GUILDFORD Sermons Volume I February 2011

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Guildford

Sermons

Preached at S. Matthew’s Church February to May 2011

Volume I

February 2011



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6th

February 2011 : Epiphany 5 : Year A

7:45am and 9:00am Guildford

Isaiah 58:1-9a : 1 Corinthians 2:1-13 : Matthew 5:13-20

One of my favourite sayings is the sign that the

psychoanalyst, Carl Gustav Jung, hung above the gateway to

his home. Vocatus atque non vocatus Deus aderit Called and

not-called, God will be there.

This is the God whose presence is a given, who accomplishes

the divine will and purpose through the hearts and hands and

minds of faithful people of every generation, time and place.

This God – our God – is present eternally because that is

what the Living God does – be present.

With such a God we cannot buy, sell, bribe, cajole,

manipulate divine behaviour. As the Living God warns the

folk in Isaiah‟s time:

ISA 58:4 Look, you fast only to quarrel and to fightand to strike with a wicked fist.

Such fasting as you do today

will not make your voice heard on high.

ISA 58:5 Is such the fast that I choose,a day to humble oneself?

Is it to bow down the head like a bulrush,



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and to lie in sackcloth and ashes?Will you call this a fast,

a day acceptable to the LORD?

What wants has nothing to do with the kind of formulaic

practices that even today plague the spiritual life of the

Church and no doubt many another religion. This is what we

hear through Isaiah:

ISA 58:6 Is not this the fast that I choose:to loose the bonds of injustice,to undo the thongs of the yoke,

to let the oppressed go free,and to break every yoke?

ISA 58:7 Is it not to share your bread with the hungry,and bring the homeless poor into your house;

when you see the naked, to cover them,and not to hide yourself from your own kin?

If any of that sounds familiar, it ought to! It‟s one of the

passages that lie behind Jesus‟ “my yoke is easy” saying and

his proclamation of justice to the oppressed in Luke‟s gospel.

Jesus may also have had this passage in mind when he said,

“Let your light shine before others, so that they may see your

good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.”





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dark places – even if it meant ignoring or blatantly

disregarding the regulations.

And no, it is no argument to say that he was Jesus, therefore

he could do that sort of thing but we can‟t. What Jesus did, he

did as an example of how we, his followers, should behave.

In an age when righteousness – having a good, open,

authentic relationship with the Living God – was a matter of

obeying commands and commandments, as if righteousness

were accessible through the application of the correct formula

– in such an age, Jesus told us to use our commonsense and

remember whose needs were most important – the needy, the

oppressed, the under-privileged.

That‟s why he can make what otherwise would be an absurd

and ridiculous statement about not abolishing the law or the

prophets. Just as Isaiah centuries before Jesus tried to drag an

ancient faith community out of the dungeon of thoughtless

and automatic regulation, Jesus also tried to distinguish

between the useful and proper elements of order on the one



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hand, and the real business of God which those regulations

sought to underpin.

In other words, the ordering thoughts of the law and the

prophets was meant to be the solid foundation upon which to

do the proper work of God. It was never meant to be the

churlish replacement of social justice. And time and again, by

word and example, Jesus reminds is of that distinction – how

the foundation is to remain so that what it actually stands for

can be accomplished in our own Jesus-driven actions in this

terribly damaged world.

Paul, using slightly different language, reminds us also that

what is at stake here is the difference between the human and

the spiritual. As human beings we typically seek security and

comfort in the worst sense of the word. Law and regulation

are surface-layer easy things. We do or we don‟t. If we don‟t,

we get into trouble. End of story. Do not pass Go; do not

collect $200.

The things of the Spirit, however, are far less predictable and

pay no attention at all to what might be easy or couch-potato



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comfortable. When the Spirit settles on the law and the

prophets their most profound nature becomes apparent and

suddenly we are recognising fulfilment – perhaps Matthew‟s

gospel‟s favourite theme – recognising what these regulations

are actually trying to say, how they are telling us how to

behave truly as creatures made in the image and likeness of

the Living God.

