February 9, 2014

Michael Hughes

Epiphany 5     Matthew 5:13-20

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in the sight of God, our rock and our redeemer.  Amen.

“For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished.”

That’s a tough saying in our gospel read today, ascribed to Jesus, and it appears to give great credence to ‘law’. That’s not an unfamiliar sentiment for me though in my role as General Secretary of the Anglican Church in Aotearoa New Zealand and Polynesia, that some want to give great credence to the law. Because, as part of that role, I am one of the guardians of the Constitution/ te Pouhere, and the Canons, of this Church. Those ‘laws’ which define what we believe, who we are as a church, and how we organise our mission, our ministry, our affairs; as a mission focussed, three tikanga church in the apostolic and episcopal tradition.  And in a way I am one of the law keepers, which is a pretty strange place to find myself I have to admit.

Law is seen by many as a list of do’s and don’ts – the things those in authority tell you that you can and can’t ‘do’.

Well, when it comes to the law Jesus was perhaps speaking of here, there was a rabbi in the third century called Rabbi Shammai, who noted that Moses gave 365 laws that prohibited things, (the ‘don’ts’!) and 248 laws that positively command things (the ‘dos’). So, a clear bias towards the don’ts!

King David in Psalm 15 can be seen to reduce these to 11. Then Isaiah in 33:14-15 made them into just 6. The prophet Micah in 6:8 famously summarises the law into just 3 commands, and the prophet Habakkuk reduces these to just the one in 2:4, which is ‘the righteous shall live by faith’. 

Jesus of course also reduced the law by summarising it to ‘love God and love neighbour as self’. Just the one ‘do’.

Let me tell you a reportedly true story about the law of dos and don’ts.

In Houston, Texas, they built a wonderful new hotel right over the water’s edge. On the ground floor is the dining room with huge plate glass windows that look uninterrupted out across the water. However, these windows continued to get broken, by guests, believe it or not, trying to fish from the balconies on the floors above. They would cast their lines out toward the water below only to have the heavy lead sinkers swing back below them and hit the windows of the dining room before they ever reached the water. This happened time and time again, despite the management having hung large signs on every water-facing balcony, clearly saying ‘NO fishing from this balcony!’

Finally, a junior manager suggested that they remove the signs, and much to everyone’s amazement people simply stopped trying to fish from the balconies, and consequently no more windows were broken.

Which just goes to show that the law can be a funny thing at times. Perhaps also suggesting that more do’s than don’ts may be more effective!

International sports brand ‘Nike’ has a famous, maybe now even iconic, brand by-line that goes alongside their widely recognisable big tick logo. You’ll all know it  - it is ‘Just do it!’. 

In fact, these days you more often see the logo tick and not the by-line alongside, as it has become so ingrained through advertising and promotion that people just know the tick means, ‘Nike’, and the now subliminal subtext is ‘Just do it!’. 

That might be our approach to ‘the law’ too. Just do it! At the end of the gospel reading for today Jesus is reported as saying, ‘whoever does (the commandments) and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven’. Jesus version of ‘Just do it!’ - ‘Just do the law!’.

And as General Secretary I might be happy then if people just ‘did’ the ‘what’ which the Constitution and Canons stated.

But, the call to ‘do’ the commandments has to be read in the context of the passage around it, and the context of much more of the teaching of Jesus, and in the context of the prophets Jesus puts alongside the law. The passage today begins with a statement about ‘being’ rather than ‘doing’. 

‘You are the salt of the earth’, and ‘you are the light of the world.’ These are truths about who we ‘are’ as followers of Jesus, rather than what we are to ‘do’ as followers of Jesus. Any ‘doing’ comes out of this deeper ‘being’. Likewise with the prophets, who remind us of the importance of justice and mercy, so that the law is never used in ways which disqualify justice and mercy. How we are, who we ‘be’, just and merciful, is also important.

‘Just do it!’ has the risk of being surface, shallow, uncommitted. A kind of ‘fake it till you make it’ approach. 

I’d suggest Jesus brand by-line might be ‘Just be it!’ rather than ’Just do it!’. 

Because, if you ‘be it’, then the ‘doing’ comes naturally enough out of that being. Salt is by its very nature ‘salty’, and saltiness (an aspect of being) affects everything it comes into contact with. It is indiscriminate. ‘Be’ salt and you will ‘do’ – you will make things around you salty.

Same with light – light is by its very nature ‘bright’, and it cannot be hidden. It can be seen! By all, again it does not discriminate. It brings lighted-ness to all around it. Light shines, that’s what light does, because light is shiny!

