Compassion, Mission & Sacrifice.

On this our stewardship Sunday my text for this sermon comes from the last verses of Matthew chapter 9:

35Then Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, and curing every disease and every sickness. 36When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. 37Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the labourers are few; 38therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out labourers into his harvest.”

 

One of the dangers for us is that we place Scripture in the spiritual realm and remove it from the practical material world. We can read the most difficult of scriptures and domesticate them by placing them within the spiritual, not at all directly related to the ordinary life of human beings such as ourselves. By doing this we render them powerless to change our lives or to bring in the kingdom of God.

Today’s text is not a text about giving, it’s not even a text about duty and faithfulness. It does not allude to church growth or financial security. It is not a text about being grateful in a way that empowers our response to God through the church by giving more.

 

This is a text about sacrifice. No, not sacrifice in terms of giving until it hurts. Money isn’t even mentioned. What is mentioned is even more confronting than any discussion of money can be. It is about giving up everything out of compassion for those who are lost and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.

 

Jesus makes a direct connection between compassion, mission and sacrifice. Now we struggle with the word sacrifice in a world of instant gratification, me first and entitlement. We are comfortable with it when we use it theologically to refer to the death of Jesus to all things material but we stumble when are asked to apply it to ourselves and how we are to define our membership of the church – our discipleship. We struggle to give up our personal opinions, biases and self-defensive attitudes, we struggle to sacrifice our comfort and leisure, we struggle to give up our comfortable buildings and practices to make room for those outside our walls.

 

Yet sacrifice is essential if we are to respond with compassion to those outside the borders, those Barbara Creed refers to as strays, the people and creatures who do not exhibit the same attitudes as us toward material things or who challenge our way of life. For Creed that includes stray animals, refugees, indigenous peoples, homeless and anyone who does not subscribe to the goals of a consumer society. For Jesus these were the people he met on is wanderings and those who, although Jews, were beyond the borders of the religious world of the times.

 

Jesus calls for such sacrifice, not because we should be grateful for our place in the world but because of compassion for others. Jesus encountered people who had no centre, no place to call home and no-one to care for them. These were not people who were different but people like them. Jesus does not give the reasons we might for compassion – hungry, lonely, homeless, unemployed etc – and there fore see what we are doing as helping, as reaching down and bringing people up. No Jesus uses the word compassion – that deep sense of belonging and connection which rises up from within, an emotional not a rational response, from the heart and not from the head.

 

It is difficult for us to have compassion. We live in a world of hardening borders, of economic rationalism, of media portrayals of others as enemies, or if not enemies , at least someone to be afraid of. We have clearly defined categories of those who are lifters and those who are leaners, we have categories for those who have Australian values and those who don’t and any number of ways of referring to who is in and who is out.

 

Yet Jesus sets the example and calls his disciples and us to have compassion and to sacrifice ourselves on behalf of others. This is the call for the church and therefore it is the call each of us must answer in some way. This place is not here for our personal gratification. It does provide us a place in which we can worship and gather but it is not the full expression of who we are. What emanates from this place is what counts. If this place becomes all we do then it is a millstone around our necks. If all we are doing is maintaining the edifice then we are not fulfilling the call of Jesus.

 

We have witnessed this in all wings of the church over many years as a result of the clergy abuse scandal. The church sought to protect what it had for itself and failed to have compassion and therefore make the necessary sacrifices to deal with the issues. In the end the church has been forced to make those sacrifices, not willingly through such as royal c,missions.

 

The questions we need to answer here at St Oswald’s is: do we have compassion on those outside our walls who are “harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.” Your neighbours, friends and those you share this community with. Those who are shut in, forgotten and denied access to all you and I take for granted. I am not talking about our service or our giving to other charities or organisations, it is not their job. Jesus calls his disciples to do this work in their place and to make the necessary sacrifices to do so.

 

While organisations such as Anglicare and others have their place, they should not take the place of the work of the local church. As Ian Cutmore says, “If it is not happening where you are, it is not happening.” We cannot offload our responsibility for others to others. Our sacrifice, our giving must be sufficient to meet the needs of the local community. 

Like many churches this is not the case. We, as a congregation, do not give  enough to meet the running costs of this parish without significant help from hall hirers and fundraising. As a result we are unable to make a considered financial contribution to compassion for our community - the mission of God. 

We have no budget for mission empowered by compassion. And a church without mission or engagement is a church of stagnation. We cease to exist for others and only maintain what has been important to us - liturgy that makes us feel we have been to church, a choir that suits our purposes as its members and groups that keep us comfortable.

 

Jesus calls us to compassion and mission through sacrifice. This is not just about getting more people and resources in from the outside, but more people and resources out from the inside. He goes on to say: 7As you go, proclaim the good news, ‘The kingdom of heaven has come near.’ 8Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons. You received without payment; give without payment. 9Take no gold, or silver, or copper in your belts, 10no bag for your journey, or two tunics, or sandals, or a staff; for laborers deserve their food.”

 

Jesus does not call us to the comfortable life, individually or as a church, we are to be partners in the abundance of his kingdom. We are called to give up our expectations for ourselves and to ensure others have enough  by virtue of our compassion.