As our world and our nation struggles with disasters that are

both natural in origin and human-made, it is all the more

important to understand our role – our crucial role – in

shining the light of God‟s presence into these places of

despair and darkness and chaos. At times like these – floods

in Carnarvon and Queensland and Victoria, for instance –

people often cry in exasperation and rage, Where was God! as

if God only turns up when a nice little shiny sunbeam sidles

into view.

And the answer is always – God is here, right here, in the

midst of suffering, in those who offer assistance and

compassion, who feed the hungry, clothe the sodden, comfort

the terrified and grieving. That is the Living God at work.



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That is where the Living God calls each of us to be – not

necessarily in the flooded towns and cities of our country, but

certainly among those who suffer.

This is our God, the One we claim to believe in. The One

who is present, called and not called. Vocatus atque non

vocatus Deus aderit. Called and not called, God will be there.



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13th


7:45 and 9:00 Guildford

Deuteronomy 10:12-22 : 1 Corinthians 3:1-9 : Matthew 5:21-37

It‟s commonly held that when the men and women

responsible for the lectionary assemble the readings they do

so on the basis that all four pieces of scripture are related in

some way. Sometimes this is reasonably apparent; sometimes

one scratches one‟s head and tears out the remaining fistfuls

of hair trying to extract a meaningful relationship between the

readings.

Fortunately it‟s not too bad this week. The portion from

Deuteronomy offers counsel on living faithfully with God.

The author reminds the people that they are chosen, that Godmade a deliberate decision to single out the Jewish nation as

the recipients of a promise of prosperity and growth.

But the sub-text – the „reading between the lines‟ part – is that

this growth and prosperity does depend on remaining in a

goodly relationship with the Living God. The basis of that

relationship is „fear of the LORD‟, a concept easily-

misunderstood and – confused.



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Fearing God is not about „being afraid‟ of God. That is one of

the very last things that God wants from the faithful, whether

they be Jewish in this case, or Christian. It‟s certainly easy

enough to paint God as fearsome and worthy of our terror.

The Church has sadly become expert at slandering the Living

God through centuries of verbal and psychological abuse,

portraying God as vengeful and cruel, threatening the people

with eternal divine punishment if they transgressed man-

made laws or failed to adhere to clerical demands.

Parents in past times have similarly abandoned God‟s love as

very clearly and plainly seen in the life and work of Jesus, in

favour of God-the-Bogeyman, a nasty, vindictive Being who

metes retribution upon the recalcitrant and uncooperative. It‟s

still psychological abuse.

And also far from scripture‟s truth and teaching.

To fear God is quite simply to hold God in awe, to regard

God with the deepest respect, to understand that God is the

Creator and that no thing and no human can exist without

God‟s awesome Spirit of life and creative energy.



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But we should not assume that God is some kind of wimp;

that is clearly not the case. It is much easier to be violent than

loving. It is easier to be abusive than tender.

Equally, let‟s not assume we witness God‟s power only in

those things and events that are obviously overwhelming, like

many natural phenomena – tsunami, fire, sunsets … We do

actually see – and feel – God‟s great power in even the

smallest act of lovingkindness. Do not underestimate either a

smile or the powerful affect it can have.

Many would know the story of the South African archbishop,

Trevor Huddleston, who once treated a black boy with respect

and dignity – treated him as if he were a human being made

in the image and likeness of the Living God. That black boy

in South Africa was impressed. He was awestruck – as well

he might have been, having experienced God‟s love firsthand

through one of God‟s servants. That black boy in South

Africa is today known to millions as Desmond Tutu.

Let no one ever underestimate the power of even a pinpoint‟s

worth of God‟s love. It is truly awesome.