In the same way perhaps, if I may be permitted to now make the metaphorical leap, Anglicans do what Anglicans are. We ‘be’ and thus we ‘do’.

And what does our law, our Constitution and Canons, tell us we are, what ‘be’ we?

Page 1 of our Constitution, look it up, states that, we are the body of Christ. We are agents and signs of God’s presence. We are worshippers and servants. We are one, holy, catholic, and apostolic. We are missional – proclaiming, teaching, baptising, nurturing, responding to human need, seeking to transform, and caring for creation. 

And we are being, and thus doing, all of this within the different cultures of the peoples we seek to serve and bring into the fullness of Christ.

We are three-Tikanga – Maori, Pakeha and Pasefika.

That’s who we are, thus who we are to ‘be’, and because of that, and out of that, what we are to ‘do’.

How are we doing at that? How are we doing at ‘being’ that? Well, that’s a big question, and interestingly the one pointer Bishop John gave me when he rang to ask if I could preach here today. Michael, he said, as General Secretary as you reflect on the readings, can you say something about where are we at as a church? How are we doing at being who we are stated and called to be in our Constitution and Canons; in our bicultural partnerships, and in our three-Tikanga.     

Well, from my perspective, honestly it is a mixed bag. I get to see the worst perhaps of who we are, who we ‘be’ as church, and I also get to see some of the best of who we are, the best we ‘be’ as church. There are examples of great progress in our bicultural relationships across tikanga, and in our striving to ’be’ three-Tikanga. And some of that gets seen when two or three  tikanga meet/ engage/ work together. When we ‘do’ what we are to ‘be’, at General Synod for example, or in various missional bodies and gatherings of three tikanga being and working together for a common and shared goal of worshipping, serving,  proclaiming, teaching, baptising, nurturing, responding to human need, seeking to transform, caring for creation. When we are at our best, being the body of Christ. When we are agents and signs of God’s presence.  

There are some great examples across our three tikanga church, of real and effective transforming mission happening - amongst young people, amongst the poor and those in social need, in our church here and overseas in mission abroad, amongst women, amongst the rural sector, and in the urban cities. There are great examples of Christian educational achievement, justice, environmental awareness, and pastoral care in chaplaincies through schools and universities, hospitals, and the military.   

But at other times, in some of those same places and relationships, we struggle to be true to who we are to ‘be’, and sometimes we even struggle to ‘do’ what we are called to ‘do’. Sometimes we struggle even to ‘fake it till we make it!’

That tension was seen at the last General Synod in Fiji in 2012, when Pasefika were able to host with mana and pride, offering and being the best they could be as partners. And in that General Synod there were also some pretty strained and difficult cross-tikanga and inter-partner issues raised/ debated/ decided, and more times than in many years past the Synod had to break from working in common as three tikanga together, in order to caucus as individual tikanga. To step aside from the common to work as individual partners, hopefully in order to come back together again as one.   

This year’s next General Synod may well see some more of that struggle and tension, that commitment to work together, but alongside of that the strain of being in partnership in this shared mission. As we commemorate 200 years of gospel partnership in this land, instituted by the 1814 Christmas Day sermon by missionary Samuel Marsden in Hohi Bay in the Bay of Islands at the express invitation, and in partnership with, the chief Ruatara. And as we deal with a call from Tikanga Maori that perhaps the current ‘being’ as three tikanga doesn’t meet their best hopes and dreams for their individual tikanga. And, as we work through the complex matters around same – gender relationship, blessing, and ordination. There are in these things, individual tikanga perspectives, and hopefully somewhere in our ‘being’ three tikanga together, also a three-tikanga perspective. 

It will be then, as it always is, important, even vital I suggest, that the ‘being’ we are called to in our ‘law’, in our Constitution and Canons, will need to be kept to the fore as we ‘do’, that we might continue to ‘be’, to be salt and light, and thus to do ‘saltiness’ and brightness’ for those we serve. 

So, law, the do’s and don’ts , is important – but perhaps we are all helped by more of a focus on the ‘do’s’ than on the ‘don’ts’.

And perhaps, even then, we are better to focus on the ‘being’ than on the ‘doing’.

For if we can be true to the best of who we are, who we ‘be’, then the best of what we are to ‘do’ will naturally emerge.

If we can be the body of Christ, agents and signs of God’s presence, worshippers and servants, missionally three tikanga both within our different cultures and across our different cultures. 

Then, perhaps then, we will be salt and light to those we seek to serve and bring into the fullness of Christ. There isn’t anything more Anglican than that.

Amen.