September 25, 2016

John MacDonald

Patronal Festival

Video available on YouTube, Facebook

Tena Koutou Tena Koutau Katoa

Friends, I share with you greetings from the congregation of Aotea St. James, Methodist Mission Northern, Lifewise and the Airedale Property Trust that funds much of the mission work that Splice and Lifewise offers this City Centre.

Helen, thank you for inviting me to your place this morning, I'm pleased to take any opportunity to stand with the folk of Auckland City Centre in their hood, for their good.

Friends, I'm one of an estimated 47,000 City Centre residents. I have been hanging around these streets for almost four years as a Chaplain at Large, a role offered to the City Centre as a gift by the folk of St. James Presbyterian and the Aotea congregation of Methodist Mission Northern.

But friends, we can talk about those niceties at any time at all. What we don't do very often is to focus on the gospel passage for today, and being a Presbyterian, I would normally inflict a significant 5-point sermon on you, but Helen has told me the sound turns off after 12 minutes!

The invitation of Jesus to Matthew, the tax collector who was working from his booth, was 'follow me' and clearly he did! And there must have been one of those, 'your place or mine' moments. Would they go to the Synagogue, the Temple, the place of sacrifice, the Holy place, the Righteous place, the bosom of Abraham place, perhaps like this place? or his, Matthew’s, place, and Jesus and his mates went off to Matthew’s place, where the 'invited’, the 'called' one, Matthew', is the host, and his mates and their mates are the gig.

And so todays gospel simply and starkly, not only mentions the call of Matthew, but more importantly the decision of Jesus not to go to the house of religious thrones, the cradle of faith, but to Matthew’s house, and this is at the heart of the story, the point of the story.

Matthew is invited, called, as we say, from his tax haven, and then there's that 'your place or mine' moment, and we enter the den of 'inequality', not the sanctuary, but the place of depravity, where Jesus and his friends, new and old friends eat and drink of the lavish spoils of decadence found in tax collecting, and he is there along with others named by the religious as 'sinners'.

Outside beyond the party are the theologians, those who have a sense of monopoly on God, the Pharisees, the parishioners, the priests, the Levites, Sanhedrin, the members of the synagogue and the temp-lish kind, the folk representing the states religion and ritual, the folk for whom this gospel, was written. This is the gospel, put together very deliberately it seems, for a people who should have known better. Is that Us???!!!

What I discovered very quickly on taking up the role of Chaplain to the City Centre, was the clear decisive disconnect between what was happening in most, if not all, Sunday focused religious expressions, and what happens beyond our temples in this village of 47,000 people, the Auckland City Centre. And this wee gospel extract this morning should be contextually reflected on, this day, 25th September 2016 in Auckland City Centre.

We, the God worriers and God warriors, the theologians, the Priests and parishioners, the worried well, state religion and ritual aligned, our safe haven of Cannons, Law books, books of order and creeds, all of which support us, help hold us together in fine corsetry too difficult for most to penetrate, we are the focus of this gospel that identifies the 'names sake' of this very building on September 25th 2016.

This wee Gospel extract identifies where Jesus will be standing in our community of 47,000 people this morning.

We will see him out there, where he has meet and invited the worst of the worst to follow him. He will be found, receiving hospitality from those who have not measured up to our piety, our rationale, our ritual.

He will be with those rich and poor, for whom 'mentally ill' has been the label attached to their fore-heads.

He will be with the Board Trustee who struggles with definitions of fair-trade, fair-play, and fair-pay.

He will be out there with folk for whom 'love' has an ugly face, a demeaning face, a face not recognizable any longer.

He will be out there with the unforgiven, lost in guilt, shame, cracked and still no light coming in.

He will be out there with those who show and know no mercy.

Have you ever been out there?

He will be out there, in places of huge discomfort, offering comfort, using the only tools, gifts he has, Courage, Compassion, love, forgiveness, mercy, grace, Love, courage forgiveness mercy grace Compassion, courage, mercy, forgiveness Mercy, forgiveness, courage, grace, love.

He will be out there going to 'their place' rather than 'ours', and so let us shift, from Jesus day, to the 25th September 2016 Auckland City Centre.

And this invokes another reality in the story, that we're not always ready to grapple with!

