Rejoice With Me........

Luke 15:1-32

 

What is our appropriate response to life? How are we to respond to the events of an ordinary or a not so ordinary day? Life is the stuff that happens to us while we are waiting for life to arrive. In this place we often look past what is already here in search for something that is probably not going to come our way.

 

We strive for success, knowledge, power, wisdom, relationship, control and security, and find ourselves over an over again falling short of the goals we set or hope for  our selves.

 

We look around and see others who appear to have more than us and either give up or double up our efforts to achieve. Daniel Kahneman, Noble prize-winner, when asked what the formula for success is answers as follows: “Skill + luck = success”. To be a great success the formula goes this way, “Skill + great luck = great success”. If this is true, and experience and reading tells me, on all probability it is, then what is our response to life as we now experience it?

 

How do we live with the randomness at the centre of all existence? We couch randomness in the language of choice and causality and forget what happens is not necessarily about the choices we make or a cause we can easily identify. A whole range of seemingly unconnected factors come together in a perfect storm resulting in the situation we find ourselves in. Sometimes this is indeed a happy coincidence, other times it is disturbing and/or tragic.

 

We were watching the story of the development of the A380 super air liner recently, and in it they discussed the incidence in which one of the Rolls Royce engines caught on fire. The cause? A small drop of oil had fallen onto one of the rotors in the engine which, when it got hot, caught fire. A random event no one could saw happen. I noticed also that someone is suing Malaysian Airlines over the crash of MH370 because they, and I quote, " failed to ensure the aircraft safely reached its destination". 

 

I find it interesting people perceive life is not dangerous, vulnerable and random, that somehow we can render life harmless, controllable and predictable. Frankly I do not wish to live in such a world. How far have we come that we take the adventure out of life, that we see death as something we can in fact avoid, or at least put off, and not understand that it is death, the loss of life, that gives its essential value to life?

 

In each of the three stories Luke gives to Jesus, there is only one response: “Rejoice with me……….” In each of these stories someone has experienced misfortune. One the bad luck of losing a coin, another a sheep and yet another had a son leave home inappropriately. For those around them, each event would have been a catastrophic experience.

 

A shepherd has 100 sheep and loses one. It doesn’t seem like a big loss, he still has 99 doesn’t he? Why would he not be satisfied with what he had and put the loss down to something that just happens? Everyone loses a sheep now and then don’t they? Foxes, injury, illness or walking off the edge of the cliff? Why would you spend the time looking and leave behind the 99 you already have? Aren’t you putting what you have at risk? Who is watching over the ones left behind?

 

The theme is repeated with the woman, probably a widow, who loses one silver coin and has 9 remaining coins. She stops everything she has to do and pulls the place a part to chase down the elusive coin. She still has 9 but the washing stays unwashed, the kitchen untidied and the meals unprepared as she searches for 1, 1, coin.

 

The prodigal son, or the prodigal father, depending on how you see the story, reminds us that it is not just objects that get lost, but people, subjects of our love and relationships, who go missing. They or we make decisions separating us and leaving us searching for ways to reconnect and rediscover each other. This story is tragic. A headstrong young man demands his independence and embarrasses his father, and family, in the eyes of the villagers. He leaves, and his grand scheme unravels. and he finds himself returning home with his tail between his legs. His father, who has been waiting for his return, comes out to meet him. His brother doesn’t, and doesn’t want the lavish party his father throws. It seem unfair as he has been faithful and not ever had such a party thorn for him.