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When we arrive at the gospel we find Jesus working his way

through what tradition calls the sermon on the mount. But

take any portion of these sayings and counsel, and we begin

to hear echoes of Deuteronomy. The latter is more compact in

form, certainly, whereas Jesus expands and provides

examples and illustrations.

However, it‟s the same mode as that of Deuteronomy:

proffering wisdom in order to help the faithful maintain a

close and authentic relationship with the Living God. It‟s this

fact that underscores both passages but it‟s tempting to focus

on Jesus‟ words as if they provide only some kind of moral

imperative. That isn‟t the case, even though this is how for

centuries we have chosen to understand what Jesus is saying.

It isn‟t as though we should ignore the echoes of moral

thinking in Jesus‟ words. But we do need to understand that

Jesus‟ primary concerns were always spiritual; he was not a

moralist, despite the way we portray him, because it‟s far

easier to cast Jesus in the role of 1st Century Lawmaker and

craft our own Pharisaic ordinances than it is to seek the

depths of relationship about which Jesus is really speaking.



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This wisdom Jesus shares with those who are listening

appears to be about how to live in an ordered society. But the

importance of what he says concerns how to live with God.

It‟s an exacting demand. Jesus lets no one escape with the

biggest and most obvious transgression. Why? Because every

part of our relationship with God matters. Therefore we can‟t

escape with a self-congratulatory „I‟m not a murderer‟ if we

harbour unexpressed, simmering anger. It doesn‟t even have

to be that dramatic: an insult is enough to throw out the

relationship. Why? Because each person is God‟s creation

and God creates each person in the divine image-and-

likeness. We all have an intrinsic worth and value because

God created us. To put it plainly – to insult another is no

different in Jesus‟ eyes from insulting the Living God.

But not all of what Jesus says here has a literal focus. His

thinking with regard to amputation is figurative. It‟s a

powerful statement and we don‟t need a film like 127 hours

(about the guy who cut off his right arm with a pen knife after

a boulder trapped his arm) – we don‟t need that kind of

graphic, leave-nothing-to-the-imagination example to

understand that if something is coming between us and God



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then we need to do everything we can to remove that

obstacle.

What Jesus is doing is allowing the laws of the past to open

up and flower with their deeper meaning, and at the same

time he is stamping his authority on scripture and society and

human-divine relationship in a way that is both astonishing

and risky. From Matthew‟s point of view, this is Jesus

fulfilling the Law and the prophets – explaining what lies

beneath the bald statements and demanding that we do more

than simply treat „stuff‟ in the easy, lackadaisical way of the

untroubled literalist.

…Because God is not easy. God makes demands, and it is

only through wrestling and wrestling hard with God‟s

demands that we approach fulfilment ourselves and discover

the fulfilling depths of a true relationship with the Living

God.



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20th



Leviticus 19:1-2, 9-18 : 1 Corinthians 3:10-17 : Matthew 5:38-48

I‟m a perfectionist. That doesn‟t mean that I necessarily do

anything particularly well. By definition perfectionists can

never achieve the sparkling brilliance to which they aspire:

whatever it is is never quite good enough, never quite hits the

exact spot. It‟s quite a liability in many ways.

The good thing about perfectionism is that those who find

themselves enmeshed within its sticky tentacles actually do

care about doing a decent job. It may have its debilitating

aspects, but perfectionism, though extreme, is one way to

guard against being slipshod and lackadaisical.

But perfectionism isn‟t what the Living God asks us to

practise. It may sound like from the final sentence in today‟s

gospel: Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is

perfect .

What an amazing concept! Jesus makes it sound so easy, so

doable. The words seem to slide effortlessly off his tongue as

if being perfect as God is perfect is just another matter-of-fact

thing we do as we go about our daily business.



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It‟s doubtful if anyone in their right mind would consider

putting themselves on the same plane as God. It‟s even more

doubtful that any sane person would claim the ability to

match even the most remote or minute ability of the Living

God.

