These Stones Will Speak.

The Story of Creation (Stones):

⁴⁰He answered, “I tell you, if these were silent, the stones would shout out.”

 

Palm Sunday ushers in Holy Week and Jesus steady journey to the Cross. It begins ok enough. A carefully orchestrated non-violent procession on the outskirts of town mimicking the military parade of might and power just a stones throw away.

 

Happy followers wave their branches beside a smiling Jesus on a young donkey. Some even lay down their cloaks, probably especially brought for the purpose, on the ground in front of the donkey.

 

It was not a benign procession. The imagery is provocative and powerful. In Zechariah 9:9 we read the promise to the people of Jerusalem of rescue from those oppressing them:

“Rejoice greatly, O daughter Zion!
    Shout aloud, O daughter Jerusalem!
Lo, your king comes to you;
    triumphant and victorious is he,
humble and riding on a donkey,
    on a colt, the foal of a donkey.”

 

It is powerfully political and religious at the same time. It is aimed squarely at the Romans whose power rules, for now, and at those who appease and seek to keep the status quo. This is not new for Jesus. He has always been political and on the offensive in terms of corruption, violence and oppression. It is the program he set for himself when he announced his ministry in Luke 4 - He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written: 

 

¹⁸“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, ¹⁹to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.” ²⁰And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. ²¹Then he began to say to them, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

 

The church is not a benign institution responsible for platitudes, nice music, lovely people; the church is a revolutionary body responsible for bringing in the kingdom of God. It is political for its mandate is the very same mandate Jesus took for himself. We are for the poor, the marginalised and the forgotten. This is not an option but mandatory on all of us to live like this.

 

When the religious leaders suggest that he and his followers tone it down, go through the right channels, work with the powers to be, he replies, ‘“I tell you, if these were silent, the stones would shout out.”

 

What an extraordinary thing to say. How do you reply to such a statement? Surely Jesus mental health was questioned? The man’s nuts!

 

In the last week we have discovered that the 12 Apostles dotted along the coast beside the Great Ocean Road are not 8 as we thought (4 had fallen into the sea), but 13. 5 more have been found. These majestic sand stacks have risen and fallen and been discovered over centuries. What stories do they hold? What things could they tell us if only they could talk. But they do. Science will interrogate them and discover more and more about the birth of our planet and our country, the sea and those who live in it. The stones will speak.

 

Jesus is saying this is not about you and your rational, reasonable selves. This is about the transcendence of God, of me who is indistinguishable from God, one with the Godhead who brought all things into being.  Listen to the stones, listen to the sand-stacks, listen to the trees and you will hear them calling out the words of Zechariah. They praise and celebrate God and call for release from oppression. 

 

Jesus reminds us the Godhead is present in all created things and that to silence the voice of one will result in another speaking out, seeking freedom. That voice maybe heard in the sounds and images of climate change, habitat loss, lack of water and the damage to ecosystems so fragile they have taken years to develop.

 

Jesus’ incarnation is not just about human beings, questionably the most intelligent beings on earth, but for all. “For so greatly did God love the world that He gave His only Son, that every one who trusts in Him may not perish but may have the Life of Ages.” It is only human beings who have a choice. The stones will always cry out in praise and adoration seeking to return to God simply by being a stone. Humans fail to hear the sound other creatures make and fail to see the implication in Jesus statement, you are not the centre of the world. Yes, you were made for relationship with God, but it is not all about you.

 

Others are valued and valuable and you are to take steps to care for the least of these. You are to resist oppression of peoples and creatures, oppose the destruction of the planet for profit and greed, and to ensure all have the opportunity to celebrate the life God has given them.

 

Jesus reminds us of the unity of life – we all co-independent - and challenges the leaders and the rulers to cease the ‘this and that’ of duality. You are alive in this moment. The Good news is here for all, listen and hear it, even the stones on which we are walking are speaking.

 

Thomas Merton responded when someone asked about how he lived out his monastic life, first a little humorously:

 

This is not a hermitage, it is a house. (“Who was that hermitage I seen you with last night?”) What I wear is pants. What I do is live. How I pray is breathe. Who said Zen? Wash out your mouth if you said Zen. If you see a meditation going by, shoot it. Who said “Love?” Love is in the movies.

 

He than sobers up: “The spiritual life is something that people worry about when they are so busy with something else they think they ought to be spiritual. Spiritual life is guilt. Up here in the woods is seen the New Testament: that is to say, the wind comes through the trees and you breathe it.” (Thomas Merton from his essay Day of a Stranger.)

 

Palm Sunday is Jesus return to Jerusalem. It is also the time when he knows his enemies will be coming after him and he only has a short while. He appeals to the ancient prophets and the natural world to give context and meaning to his actions and words. He steps neither backward nor aside from the consequences of speaking out on behalf of all beings who are oppressed by the powerful and the tyrants, secular or religious. He steps forward knowing what the consequences most likely will be.

