jenks)

Gregory Jenks writes, “The master had originally dismissed the manager because he had [allegedly] squandered the master's property. Now he commends him for acting shrewdly -- the way a manager is supposed to act. If the master cannot repudiate the reductions in debt instituted by the manager without loss of face, do we have to imagine that the master let his dismissal stand or could he have taken the manager back?

In the social world of Palestine, where debt burdens reduced people to poverty and consigned many to slavery as a consequence, the master would not have been the object of public sympathy as Jesus' listeners first heard this tale.

In this parable the manager gets even with the master by appropriating the master's profit, which itself is morally suspect - for as we have seen no characters in this parable are innocent. Wrong has been done, lots of wrong on all sides.”

False accusations impact on the lives of all involved. How we speak about others, our initial reactions to a situation, our capacity to believe gossip and car park chatter have consequences. Speaking without knowing the full story can result in statements, which stain a persons life forever. In this case they not only threaten the future of the manager, but lead him into acting wrongly and inappropriately just to save his job and his lifestyle. They also have a habit of ensnaring those who believe such accusations. The Master finds himself trapped by the subsequent behaviour of a man who was at least initially, innocent.

State and church politics, run the risk of dredging up accusations which become a millstone around the neck of all involved. Self-interest drives such accusations yet we often find the people who start the process having to defend themselves from the same accusations. Our present debate about political campaign donations is a case in point.

Jesus makes the point, there is no such thing as a little dishonesty. You cannot be just a little pregnant, a white lie is a lie, dishonesty no matter how well intentioned is still dishonest and will have consequences.

It is also true that being trustworthy in small things translate into trustworthiness with bigger things, being trustworthy with others possessions means you may also be able to be trusted with things of your own.

How do we make sense of this parable in a time when the ego self dominates all decision making processes; where if it is right for me then it is right with out question; in a time where transparency in business, relationships and politics is in question. How do we survive spiritually and morally when we are asked to accept, participate in and turn a blind eye to false accusations, false practices and false premises at the foundations of our community life?

Jesus drops the bombshell - you can not serve money and God. If money was, in Jesus time, more than simply what it could buy and was the symbol of honour and respectability, the basis on which one built ones value and worth as a person then there is no room for the value and worth that comes from a covenantal relationship with God. Why? Because God seeks a compassion that includes not excludes, a compassion that is inclusive of all, a generosity using what one has to change the present and the future for others.

We are asked to give up our selves as the centre of the world and place our selves in the midst of others as an equal, living in harmony with God and others. As we found in last weeks Gospel honour in God’s economy is found in the opposite corner to where it is found in the economy of a shamed based society and in a self centred consumerist society such as ours.

We are called to be faithful to our experience of a compassionate God, a God who deals honestly and respectfully with us and whom we do not have to manipulate to retain our freedom. We are to live so others to can be free to become whom they already are with out manipulating God and man We are enough, there is enough and will find honour in enough. Amen

Monday 12 September 2016

An Open Table - All Are welcome

Luke 15:1-32
 
Driving through south-western Victoria recently, I became aware, in a way I had not been before, of Australia as a fenced country. Ownership of the land is defined and marked out by fences, fences of all types, stone and rock, wood and wire, roads and rivers. It occurred to me that fences speak about where we place people in the geography of our country, the value we place upon them in our economy and the lingering presence of past definitions and practices.
 
Our gospel reading opens a window into the slurs and asides spat at Jesus by his detractors and opponents. ‘“This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.” In shame based societies proper conduct in public, keeping appropriate company and not keeping inappropriate company was all about keeping up appearances. You kept company with those of a similar status as yourself or made the effort to engage with those above or beyond your class. You did not keep company with those deemed to be below you – not consorting with the servants, slaves, prostitutes or drunks.
 
Table fellowship, whom you ate with, was the place this was most obviously evident. When people challenged Jesus about who he was with, it wasn’t a comment about his open and generous nature or his willingness to include everyone, it was about how radically he disregarded the sacred nature of table fellowship. Jenks suggests “the slander is more a marker of social conflict between Jesus and his opponents rather than an index of his personal values and conduct.’

