A homily for Proper 22 Year C

Habakkuk 1:1-4; 2:1-4. Psalm 37:1-9. 2 Timothy 1:1-14. Luke 17:5-10

In Greek the word in today’s New Testament readings that’s translated as faith is pistis. Faith often linked with hope and charity, in Greek pistis, elpis agape; in Latin, fides, spes, caritas.

You might think that linking Faith, Hope and Charity was the inspired invention of St Paul. Not so. It’s much older that that: he: stole it from Greek culture. Faith, Hope and Charity were three minor goddesses, personifications of different aspects of human “good behaviour” – good in the sense of helping you to live a life that contributes to the wellbeing of the community, bringing honesty and harmony among people.

When we study Scripture, therefore, we should think of faith, pistis, not as we have come to use the word, but in terms of what it would have meant two thousand years ago to the people of the eastern Mediterranean – to Paul, to Luke, to Jesus. 

For many of us, faith has been presented almost as a state of anxiety – the more you have, the more likely you are to earn nectar points for a better cabin on the after-life cruise ship. If you have lots of faith, God grants your requests, but if not, hard cheese – it’s your fault and you deserve to suffer. So the longer you’re on your knees, or the more Hail Marys you knock out, or the more masses you attend, or the more you say you adore Christ – whatever that means – the better it’ll be for you on board. You’d better do as the priests tell you.

This is pernicious rubbish. 

Faith is about what you believe in, they say. But what does believe mean? North Koreans believe that Kim Jong-il was born in a cave on a mountainside and that a bright star appeared in the sky to mark the event. They believe that because they’re brainwashed. When we say I believe in God the Father Almighty … is it because that’s what we were taught, and that if we don’t affirm it we’ll get a terrible deal in an afterlife? If so, we’re allowing ourselves to be brainwashed like North Koreans.

Another problem with the word believe is that it often implies an element of doubt. When you repy to a question with “I believe so” you’re often adding “but I could be wrong”. And of course the word believe has been utterly devalued by its use by politicians and other creatures of the night who say they believe in things that quite patently they do not.

What a quandary! But fret not. Another translation of pistis comes to our aid. Instead of I believe, think I trust. Trust is much better and I suggest that every time you come across the word believe you replace it with trust. It works for me.

Now look at today’s gospel. It’s a pity that it begins at verse 5 for verses 1-4 set the scene. Jesus is saying “look guys, there are bad times just around the corner so be ready for them. Don’t be swayed by them. Stick to your guns.“ The disciples want more faith but Jesus says “you don’t need more, you just need to trust what you’ve already got, and great things will happen. Persist.”

Persist is another idea that pistis incorporates. At school in what was then Cumberland our exercise books had the county crest on the front with the Latin motto Perfero. Being an inquisitive child I had to find out what that meant. It was Latin – whatever that was – for I bear, I carry through, I complete, I persist, I endure. All aspects of pistis. This is what Jesus tells the disciples. I’ve always known there was something truly Divine about us Cumbrians.

Habbakuk warns people not to be distracted by the ways of the world but push on with what’s right. Psalm 37 in the Coverdale translation (the proper one) begins “fret not thyself because of the ungodly, ignore them and let them stew in their own juice” (I paraphrase slightly).

Athletes in training know that the most pernicious enemies of achievement are doubts: thoughts that they are not good enough, thoughts that lead to loss of confidence. These are some of “the ungodly” of the psalmist, the distractions that Habbakuk and Jesus urge us to ignore.  “Push on – just do it” they must tell themselves. The sports clothing brand Nike knows Greek. Nike is the goddess of victory, The firm’s motto, “just do it”, is none other than our friend pistis.

Just do it is a pretty good motto. Perfero. Stop shilly shallying and allowing yourself to be distracted. Be resolute, determined and fearless. When you believe in something you don’t just sit in a chair and think fine thoughts about it – you act. Get off your backside and just do it.

Faith is not about what you believe; faith is about what you do and how you do it. Faith is action.

