Pentecost + 24 C

^{Aldgate 30-10-2016 Luke 19.1-10 Zacchaeus}

Remember the camel entering the eye of the needle and the question, who can be saved? That’s the question today’s Gospel tackles. Can a chief tax collector – ἀρχιτελώνης – architelōnēs – a collaborator in the Roman occupation – be saved? What’s a contemporary equivalent? A drug dealer; a people-trafficker? A pimp? A slaver? Can such a person be saved? Because if they can, who could possibly be outside God’s love?

We know the story of Zacchaeus so well, we have to approach it all the more carefully so we don’t miss what it might be saying to us.

It’s in Luke’s Gospel, so there’s the usual money and food in it. And that’s aimed at all of us.

It also has a story context that we have to attend to. It’s set on the road to Jerusalem, and so the road to Jesus’ crucifixion. And that’s how seriously we must take it: it’s about ultimate things; life and death. There’s just been Jesus’ third prediction of his passion and death to ram this home, in case we’ve forgotten.

Let’s remember the more immediate context – most of which we’ve read recently.

a/ the parables of the widow and the unjust judge

b/ and the Pharisee and the tax collector praying in the Temple

and c/ the stories of Jesus receiving the little children

d/ the rich ruler who couldn’t sell up, give to the poor and follow Jesus

e/ and blind Bartimaeus on the road into Jericho

So there’s stuff about little people being mistreated by big people (widow/children), self-righteous people judging outsiders (Pharisee/Tax C), wealth and power preventing people from coming to God (Ruler), and someone asking Jesus to let them see (Bartimaeus).

All that comes together in the story of Jesus and Zacchaeus.

Zacchaeus is seen as part of an oppressive system that makes little people hurt so that big people can be big. He’s a chief tax collector; not just a regular one like the man that Pharisee sneered at in the Temple. Zacchaeus was a sort of regional tax commissioner who would have farmed out the actual collection of taxes to subordinates. He would have been a very wealthy man, and possibly the most hated man in the region as well.

Just as ministers have always loved to preach the simplicity of social justice at leaders who have the actual job of making it happen, Pharisees loved to treat tax collectors as whipping-posts. There just couldn’t be any good in them.

So Zacchaeus – architelōnēs – his title is meant to remind us of the other archon – the ruler – that we read about just last week. So wealth and power are in view. The Ruler couldn’t give it up. Will Zacchaeus do any better?

But Luke’s got other comparisons at work: Bartimaeus’s name – some of Timaeus – is based on the Hebrew root טָמֵא – tamæ – which means unclean. Zacchaeus’s name comes from the Hebrew root זַכָּי – zakkai – which means pure, innocent or clean. What’s Luke trying to do to us? …

Zacchaeus wants to see Jesus. But it won’t be easy for him. Zacchaeus is short and there’s a big crowd. I feel like him; trying to look over all the crowds of saints who stand in the history of the Church. But back to Zak.

By now, the crowd will be electric with the news that blind Bart got his sight back – Jesus’ newest disciple will be following him into town.

Luke plays on this one who couldn’t see but now who can, and gives us a contrasting Zacchaeus; the one who could see, but now he can’t because of a thick crowd of taller people blocking his view.

So what does Zak do? He climbs a tree. By what road does he climb that tree? Yes, the road into Jericho. But what road is it for Jesus? And what stands at the end of it for him?

It’s almost a parody. Except it’s more serious than that. Zac was looking for Jesus – maybe out of curiosity. But he finds that Jesus has been looking for him – and for a different motive. All along, Jesus was looking for Zacchaeus out of love. I find that so beautifully moving; the reviled, hated outsider, blamed by everyone for his exile because of the life he has chosen – he could be a drug dealer; a people-smuggler – and Jesus has been looking for him. Nothing can separate me from the love of God in Christ Jesus! ^{Rm 8.39}

Zak; come on down. I have to stay at your place! And everyone’s horrified. The knives are out. Jesus’ credibility is at stake with a blunder like this. Except that Zacchaeus reveals a depth of joyful generosity and passion for justice that would shame that ruler of last week’s reading. Salvation has come.

One final observation. I don’t know whether it changes anything for you, but the Catholic commentator, Luke Timothy Johnson notes that Zacchaeus’s giving half his possessions and repaying any fraud are in a continuous tense in the Greek. He has been giving half his money away and if he discovers his tax collectors have defrauded anyone, he has been paying back four times as much all along. And Jesus knew his pure heart – all along. Thanks be to God! Amen

Is the Earth praying to us at the moment?