 

As we stand waving our palm branches and singing our songs are we ready for the decimation of our dreams, our hopes and plans if we take Jesus seriously and follow him to the Cross? Or are we only Palm Sunday Christians? Amen

Covenanted People

Jeremiah 31:27-34, 2 Timothy 3:10-45, Luke 18:1-4, Psalm 119:97-40

In the 1991 comedy “City Slickers”, weathered trail boss Curly (Jack Palance) offers 39 year old city slicker Mitch Robbins (Billy Crystal) some sage prairie advice. Holding up his index finger, Curly poses the ultimate cowboy question: “Do you know what the secret of life is? This.” Mitch quips, “Your finger?” With real cowboy authority Curly responds, “One thing. Just one thing. You stick to that and the rest don’t mean anything.” The city slicker asks, “But what is the ‘one thing’ The trail boss leaves Mitch hanging with a smile: “That’s what you have to find out.”

And the truth is we spend a lifetime finding out, forgetting and rediscovering what that one thing is. When we think we have found it, it seems to disappear from sight, get lost in the stuff of life and we have to go in search of it all over again.

For the Hebrews that is the story of the Old Testament. A story of searching, discovering, losing their way and starting all over again. It is the human story we all play a part in. Man, as a species, was created in the image of God and we all have, like sheep, gone astray from that image, individually and collectively within our own story.

I was interested to hear that a family got them selves lost following their GPS when it was visibly obvious there was something wrong. How far will travelers blindly follow a GPS device? According to The Sydney Morning Herald, an Australian family of four (and their poor pup) followed directions given by their GPS onto a road closed by heavy rainfall and became stranded for three nights in a ute. The family, believe it or not, ignored posted warning signs and turned onto the Darling River Road while traveling between Brisbane and Perth in the northwest part of the continent. The truck promptly became bogged down in the thick mud, leaving the family stuck in the middle of the bush, far from civilization. They called police immediately, but since conditions were so poor, it took authorities three nights to finally reach the foolish travelers on Sunday. Ignoring a closed city street sign is one thing, but driving right past a warning sign in the middle of Australia's wilderness just because your GPS device tells you to is another thing all together.

The common theme of today’s readings is that despite our inability to stay on track, God does not go missing. He is steadfast and faithful – that is his promise, his covenant with humanity wherever they encounter him. God does not get lost even though we may feel he is sometimes missing.

This covenant was the one thing the Hebrew people clung to and is the focus of services such as the Shabbat or Sabbath service. They are constantly reminded of and constantly remind God that he has a responsibility to care for them, that is the deal and they will remind him whenever they perceive that may not be the case.

Yet this covenant is not simply a one-sided agreement. There are two sides to this agreement. God’s people have a responsibility as well. And that is to worship, praise or recognise whom God is and to bring about his kingdom in their daily lives – to hallow his name as Jesus taught his disciples.

The Psalms speak to us clearly of this relationship. The general structure of the Psalms involves recognition of the circumstances people find themselves in, a recognition of and reminder to God of his past faithfulness to his people and a commitment to praise and worship God, not if he saves them, but because there is no doubt that he will.

And in essence that is the law, which is spoken of in the readings of today, the undeniable relationship between God and his people that allows a sure and confident future for all. It is interesting that the interaction between the Hebrews and God in the Psalms speaks clearly of a full and frank discussion, simply because the foundation of that relationship was unshakeable.

Yet that relationship between God and man was to change and to take on a deeper and more significant meaning. Jeremiah points clearly to a new covenant that would not rely on external practices but be written in the heart, the spirit, the soul of man. It would be indelibly apart of us.

Paul encourages remembering the acts and promises of God so that we are not lead astray by the wicked, those who desire to take us away from or to doubt the covenant God has made for us through the obedient love of Jesus. Jesus trusted implicitly in the hesed or steadfastness of God all the way to the Cross and did so that we may have the opportunity to put it to the test for ourselves.

Jesus reveals the proper understanding essential to the fulfilment of the covenant in the parable of the Pharisee and publican. Here are two people who separate themselves from those praying in the temple. One, because he saw himself as better than the others, and the other who saw himself as unworthy.

Yet the prayer of the second is significant – “God, be merciful to me, a sinner.” A similar prayer to the criminal on the cross next to Jesus. A prayer that recognises who God is and who the individual is, yet reminds God clearly of his promised steadfast faithfulness or mercy – his hesed. It is not a desperate plea but a statement of faith reminding God of the covenant.

The challenge for us as we come to participate in the Eucharist where we clearly remember and remind God of the story of his mercy is to find ways to live out our covenant with him. To praise God, not curse God when we find life not to our liking; to remember God’s goodness for the holy ordinariness of life, and not to forget God’s past and ongoing faithfulness to us; to recognise the importance not only of acknowledging God, but of praising God for everything from the simple fact of life to the more obvious and dramatic intervention in our lives.

At this table we hear the story of God’s steadfast faithfulness and pledge ourselves to live our lives so that they are our perpetual praise to God, every day.

As the Buddhist would say, “Before the enlightenment, the laundry; after enlightenment, the laundry” yet we live in that covenanted place which makes all ordinary tasks and therefore this ordinary life enlightened, for God is steadfastly faithful in the midst of our lives, contrary to what our circumstances maybe.

To answer Curly’s question, ‘That is the one thing.’