This is all very well, but I look into my heart and ask myself “what has it to do with church?” and answer came there “next to nothing”. As a priest I should have been just doing it following the example set by Himself of feeding the hungry, visiting the sick, comforting the oppressed, fighting injustice, and so on. Maybe I did a little bit of that but I regret to say that most of my time was spent providing life support to a dying patient – the institutional church – titillating and pandering to the prejudices of the reasonably affluent that make up church congregations. I look at my colleagues and see that they too are trapped in this dreadful prison, one that is at odds with the reasons most of them entered pastoral ministry. It so easily leads to despair. I know of some people who do sacrificial work for the poor and needy largely in urban centres here and the third world, but I know personally only one. I used to work with him here in Burton, but now he’s a priest in Stevenage doing what he was ordained for spectacularly well.

So as a church community ask yourselves “what can we do to follow the Master in a realistic and practical way?”.

Homily for Proper 20 Year C

Amos 8:4-7. Psalm 113. 1 Timothy 2:1-7. Luke 16:1-13

The trouble with Bible readings in church is that they’re usually from a translation that may be accurate, but doesn’t sound like the way we speak today. It is somewhat stilted and therefore the meaning is not always as obvious or forceful on first hearing as it should be.

Here is part of the the Amos reading in a modern American version, one that I think quite wonderful, The Message by Eugene Peterson:

Listen here, you who trample all over the weak, who treat poor people as less than nothing, who say, “When’s my next paycheck coming so I can go out and live it up? How long till the weekend when I can go out and have a good time?” Listen here, you who give little and take much, and never do an honest day’s work. You exploit the poor, using them—and then, when they’re used up, you discard them.

And they say that religion should have nothing to do with politics. Ha!

“Ah but,” you say, “that’s from the Jewish Scriptures, not Christian. “Well”, I respond, “Jesus was a Jew. Furthermore he was well capable of being narky, rude, abrupt and provocative. As I said last time I was here, he was not an agreeable man”.

Here is the essence of today’s gospel as if from The Message.

The rich man realised that his manager was on the fiddle. He’d used his position to siphon off money for himself. So he sacked him and said “before you go I want a complete audit of your books.” The manager said to himself, “What am I to do? I’ve lost my job. I’m not strong enough for labouring, and I’m too proud to beg. . . . Ah, I’ve got a plan.”

One after another, he called in the people who were in debt to his boss. When someone said he owed a hundred jugs of olive oil the manager told him to write fifty. When someone else said he owed  a hundred sacks of wheat the manager told him to write eighty. And so on, the crafty guy making friends for his new life.

Note Jesus’ comments. He commended the crooked manager. “He knows how to look after himself. Streetwise people are smarter in this regard than law-abiding citizens. They are on constant alert, looking for angles, surviving by their wits. I want you to be smart in the same way—but for what is right—using every adversity to stimulate you to survive, to concentrate your attention on the bare essentials, so you’ll live, really live, and not complacently just get by on good behaviour.”

In short, if only we put as much effort into working for the Kingdom as we do into trying to avoid the washing-up, or ironing, or hoovering, or cheating the taxman …. Today’s Gospel tells us to be crafty:

• Use the ways of the world to further the cause of right.
• Take risks like the steward—he was commended for his audacity. 
• Don’t be lazy, or take things lying down.
• Make good use of what comes your way. Don’t moan because it’s not what you expected or wanted.

It’s a call to action, and to shrewd action, planned action, cunning action. Use your brains and think before acting.

Amos gives us a focus for our craftiness:  to wage war against oppression. Isn’t Amos just wonderful? He is utterly blunt, never minces his words. Quite un-Anglican. In my ministry I have been incumbent of two churches that particularly need to hear Amos. But they didn’t and won’t. They are little more than social clubs for the respectable, for many of whom church is treasured because it reminds them of the security of childhood and a life gone by. What church is really for, of course, is to stir people up—excite is the word—to fight injustice. Instead so often it’s about cosy complacency and gossip.  That’s the trouble when Christianity becomes respectable. I’ve done my best to bring it back into the gutter but people don’t listen to me any more than to Amos.

So: be crafty for Christ. Work for the kingdom. And for this church community, working towards cooperation with St Paul’s under one incumbent, this command has particular immediacy.

It would be easy to come together in a way that requires minimal change: the odd tweak here and there, this a bit later, that a bit earlier, and things can continue more or less as now.

The trouble is they can’t. This generation, our generation, is dying off and each loss is not matched by a gain. There is no steady state, and soon there will be no critical mass of people for all the tasks.

