Statement from the Archbishops of Anglican Church in New Zealand on death of Osama bin Laden

Reflections at the time of the death of Osama bin Laden

The news of the demise of Osama bin Laden has been felt to bring a measure and a form of closure for thousands affected by the acts of terror over the past decade. It is crucial that the acts of terror in any form, including those masterminded by Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda be challenged and overcome.
However, the death of Osama bin Laden is no cause for gloating, or unthinking jubilation. The biblical record is clear in Ezekiel 18:32: “For I have no pleasure in the death of anyone, says the Lord GOD. Turn, then, and live.” We are therefore not called to relish the death of anyone. We are called to grieve the fact that turning and living was not chosen in the first place by Al Qaeda, who chose the way of death, but also to grieve all deadly spirals of violence and fear, hatred and prejudice with all their various causes.
Learning to find a way of understanding the causes of the way of violence and death can, by grace, lead to a measure of God given forgiveness of enemies, as the Gospel calls us to do: Matthew 5:43-44, John 13:34, Luke 6:27-28, Romans 12:14, 1 Corinthians 4:12, Romans 12:17-21, 1 Peter 3:9, 1 John 2:9-10. We need insight under God, rather than vengeance. Vengeance belongs to God (Romans 12:19, Hebrews 10:30). An eye for an eye (Matthew 5:38) and the whole world goes blind. This means jingoism and enjoyment of the death of Osama bin Laden can find no place in Christian prayer or Christian thinking.
We can do no better than end with the words of a Christian leader who gave his life for the cause of justice, freedom and abundant life for all people: "I mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy. Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that."--Martin Luther King, Jr.
++Brown Turei
++David Moxon
Archbishops of the Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia

Earthquake Christchurch NZ

Sermon by Jan Lee Sunday 27th 2011
Prayer. O Lord, we are in shock and mourning with the Christchurch community engulfed by tragedy. Our hearts go out to the people there. Through the eye of faith we affirm: when it seems too hard to bear, you are the God of salvation, the God who can help. Amen.
Putting Love First
We are all very conscious of what has been happening in Christchurch this past week with the devastating earthquake. Some of us have been anxious about the losses loved ones have incurred and how they are coping. All of us have felt disturbed over the depth of people’s suffering: the loss of loved ones, sudden amputation of limbs, people being traumatized, private property destroyed or damaged, and long-cherished iconic buildings that are no more. 
It brings to the fore how vulnerable we are as human beings, how fragile our lives are on our planet Earth. Our world is a wondrous creation, yet it also puts us at risk. New Zealand being on a plate boundary makes us vulnerable to earthquakes. That has become a very present reality for us. Christchurch has been dealt a terrible blow.
Lots of difficult emotions will have come up in us. A journalist Joe Bennett, who lives in Lyttelton above the tunnel, wrote this in The Listener: I can’t get Katherine Mansfield’s The Fly out of my head. ‘There’s a nasty bastard who kills this fly, by dropping blobs of ink on it and watches it struggle out of the ink each time and clean itself and get ready to walk again, and then drops another blob of ink on it and does the whole thing again but more slowly and so on until it eventually drowns in ink.’ And it feels a bit like that.”
We have to admit that we have been placed here in the middle of life and, from our vantage point, suffering is an unsolvable mystery. I put it to you that the meaningful question to ask is not, “Is belief in God unintelligible?” but “Is God a God of salvation – is God one who can help?” The Christian response to the question is a story, the Biblical story of the love of God and the passion of Jesus Christ.
In this dark hour in our nation, I think today's gospel text from Matthew is very relevant. Of the Sermon on the Mount it is sometimes said, "Wonderful words. If only people followed them the world would be a better place!” But it isn’t just about how to behave. It is about Jesus himself; this was the blueprint for his own life. Let’s discover him in it, and replenish our reserves to serve our neighbour well.

A story about three fathers
I’m going to lead into it with a very simple story:
Once there was a father walking though a mall with his two-year-old son. The child was cranky; he kept whining, wriggling and complaining. The father struggled to remain patient.
A story like this doesn’t usually have a happy ending. In another one, a father with an out of control two year old who is walking through a supermarket repeating in a calm voice, “It’s OK, Danny. You can do this, Danny. We’re almost done, Danny.”
Someone asked him, “Is your son Danny having a bad day?”
“My son’s name is Nathan,” the man said. “My name is Danny.”
But then there was a third father who adopted another strategy. He scooped up his little two-year-old grumbler, held him tight to his chest, and began to sing an impromptu love song. None of the words rhymed. He sang it off-key, but as best as he could, he shared his heart: “I love you. I’m so glad you’re my boy. You make me laugh.”
From shop to shop the father kept going, the words not rhyming, and notes off-key. His son relaxed, captivated by this strange and wonderful song.
Finally, when they had finished, the dad went to the car, buckled his son in the car seat, and his son raised his arms and lifted up his head. “Sing it to me again, Daddy. Sing it to me again.”
A bush parable
A couple of days ago – struggling with heaviness of heart - I went for a bush walk. Looking around me, I saw trees that were rotting and dying. I looked more closely – I saw how a decaying log was nursing fragile seedlings. Yes, these seedlings would put down their roots and slowly, gradually grow up tall and lift their limbs up to heaven. From death comes life. Devastation gives away to the renewing Spirit.
It was hard to be heavy for long. I began to get free! Somehow when I was alone with his creation, God sang that song to me. I could be grateful for being alive, on this earth, in this place, during this moment. Being alive and loved by God was enough to fill me with gratitude and contentment – at least for a few moments. Yet that wonderful happy feeling didn’t completely fade away, even after I’d left the bush.

