June 26, 2016

Susan Adams

Ordinary 13     Galatians 5:1, 13-25     Luke 9:51-62

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It’s easy to lash out when things don’t seem to be going your way and you fear you are losing control of the world as you know it – and like it! We see a lot of that around the world today, the Orlando shootings and the Brexit dilemma being a recent example. We see plenty of it in our own city – if in more insidious ways that often emerge as racism or sexism or homophobia or an expression that ‘blames the victim’. When our world as we know it starts to change; when we are faced with ideas and behaviours that are new to us, when our sense of control seems to be slipping, it is not uncommon hear ourselves (or others) say things like “that is shocking; it’s unbelievable; it’s just not possible, or right, or ever going to happen if I can help it.”

This was brought home to me vividly a week or so back when John and I went to the theatre to see ‘That Bloody Woman’. The play was about the work of Kate Shepherd and the movement for women’s suffrage – which succeeded eventually in 1893, making New Zealand the first country in the world to give women the vote. Their friends and families; churches; politicians and business people, were shocked at what the women were up to: mobilising crowds, getting petitions signed, riding around on bikes in divided skirts, speaking out at public gatherings, forming friendships across gender lines and taking charge of their own lives and futures.

Shocking stuff! Some who didn't approve of the changes lashed out with violence, some with hurtful speech.

The punk-rock context in which ‘That Bloody Woman’ was set took me by surprise. I was shocked. I wondered what I had struck in the loud discordant music and verbal obscenities! Many of us in the audience were impacted in a visceral way experiencing in our own bodies just how shocking, 116 years ago, the very thought of women speaking and organising in public was; how very shocking and unseemly it was for women to be demanding recognition for their capacity to think, and decide what was in their own and in society's best interest – perhaps even contrary to men’s ideas of what was ‘good for women’. And, how shocking for the church to realise that these ‘strident feminists’ (a term I have born myself) had emerged out of the church itself – St Albans Methodist Church Christchurch.

Having seen this production and been shocked to my very core (not being familiar with punk-rock as a musical genre), I came to today’s Gospel able to recognise shock tactics when I saw them.

What unpleasant people Luke's Jesus and his disciples must have seemed to those who heard this story. First there is the suggestion of violence by the disciples who wanted to burn up the Samaritans because they didn’t want to receive Jesus the foreigner. Then Jesus challenges unkindly the sincerity of someone who wanted to join his group, and then, he appears to reject a couple of people who wanted to follow him but had one or obligations to see to first: taking care of funeral arrangements for a father and saying goodbye to family. Perfectly reasonable and culturally appropriate things it would seem. Jesus should have been more understanding. The story suggests Jesus was rude, and his behaviour shocking – no way to grow a movement! But what lies beneath these aphorisms and their superficial shock.

As always it is important to remember this is not a recounting of an historical event, it is a story in the Jesus- mode to make a point, to indicate a deep truth. It is probably written in late in the first century – revised even up to 120 CE – according to contemporary mainstream biblical scholars. The story is at a pivotal point in Luke's narration of the journey from Galilee, through Samaritan territory, to Jerusalem: from the countryside to the seat of religious and political power. This gospel perhaps more than any other Gospel [i] takes account of the hardships of life for the majority in Jesus own time and in the subsequent decades. [Times were not easy when Luke’s gospel was gathered together 5% of the population was wealthy (very wealthy) 5% lived well (tax collectors and retainers of the wealthy; 70% lived in varying degrees of poverty with 10-15% criminals and brigands living as best they could[ii]]

So what is at the heart of this account of Jesus and his disciples shocking behaviour on the way to Jerusalem to confront the political and religious power-holders? What does this collection of unpleasant ‘aphorisms’ have to say to us?

·       The violence proposed by John and James as a response to the Samaritans apparent inhospitality was rejected by Jesus as a solution – no surprise.

·       But then there is the warning to the one who wanted to follow that he might end up homeless so beware – this is no picnic!

·       And, the apparent suggestion that even cultural protocols that everyone knew – even Jesus – should not be observed: things like burying a father and saying goodbye to family. This is clearly intended to shock!

·       And there is the all or nothing straight furrow with no looking back – undeviating commitment.

It would appear Jesus is intending shock would be followers, with his talk of homelessness and the overturning of core value and practises: he is attacking the priorities that hold in the social order of his day in place.

As recipients of generations of family ‘wisdom’ and patterning and established obligations it shocks us too to imagine that ‘our family, our way of doing things and our priorities’ may not be as important as we thought and may need a rethink! Are we prepared to give up old habits that go nowhere beyond reinforcing the status quo and move to more life changing ways? (this is the leaving the dead to bury the dead bit – leave behind those who have no heart for change).

It would appear all that we hold dear might need to be changed if we intend to become part of the entourage that, along with Jesus, makes its way, metaphorically, to Jerusalem – makes it way to the seat of political and religious power.

·       That is if we intend to enact the priorities of nonviolence;

·       respect for difference;

·       the re-incorporation of those we have marginalised by our economic priorities;

·       to walk the path of justice making love.

These things are demanded of us, time and time again, in the good news Jesus proclaimed.

For the most part we do intend to enact these behaviours and priorities in what we say and do. But as Church it is often easier to talk about them than to do them.

As I contemplate this I am aware that we, the church, we good people of faith and commitment, leap all to readily to aligning ourselves with Jesus, thinking we are the ones who like him need to do a bit of ‘shocking’, a bit of confronting.

But the shock wave that heralds change to the priorities we have set currently for our economy, and for our social organisation is upon us. All we know of love and respect and kindness and a fair-go is in upheaval. We urgently need to look to each other for courage to make up our minds how we want to respond. It is not easy or straightforward. Following Jesus is a risky business we might lose our economic security or social status.

Beneath these stories, in which Jesus is seen apparently behaving so badly, is a challenge that comes to us through the centuries: a challenge to racial preferment, a challenge to the boundaries of nations, a challenge to the priorities and certainties of cultural, family and even national values and protocols, a challenge to the use of violence to defend what we believe is ours or our due.

It seems to me it is us, you and me, that need to have our complacency rattled, to become shocked to our very core at what our society has come to. We need to be on the receiving end of the shocking utterances of Jesus that come to us through the voices of the hundreds sleeping rough on our streets, the thousands of children and their families that of live in poverty, those with vulnerable mental health states – abandoned or incarcerated. It is you and me that will have to respond to Jesus’ challenge as to where our priorities lie and how much risk we are prepared to take.

It seems a visceral shock at the dire situation of our planet and the desperate circumstance of so many of our human brothers and sisters is what we need to pray for – because such a shock just might galvanise us into action.

Here in St Matthews we say we have chosen the Way of Jesus, God help us as we find the courage to open our hearts and our eyes to that Way here in our city.

[i] Borg Marcus. Evolution of the Word. P428

[ii] Greta Vosper. in the National Post May 2008