If you take the gospel and Amos seriously you will stop trying to keep things much as they were. It’s like a dying patient on life support. You will instead try some imaginative thinking. Jesus laid into his disciples for not reading the signs of the times – and this is exactly what you need to do. 

Ask yourselves:

• What will this part of Burton look like in 10 years time? 
• How many C of E churches will still be open, and how many will have weekly services?
• What are the likely forces that will shape society?
• How can we build a church community to serve this part of Burton?
• Is it right that decisions about the future are taken largely by people who won’t be around to see it?

Ask yourselves:

• Why do you need a mass in each church every Sunday? Why not one in each church alternate Sundays with non-Eucharistic services on other Sundays?
• Is holy communion the right hook to grab people? Weekly mass is a fairly recent feature of the C of E. 
• Will people be attracted by the music on offer? the welcome of strangers? 
• Is the church warm and are the seats comfortable?
• In short, is church worth getting out of bed for?

If you treat church as a private club, then it will die, and it deserves to. If you heed Amos and as a church community love your neighbour as yourself by fighting injustice, I suspect people will come. 

Jesus said he wanted us to be smart like the man on the fiddle—but for what is right—using every means possible to stimulate us to work for justice and the common good.

A homily for Proper 14 Year C

Genesis 15:1-6. Psalm 33:12-22. Hebrews 11:1-3, 8-16. Luke 12:32-40

I usually start thinking about a sermon on the previous Sunday afternoon as I’m in my groove on the sofa, dozing or whatever. “What can I say next week that I haven’t said already?” This is a bit of a problem because the gospel readings at the moment are variations on a theme, so the sermons are pretty much interchangeable. 

As I was pondering, into my head came David and Goliath. The little squirt versus the the big man. And David killed him! They weren’t expecting that. What sticks in my mind about this is an easily missed detail in the build-up. Saul gives the young David all his armour because, presumably, he thinks the little lad has no chance without it. David tries it on and says “no thanks, mister, too heavy, I can’t move in all this clobber, I’ll be better without it”. The confidence of youth!

No armour, no preconceptions, no assumptions, no prejudgments. We spend a lot of time trying to make sure that our lives will be predictable. We try to control the future. We try to manipulate people so that they do things that we can cope with. Is this because we want to feel powerful, as if we’re the boss, or because we’re so afraid that we can’t cope unless things happen in a certain way? Maybe those are the same. Either way, we want to feel that we’re in charge. 

The trouble is that if we’re in charge like that, we’re not flexible, we’re not open to inspiration, we’re can’t cope with changing circumstances. Think how many businesses go under because they are not responsive and able to adapt quickly.

If we are to live, as opposed merely to exist, it’s this flexibility that we need. We need to resist the temptation to dress ourselves in restrictive armour: David ditched all this clobber and marched off to meet Goliath full of confidence that since he could deal with lions and bears that attacked his sheep, dealing with Goliath would be a piece of piss.

We need to take the risk, like David, of stepping out without conditions, restrictions, safety nets, assumptions, expectations, efforts to manipulate. Without clobber. In Christian-speak (which I heartily dislike) you might say that the Lord wants us to trust him enough to live with him unafraid, totally defenceless in his presence. 

The Greek word for this is pistis, and in Greek mythology Pistis was the personification of good faith, trust and reliability. Pistis, better translated as trust rather than faith, is a decision. We decide to trust. 

Trust in the uncertainty of life. Trust not to be fearful of possibilities. Work with the cosmos, don’t fight it. 

For us all, it means working with what we’ve got and enjoying it while it lasts. And when it disappears before we do, we work with something else rather than moan how good things used to be—an empty-headed activity according to Ecclesiastes. 

Let go of trying to control. Let go of what “I” want. Let go of ego. Do not be afraid. Step out, be ready, be alert to possibilities, be responsive. 

This means having faith in, trusting in, your own ability to make decisions as circumstances arise. In my theology, this means making contact with, and having faith in, the inner divine core, the little boy David within each of us. I rather think that someone once said that unless I become as a child, I will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

Life is messy and unpredictable. Despite what anyone may tell us, or what we in the privileged West may think, we are not in control. We simply don’t know what’s around the corner. Live each day as if ‘twere thy last – a recurring message. Acceptance of uncertainty is the key to living in the moment, and living in the moment is the key to eternal life—eternal being a quality of life outside time, not everlasting. And when we acknowledge our powerlessness, and discard attachments, there is nothing left for us to stand on our dignity about, so pride (hubris) goes too. Think how much better the world would be without that sort of pride, based as it is on the notion that “I’m better than you”.