When guests come to your place you have a sense of control as the host. That is usually reciprocated by the 'when in Rome’ rule, from another gospel narrative. However, in today’s glimpse of the gospel way of living, we go to the house that is despised, how would you feel? the home that symbolises all that is corrupt and sinful' how do you feel? We go to the place where the 'ground of our being' is ultimately disturbed, how do we feel? We wonder why this is happening? But this is what Jesus does in this story!

And so in your mind's eye now, in the footsteps of Jesus, so to speak, venture beyond this place, to that place, like Matthew’s place.

And all you have to offer is the way of life, the gifts of life, that you have crafted out in your journey, take them into the context of a dramatically disconnected dysfunctional community. You're now in a community where isolation is a hallmark, where suicide is a very regular occurrence, where people can freeze to death on the street at night, where there is no local school for our children, where silos of diversity thrive cultivating a vacuum in social infrastructure in which despair and dispeace will probably ignite in some tragic way sooner than later. Where people walk the streets with head phones, ear plugs, so that all sound is blocked out and you can only hear what you choose to hear. Where smiling is a questionable act of friendliness, where loneliness is disguised under some 'must have fashion’ created in a sweat shop in another place. Where kindness must have alteria motives, where you expect to be frightened. That's where today’s gospel takes us to, in Auckland City Centre.

Soon after arriving in the City Centre I discovered a great monument down in Emily Place. It is a monument celebrating the life and work of a city centre Chaplain and Missioner. The story of this man, chiselled in polished marble, a great story of dedicated mission.

A beautifully crafted, chiselled story from our city history.

But just a line or two from the bottom of the chiselled story, at some point, someone, noticed a spelling mistake. And then at some point, the missing letter of the misspelt word has been chiselled in, and chiselled above the line! Many times I have thought about that missing, offending, rogue letter, not where it is expected to be, and how maybe, that missing letter, represents the gospel focus on the ‘lost’.

Nothing about the word or the sentence on that marble dedication makes sense until the missing letter has its place, and its rightful place, above the line? Jesus of Matthews story was out there with the rogues, those offending the realm, the missing and out of place, those deemed to be sinners by the religious who were watching Jesus at work. Those who should have known better were garnishing Jesus with scorn, at his behaviour, his determination to challenge the religious court and all its years of crafted self-righteousness.

Friends, there are three, out there, beyond these walls activities/projects that your Missioner, Priests, Chaplains and Deacons are working on in response to today's gospel. And this is your invitation not to be part of the scornful religious camp but at the party with the disciples with gifts of love, compassion, grace and forgivingness.

• 'Housing First' is a partnership project being led by Lifewise and your City Mission. Moira Lawler and Chris Farrelly are focused on re-crafting an internationally recognised model that addresses homelessness, for our Auckland City Centre residents. This is not a model that creates, develops and nurtures a homeless community on the streets of the city centre, but rather 'starts' by offering, providing a permanent home for homeless. And in their 'own' home, residents will be nurtured with love and dignity as is appropriate. This project will bring into stark focus what it means to be a neighbour, the gospel coming home to roost, as we engage with the city's most vulnerable residents.

• In the next few days we will be voting for Local Body representation. The number of City Centre residents on governing City Centre Boards is less than satisfactory, but that will continue as long as the City Centre is perceived only as a CBD, a place where the City State, commerce, and education are perceived to be the drivers and focus of community life.

Unless there is a concern to develop the 'soul' of the City Centre, the City State will continue to ignore residents and it will be an ego centric playground for planners, policy writers and politicians who have no connection with the realities of residential living in our part of this growing city.

Social infrastructure will continue to be ignored. Isolation and disconnection will thrive, and the health of the most intensely populated village in Aotearoa New Zealand will degenerate even further.

• And related to that, the retention, acquisition and development of public spaces to be enjoyed by all, but most particularly for the 47,000 residents today, and for the 1000's of new residents who will go into apartments currently being built. This issue has to be a priority if we really are concerned for the health and well-being of all residents in the City Centre.

Friends, translate the Gospel for today as you wish, remember the invitation to Matthew included the decisive moment for Jesus, where he declared to the world, that the party was at Matthew’s house, and that's where he belonged, loving, forgiving, hugging, weeping, caring, showing grace and mercy, forgiving, compassion, courage, loving forgiving was his way to life.

Amen.