Jesus’ lively sense of the goodness of his Father
Jesus’ words from Matthew flow straight out of his own experience of life. He had watched the birds wheeling around, high up in the currents of air in the Galilean hills, simply enjoying being alive. He had figured out that they never seemed to do the work that humans did, and yet they mostly stayed alive and well. He had watched a thousand different kinds of flowers growing in the fertile Galilee soil and had held his breath at their fragile beauty. One sweep of a scythe, one passing donkey, and this wonderful object, worth putting in an art gallery, is gone. Where did its beauty come from? It didn’t spend hours in front of the mirror putting on make-up. It didn’t go to an up-market shop to purchase fine clothes. It was just itself: glorious, God-given, beautiful.
Of course that was not all Jesus experienced. He had also seen birds fall to the ground dead, and lilies die before they bloomed. And so do people, including those who have placed their trust in God and have looked to him in their need only to find themselves victims of famine, war, flood or earthquake. In Jesus’ day the tower of Siloam, part of Jerusalem’s wall, had fallen down on people, leaving eighteen dead.
Albeit many of his contemporaries thought he was, Jesus was never out of touch with reality, neither does he want us to be. Still - has it ever struck you what a basically happy person he was? Oh yes, we know that, according to the prophecies, he was ‘a man of sorrow, and acquainted with grief’. We know that the darkness and sadness of the whole world descended on him as he went to the cross. The scene in Gethsemane, where he is wrestling with his father’s will, and in agony wondering whether he has come the right way, is one of the most harrowing stories ever told. We know that he wept at the tomb of Lazarus, and that he was sad when people refused to trust God and see the wonderful things he was doing. But these are the exceptions, the dark patches painted on to the bright background.
Jesus’ teaching grew out of his strong, lively sense of the reliability and goodness of his Father, the Creator of the world. When he told his followers not to worry about tomorrow, we must assume he led them by example. He well knew that he would inevitably collide headlong with the authorities and drink the bitter cup of crucifixion. But he wasn’t always looking ahead anxiously? No, he seems to have had the skill of living in the present, giving attention totally to the present task, celebrating the goodness of God here and now. If that is not a recipe for happiness, I don’t know what is!

And he wants us to do the same. When he urges us to make God our priority, he’s not talking about a God who is distant from the world, who doesn’t care about beauty and life and food and clothes. He’s talking about the Creator himself, who has filled the world with wonderful and mysterious things, full of beauty and energy and excitement, and wants us above all to trust him and love him and receive our own beauty, energy and excitement from him.
It’s all about priorities
So when Jesus tells us not to worry about what to eat, or drink or wear, he doesn’t mean that these things don’t matter. We don’t have to eat and drink as little as possible, and wear the most ragged and disreputable clothes, just to show that we despise such things. Far from it! Jesus liked a party as much as anyone, and when he died the soldiers so admired his tunic that they threw dice for it. But the point is priorities. If we put the things of the world first, we’ll find it gets moth-eaten in our hands. If we put God first, we’ll have abundant, eternal life - knowing God.
Anxiety suffocates us
Still daily we live in a world filled with anxiety. So it’s easy to let us rub off on us. With the new technology like the Internet and satellite TV – it’s even easier for us to get chained and tethered to the anxiety of the world. Living totally without anxiety may sound to us as impossible as living without breathing.
But Jesus says, “Don’t worry about tomorrow.” While tomorrow is ‘tomorrow’ it is a figment of our imagination. As such it is all too easy for it to engage our worst fears, our lack of trust in ourselves as loved, or the wounds left from past hurts. If tomorrow is to have its worst reality, it will only be when it is today. Most times we find we can handle the real. In Christchurch we see people daily handling the real with courage and hope. One day’s trouble at a time is quite enough.
Cast all your anxiety on God
In his NT letter, Peter enjoins us, “Cast all your anxiety on him, because he cares for you.” We can read words like this and then feel even more anxious because we worry too much. But we can’t make anxiety go away by an act of will.
What we can do though is use anxiety to strengthen our prayer. I hope the example is not too crass, but I often think of Pavlov’s dogs. They became conditioned to salivate every time they heard the bell because it told them dinner was ready. Similarly, let us allow our anxiety to become a cue for prayer. The anxious feelings may subside; or they may not. Jesus at points struggled with disquietude of heart. All of us do. Our job isn’t to make sure out feelings are ‘spiritually correct’. But as we hand over our anxiety to God, we begin to pursue the peace of God.
Let’s be attentive too to the wonder of God’s action in the world
Suffering like the Christchurch people are facing, might lead us to doubt God’s love and power. But let’s not be inattentive to the wonder of God’s action in creation, in history. We see it through courageous and self-giving human agency. Scripture’s unequivocal and enthusiastic assertion that God rules, is always made in the face of circumstances that seem to deny it. The scene in Gethsemane provides a powerful example. What Jesus wanted in his agony was one thing; what he really needed was another. What he really needed on the cross was the love of God to sustain him and to enable him to endure his suffering in love and to commit his spirit to God. His eyes were not distracted from looking to God and his heart remained fixed on God. To use an expression from the Sermon on the Mount, we could say “his whole body was full of light”. God is inviting us to the same trust.
Let’s ask God to sing us his song
The psalmist in her prayer, that we’ve just read, asked God to still and quiet her soul, like a weaned child with its mother. Jesus took on that mother role when he cradled the little children in his arms. The prophet Isaiah said that it is completely improbable that a nursing mother would forget her child, improbable but not impossible. But God’s commitment and compassion are stronger and more intense than that of any nursing mother. For God such forgetting and forsaking is not even a possibility.
Today we can take up the invitation of our Scripture text to share the happiness of Jesus himself. Today, like Isaiah, we can ask God to sing us his love song: “See, I have inscribed you on the palm of my hand!”
Then we will have the strength of soul to be able to reflect God’s love and peace to one another. In this dark hour in our nation, we are all in this together.

Sermon Preached at Funeral of The Very Rev Colin Slee, Dean of Southwark.

Requiem Eucharist to celebrate the life of Colin Bruce Slee OBE
Preacher: The Very Revd Dr Jeffrey John, Dean of St Albans

Text: Job 23. 8-14; 2 Corinthians 4. 7-18; Luke 24. 13-35

One of the last things Colin said before he died was, ‘I am surprisingly un-scared’. It could have been the motto of his whole life. Colin was always surprisingly un-scared. Unlike the rest of us, he never did let fear or self-consciousness or embarrassment to stop him reaching out to the most unlikely and needy people, or doing and saying what he thought was right and true. All the frightened, careful people said Colin was risky, indiscreet, unreliable – ‘the most dangerous man in the Church of England’ said one, to Colin’s deep delight. But he was not dangerous or indiscreet or unreliable - certainly not in anything that mattered. He was just surprisingly un-scared.