And yet, here it is. Here is Jesus saying, Do it . He doesn‟t say,

“I think it would be a jolly good idea, chasps, if you were to

have a crack at being a tad more God-like. How about – oh, I

don‟t know – being perfect as God is perfect?”

What he does say begins with an imperative – a command, an

order. One little word – Be. Be perfect, he says. No if‟s, but‟s

or excuses. It‟s not negotiable.

As is so often the case the difficulty lies within the twenty-

odd centuries that separate the speaking/writing down of

these words ascribed to Jesus, and what we in 21st Century

Guildford hear or see when the text arrives within our

consciousness.



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Perfect we hear. And we know what this terrible word fraught

with unrealistic, unrealised and unrealisable expectations

means. We hear perfect and we think “unblemished”, “free

from defect”, “beyond reproach” and similar fantasy

formulations.

But this isn‟t quite what the word we translate as perfect

means in holy scripture. In biblical terms, perfect “simply”

means “complete”, “finished”. So when Jesus invites us to be

perfect as God is perfect he isn‟t asking the impossible

transformation that would make us beings other than human.

He‟s inviting us to seek completeness, to attend to all aspects

of our human interactions and relationships rather than

leaving bits and pieces here and there undone, unfinished.

That‟s nice, of course. But it isn‟t as all-encompassing as it

sounds. It was one of my former spiritual directors who

pointed out to me that when we encounter this invitation to be

perfect as God is perfect, what Jesus is actually inviting us to

do is to be perfect in love, perfect in loving – to love

completely, without discrimination.

Jesus gives an excellent and inarguable illustration:



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You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate

your enemy.' But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who

persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for

he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the

righteous and on the unrighteous. For if you love those who love you,

what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same?

And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing

than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same?

In the words of the TV prophet: You can‟t say fairer than

that…

This is what completeness – perfection – in love and loving is

about. Being non-discriminating, offering to all people – and

many would add, all creation – the same attitude of caring

and respect that most of us find it reasonably manageable to

make happen for those we “like” anyway.

No one is saying this is easy. Let‟s face it, some folk just “get

up our noses”; some are hostile and aggressive; some behave

in ways that we find offensive or abhorrent, even if they

aren‟t nasty to us directly. How do we love such people?

It‟s helpful to understand that love in the sense that Jesus

means and practises is far less about the commonly-assumed



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warm-fuzzy feelings that the popular media spins out day by

day by day, than about choice and decision. Most of the

media stuff is easy because it‟s inauthentic and based on

fantasy and sentimentality. In other words, it has little or

nothing to do with real-life, real-world experience.

Any parent knows what real-world love is about. Our

children – who are never perfect in the non-biblical sense –

receive our love no matter what they do. We may shrink from

their behaviour but it takes something almost cataclysmically

awful to make us stop loving them. I know from my own

experience that becoming a parent was one of the most

powerful lessons I received in understanding how and why

the Living God loves creation, especially humankind.

In his small but powerful book, Caring , the Anglican priest

and Jungian analyst, Morton Kelsey, includes a poignant

chapter in which he describes how he came to realise that he

didn‟t love one of his daughters. For whatever reason – I

don‟t think he even knew – he was aware of the dark abyss

where usual parental love ought to have been. So he made the



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decision to do everything he could to start loving this

daughter.

He makes it clear that he doesn‟t mean “liking” her. He

means LOVING her. Loving who she is for no other reason

than because she is. Unconditional. Full-stop.

Many would find it surprising that we can decide or choose to

love someone. We‟re bombarded with the notion that love is

“just” a feeling and we have no control over it.

But biblical love – the love that Jesus invites us into – isn‟t

just a feeling. And we do have control over it. It‟s this control,

this aspect of deciding and choosing that enables us to do

what at face-value seems unlikely or maybe even impossible

– to love those we might never consider worthy of our love.

