Sunday 7th August 2022 (Eucharist)
St Anne’s, Wrenthorpe
Isaiah 1:1, 10–20
Luke 12:32-40
In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.
Amen.
So… to summarise….
“Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.”
Amen.
[Feign ending 😊]
I’m sorry, did you need more?
Have I not provided sufficient clarity on the Gospels…?
Is Jesus lacking in what He offers, too simplistic maybe?
Should we seek instructions on how to acquire this ‘kingdom’ He speaks of?
Will there be a need for some rules and regulations?
Surely we must be afraid of God….
And yet here is Jesus saying that God is wanting to gift us His Kingdom, out of joy and pleasure?
Nope…. It just doesn’t make sense…. We need better instructions… after all God is angry and jealous and is likely to smite us, at any moment…
Quick…. Make a sacrifice…. Slaughter some animals…. Or people…. Or whatever….
Make a complicated list of stuff that God must surely want from us…
Must surely prefer….. to us…. To His creation?
And there we are….
There we have the root of Isaiah’s frustrated lament, and Jesus’s urging to ‘be ready’.
Jesus is echoing the words of the prophets, throughout Israel and Judahs earlier history – from King David in the Psalms, to Hosea and Isaiah, Jeremiah, Amos and Micah:
God takes no pleasure in sacrifice – He desires a contrite heart – God wants us to love the widow and the orphan…. And each other!
Simples, yes?
Hmmm. If only…
Hopefully, we find the concept of animal sacrifices to be abhorrent. Surely such acts are barbaric and against God’s Creation, aren’t they?
For ancient Israel, such things weren’t about barbarism or blood-lust….
There were times – such as the Day of Atonement – when sacrificial rituals were enacted publicly, by priests, to wipe away – to purify from – sin and to return them to a right relationship with God. There was an integrity and hope in this.
The animal – with no voice of its own in the proceedings – is highly valued and the symbolism of its ritualised death is not taken lightly.
However we view such ancient practices now, it helps to accept that they were a metaphor – a symbol – of human civilisation trying to forge a relationship with God – of recognising the need for atonement and redemption – and to offer a gift to God. To say Sorry.
Even so, as Isaiah speaks as ‘the mouth of God’ – none of this is wanted…. come closer to God in other ways!
The earlier church, in its efforts to understand God’s sacrifice in Jesus, developed many theories of atonement and substitution. But these became forms of negotiation: a punishment instead of a gift; to make Christ into a blood sacrifice, BEFORE God can love us!
And such theories have a way of seeping into history and consciousness in ways that can pervert and diminish the practice of religion, sidelining the love of God, and turning salvation into a transaction.
I think it is so sad that so much misery was inflicted in this way…
Jesus talked about The Kingdom – of loving one another and forgiving – and not counting the cost for any of it!
Now, I don’t wish to oversimplify two thousand years of theology, and all of this needs more than a few minutes on a Sunday morning, but….
At times, the Church found ways to downplay this, to ensure that no one took God for granted – placing barriers and punishments before Gods children and generally making it quite difficult to consider The Kingdom as a GIFT of love!
And yet its there, at the beginning of our Gospel today….clearly written for us all to cherish!
It could be said that any single action – a sacrifice or a penance of some sort, saying a few “Hail Mary’s” for your sins – or manipulating theology to excuse the ills of humanity – is insufficient to grow in faith!
Ok, that may seem flippant, but…
If you put all of your faith-based-activity into one box, and only return to it on certain days, then you cannot hope to build a relationship with God who creates and loves us, in every moment of every life….
I guess that’s a bit like going to church for a hour on Sunday and then living the rest of the week in sinful debauchery (whatever that is!).
Or saying that you love God but treating everyone else as if they had no value and were of no significance in Gods creation.
We can see modern parallels in all of this:
The ways in which some Christian communities will swerve around the words of Jesus and impose oppressive rules on those who cannot do much about it; to curtail freedom of expression or choice; to accuse the poor and destitute of not making an effort….
Surely we are blessed with so much in our modern societies?
Hmmm that might be true, and we do take a lot for granted but it’s not the experience for everyone, is it? And it’s getting worse…
We are told: There are sacrifices to be made….
Less Waitrose, more Aldi? Get a smaller car, or a bicycle? Grow your own veg. Cancel the Netflix subscription? Buy less avocados? Fly less, save water, become vegan and save the planet…
Such are the stereotype, middle-class tropes that are thrown at us everyday – so we can weather the storm… whatever it might be…. And come out smiling, on the other side!
One could even imagine that we are offered modern-day alternatives to ritual sacrifice – as if “just doing this one thing, will save your life”.
It might look like the easy option… but that “one thing” will never work without an openness to God’s offer of the Kingdom!
If God is in the detail, then we really must focus on the bigger picture.
We all need to make sacrifices in our lives – giving up something, or changing behaviours – for ourselves or for others… and certainly for our planet, but that’s not all we need to do.
Jesus tells us to be ready…. As Christian disciples we are called to watch and wait for God….for the Kingdom….
What does that mean? What are we supposed to be “ready” for?
The Twelve knew about the need to be ready, from their history – The Exodus, Passover… and then in the Gospels, we read about being ready for the journey – to go wherever God sends us.
When Jesus talk about wedding-banquets – of preparing and readiness – of having lamps lit – and standing-by for a midnight return of the bridegroom… He isn’t just advising to buy more candles or do good rotas and agendas!
There is a need to be spiritually ready – living in a state of awareness of God moving and dwelling within us…. That comes from paying attention – reading and listening to The Word of God, sensing the Holy Spirit…. And living as Jesus commanded – love one another….
Also, we can be fairly certain that Jesus knew life would be challenging for the Disciples in the near future. Jesus didn’t want anyone thinking it was going to be easy… or that the Kingdom – gift though it may be – was maintenance free! They had work to do – any of His followers has work to do to make the Kingdom visible for everyone.
We can build up our relationship with God, whilst getting on with life….
To harmonise and balance the necessary everyday challenges, with the constant expansion beyond ourselves, and to love others in themselves and for themselves.
For where your treasure is, there your heart will also be! (I love that verse!)
For where your treasure is, there your heart will also be!
Think about that, and try to work out what it is that you value in life…. And bring it to God.
So… back to where we started…
In summary …. Again….
“Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.”
It’s literally A GIFT!
No payment necessary.
No salesperson will call.
No complicated or unrealistic contracts.
Just love.
So open your hearts, your eyes, your ears and your minds…. Open wide your arms to love…..
Amen.
Bibliography
Wright, N.T. (2004) Luke for Everyone – Second Edition, SPCK, London
https://bibleproject.com/blog/animal-sacrifice-really/
Image: Photo by Daniel o’dowd on Unsplash