If you ask why he was so un-scared, I think the answer is as straightforward as he was. He really did believe. He really trusted in a good and loving God as Jesus came to make Him known to us; and that confidence set him free to be the astonishingly life-giving, brave, generous and joyous person that he was.

That faith never wavered, not even in the few weeks between the diagnosis and his death. A fortnight ago Colin asked me to say something at a service he had been due to preach at in St Albans. He said this:

‘People have been shocked by the suddenness and seriousness of my illness, and some have asked ‘Why you?’ Well, why not me? We believe in a God who creates a world with freedom for life, and freedom means the potential for going wrong. Cancer is life gone wrong. But if God didn’t let go and let go wrong, He would be less than the God of the Gospel’.

Other people had said to him ‘It’s not fair: you’ve led a good life’. Colin replied, ‘How do you know? And anyway, whatever goodness I have is God’s gift. We rely on mercy, not fairness’.

It’s that confidence in God’s goodness that is the key to all the rest. What upset Colin about the Church was that in over his time as a priest it seemed to have grown narrower and meaner and less loveable, making God look narrow and mean and unloveable too; which for Colin was a sort of ultimate blasphemy. He wanted the Church to be big-hearted and warm and generous and kind because that’s how God is, and if we don’t reflect that, how are we going to show God to the world?

The papers and his detractors always portrayed Colin as an arch-Liberal, as if he were the leader of a faction obsessed with a secular agenda. It was never true, and it misses the whole point. For Colin it began and ended with God. The truth is that he was a traditional Catholic Anglican, thoroughly disciplined and orthodox in his faith, a man of profound prayer and penitence. His idea of inclusiveness was not that ‘anything goes’, but that we are all equally in need of healing, and therefore the Church must equally be a home for all. Colin welcomed people because Jesus did.

And that didn’t just mean welcoming gay people and women bishops, important as that was and is. He welcomed everybody. The first thing he did in Southwark was to take down the notice that said ‘Worship in progress – Cathedral closed’.

He welcomed children. It is not an overstatement to say that Colin warmed up and humanised two cathedrals, and hugely increased the congregation, at least partly by making sure that services were child-friendly. And of course he was brilliant with kids, being basically a big kid himself.

He welcomed students. He was a fantastic College Chaplain in Cambridge and London, with just the right combination of bounce and seriousness to get alongside them. All through his ministry he nurtured scores of ordinands who still see him as a friend and inspiration.

He welcomed the homeless. Colin was actually evicted from his flat in his first year as a curate because it was so constantly filled with vagrants and dropouts. He set up the first homeless night shelter in Norwich. He was a tower of strength to the Crisis centre in Southwark, and persuaded the Queen to visit them before she came here at the Millennium.

He welcomed everyone, talked to everyone from tramps to Royalty with the same ‘un-scared’ straightforwardness; and if you had some crisis or need where he could help, he’d move heaven and earth to do it. Edith is overwhelmed with letters from people he helped, practically and spiritually. One 95 year old lady wrote ‘All the times I met Colin were joyful ones. He always left me feeling God loves me and wants me to be happy’. Another wrote ‘He was such a fun, large, rude, honest man’. (I love the casual inclusion of ‘rude’ there. It is so true.)

Colin lit up rooms when he walked in. More than once I have seen gatherings of gloomy Deans cheer up just because he’d arrived and we could stop being bored.

There are endless funny stories, nearly all - alas - unusable in a pulpit. I’ll never forget the opening of the Millennium Bridge. Colin was convinced it had a design fault, and even as Her Majesty was wielding the scissors to cut the tape, there was Colin next to her in full canonicals jumping up and down as hard as he could to demonstrate the wobble. ‘O ye of little faith’ said Prince Philip, but Colin was right. The bridge was closed a couple of days later.

He was indefatigable. Dean Inge once said the life of a dean among his canons was like that of a mouse watched by four cats; but with Colin it was the other way around. At Chapter meetings he fired off dozens of wildly improbable ideas, while we squeaked our reservations and tried to rein him in. When Colin had his heart operation last year the consultant told him that for years he had only been functioning at 30 per cent power. I think it was Bishop Tom who said ‘Thank God we never knew you when you were 100 per cent’.

If you wanted an advert for the more abundant life the Gospel promises, there he was.

I want to pay tribute to Edith and the family, because , as Ben reminded us, this amazing generosity and hospitality meant they had to share Colin with everyone else. He was a great family man; he was rooted in a deep and obvious love of Edith and the children, but he was traditional too in putting his priesthood first and being always available; and there is a high price to pay for that. So I want to say to Edith, and Ben, Rachel, Ruth, Sonia and Trevor, on behalf of all of us, thank you for what you gave too, and for what you had to give up, to share him with us and make his incredible ministry possible.

Colin’s work extended to Papua New Guinea, South Africa, Zimbabwe, America, New Zealand and no doubt elsewhere. Partly in recognition of that Edith has asked that instead of flowers, any donations in memory of Colin should go to the Cathedral’s partner diocese of Masvingo in Zimbabwe. As Edith put it: Colin died at home in safety, surrounded by love, and having received the most wonderful care from the NHS. In Masvingo many die in terror and starvation and without medical help. The contrast is terrible. So please help.

Don’t be surprised if when you leave this service a biscuit is pressed into your hand in the shape of Santa Claus. Something I only learned about Colin this week is that his patron saint was Nicholas, because the name Colin is apparently a diminutive of Nicholas in Scots Gaelic. Nicholas does seem terribly appropriate. A big man with a big heart who laughs a lot; a man who loves God and people, especially children; a generous man who gives away all he’s got; a man who goes out to the poor and outcast and defends the weak against the strong. It was also Nicholas – let us remember – who at the Council of Nicea is said to have punched Arius the heretic on the nose because he was misrepresenting Jesus and failing to show the full extent of God’s love in the Incarnation. As patron saints go, that was, it seems to me, a remarkable fit.

Someone said about Colin, ‘He was such a big man. We felt we could shelter behind him and he would stand up for us and protect us’. That is true, but it should also make us ashamed. Why was it so often left to him and him alone to stick his head above the parapet? Why did he have to pay the price of telling the truths that every single one of us here knows?