Pentecost + 21 21/10/07 (Lk 18:1-8; Jer 31:27-34, Ps 119:97-104)

Jesus told a parable about a very persistent widow, and Luke tells us it illustrates our need to keep praying and not to lose heart. What was there in this widow’s life that might have caused her to lose heart? Plenty. First, she’d lost her husband. That meant, in a traditional society, she had no real place in society—being neither daughter nor wife. She had no money, and if she couldn’t remarry, no future. The parable tells us that she’d been abused in some way. And to add insult to injury, her access to justice was blocked by a judge who didn’t fear God, and who couldn’t care less about his public image. The widow had no money to bribe him with, no advocate to plead her cause for her, and that shameful judge didn’t look like he’d ever listen to her.

Yet she persisted. Again and again, she confronted the judge’s shamelessness with the shame of her social position. Her shame was a powerful bargaining chip because she knew it was caused by an injustice, and so justice was owing to her. She would complain until the judge went blue in the face. She acted on an inner conviction of justice. Can we guess where she got that inner conviction and empowerment from?

My guess would be that as a Jewish woman, she participated in the corporate prayer life of her community. There, she’d have heard in the Scriptures of God’s commitment to justice—of God’s particular care for her as a widow. (Ex 22.22-24, Dt 10.17-18) She acted on her trust in the God whom she’d heard in readings from the Torah—passages that were about her; she acted on her certainty in the God she came to know in those readings. It’s as if, when she had the unjust judge in front of her, she addressed God over the judge’s shoulder so she could keep on demanding her justice. It was the turn of the judge to learn God’s ways.

But I believe there’s another way that she had this conviction, and we heard Jeremiah describe it today in chapter 31.

33 this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. 34 No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, “Know the Lord,” for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord.

Jesus called his followers to persistent prayer: and that’s what I want us to think about this morning. What that means in terms of this morning’s parable is that we struggle on with it in spite of our doubts and setbacks, believe that it’s right to do so, because it is written in our hearts that we belong to God.

Prayer is a marvellous, liberating gift from God. It’s a place in our lives where God meets us, embraces us, talks with us, and takes us seriously no matter what our circumstances. God is astonishingly broad-minded, and that’s the lovely thing we discover in the conversation of prayer.

When I say that prayer is a gift, I mean by that a spiritual gift which comes to us because of the Holy Spirit living in us. At baptism, we receive the gift of the Holy Spirit dwelling within us. In terms of the conversation of prayer, we become permanently invited eavesdroppers; eavesdroppers listening in on a dialogue between our mother, the Spirit, our Father and our Brother.

That dialogue—that intimate conversation—is one which could go on whether we were there or not. But from our baptism on, we should grow in understanding that this dialogue is meant to include us; that we need it—this conversation is the true source of our life. St Paul describes that conversation in a part of his letter to the church in Rome:

“… the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words. And God, who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.

Romans 8:26-27

So the Holy Spirit speaks to God from deep within us. And God searches our depths, and there, finds the mind of the Spirit. Through the Scriptures, through the Church, through friends, through creation, God speaks to us. Yet how do we hear God speaking with us?

It’s a lifelong skill, learning to hear God’s voice. But by giving us the gift of the Holy Spirit at our baptism, God ensures that there is within us, from our very birth, the faculty to hear God speak—like any little child, the faculty to learn the language, and to join in the conversation.

God the Holy Spirit dwells within us. She is the mother and teacher of our hearts. Because of her dwelling within us, our hearts gradually learn the life-giving nature of conversation with the divine. There is something within us—it is written on our hearts, says Jeremiah—something within us that feels empty and alone until we know we’re engaged in this conversation. We don’t feel fully ourselves until we can express what is the very deepest part of who we are—until we can participate fully in the most wonderful and profound relationship there is. That’s called being in love. St Augustine prayed it this way; Everlasting God, in whom we live and move and have our being: you have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.

And Jesus? Jesus stands before us alive in the gospel, and beckons us by his love for us and by his own example to join in that conversation—more easily as he is one of us too. Choosing to join in this conversation just once can change us utterly. Once invited, God persists. And if I’m talking about persistence in prayer today, there’s the source of the persistence; God.

Let me illustrate this briefly.

I spent several years absorbed by Buddhism. Unfortunately for the integrity of my Buddhism—which was atheistic—I’d learnt to pray beforehand as a Christian.

So, and to my intense irritation, I—a Buddhist—would often catch myself in conversation with a God whom I’d rejected. This was particularly the case on the golf course, where it seems that walking around muttering incantations seems to pass for normal behaviour. So I tried to give up golf. But the conversation continued anyway. … Prayer has a persistence of its own. People’s lives are dramatically changed by its persistence; witness an ex-Buddhist Anglican Priest.

So prayer persists. But then what? What comes of eavesdropping on our divine parents? This morning’s gospel sheds an interesting light on this aspect of prayer. It shapes the way you live, and it shapes the way you see yourself.