John Dominic Crossan writes:
“In the first as in the twentieth century, a person might create a feast for society's outcasts. The could easily be understood even or especially in the honor and shame ideology of Mediterranean society as a benefaction and one of extremely high visibility. No doubt if one did it persistently and exclusively there might be some very negative social repercussions. But, in itself, to invite the outcasts for a special meal is a less socially radical act than to invite everyone found on the streets. It is that "anyone" that negates the very social function of table, namely, to establish a social ranking by what one eats, how one eats, and with whom one eats. It is the random and open commensality of the parable's meal that is its most startling element. One could, in such a situation, have classes, sexes, ranks and grades all mixed up together. The social challenge of such egalitarian commensality is the radical threat of the parable's vision. It is only a story, of course, but it is one that focuses its egalitarian challenge on society's mesocosmic mirror, the table as the place where bodies meet to eat. And the almost predictable counteraccusation to such open commensality is immediate: Jesus is a glutton, a drunkard, and a friend of tax collectors and sinners. He makes, in other words, no appropriate distinctions and discriminations. He has no honor. He has no shame.”
 
Jesus was pulling down fences and breaking the sacred nature of table and the rules set up to protect it. Jesus simply doesn’t recognise those rules and lives with little regard for social ranking in terms of who one eats with. One may in fact include many people from many different social rankings thus causing confusion about what is and is not acceptable.
 
Here is a principle worth considering  by the world and by the church.
 
Australia, we are told is a classless society, one in which everybody has equal opportunity to be well fed, well educated and to be happy. There are no privileged classes and there are no underprivileged classes in the telling of this story. Yet we know that this is not true. A recent article suggested that good looking students get better grades than not so good-looking children and we suspect this also applies to university entrance and job success. We know that if you go to a private school you will have better resources, better social networks and that more opportunities may indeed come you way. We know that certain suburbs and types of people are to be avoided if you wish to live amongst your own social class. Aspirational people seek to live closer to schools with a good academic record to give their children the best chance, value education and tutoring and avoid their children mixing with the wrong peers.
 
Social ranking matters. Symbols of social ranking matters, Houses in the right suburbs, children in the right schools, overseas holidays, right labels on clothes and the right badge on the care all matter, otherwise why would people incur great debt to achieve them
 
Once we have arrived at such social acceptance we avoid those we have left behind. We move on and begin to look for the next plateau in the social ranking game.
 
Jesus sets the challenge in this story. His behaviour is radical and anti aspirational. He spends time with those he likes, those he befriends, those who enable him to be the fully engaged human being he was. He is not stifled by societies expectations but takes social, intellectual and spiritual stimulation from the most interesting and alive people he knows, those without expectations and fences, those outside expectations and fences. He challenges us to let go of our dependence upon our class aspirations and become classless and at home with whoever we wish to share table with.
 
For the church this is another great taboo, who shares table with us? Is this life-giving table available to all or only to those who are like us, come from our class and share our world view? Over the recent years the church has had to, and continues to be challenged to redefine who is welcome, including slaves, non-whites, women gays, trans-genders, believers from other denominations and people of other faiths. What was once only a denominational practice, open only to those who believe like us, is now challenged by the diversity of our understanding of who are recognised as persons (slaves, indigenous,LGBTI people and women and children). Our Archbishop, in a press release Friday reminds us all to be open to the possibilities with in the upcoming plebiscite on marriage equality and that we, as reflective people, are to exercise our consciences on this matter.  Our church, the Anglican Church has had to face this because of its historical attachment to the establishment and has come rather late to practice a welcoming hospitality to all, at least to some degree.


Who is welcome at this table – there is no limitations based on class, gender or race; there is no fence built to keep people away. All are welcome. This is the church and the society Jesus speaks up for and challenges the table based social ranking of his time. This the church and society we are to speak up for and challenge the fences built to keep people in or out of our own safe places. Amen. 

Monday 5 September 2016

Living The Way To The Cross



Luke 14:25-33 

I have always wondered what it would be like to be a celebrity and be pursued 24/7, to have an entourage of devoted followers at your heels waiting to catch a drop of wisdom, a look or even a touch. I guess when fame and fortune first hits one may think, “Wow, how wonderful it is to be so popular, to have so many people hanging on my every word, watching my every move and checking out my figure for signs of over indulgence!” 

By about day three I think the novelty would wear off. Get these people out of here! Can’t I have one moment alone? 

Today’s Gospel opens with the recurring words ‘large crowds’ were travelling with him’. Large crowds are a stock feature of the synoptic Gospels, by the lake, at the synagogues, on the mountains and wherever Jesus seemed to be. Even when he is seeking silence and stillness for a little time out they turn up, 5,000 in the sermon on the mount and 4,000 at the sermon on the plain. 