Colin chose the Emmaus Road Gospel for his requiem because he wanted us to understand that the risen Christ still walks with us even if we can’t see him. And in this breaking of the bread Christ can still open our eyes, to see that all those who have died in him are present with us too. As the Bishop says in the Preface, ‘we join with angels and archangels, with Colin and with all your faithful people’. In the Communion of Christ’s Body, death doesn't divide us. And as we pray for Colin, I don’t doubt he is praying for us – that we’ll have the same confidence in God’s goodness that he had, and go out from here to be more big-hearted and more truthful and un-scared ourselves.

Lord Jesus, open our eyes in the breaking of the Bread.

Amen.

Feed my Sheep

Sermon for Pentecost 16. Luke 15: 1-10

Loving God, may my words inspire thought and reflection on the marvelous complexity that is your creation.

I’m sure I’m not the only one, but I hate losing things, and if I do I can get quite obsessive about it. It’s most extreme when it comes to things like tools in the garage. Some of these have been with me for decades and though they are inanimate objects, they feel like faithful friends. I search several times over, huff and puff a few times, search again, throw a little tantrum and generally make a complete mountain out of a molehill. If do find the offending spanner anyone would think I had just won Lotto.

In our Gospel from Luke this morning, Jesus tells parables of loss and restoration, bringing powerful messages for in just10 verses. However if we left it at that, first I’d have to find something else to talk about, and second there is more in Jesus’ message than first meets the eye.

The last time it was my turn to preach, it was the story of the Good Samaritan. This time we have the lost sheep and lost silver coin, almost as well known. The problem with preaching on the well known parables is that everyone has heard just about everything there is to say about them before. To be frank, some of the things I’ve heard make me a little uncomfortable. Occasionally the words of Jesus in the Gospels are open to some pretty uncompromising interpretations. Take last week’s gospel from Luke in which Jesus tells us that to follow him we have to put him before even our closest family members. Michael Smart did a superb job of putting that into context and explaining it, but extreme groups have been known to use that very text to ‘convince’ their followers into cutting off all contact with their families and loved ones.

Though it’s not quite as forceful an example perhaps, I often feel the parable of the lost sheep falls into the same category. I’ve heard preachers use their sermon to gently (well we are Anglican after all) chide the congregation, suggesting they may be just a teeny weeny bit like the Pharisees because they’re not busy going out corralling sinners and hauling them in to Sunday morning service. It may be true, but the reality is that most of the people in church are probably struggling along with their own full lives, trying to fit a Christ-like ministry in with everything else, and if the opportunity presents itself – trying to reach out to love the unlovable. To offload the Pharisee guilt onto them is, in my opinion, inappropriate.

I also feel that to concentrate too much on verse seven, the repenting sinner, at the expense of the whole story is to miss the point a bit. Not that that I underestimate the joy in heaven at the event, but it’s only part of the whole picture. Some interpreters have used this story to place great responsibility on individuals to repent at the expense of the collective responsibility of all the baptized to take their mission out into the world.

Many interpreters of the parable of the lost sheep make is to take it out of context and assume it was for a wider audience. I have to be honest here and let you know when I say I believe, I mean I had a bit of a hunch, and when I researched it, I found more learned people than me had written on the subject. In effect the first seven verses of the Gospel reading show Jesus aiming a scathing critique at the Pharisees, making references to Old Testament scripture and calling into question their religious leadership. My primary source is a book called Jacob and the Prodigal by Kenneth Bailey, which as the title suggests is mainly about the parable of the prodigal son and the Jacob story in Genesis, however I gained many insights from it into the story of the lost sheep.

So what are we seeing in his first seven verses? Well the Pharisees are whingeing because Jesus is eating with tax collectors and sinners. Though Jews, tax collectors were universally reviled because they were contracted by the Romans to collect local taxes, and allowed to keep any monies they took over and above for themselves. And in this context, sinners, though it can mean naughty people, tended to mean people of low social standing who were lax in their observance of Jewish law. The Pharisees took this as a snub whether or not Jesus intended it. Hearing their carping, Jesus told them the parable, laden with a symbolism the Pharisees should not have failed to grasp.

When he asks them which one of them, upon losing one of their hundred sheep would not go and look for it, Jesus is cleverly playing with words: firstly with the words he chooses he’s equating them with shepherds, an occupation well below their social status, but also by doing so he is clearly alluding to Ezekiel 34: 1-10 Shepherds who feed themselves but not their sheep,… the sheep with no one to seek or search for them. They sit in judgement on the spiritual virtue of others, but do nothing to encourage or enable people to attain it. It is possible that the reference to shepherds may also have reminded the Pharisees of the prophecy in Jeremiah 23:1 which rebukes the shepherds of Israel and foretells of a righteous branch who shall reign as king.

Some commentators have made much of the fact that the Shepherd left 99 sheep in the wilderness to search for one, but wilderness actually refers to open country, suitable for sheep grazing and relatively safe. In any case it is likely the Shepherd would have had an assistant with whom to leave the sheep. That distraction aside, the shepherd would have been taking some risks going out into the night into less hospitable countryside in search of the lost sheep. Apart from natural hazards there were wild animals and bandits, and when he finally found the sheep he would have had no hesitation in putting it over his shoulders and carrying it, all 50 kilos or so, back to the village. It could be suggested that having referred the Pharisees back to old Testament scripture Jesus was now being prophetic, giving us a foretaste of the extraordinary sacrifice of one individual to save the lost sheep, which could be taken to represent humankind, indeed the physical image of the Shepherd carrying the sheep across his shoulders has been compared with Jesus carrying his cross.