 

In all three stories, there is only one response to the onlookers, doubters and critics, “Rejoice with me…”

 

If our first response is to rejoice we will

• Embrace and accept the situation. Not all situations end with us finding the precious item we are looking, but if it’s like my office, I always find something else I lost along time ago! This not a frivolous statement. If we reflect on our situation we will indeed find something we have lost, a new perspective on a situation, a greater understanding of what we already have, an awareness of new possibilities hidden in old hurts and frustrations, and more. And we are to rejoice in what we discover.
• Recognise and value others. For those who lose objects, we may be tempted to respond, it’s only 1 sheep? What’s the point? But that 1 sheep is valued and has a value to the farmer and because of that the farmer is compelled to seek it out. In reference to the prodigal father, both son’s are of value and the older son is being challenged to see, not only what his brother means to his father, but what he also means to him, party or no party.
• Shift from self to others. We often judge a situation from the outside, from what we value, from our life experience and dismiss what it means to others.

Rev Ben Gilmour, a friend of mine who is the minister at the Paddington Uniting Church in Sydney, has just returned from a trip to Jordan and writes:

“We are told by the media that refugees are bad people, just money hungry (economic) or possibly even terror agents. What I witnessed was families just like yours and mine, trying to make the best of it in the face of real terror.

The stark reminder that I can't get out of my head is that, I saw my sister in the face of refugees, my mum and my dad, my nephews and nieces, with all the human dignity and love and complexity that family brings here. There was no us and them, it was only us.”

 

Rejoice with me as we reclaim our humanity and begin to live out of the wonder and wealth found in everyday life. Rejoice with each other as we stand together against the random happenings that define and influence our existence. Rejoice with those like the Syrian refugees who are able to find hope in circumstances we often judge and critique without standing where they are standing.

 

Once we begin to rejoice we recognise the sufficiency of God in all situations and begin to see God at work where once we only saw reasons, causes, faults, failures and hopelessness. The power of rejoicing to unlock possibilities lies in its ability to get us to stop looking at I, me, mine; and to give permission for God, others and each other to blossom and celebrate who they, we are, what is possible and what is already here.

 

Rejoice with me…  

Repentance as a Response to Randomness

Luke 13:1-9

Today’s Gospel brings us three disturbing images and a deep sense of the fear and dread felt by the religious faithful who had gathered around Jesus.

The first involved the leaders of a group of Galileans who had been at a feast in Jerusalem and may have been involved in some insurrection against the Roman government, whom Pilate had killed right in the temple courts where the sacrifices were going on. Jesus comments on the incident, but not as the reporters had expected. Instead of denouncing Pilate he turned it into a parable for their own conduct in the uncertain times they were living in.

 

In the second, Jesus also refers to the collapse of a tower at Siloam where many people died simply because a construction accident occurred.

 

The third involves a fig tree, which has not born fruit and deserves to be cut down. The gardener, who pleads for it to have just one more year to prove that it can be fruitful or else it will be forcibly removed from the vineyard, saves it.

 

The fear and dread felt by those around Jesus, and who are reflecting the concerns of the wider community, is simply the big question of the seeming randomness of life. How does bad things happen to ostensibly good people? In trying to come to grips with this disturbing question, they suppose that those involved have sinned, are sinners, have been responsible for breaking God’s law in some way.

 

Gary M. Simpson suggest that like them, "We moderns (and post-moderns) are also adept at externalising. In addition, our contemporary affection for the adequacy of causal explanations escalates our use of diversionary tactics." We need a reason a cause for the bad things that happen to us. We need a diagnosis, a pre-existing genetic fault, a pin-pointed experience, an identified causal agent to explain why we do or experience bad things. We seek labels and become victims to our reasonable reasons for who we are and why we behave the way we do.  No less than the people of Jesus’ time, we are imprisoned by sin – the motivation resulting in our bad behaviour or outcomes.

 

There must be a reason for this situation to have occurred, and if we can identify that reason we can reassure ourselves that we have nothing to fear. For those around Jesus that was sin. “It was undoubtedly their fault, and we know we have not sinned and therefore we are ok.” And then they look to Jesus for confirmation and get a rebuke, unless you repent

 

Matt Skinner suggests that "Repentance becomes less interesting when people mistake it to mean moral uprightness, expressions of regret, or a "180-degree turnaround." Rather, here and many other places in the Bible, it refers to a changed mind, to a new way of seeing things, to being persuaded to adopt a different perspective."