Maybe it‟s the local chapter of the bikie club; maybe it‟s

indigenous Australians, or working girls; maybe it‟s dole

bludgers or boat people or even terrorists… Yes. Jesus

invites us to love terrorists too. Maybe it‟s that uncle who

molested us when we were growing up…



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And the thing we need to hear loud and clear is that loving

someone is NOT the same as condoning reprehensible

behaviour. Jesus wants to remind us that it is the person, the

human being whom we love and that they are separate from

their behaviour. In the world of psychology and counselling,

Narrative Therapy coins the following axiom: The Problem is

not the Person. In other words, whatever problems the client

might have, who they are as a human being is distinct and

separate from those issues. I am Alistair; I am NOT my

depression. Tina is NOT her alcoholism. Mildred and Hugo

are NOT their cancer…

Morton Kelsey discovered that by deciding, by choosing to

love his daughter something positive did happen. Their

relationship did improve. He was able to say that he loved

this young women, his daughter, whom he had almost excised

from his life. All because he made a decision to do so.

This is what Jesus does in his life and work on earth. Every

day, every moment of every day, he is choosing to love. He

does not discriminate on any basis imaginable. He does have



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enemies; they do behave badly and with extreme prejudice.

But he continues to choose to love them.

On the same basis, Leviticus also legislates respect and non-

discrimination for all people, whoever they are, Jew and non-

Jew, alien or compatriot. In the scriptures about Jesus it‟s

called love – but it amounts to the same reality of decision

and choice.

Who in our lives do we need to remember, to remind

ourselves to decide, to choose to love…?



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27th



Isaiah 49:8-16a : 1 Corinthians 3:18 – 4:5 : Matthew 6:22-34

I‟m trawling through a set of photographs purporting to

represent the Academy Award winners in the Best Actor

category. And I‟m thinking, Have I been living in a parallel

universe for the last ten or twenty years? because I don‟t

recognise half the movies in which these august gentlemen

apparently appeared.

Then I come across Michael Douglas and Wall Street . That

was the movie that gave the world the notorious “greed is

good” speech that Douglas‟s character, the wonderfully-

named Gordon Gekko, delivers unto his shareholders during acrucial moment in the film. By the that time in the movie we

know enough about Mr Gekko to realise that his words are

more than rhetoric and hyperbole: when he repeats the catch-

phrase, Greed is Good , he means it.

And then, as I ran an eye or two over Paul‟s jottings to the

folk in Corinth, I read these words:

For all things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world

or life or death or the present or the future--all belong to you, and you

belong to Christ, and Christ belongs to God.



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And I started thinking about old Gordon back in Wall Street,

chanting his mantra, Greed is good . “All belongs to you,”

writes Paul. Marvellous! thinks Gordon. Yeah! Greed is good.

All belongs to me!

Unfortunately for the Gordon Gekko‟s of the world, what

Paul writes isn’t a statement supporting ruthless corporate

takeovers. It‟s a subtle paradox, whose meaning depends on

two things.

First, none of the “all” that belong to us is a possessable

commodity that we can personally acquire, accumulate and

dispose of at will; because, second, the very reason that all

CAN belong to us is because we lay no claim whatever to it.

Buddhists call this freedom from desire. Desire, yearning,

greed for material possessions or emotional exclusivity. Yes,

we do need things like shelter and food and love: neither

Jesus nor Paul nor Isaiah nor any of the great world religions

are saying otherwise. But what they are saying is that our true

freedom lies in putting these things in perspective. The

Marxist formula puts it succinctly – and rightly: To each



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according to their need; from each according to their ability.

Which is exactly what Jesus‟ followers practised in Jerusalem

immediately after Jesus‟ Ascension.

What lies behind this desire for possession and exclusivity is,

in 20th and 21st century terminology, our need for security – a

need that we have skewed and twisted beyond what is basic

and reasonable. And not only that. In the process, holy

scripture tells us, we have forgotten or ignored or avoided,

willfully or otherwise, the true source of our yearned-for

security.