At this point you may be thinking that if I can spend so much time delving into just seven verses of one chapter of one gospel, then perhaps I should get out more, but in doing so I have discovered rich symbolism and addressed my concerns about some interpretations of this parable.
So I’d like to deal with them one by one in the light of what I think I have discovered:
1. Pharisee guilt – though we are all capable of being little Pharisee-like from time to time, we are not the target of the scathing critique in the parable, but before we congratulate ourselves too much we must realise that we are in fact the 99 other sheep. In this context, not a bad thing, we are the extras in this movie. However if any one of us should stray and get lost we know that our Shepherd will drop everything and come and find us.
2. Repenting sinners and sheep – when a sheep goes astray it doesn’t plan it, it’s a sheep, it has a limited attention span. Sheep are usually preoccupied with the next mouthful of grass. Humans don’t usually stray from God with ‘malice aforethought’, often it’s just one thing after another’ and before you know where you are, God is just not in the picture in any more. In the story, Jesus is not dismissing the wider community of the people of God as mere sheep, he is denouncing the poor spiritual leadership of that time and the sheep symbolism points back to Isaiah 53:6 all we like sheep have gone astray.
3. Repentance and atonement – Christ reminds us that the lost sheep did not have to earn its rescue, it was enough for it to be lost.
In the story it was rescued by the freely offered grace of the shepherd, and the full cost of its atonement borne by the shepherd.

So apart from hopefully sharing my sense of wonder at the richness of imagery in this short parable, what is it telling us for today? Are we more than sheep thoughtlessly straying from time, occasionally getting totally lost, and less than hypocritical Pharisees looking down on the less devout than ourselves? Are we tax collectors and ‘sinners’ seeking to eat with Jesus?
I will speak for myself and say I am all of the above at various times, but most importantly, and this is the one thing I share with you all, I am also a shepherd. By being baptized I share a common ministry with all the baptized which brings a commission to be a shepherd, to seek the lost sheep and do all I can to return them safely to the flock.
But I won’t find any if I don’t look for them.