Remember that widow—most onlookers would probably have viewed her as deluded, stubborn and hopeless—and we might be tempted to see her that way too. But frankly, I see her example as inspiring. She subverted everyone else’s illusion of her powerlessness through her own illusion—if you like—one of her own dignity and worth in the sight of God.

That’s something that hangs around in the life of every prayerful person—a persistent illusion that’s finally more real than anything else.

My prayer is that we may all be as graciously deluded.

Amen

Pray always and don’t lose heart

^{Jrm 31 Ps 119 2Tm3 Lk 18}

A major theme in today’s scriptures is prayer in the face of disappointment – persistence in prayer even when all seems lost. So we’ve heard the parable of a persistent widow who wears away at the indifference of an unjust judge: also the parable of a hated tax collector who dares pray in public. And in the letter to Timothy, the heart of the message from the veteran missionary to the younger colleague is endurance and constancy in the face of setbacks.

We can all connect with the disappointment or crisis aspect of this theme. We all know what setbacks are like: health crises, financial crises, family crises, work crises, study crises, natural disasters, wars – we’ll all have been through one or more of these. So yes, we can connect with the stress bit – we all know what that’s like. But do we connect as easily with the prayer bit?

The times of stress are shown in today’s parables as the times when it’s clear that the only thing we’ve got left is prayer. And the scriptures encourage us to go for it. Yet I sometimes hear people telling me something like this: If I don’t bother praying when things are going well, I’m sure as heck not going to start praying now that things are in a mess. I’ve got my principles.

I can understand people saying this, but it’s not quite right, is it. It’s treating God like a friend who’s our equal; as though there’s no integrity to our relationship with God unless we know we have something to offer God – like we are with dinner invitations, where we’d never show up empty handed.

But that’s not how it is. We’re not God’s equals; we’re not expected to keep the balance-sheet equal between what God gives us and what we give God. We can’t. Otherwise that proud Pharisee in the second parable would’ve had God’s ear, and the painfully humble tax collector would’ve gone unheard.

When we hear these readings as comfortable middle-class Australians, it’s amazing what our instincts for self-reliance can filter out of them. Did we hear the point of the parable of the widow and the unjust judge – the reason we should pray always and not lose heart? It’s because our prayer is not offered to a reluctant, petty official. It’s because our prayer is offered to God, and God will grant justice. And God puts that prayer in our hearts in the first place.

That’s what lies at the heart of the second parable; the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector who were both at prayer in the Temple one day. Pharisees were respected and respectable people. “They held to a liberal interpretation of Scripture, and the aim of Pharisaic law was to make observance of Torah available to all. Tax collectors, on the other hand, were seen as collaborators with the hated Romans. Far from being seen as humble or simple, they were seen to be (and sometimes were) venal, unscrupulous, and dishonest.”

^{Marjorie Procter-Smith. (2010). Homiletical Perspective. In Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary: Year C (Vol. 4, pp. 213–215).}

So this parable’s meant to shock its hearers. Imagine their disbelief: a Pharisee who won’t see or name his own dependence on God: and a hated tax collector who won’t see or name anything but his utter dependence on God. One of them has found God’s Law written on his heart, just like Jeremiah said it would be; the one you wouldn’t expect. And the other hasn’t got it yet.

So this parable tells us that our faith is not something we achieve or earn or do. It’s something God intends to place on our hearts, and our part is to let God do that. We’ve heard Jeremiah tell us that God writes his Law on our hearts. That’s not a statute book; it’s a promise of eternal love; eternal belonging – a little like those hearts carved into the bark of trees – except God has written eternal life onto the mortal life of our hearts.

That’s what happens for Christians at our baptism. The Spirit of God makes a home in our hearts, and from there, speaks out all our needs, articulates all our cries for justice and love with sighs too deep for words. ^{Rom 8.26-27} And God searches our hearts and hears those prayers. The question is if we can hear them to – if we can hear the Spirit praying on our behalf.

We began with the theme of prayer in the face of setbacks. And we realised that although we’re familiar with the experience of setbacks, we’re not always that familiar with prayer. And that’s because we mistakenly think of it as something we have to do. And we don’t have time for it, or we don’t have a habit of doing it. We need to forget this ‘doing prayer’ idea. We need to change our thinking to prayer being something we hear, and something we join in with – like singing along with a much-loved song.

I confess that in my busyness – a vocation that demands that my attention dart constantly from one train of thought to the next – I don’t stop often enough to listen to the prayer that’s going on all the time in my heart. I don’t stop to hear it – to join in with the prayers coming from my heart. The more difficult things get – the more setbacks I face – the busier I’m likely to become, and, I’m afraid, less tuned in to those prayers – often out of practice. I doubt that I’m alone in this.