I know—this is hard. I say these things not because I’m good at them, but because I’d like to be. But we’ve got to start on this journey of trust sometime, and the right time is always now, before it’s too late. 

You can be sure of one thing: there is no alternative. 

Well, there is, but it’s putting a black bag on your head and living in a gloomy cellar never venturing forth in case something attacks you’

Bronnie Ware, a nurse working in palliative care,  wrote of The Top Five Regrets of the Dying, a book based on her experience. Here they are (my summaries, not hers):

• I wish I’d had the courage to live my life rather than the life others expected of me. Most people die knowing that their lives have been limited by their choices.
• I wish I hadn’t worked so hard. This came from every man the author nursed. It is true for me. I missed a good deal of my children’s youth and Susan’s companionship.
• I wish I’d had the courage to say what I felt. Many people don’t say what they think in an attempt to keep peace. They settle for mediocrity. The frustration, bitterness and resentment that build up inside can cause heart disease and cancer.
• I wish I’d stayed in touch with friends.
• I wish I’d let myself be happier. Happiness is a choice. Misery is a choice. People stay stuck in old habits. Fear of change makes us pretend to others and to ourselves that we are content, when deep within, we long to laugh and be silly. There is not enough innocent silliness in this world.

So there you are! Ditch the notions. Trust in uncertainty. Be silly.

In the church calendar, it’s All Saints.

I’m not keen on saints. They’re too perfect. The nearest thing to saints I’ve come across are those who live with the most awful grinding problems day by day, hour by hour, minute by minute, yet still manage to keep their heads above water, if only just, smiling and glad to be alive.

Being a saint is not about piety and being seen to do the right thing. It’s about persistence, perseverance, determination, self-knowledge. It’s about disturbing the comfortable and not being swayed from the cause of right. It’s about being real and authentic.

Prophet Micah says do justly, be merciful, walk with humility. Prophet Stanley says Micah is right. One day you’ll be dead, and it could be very soon, so live life to the full: justly, mercifully, humbly. Those who do that, who use their gifts and lives to make the world a better place, are saints in Prophet Stanley’s book.

If you want to be remembered as a saint, forget it. If you don’t care how you’re remembered other than as someone who did their best, then you might be in with a chance—if that matters, which it shouldn’t. 

It’s trite to say that every saint has a past and every sinner a future, but its true. Prophet Stanley goes further and says that you’ve no chance of living life to the full unless you’ve cocked up in the past—cocked up often, and learnt from it. The words of an All Saints hymn “we feebly struggle, they in glory shine” are wrong, wrong, wrong. They shine, and we shall shine, because we have feebly struggled, and continue to feebly struggle.

We are creatures of this earth. From the earth we come and to the earth we return. Nature gathers up particles and atoms and molecules into what you see when you stand with no clothes on in front of the mirror. And when you pop your clogs you disintegrate as molecules and atoms and particles return to the cosmos for reuse. Some might say it’s a kind of reincarnation. Certainly, nothing is wasted.

Earth. Humus. Humility is the key. Feet planted firmly on the ground, living in the here and now, not in some la-la-land of your or someone else’s imagination, or of how things used to be when you were young.

People come, people go, but particles, atoms, molecules remain. And, get this: 

we are never not in the presence of particles, atoms, and molecules of those who’ve been before us; we are never not in the presence of particles, atoms, and molecules of those who will follow us: we are never not in the presence of past and future.

One of my former churches was often visited mid-service by a vagrant. He tended to arrive “tired and emotional” during the sermon. I welcomed him from the pulpit and told him to sit down and shut up. After some chuntering he did. He enjoyed the wine. We chatted afterwards.

That man suffered the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune more than I shall know, for he died recently. He coped with life as best he could without the insulation I enjoy that comes from stable relationships, employment, a roof to sleep under, and a pension. His addictions more often got the better of him than do mine of me. His courage was all the greater. He added colour and earthiness to a narcotic and entitled church community. I shall miss him.

Is there a saint in this story?