Sermon for Bible Sunday Kathy Freeman

Bible Sunday Sermon
Today is Bible Sunday and I have been asked to speak today because of my connection with Bible in School. I thought I would start with a fairly basic question: what is the Bible? Well, I guess we all know what the Bible is, but what does the dictionary say? Mine says that the Bible is the sacred writings of the Christian religion consisting of the Old and New Testaments.
Chuck Missler, a respected teacher has coined the phrase ‘The great discovery is that the Bible is a message system: it’s not simply 66 books penned by 40 authors over thousands of years, the Bible is an integrated whole’.
But what do we tell the children that we teach every week – how do we get them to understand how important the Bible is? Shann gave us all a quote from one of her favourite books of Bible stories and this says:
‘Some people think the Bible is a book of rules, telling you what you should and shouldn’t do. The Bible certainly does have some rules in it. They show you how life works best. But the Bible isn’t mainly about you and what you should be doing. It’s about God and what he has done. No, the Bible isn’t a book of rules, or a book of Heroes. The Bible is most of all a Story. It’s an adventure story about a young Hero who comes from a far country to win back his lost treasure. It’s a love story about a brave Prince who leaves his palace, his throne – everything – to rescue the one he loves. It’s like the most wonderful of fairy tales that has come true in real life. You see, the best thing about this Story is – it’s true. There are lots of stories in the Bible, but all the stories are telling one story. The story of how God loves his children and comes to rescue them.’
That description is not far from Chuck Missler’s comment really, is it? The Bible is an integrated whole. But it is also a love letter. One of the songs I have shared with the children at Bible is called Love Letter and it tells us that the Bible is a love letter from God to us.
How many of us have letters put away somewhere in a safe place that were written to us by someone who loved us? Love letters. There is something special about going back to those letters and reading them – especially if the loved one is no longer here. In fact, if we were told that we had a few hours to pack a few belongings before leaving our homes for good, I wouldn’t be surprised if some of us selected the love letters as some of the important things we didn’t want to leave behind. Have you ever thought of what you would take if you had to make a quick decision before leaving your home for ever? Think about it for a minute.
The Bible is something that we should treat with love and respect and read often to remember the great love God has for us. I wonder how many of us would have named our Bible as one of the treasured possessions that we would definitely take with us in an emergency? I must admit it wasn’t the first thing to spring to my mind!
I am reading a book of the memoirs of Maurice Harvey, a photo journalist from New Zealand who worked for United Bible Societies for nearly 20 years. His stories about the places he has been are amazing, but one really stuck with me. He wrote that while they were handing Bibles out to young girls in a Rwandan refugee camp a lady stood watching. “I asked her if she would like one explaining that it was Swahili. ‘No problem’, she cried, ‘I can read English, French Swahili, Kinyarwanda anything.’
‘Why do you want a Bible?’ ‘Because I lost my Bible and I want to have the Word of God every time and read about Jesus.’
‘How did you lose your Bible?’ ‘When we heard the killers coming down our street, we had to grab some clothes and food and the Bible and I put them in a basin on my head and we ran. They were coming after us and shooting, and they bombed us and we threw all the things away so that we could run faster. A bomb hit my husband, that’s how he died.’
I decided to let this lady have the last remaining cassette player and New Testament in Kinyarwanda. She was so excited and said so many words of gratitude to us that we should allow her the privilege of looking after it. She said, ‘I just love to listen to God’s word and I will be so pleased to be able to play it to the young people here where I am because they have such a great need of the Scriptures.’ She whispered words of gratefulness and thankfulness in Kinyarwanda as the Word of God was played. Then she said ‘All my life I now give to Jesus. In the morning and in the evening I gather the children in my tent to pray.’” (Shooting the Globe, Maurice Harvey)
In the section of the curriculum that covers the Bible for this year we cover how the original Bible was hand written on scrolls and it was only about 500 years ago that Bibles were printed on a printing press and became more freely available. Even then for many years only the very rich or the churches owned Bibles and they were cherished and loved. Families used to gather after dinner to listen to the Bible being read (there is a lot to be said for life without TV!) Reading the Bible was an essential part of every day life for so many then. Now it is readily available. It is the best selling book every year. Thanks to the generosity of this parish we have been able to give each of our children at Mairangi Bay Primary a Bible (New Testament) at the end of each year for the last few years.
But I have been thinking about the way we regard the Bible and how that has changed in my lifetime. How many families start or end the day with shared ‘devotions’? Do we still think of the Bible as a Sacred Book? I remember that a few years ago only an ordained minister was allowed to read the Gospel in the Eucharist. In most churches in South Africa a couple of servers holding candles would precede another person carrying the Bible to the middle of the church where the priest would read the Gospel – and everyone used to turn to face the Bible as a mark of respect. Do you remember that? Now while I think it is good to have many people reading from Scripture, part of me wonders if we are losing a sense of awe for how wonderful the Bible really is. I think that the Waskia people have a deep love for the Bible and the enthusiasm and dedication of the team involved in reviewing the current translation and adding more books is all about this love. They don’t take the Bible for granted. They are excited about the opportunity to hear more of God’s word in their own language.
When I looked at the readings for today and saw that the Gospel reading was the story of Martha and Mary, I was very tempted to ask Carole if I could rather focus on that story, having just completed a fantastic study called Having a Mary Heart in a Martha World. There is so much in this Gospel story and it would have been easy to share some of it with you, but I think that one of the lessons I took from the book is great for this Bible Sunday. Mary was someone who was not afraid of what people would think of her as she went and sat at Jesus feet to hear His teaching. She did not fit in the close circle around Jesus. The teaching was considered for men alone in that culture. There was lots of work to be done that she was expected to do, but she ignored that and sat expectantly at Jesus feet totally involved in what He was saying. How often do we approach the Bible with that kind of excited anticipation? How often do we risk ridicule or censure for our enthusiasm for God’s Word? How often do we put off ‘important’ tasks so that we can spend time in God’s Word? Do we read the Bible because it is the thing to do? Or do we come to church on a Sunday and listen to the Scriptures being read and then go home and forget what they were about? How often do we read the verses of the appointed Psalm with anticipation and excitement rather than looking for the end of the verse and focusing on when the next verse we have to read begins? I sometimes do that. I hope I am not the only one!
In today’s Psalm 52 in verses 8 to 9 in the New Living Translation we read
8 But I am like an olive tree, thriving in the house of God.
I will always trust in God’s unfailing love.
9 I will praise you forever, O God, for what you have done.
I will trust in your good name in the presence of your faithful people.
Did any of us stop to think ‘Am I like an olive tree thriving in the house of God’? Did we mean it when we said I will praise you forever O God for what you have done? Did we? Do we praise God forever? Did we just say the words or did we say them with love? Did God hear a lot of voices or did he feel the excitement and love flowing from us as we read His word together?
When we heard the reading from Amos 8:1-12 today, did we think how terrible it would be if God withdrew His love from us as he did from His people in those times. Did we reflect on whether any of the accusations that were levelled at the people might apply to us? Did we offer up a quick prayer of thanks that by His blood Jesus has saved us from judgement such as that? Or did we even hear what was read? I challenge you to go back and read the passage again in your own time.
What about the Epistle from Paul ot the Colossians 1:15-28. There was a lot to absorb in that, but let’s look at verse 27 – this is the secret: Christ lives in you. This gives you the assurance of sharing his glory. Wow! Are we sharing Christ’s glory? Do people look at us and see some of that Glory shining out of us? Do we tell others about Christ, warning and teaching everyone with all the wisdom God has given us? Did we hear these words and wonder if there was something particular God was trying to say to us through them today? Or did we listen and then wait for the gospel / look to see what the song was going to be?
How can we change the way we live our lives today and this week and the rest of this year? Can we change the way we read the Bible? Can we eagerly anticipate hearing God talk to us as we study His word? The material from Seasons in the Spirit for today says ‘The call to take up the work of discipleship encompasses a call to ground our daily living in the word of God. We are called to listen to God’s word of grace, and then let it shape our lives each day. In spite of the ways we fall short as disciples as we live in God’s reign, it is Christ – and not our own actions – that holds all together.’
In my Scripture Union Bible notes Closer to God it tells us how to unlock the power of the Bible. It says ‘The Bible is alive. Its covers contain the most powerful force in the universe: the Word of God. That’s why when we read it the words can leap off the page and speak to us personally. These words have the ability to bring about change. The Bible is the handbook for life. Although it doesn’t have a precise answer for every question we might ask, through reading it we come to know God’s perspective and are able to make choices which will bring about good for ourselves and for our world.
Reading your Bible with Bible study notes you’re part of a worldwide family of people who read the Bible – God’s message to the world. To get the most out of the Bible you need to do two things: You need to read it expectantly and you need to read it regularly. Study notes are designed to help you do this.’
So my challenge to all of us (including me) is to make a point of preparing ourselves to hear God’s voice before we read the Bible, reading carefully, listening to what God has to say. Explore the meaning yourself. Ask what God is showing you about himself or your life. Then respond to what God has shown you in prayer for yourself and for others. Let’s make the Bible come alive for us. Let’s be excited and expectant as we read God’s Word. Let’s be amazed at what we learn about God and our lives and let’s talk to others about it!
God is ALIVE! The Bible is God’s Living Word – let us treat it with love and respect and cherish it as we hear from God his personal loving message for each one of us.
Amen

Sunday July 11th 2010

Pentecost 7, July 11 2010
Sam Held

Earlier this week I was driving to work listening to one of the less serious radio shows, and they had a phone-in going on asking people about some of the strange things their parents used to say to them when they were children. The things people rang in with ranged from the fondly familiar, through the bizarre ending up with the frankly disturbing.
I was quite amused to hear that someone would take the trouble to tell an inquisitive child that the object of their curiosity was a wigwom for a goose’s bridle rather than tell her what it is: and there was a chilling familiarity about stop crying or I’ll give you something to cry about!
The ones that most puzzle me are the surreal ones, like you’ll be laughing on the other side of your face before too long my lad.

As a small boy I liked to hang around my Granny’s kitchen trying to be helpful, unfortunately I was a clumsy child and disaster often followed. My pleas of good intentions only invited the response that the road to hell is paved with them.

This is one of those sayings we’ve all heard, and not just in our childhood, and yet do we ever stop to question it? Assuming for a moment there is an actual tangible place called Hell, is it reasonable to assume there is a distinct road that leads there? Are we, each and every one of us, on some kind of personal trajectory, heavenwards or hell-bound? Is it even reasonable to ask this question? As Anglicans we believe in the concept of justification by faith, by faith alone, not by our deeds and good works, yet we openly strive to live righteously, to be good Christians. It is right that we should, because that is what is asked of us in the scriptures, but in its own right is not a fast-track visa for eternal life.