 

As we take the time to make our commitment to our church for another year let us to do so with compassion and sacrifice and with an eye on the kingdom of God.Compassion, Mission and Sacrifice 

The Whole Armour of God

Today is an important day as I feel compelled to share with you what well-dressed Christian children wear to bed. Inspired by today’s Ephesians reading, a mother has designed the “Armour of God Pyjamas”, complemented by the whole armour of God blanket and either a Anna or Samuel doll with matching headband and beanie. The pj’s consist of a helmet of salvation, a night shirt of righteousness and belt of truth as well as a pillo of faith for the little angel to put his or her head on. All this is ensures God will protect the child as she or he sleeps.

Bizarre - I never cease to be amazed at how far people will go to justify their actions. Perhaps a cleric who wears red shoes has no right to comment!! The mother says she doesn’t want her child to feel lonely, to remember God is with her, even when she dreams.

While I wonder at the effectiveness of the Armour of God pyjamas, isn’t this the truth for which we are all searching, to find the cure for loneliness.

Patch Adams, whose taste in everyday wear is way more exaggerated than either my redshoes or the aforementioned pyjamas, says; ‘The medical professionals are a lot more comfortable calling it 'depression' than calling it 'loneliness.' And he should know.

As a young man of 17 or 18 years he had his mother commit him to a mental hospital because of his reaction to an uncle’s suicide not long after his father’s death. In the hospital he recognized two things, both the same, not only was he lonely, most of the people were in that hospital not because of their mental illness but because of loneliness. It was their unattached presence in the world which placed them in these places and resulted in them being diagnosed with medical categories.

For Patch Adams: ‘All of life is a coming home. Salesmen, secretaries, coal miners, beekeepers, sword swallowers, all of us. All the restless hearts of the world, all trying to find a way home. It's hard to describe what I felt like then. Picture yourself walking for days in the driving snow; you don't even know you're walking in circles. The heaviness of your legs in the drifts, your shouts disappearing into the wind. How small you can feel, and how far away home can be.’

On leaving the hospital he committed himself to eradicating loneliness, if not eradicating it, at least making people laugh. He says ‘in Russia most of the hospitals don't have any pain medicine, they don't have any money. So if you're with kids with cancer, they can have metastases to the bone; which some say is the worst pain a human can experience. So a mother can be in a room with a child who hasn't stopped screaming in five months. ...85% of the time I walk in there as a clown they'll stop screaming."

He takes seriously the admonition of Paul in Ephesisans when Paul says, “Put on the whole armour of God’ for everyday of his life he wears his clown outfit from the time he gets up until the time he goes to bed, he sees patients, runs workshops, lobbies big business and governments in full clobber – the whole armour of the clown.

He knows who he is and he is that person all the time – there is no wavering from the truth about himself. While he admits to no religion, ‘he calls a friend his "god" and the love of other people, God's spirit.’ He fully understands the truth Paul is giving to the Ephesians, you cannot live in this world and flourish unless you clothe yourself with yourself in all your glory. And if you do so you are not alone.

For Paul that glory is found in the Word of God, Jesus, who came into the world leaving behind his glory in heaven to take on the whole shape and form of humanity. It is in the truth about this living word of God who spoke God’s love into the world and who’s righteousness and obedience sets us free and whose resurrection stands us firmly in the world as the beacons of hope, that we have been welcomed into the family of God and made one with him who is one with God.

We are home.

We can complicate this passage by stripping down each part of the amour as described and providing prescriptions for each in such away it becomes all too hard. We can theologize on the meaning of each point Paul makes and set ourselves up with a conundrum which trips us up, not sets us free.

Yet, for Paul it really is as easy as getting out of bed and getting dressed. Now for one of the people who live in our house this not as easy as it sounds – we need to look at what we are doing, where we are going, what the weather is going to be like, what shoes go with what handbag which goes with what lipstick – it can take some time to get dressed!

But for me, every morning I get out of bed and my major decision is not what colour shoes I put on but which pair of red-shoes best fits the day. The shoes are always red (except for most funerals). There is no question. Paul says each day put on the armour of God which is Christ, the resurrected life of hope and fulfillment of all Gods promises, with Him as your day wear you will stand firm.

Paul says it is all there for you, simply put on Christ and you have in yourself the fullness of God and the fullness of humanity. You have communion – communion with the trinity and communion with humanity. You belong to all but yet you are still yourself. You share in all yet remain truly yourself. You share in the joys and tragedies, the success and failures, the health and ill health of all but remain free to be who you are. You are the image of Jesus who put on the humility of man to remain always the glory of God.

You do not succumb to those Michael Leunig calls the awfulisers, or Paul calls the principalities and the powers, the people around you who have allowed themselves to become victims of the world. People who put on the whole armour of God are over-comers and find a path through life which not only lights up their own lives but the lives of all they encounter.

This is the answer for loneliness, for it is in relation to others we discover who we are and that we are not alone. For Christians this begins with our relationship with God through Christ and continues in our relationship with others proceeding from our relationship with Christ. As Patch Adams models it, it is in our engagement with the world that we discover we are not alone and we have all we need to survive its horrors and its joys.

Home for Patch Adams, ‘is both a place of origin and a goal or destination. And the storm? The storm was all in my mind. Or as the poet Dante put it: In the middle of the journey of my life, I found myself in a dark wood, for I had lost the right path. Eventually I would find the right path, but in the most unlikely place.’

For us that unlikely place is in the shape of an ordinary man with an extraordinary purpose, to speak us into our home where we belong. ‘Put on the whole armour of God’ which is Jesus the living word of God and step out in to the world firm in your faith and the knowledge that you belong in it and the world to come.