 

In another article he adds, "The word translated as 'repent' is, at its root, about thinking and perception. It refers to a wholesale change in how a person understands something. It implies an utter reconfiguration of your perspective on reality and meaning, including (in the New Testament) a reorientation of yourself toward God."

 

Now this ups the ante. It is no longer about the little things we do, we feel guilty and regret over. It is not about running a red light, having a naughty thought or saying a bad word! It’s not about secretly wanting to throttle your partner or hire someone to shoot your most hated relative! It is about shifting the focus from self as the centre of the world, the place of entitlement, from being assured of immunity from bad things happening.

 

It is a recognition that life plays out according to randomness we do not control, and we may assume God does not control. Why? Because nowhere in this discussion does Luke put in the mouth of Jesus a defence of the Divine. Jesus does not attempt to absolve God of the responsibility for these things happening. He seems to accept that life will play out the way it will and that we are to simply be in awe of its mystery. Awe not fear.

 

Awe or praise should bring from us a complete reorientation of ourselves to God. No longer do we see ourselves as being deserving of God’s good will, expecting God to always make life easy and safe for us just like we are entitled to for we worship God, on a Sunday.

 

Over the last week or so I have read and heard a great deal of doom and gloom regarding the future of the church. I have heard speakers struggle to find ways to give hope numbers attending church will rise, speaking about mission and evangelism as if there was some magic formula by which people would return to the finding reasons to our form of church.

 

The truth is simple; the church as we knew it no longer exists, and neither does the world in which that church existed. Jesus says we need a new orientation of ourselves to God if we are to be ready to deal with the interruptions to our comfortable worldview.

 

How does that happen for us today?

• Stop saying that people are no longer interested in faith just because they are not here. It simply isn’t true. They are interested in faith and the church but have lost faith with the image of the church they are presented with in the media or have experienced in the past.

• Stop expecting people to be like us, to like the things we do, our worship and style of faith. They will bring with them their own interests, likes and dislikes and we will be enriched and enlivened if we make space for them in our place.

• Stop saying that is the way we do it here. That may be nice for the small number who are here, but is it appropriate for those who would like to be here but find the way we always have done it confronting and out of touch? 

Anglican Theologian Stephen Pickard suggests three reorientations the church is to undertake. It is to be Fresh, Local and Organic. Mark Davis Jr calls this subterranean, having its roots deeply embedded in place and time.

• Fresh does not mean contemporary or even guitars and drums. It means that when we come to worship, however we express it be it through church, social justice, ecumenism and more, with fresh eyes each time. Full of awe and wonder at the possibilities abounding for us. It is not to be routine, ritualistic or pedestrian. When you come to worship do so knowing you worship the creator of the world who is available regardless of the circumstances.

• Local implies a response to people, place and time where you live. It does not matter what others are doing in other places, it only matters how we live and relate to those around, how we experience the shared challenges of living in Glen Iris/Ashburton. Our church cannot be, as it has been for many years, a remnant from the past, or as the church in Australia has been, an out post of the Church of England. Find the local problems and issues, find ways to help address them and then it is possible, just possible people will join you.

• Organic means it grows down and up out of the whole community. Organic growth is slow, requires hard-work tilling the soil and clearing the weeds and needs a constant presence. We cannot impose ideas, pre-packaged formulas or what we believe to be the solutions. They will grow if we are patient. 

Angela Reed suggests that "In this season of Lent, the church has an opportunity to seek restoration and renewal through the discipline of confession and heartfelt repentance." Confession of existing in isolation and repentance in orientating it self to be fresh, local and organic.

 

On that note I invite you to join us in the local coffee shop in the courtyard, meet the locals, get involved in the fresh engagement with the schools, explore your expression of faith with others and be in awe as God works organically amongst us. Amen.