The lawyer in Luke’s gospel struggles to come to grips with the difference between observing religious law and meeting the (almost) impossible demands of possibly the greatest commandment, or at least the last bit that feels impossible: that annoying little postscript and your neighbour as yourself.

As surely one of the best known parables, the story of the Good Samaritan is often told as a series of contrasts: Jesus the patient teacher and the wily lawyer who tries to catch him out, the self-righteous priest and Levite and the selfless Samaritan. Good and bad, light and dark, the ever-present shadow side of our humanity only a brief decision away. Stop and help, walk away – stop and help, walk away …
The story works well interpreted this way, and the term ‘Good Samaritan’ has become established in our language to refer to an unlikely friend in need. Equally to ‘walk by on the other side’ occurs in general English meaning to do nothing when presented with a case of obvious need.

Life is seldom as clear cut as the ‘traditional’ take on this parable would have us believe though, and perhaps there aren’t any baddies (except of course the bandits - even the most liberal interpreter would class their actions as a bit naughty).
Take the lawyer, often seen as trying to trip Jesus up with cunning questions, but does Luke’s text reflect this? He shows respect, calling Jesus ‘teacher’, and answers his question diligently, citing Leviticus and Deuteronomy. Jesus shows no irritation in his response, in fact he approves of it and the exchange looks more like a healthy debate. The gospel text says that seeking to justify himself the lawyer asks his next question, the one about who is my neighbour? , and this has been taken to be a trick question. What centuries of identifying the Jews of Jesus’ times as his persecutors overlooks, is that in a faith based on Torah observance, the lawyer was asking for an entirely reasonable clarification, thus justifying his role as a ‘legal’ export on the Law and his place in the scheme of things.
Jesus uses a story to make his point to the lawyer but doesn’t give him the unequivocal definition he seeks; instead he leaves him with a challenge, the same one we face today who is my neighbour?

The priest and the Levite usuallyget a pretty bad press out of this story usually, but in the context of their circumstances what did they do to earn it? The parable suggests they were going down from Jerusalem which means they would have just finished a duty stint at the Temple, they would have been doing what they had trained and studied to do and were probably feeling pretty good, and pretty holy. Imagine what must have gone through the priest’s mind when he saw the man lying at the side of the road. “If I so much as touch that man I will be defiled, become unclean, I will have to undergo long and expensive procedures, make sacrifices to become purified, I will be severely criticised by my peers and family. The Torah requires a man in my position always to be pure - therefore if I do not touch him, then I am following the Law”.
That may have helped him at the time, but he could have had a bit of trouble living with it later.
As for the Levite, it’s feasible that he saw the priest stop momentarily then carry on, as the road descends steeply with many bends and one could often see travellers a long way ahead of you. When he saw why the priest had stopped, he too would have worried about becoming unclean and its implications, and might have taken the priest’s actions as a lead, permission if you like, to do the same.
Bear in mind that both these men have acted righteously in terms of the law of the Jews, and kept themselves pure.
Bear in mind also, that though the Samaritans and the Israelites were bitter enemies, they worshipped the same God and observed the same laws. So when this Samaritan traveller stopped and helped the wounded victim, he knowingly risked transgressing religious laws. He also, arguably, placed himself in great physical danger because if any passing Israelites had chanced upon a Samaritan bent over the body of one of their own they would have been likely to attack first and ask questions later.

If we take a ‘no fault’ look at all the players in the parable what is Jesus telling the lawyer when he asks him to identify who the neighbour was to the injured man in the story? Even at this point in his understanding the lawyer cannot bring himself to say the word ‘Samaritan’ – such is the depth of division – he says the one who showed him mercy. The priest and Levite were unable to allow themselves to help because of the depth of division between pure and unclean, between righteous observance of the Law and transgression.
The unspoken point, but one I believe that the lawyer would have understood, is that from the point of view of the victim the internal conflict between the joy and relief of rescue, and the horror of realising that the rescuer is one of the hated Samaritans cannot be underestimated. Without doing so explicitly, Jesus has returned the question who is my neighbour to the questioner, and returned it as a challenge Go and do likewise!
The lawyer learns how to inherit eternal life, but unfortunately not in a form that can translate into a code of behaviour, not in a form that is palatable even.

Can we actually say who our neighbour is? Is it perhaps anyone we encounter in need for whom it is in our gift to do something? Is it someone who does something to meet our needs regardless of who they are? - the unsolicited charity of a complete stranger?
These are the implicit questions in the story of the Good Samaritan, and they underpin the paradox of the (almost) impossible commandment to love your neighbour as yourself, which is that you cannot define who your neighbour is, because in doing so you will, by default exclude people, and among those you exclude there may be someone who could, like the Samaritan be a neighbour to you.

When one reaches a paradox it is difficult to reach a neat conclusion, and I do not intend to try. Some challenges remain just that – things we can aspire to, work hard to achieve but never quite attain and at best get a little wiser as we practice.
As a point for reflection, as we all share the ministry of the baptised, it would be nice to think we were a little ahead of the game in the loving our neighbour stakes wouldn’t it?
I was recently at a training presentation by an outreach worker from Auckland who worked on the streets supporting sex-workers at the lowest end of the ‘market’. At the end when time came for questions, a friend and colleague, a deeply committed, generous-hearted and loving Christian asked What can we, as Christians, do for these people? How many redundant words do you think are in that question?

The Mantle of Love and Wisdom. Ann Mellor. June 27, 2010
Kings 2:2:1-2, 6-14 Luke 9:51-62 Galatians 5:1, 13-15
The word Mantle in the thesaurus on my computer offers the synonyms shroud,veil or cloak. The imagery of a mantle has been profoundly useful throughout my spiritual journeying.
I often envision the Holy Spirit as a cloak of protection. I don’t have to worry if I have the right words or actions in difficult situations, because I can rely on the mantle of God to surround and protect me.
A Mantle is often passed down through generations to so that the traditions and wisdom of one generation pass to another. A Maori friend of mine Richard told me when his mother died, she passed on the mantle of her cloak as wisdom to him. She literally handed the Maori feather cloak to him by placing it around his shoulders.
We can see how the Mantle protects the tradition of a community and provides the identity and belonging for the individual. I call upon Christs mantle in difficult times, because I am a Christian. I belong to the wider Christian community and belong to Christ.