The wonderful Lutheran writer, Paul Santmire ^{Before Nature, Augsburg/Fortress 2014 pp 24-26} describes practising prayer as being like learning to ride a bicycle. Practice won’t necessarily make perfect, but practice makes possible. Once we’ve learnt, our focussed attention can rest and our spirit is free to experience reality on another level. He suggests three short prayers. Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me. Praise Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Come Holy Spirit; come and reign. When I pray this, and I can do it without thinking, all the time, I begin to hear what’s happening in my heart. Pray always and don’t lose heart. Amen

St Francis’ Sunday 2-10-2016

^{Amos 6.1a,4-7, Ps 139.13-18, ! Tim 6.6-10,17-19, Lk 10.1-9, 16}

Back in the ‘80s in Melbourne, Vicky and I were involved in a discipleship school. It was a full-time, live-in programme where young adults gave a year of their lives to being formed as disciples of Jesus. Life was pretty frugal at DS. No-one was able to give time to earning money; no-one had much of it. The disciples paid what they could – supplemented by whatever their family, friends or supporters might give them. And the parish subsidised the school by paying the rent on the building as well as fuel and water costs.

If life was frugal, it was also very intense. If you’ve ever been on a church youth camp, you’ll remember coming home both exhausted by the intensity of close community life, and filled with the exultation of deep worship. You’ll also remember red-rimmed eyes from the endless, deep conversations that lasted late into the night. Now imagine doing that for a whole year.

DS involved regular Bible classes and daily worship together. Everyone did lots of work alongside local poor and under-privileged people; everyone taught RE at local schools; everyone was on the team with whatever project or outreach the parish undertook. But the most challenging part was living together under one roof as an intentional Christian community. It’s in close, family community that the great challenges of living justly, truthfully, humbly and compassionately are right in your face every day. DS was tough and wonderful for everyone involved, and it shaped a number of unique Christians.

I think it’s the closest my life has come to living the sort of life St Francis saw Jesus live, and which Francis therefore chose for himself, and later on, for his order of Friars. It’s a life of intense community, a life of costly commitment and obedience, and a life of extraordinary privilege – set free to care for the poor and the sick; to bring the lost back into the presence of Jesus.

It’s also a very controversial life: it was back in Francis’ day; it was back in the 1980’s, and I’m pretty sure it would be controversial now too. Listen to some of the Rule of St Francis for his Friars, and once you’ve heard it, let me know your one or two-word reaction to it.

Chapter VI

The Friars should appropriate neither house, nor place, nor anything for themselves; and they should go confidently after alms, serving God in poverty and humility, as pilgrims and strangers in this world. Nor should they feel ashamed, for God made himself poor in this world for us. This is that peak of the highest poverty which has made you, my dearest Friars, heirs and kings of the kingdom of heaven, poor in things but rich in virtues. Let this be your portion. It leads into the land of the living and, adhering totally to it, for the sake of our Lord Jesus Christ, wish never to have anything else in this world, beloved Friars. And wherever you meet one another, … act like members of a common family. And … securely make your needs known to one another…

Reactions…?

On the surface, the St Francis we meet this morning seems to have a very different emphasis from the one we meet this afternoon at the blessing of the animals. But the kind, gentle, compassionate Francis we meet this afternoon is the very same Francis who, this morning, is so strong on poverty, humility and proclamation.

His liberty from worry about material things set him free to join consciously in the community of all life that depends for everything on the providence of God. Reflect for a moment on any way last week’s power outage affected your relationships with other people. Did it draw you closer to others? How?

Francis, in his poverty, found himself a citizen of creation. His choice for poverty was simply living as his Lord Jesus instructed him. The Lord’s specific instructions are those he heard in the gospel we heard just now.

³ Go on your way. … ⁴ Carry no purse, no bag, no sandals; and greet no one on the road. ⁵ Whatever house you enter, first say, “Peace to this house!” ^{… 7} Remain in the same house, eating and drinking whatever they provide, for the labourer deserves to be paid.

There are instructions Francis heard quite literally as Jesus’ call to him to live a life of pilgrimage as a pauper and a preacher; to live a life of humility that is both a choice, and a result of being always truly dependent on providence. Again, this was counter-cultural in Jesus’ time, in Francis’ time, and in ours. It may seem harsh; it may seem unnecessary. But today’s scriptures suggest that at the very least, it’s worth serious consideration.

Amos tells the comfortable and the wealthy of the Land that they’re living in a fools’ paradise. They’re so disconnected from what’s going on in the world that the obvious, coming disaster will claim them first. And it did.

The letter to Timothy urges us to be content with a life where our basic needs are met – to be generous with anything extra we might have, and by doing this, to take hold of the life that really is life. What wonderfully powerful words!

St Francis’ day challenges us to discover connections with each other and the living creation around us; to take hold of the life that really is life. He understood the Bible to be saying that the way to do this is to imitate the example of Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, ⁷ but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, ⁸ he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death—even death on a cross. ^{Phil 2.6-8} In that light, what might DS look like for us? Amen