The fact that this stuff pops up in both the Hebrew and the

Christian scriptures is a reminder – and maybe a relief – that

humankind has not changed much in all these centuries. We

know how often we see or hear advertisements about

superannuation in the media. Compare the pair and choose

the best nest for your eggs!

And if Jesus today spoke the words we hear in the gospel in a

public auditorium other than a church building we might well

think we‟ve landed in a lecture on cognitive behavioural



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therapy. Because that‟s basically what Jesus is doing – trying

to help us retrain our thinking about this feisty issue of

security, guiding us away from our negative thinking and

cognitive distortions.

For instance, we might think, I should be able to eat

whenever I feel hungry, and get a new pair of shoes as soon

as these ones are a bit scuffed . But is that true? Where‟s the

rule book for that sort of thing?

Sometimes we can only eat when it‟s meal time and maybe

having a glass of water is better for us than food. And that‟s

okay. Sometimes we have to tolerate scuff marks or learn

how to disguise them. And that‟s okay too.

Jesus of course adds another level to this sort of thing. He

reminds us that the source of our security – the place all

security comes from – the beginning and end and everything

in between – is the Living God. He reminds us of God‟s love.

He reminds us – using pure logic – that the God who cares for

even the birds of the air and the lilies of the field will also

care for the creature who is far more complex and



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demanding, the creature made in the divine image-and-

likeness – us human beings.

The passage from Isaiah gives the same message in these

lovely words:

But Zion said, "The LORD has forsaken me,

my Lord has forgotten me."

Can a woman forget her nursing child,

or show no compassion for the child of her womb?

Even these may forget,

yet I will not forget you.

See, I have inscribed you on the palms of my hands

What a marvellous image! We are indelibly part of who the

Living God is and our God will not and does not forget us or

our needs. Compare the pair? We can‟t do it – because the

Living God has no rival or equal-and-similar number. Find

the best nest for our retirement egg? We can‟t. No better nest

exists than the one God has created for us, in which we find

comfort and security every second of our lives.

Does this mean that we should just sit back, breathe our

proverbial sigh of relief and utter the immortal half-fallacy,



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“God will provide?” To quote from Paul: No way, Jose! Yes,

God will provide our needs. But God also expects us to use

our gifts and our abilities. That‟s one of the reasons God has

given us these things.

It‟s like the email joke that appears and reappears, as these

things tend to:

A good Christian bloke named Fred finds himself in diretrouble. His business has gone bust and he's in serious financial

trouble. He's so desperate that he decides to ask God for help.

He goes into his church and begins to pray:

- God, please help me, I've lost my business and if I don't get

some money, I'm going to lose my house as well, please let me

win the lotto.

Lotto night comes and somebody else wins it.

Fred goes back to the church.

- God, please let me win the lotto, I've lost my business, my

house and I'm going to lose my car as well.

Lotto night comes and Fred still has no luck!!

Back to the church.

- O God, why have you forsaken me? I've lost my business, my

house, my car and my wife and children are starving. I don't

often ask you for help and I have always been a good servant to



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you. Why won't you just let me win the lotto this one time so I

can get my life back in order?

Suddenly there is a blinding flash of light as the heavens openand Jacob is confronted by the very voice of GOD:

- FRED, MEET ME HALF WAY ON THIS ONE, BUY A

DARN TICKET!

Or, as Richard Harris‟s Oliver Cromwell tells his troops in his

warm-up speech on the eve of an important battle: “Put your

faith in God, and keep your powder dry…”

So. Are we worried about tomorrow? I know I am, quite

often. But I also know that I need to remind myself that God

can, will and DOES provide for my needs and those of my

family. AND that God does me the honour and courtesy of

NOT assuming that I am some helpless victim: I can do some

things – many things – in God‟s power; God steps in with the

impossible things. Together, we can do EVERYTHING! How

about you?



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Documents

GUILDFORD Sermons Volume I February 2011