But to fully receive the mantle of Christ we first have to let go. Our first reading from Kings, is a story about letting go. Elijah, the foremost prophet of the Hebrew Scriptures, passes his mantle to his successor Elisha. After granting Elisha’s wish for a double portion of his power he makes a grand exit in a whirlwind on a fiery chariot. Looks like a good day for Elisha. He is probably highly pleased at his newfound position and power. But he is to learn that God is not about power ,but is about love. God is about giving life, not taking it. God doesn’t reside any place, yet is found everywhere. The spirit of Elija rests on Elisha in the symbol of the mantle of the cloak reminding us that God is not in the past, but in the moment facing the future. We are to follow God’s loving spirit which will lead to God’s kingdom, by letting go of power, letting our old life die.
The theme of Pentecost is life in the Spirit as we heard in Galations. A life which brings us the freedom of not having to invent one ourselves. The question I ask is if we are given life and a mantle of wisdom, then why are we so busy building our own identity.
Rushing around fixing our life can have harmful outcomes - I often have fallen over trying to fix mine. We live in a world where we are told by the marketers that the product will make us better. We buy and create our own identity in todays marketing world – the car, the body …the list goes on. The way of Jesus on the other hand is a path from death to resurrection. From reliance on ourselves and our identity - to a life in the spirit of freedom. We are called then to leave behind the old identity and become born to a new way of being, a new identity, centered in Jesus, under the mantle of Jesus, to participate in the creation of the kingdom of God.

For us that means as disciples we are to act with commitment to challenge and share the pain by placing ourselves in the struggle – the struggle of the church and of the world we live in. By seeking Jesus in the present we look towards a mended creation, “a community of freedom” as feminist Theologian Letty Russell terms it. The Kingdom is already and not yet.
How are we to embrace this new way of being? We do this by challenging those in power, through our privileged position . This can be risky and painful needing confrontation or negotiation with those in power. It might mean challenging our councilors, sharing our views through talkback or the newspaper, or looking at our own relationships. We can glimpse the kingdom when we begin to draw on the mantle to make a difference. Letty Russell, says that as disciples we need to work on destroying the old house – our way of being, and build up a new way of being where God’s love is the authority, in “the Household of Freedom”. Begin where you are and make a stand. Power and authority don’t always need to be seen as domination and control. You can turn to your mantle and use the authority of knowledge given to you to make a difference.
As we are guided by the mantle we must hold in tension the kingdom metaphors that inform our faith. There is the Old Testament religion of promise, where God intervenes to save nations, speaks to prophets, and creates a covenant relationship with his chosen people. This sits alongside the Kingdom to come, the eternal kingdom that Jesus in the New Testament points towards. The Kingdom is also here now…yet still to come, and our part in that as disciples is to be ready to receive, to accept the gift of the mantle, to wait patiently and still in the presence of God and then to share that love to create a better world.
Some years back I discovered that following God and belonging to a Christian community, is something far greater than my family and my friends and my career, my invented life. I learnt a great deal about what it means to pick up the mantle.
I lived in San Francisco, on Nob Hill, just across from Grace Cathedral. The Dean was and is still Alan Jones. He is a big man with a big chasuble and he always stood with his clergy out on the forecourt encouraging all to come in.
His Cloak was the chasuble, his arms providing a veil or shroud of welcome and knowing. His cloak or mantle led me towards a far larger cloak, that which is Jesus. What times have you been passed a mantle that has led you in unexpected directions? In the safety of the mantle have you moved where you might not have gone before?
Under the mantle of Grace Cathedral I was able to begin to fully realize what belonging and identity meant in Christ. I look back and see the progression of my belonging to Grace Cathedral, first as an Episcopalian in America, then as an Anglican in NZ, then as part of the whole church, alongside all christians. We who are many are one body for we all share the one bread. We belong to Christ. This is our identity.
On the website at Grace they say this…”It is a community based in fellowship, witness, spiritual development and service within the context of a nurturing Christian community”. And it was that Christian community that nurtured my early years of getting to know Christ by providing a mantle for me, as I discovered that I needed a relationship with Christ to truly belong.
So how did I find the fellowship, witness and spiritual development that fed me, that led me forward under the mantle of Christ? I spent time on the edge, watching and listening as the seasons and colours affected the mood of the cathedral. Then I attended daily chapel before work, dressed in a big overcoat with my runners I loved stopping in at Grace on my way down Nob Hill to Market Street and work. The church was colourful, full of pageantry with it’s celebrations and the often theatrical gay community who found hope and inclusion here, having been expelled from the Catholic church in the late 70’s, early 80’s.
In amongst the fanfare, the theatre, the reflection, the stillness, and the rituals I felt the mantle of Christ protecting me, calling me on, to know more, to be closer in relationship with God. We are marked with the sign of the cross in Baptism and are given the gift of the mantle of God’s love and wisdom. God’s Cloak, veil and shroud. I was given this generous gift of God’s love and wisdom later in life again…at Grace Cathedral.
When have you felt the movement towards Christ, the call to know him more, to fully accept the gift of the mantle of God?
It came to me amid my chaotic life lacking in direction as I roamed overseas, following each latest whim. I was to learn that this generous gift challenged my murmuring, whining and complaining. It also showed me that we are “one body”, one community fed by God and that there was a strong sense of belonging under this mantel. Soon I understood that as ‘one body’ we are to be fed by God in order to feed each other.
As the mantle of Grace Cathedral has been powerful, showing me God amongst us, so too has the mantle of St John’s Campbells Bay. Here I found the love that sent me out in the world as a Deacon, the love that welcomed me back, the love that encouraged me to become a Priest and the love that is always present here in this special place…as the sign of the Kingdom of God.
The immense sense of belonging that I have felt here, is because the gift of life, is in the living out of the love of Christ, by each of you. This is the mantle I take with me. I have learnt from you that the gift of my identity is secure in God. There is no need to fret or fuss. I am sad to leave, yet secure as I move on with the mantle that has been handed to me from St John’s Cambpells Bay. Amen.