A homily for 6 September 2015

Proper 18 Year B. Isaiah 34.4-7. James 2:1-10, 14-17. Mark 7:24-37

The image of the child drowned trying to flee Syria will stay in my mind for a long time. I wonder why that image is so much more powerful than hearing of Rwandan children suffering similarly, as they are at this moment, or of Burton children suffering abuse at the hands of adults, as they are at the moment.

It makes me realize what a privileged and easy life I have. This is not my fault, and I’m not trying to make myself or anyone else feel guilty: it’s not my ‘fault’ that I was born on a European island in the mid-20th century. But it makes me question the job I’m doing in the face of suffering. Am I really advancing the Kingdom of God as the Vicar of these parishes? Should I not be doing something, using my medical or political skills, or my ability as a provocateur to disturb the comfortable?

It brings us face to face with our powerlessness and our mortality, and so how important it is for us to get out priorities right now before it’s too late. Squabbles about church stuff such as who can lay hands on whom at an ordination, or who may or may not take communion, are put into perspective. I see yet again the importance of taking risks for the big things of life and not sweating the small stuff. Compared to the drowned boy it’s all small stuff.

Look at today’s Gospel. Jesus taking risks—yet again. Goodness me, a sense of humour in the Gospels. How shocking. Jesus teases a woman—shock horror, a gentile woman—swoon, likening her to a dog—sal volatile please. If he said that today, he’d be in court on a charge of abuse. The woman was no pushover. She answered back and stood up for herself. Then he went on to the Decapolis, most definitely not among the chosen people. Pushing at boundaries, ignoring the conventions of the day. Stepping outside the comfort zone and getting our priorities right – loving neighbour as self.

In talking to the woman, Jesus paid no heed to the Levitical laws for hand washing. He seems to ignore those rules a lot when he’s eating on the hillside, on the lakeshore, across the lake on Gentile land. He pays no heed to where and with whom he eats—despised tax collectors and sinners. He talks about food with a Syrophoenician woman—certainly a woman of no importance (was he crucified because of the way he ate?). Jesus—cautious? I think not. Although meals are ritual events where social order and rules of the tribe are reinforced, he doesn’t let rules stand in the way of a party.

Look at today’s epistle. It’s easy to think this is the argument about faith versus works. It’s not about that at all, though some may say so. It’s not about comparing the relative sinfulness of murder and adultery either. It’s about getting your priorities right. Stop fawning over the powerful, the influential, the well dressed. Stop sucking up to the Masons, the members of the Burton Club, the MP, the Mayor, the doctor, the Vicar. Start ministering to your neighbour as yourself, no matter how they speak, or smell, or appear. Don’t let convention stand in the way of compassion. Don’t let duty stifle initiative.

We need to guard against being so concerned to keep our lives, our churches and our religion ‘pure’ or ‘just the way we like it’ in a way that excludes others, or welcomes them only on our terms. Being open-minded and willing to explore and do new things is expensive. It leads others to criticize us. It leads to a kind of crucifixion as we see the death of all we once held dear.

When I see pictures of refugees dead and dying I know that none of our conventions and rules is important enough to go to war over. Faith without works is merely self-indulgent narcissism.

Harden not your hearts. There’s a wideness in God’s mercy that seems to elude mere mortals.

A level results today. Reminds me of three episodes last week.

One. A young woman said she was nervous about what she might get. I said: “what do you need?” Before she could reply, her grandmother answered for her. I said “where do you hope to study?” Her mother replied. Then, “and what will you be studying?” Finally, she was allowed to get a word in.

Two. Can’t remember the topic of conversation, but I was again chatting to a young adult, man this time, and his mother kept answering for him. I ignored her and pressed on.

Three. I met a young relation for the first time since he was about 10. A personable young man, at home in his own skin. He’s in his first year “at uni”. (Ye Gods, how I hate that abbreviation.) I said “which?”, and blow me, but his father answered. I said “you’re a fantastic ventriloquist: I didn’t see your lips move and the sound came from over there!”

All these people are old enough to vote, to reproduce, to fight for their homeland. Not to speak for themselves, it seems. It’s highly commendable that they acquire any articulacy skills.

Luke 14:26.

There comes a time when fledglings need to be shoved out of the nest if they haven’t gone of their own accord. Such a pity that leaving home is increasingly not a viable financial option these days. As SWMBO observed “I don’t know how young people can afford to go to university now”.

There is a tide in the affairs of men, which if not taken at the flood, leads on to boredom. And mothering becomes smothering.

Holy Communion?

I’m not a huge fan of chocolate, but in Lent we’ve been watching the film Chocolat. It’s full of Easter messages. The wind (spirit) blows open the doors of the fusty church. Unhappiness is exposed behind a façade of pomposity. Hypocrisy is found lurking behind a judgmental personality. Power is used to oppress and abuse. God the disturber shows up dull complacency. Healing comes to the mayor only after he has been found in the metaphorical gutter having gorged on chocolate, that well known substance of Satan.

We see how “church” which at the beginning is an oppressor by the end has become a liberator. As the film runs, we see how heart-to-heart conversations result in smiles and colour and liberation. We see how eating together (com panis, bread together)—having a party—is sacramental.

Whether or not the novelist Joanne Harris had all this mind is neither here nor there: what matters is what we take from the story. For me, the film is about darkness to light, oppression to liberation, drowning to salvation, death to ascension, and the power of parties that include. As Père Henri in Chocolat said in his Easter sermon, “I think that we can’t go around … measuring our goodness by what we don’t do. By what we deny ourselves, what we resist, and who we exclude. I think … we’ve got to measure goodness by what we embrace, what we create … and who we include.”

In his novel The Power and the Glory, Graham Greene has one of his characters say “hate was just a failure of imagination”. The Holy Week and Easter story is about a group of people who were so threatened by new ideas that they put Jesus to death. A failure of imagination that resulted in hatred. Looking at the world today, we see the same forces at work. To take but one example, North Korea might be a long way away, but its threats have the power to destroy the world—and all because the governing clique lacks the ability to admit that new ideas could make things better. A failure of imagination.

Hatred is a failure of imagination. Love is the blossoming of the imagination. Love is expensive. Love demands letting go. Letting go is renewal. Letting go is resurrection. Letting go enables us to ascend.