So I am not surprised that this time he turns around and gives them a serve, not a get lost you lot serve but a reality check. Ok folks, the school excursion is over, now down to real business. If you keep following what I say this won’t end well, are you up for it? Families, villages, careers, relationships and ordinary everyday living will be disrupted and turned around if you go where what I say will take you. 

D Mark Davis comments "…… this call to discipleship is radical, implying that those who follow Jesus are not going to be making decisions based on 'what’s best for me,' or even 'what’s best for our marriage/family/children.'" There is no clear indication that there is such a decision for, if one looks at the examples Jesus gives, an outnumbered army or an over committed builder, the decision seems simple, no. In the case of the army, negotiate; the house builder, rent; the other option in both cases most likely won’t end well. 

Jesus then says "Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.” This is not a reference to the cross of Calvary but is not the act of a later editor putting words into Jesus’s mouth it appears in Mark, Matthew and the Gospel of Thomas as well as here. 

Also Epictetus a Greek speaking scholar is quoted in the Discourses by his pupil Arrian as having said the following: 
If you want to be crucified, just wait.  
The cross will come. 
If it seems reasonable to comply, and the circumstances are right, 
then it's to be carried through, and your integrity maintained.  

The inference being a certain way of life will lead, inevitably to conflict and if such a life is to have integrity one is to follow that life to its predictable end. Epictetus and Jesus both are saying, if your live outside the accepted norms of society and value what is at odds with such a society you will, in a Roman occupied country and a modern democracy, arrive at the cross. 

Now that may not be what the ‘large crowds’ wanted to hear. They were looking for peace and freedom from the oppressors not more violence and angst, especially from those they know and love. A counter-cultural philosophy of love your enemy, give help to the despised and reprimand to those in power is not the way one goes about making friends and influencing people. Yet the teaching of Jesus stood at odds with society then and still does today. 

Emerson Powery writes, "Today's contemporary Church has to wrestle with the reality of following a radical, counter-cultural prophet." 

Now this is not only a social justice question, it is a spiritual and religious question: what religion do you follow? The religion of the ego self and narcissism where I do everything for myself and those within my immediate purvey? Or is it the religion of capitalism, which says to the rich there will always be more, to the rest the leftovers. Or is it the religion of consumerism where enough is not enough and more is insufficient? Or is it the religion of self preservation, save our own bacon, call the lawyers and hard luck to the rest (a position often taken by the churches in reference to child abuse claims). 

Powery poses the challenge in just the way Jesus did, it is not a foregone conclusion that the large crowd or the contemporary church will indeed take up the religion of Jesus and live a radical, counter-cultural, prophetic role in the modern world. There is too much to lose. Our place in the power structures, our hard fought for exemptions and options, our buildings and our money, not to mention the fancy dress and valuable silver ware. To live a life of sacrificial compassion for others, including the whole of creation of which we as human animals are but one of many will mean a radical rethink for the church and for each of us individually. 
  • It will mean preferencing justice in all our actions and our words, not just saying what is right but doing what is right, despite the cost. It will involve speaking prophetically into the public space and challenging long  held views or those opinions we described last week as being like haircuts, everyone has one but not all are worth considering. Integrity in word and action takes great courage but is the task we face. 

  • It will mean preferencing the poor and not just the poor in terms of other human beings but the poor meaning the birds of the air, the flowers of the fields, the animals of the forests and fish in the sea. These make up the world along with humanity that God so loved. This will challenge how we consume, how we find ourselves entwined in the economic devaluation of resources and how we hoard up riches for ourselves at the expense of others. It is indeed very challenging and may well be too much on either an individual or a societal level for all of us. 

  • It will mean preferencing a life built on enough – our daily bread – our ordinary job – our enough house. Simplicity in being without the urge to always seek more. Science tells us that there is a default point for happiness. Despite the lure of more, once one arrives there and gets over the excitement, science tells us we fall back to our default level of happiness. As happy as your are now is probably how happy you will be regardless of more. 

  • It will mean preferencing a different God than the one we learnt about in Sunday School and came popular in response to the Enlightenment.This is a God is beyond all definitions yet knowable, beyond all boundaries yet personal, outside our world yet fully engaged in the experiences of our world, a God with a preference for all of Creation and not just human beings. Here is Mystery sitting in our muddle, our pain and our despair bringing hope to brighten our darkness. 



Jesus is a radical countercultural prophet who calls us and the church to a life which place us outside the accepted social contract. We cannot do it alone. We do it together and we do it together empowered by God’s ever-present Spirit. It is the only way we can take the road to the cross. In the end it was the only way Jesus could too.