Sermon: The Ninth Sunday after Trinity

Preacher:

Date:

Sunday 28th July 2013

Service:

Cathedral Eucharist

Readings:

Colossians 2:6-15

Luke 11.1-13

I’ve got a crush on the Archbishop of Canterbury.

That’s not a personal confession, much as I admire him; rather it is the by-line of an op ed piece by Marina Hyde in yesterday’s Guardian. It might sound like a surprising expression of admiration from a journalist; but it’s worth teasing out why Archbishop Justin’s engagement in public debate has had such an impact. Discussions about staggeringly crippling interest rates on the so called pay day loans have been going on for over a decade. In 2004 rates of 170% were regarded as shocking; it was Martin Lewis (known to many as the Money Saving Expert) who commented then that the “further you get from the real people borrowing at high rates the less you support an interest rate cap.”

What Archbishop Justin has done this week is to recognize and challenge the powers and systems that keep people in bondage. His conversation with the boss of Wonga caught the media’s attention for two reasons. First, for his direct questioning on the business practices of loan companies with APR of over 1000%; by naming the corrosive and dehumanising impact of this on the vulnerable and our communities; and suggesting that the church work directly with Credit Unions to offer a practical alternative.

Second, on the Today Programme he found himself responding to the news that the Church Commissioners invested indirectly in Wonga. The question caused embarrassment (which he quantified as 8 out of 10). The answers he gave revealed the extent to which we are all complicit in this; each of us are receiving or saving for a pension. We all have bank accounts, mortgages, loans, lease schemes, credit cards; we walk past pay day loan offices. Leafy Surrey is not unaffected by bankruptcy, IVAs and overwhelming burdens of debt.

The Archbishop named the contradictions and the human impact. The Church as an institution is part of this; but the fact that we are a people of faith means that we have not only the duty but the resources to address this honestly, prophetically and with a vision for possible transformation. £75,000 out of a portfolio of £5.5 billion does is not an excuse to shrug shoulders in difference; rather we review the situation. What might a cap on interest and investments look like? What responsibilities go along with our investment in complex financial and our proximity to real people in our parishes?

Many commentators assume that Archbishop Justin is engaging with the issues raised by pay day loan companies because he has experience of working in the oil industry. We can but imagine the level of complex ethical issues such work involves; but the reason he gave to John Humphries was because of Jesus. As followers of Jesus we have we are called to recognise, name and transform the powers and systems that keep people in bondage. As stakeholders in pension funds – and disciples called to walk in the way of Christ – we cannot be indifferent.

Our readings today offer us both a theological framework and a spiritual resource for facing such questions as the Body of Christ. It won’t be that the complexity disappears; but it might be that the world is drawn into a closer approximation to the social reality imagined by God. Attending to the cries of our world and to the wisdom of our tradition might enable us to grapple with the truth of God, for the sake of human flourishing.

In his letter to the Colossians, Paul uses mixed metaphors to describe Christian discipleship; to express what it means to follow Jesus. We are to be rooted, built up and established in Jesus Christ. Those images might sound quite static; but in order to live lives in Christ, we need to find our source of strength, stability and assurance in him.

It is that rootedness, that sense of a solid foundation, which enables us to grabble with the challenges we face. Christ is our guide and source of inspiration; there is an intrinsic dynamism to our walk with him. Attentiveness to the world and attentiveness to God delineates what it means to be a Christian. As we worship, we come before God in the fullness of his love; we come before God in our all frailty and potential. We are shaped by our encounter with his grace in word sacrament, praise and prayer.

At this Eucharist, our vision of God’s Kingdom is renewed, we find ourselves in an honest place: there is no hiding here from our falling short, our need for forgiveness, our complicity with the systems of this world. Yet, in this honest place we find a security that enables us to take risks as God’s pilgrim people – facing changing circumstances, new challenges and more scrutiny.

Having given thanks for the Colossian’s rootedness in Christ, Paul reflects on the particular context in which they face living in Christ. He warns them about the assumptions of philosophical framework of their own day. This human tradition is ensnared by the powers of rebellion: it is rooted in the vagaries of human speculation. We too trust in the powers of the market, progress, private investment, consumption, growth and individualism.

Contrast that, says Paul, with Christ: the embodiment of God’s very self; God’s fullness. Out of that plenitude, we too brought to fullness. In him all our longings are satisfied; our fears are quelled. Through baptism we enter into a new pattern of life in Christ. We die and rise with him. We are redeemed. We receive back the fullness of what we were created for.

The lavishness of God’s creation is an outpouring of beauty and energy, given in freedoms. Such is the risk of God’s generosity to us, we are vulnerable to temptation to the immersion in powers that corrupt and distract us from our first love. We find ourselves restless; spread-out from God. Our misuse of freedom in selfish competitive consumption left us indebted; left us living morally thin lives.

God’s response is to reach out to us in love of his light and fullness. The nature of redemption is that God meets us where we are in the midst of the complexity of our lives and draws us back to him. The debt has been cancelled. We are forgiven; the record is erased; new life is given. The fullness of God’s love, compassion and forgiveness was revealed in Christ’s death on the cross. The power of God is greater than the impersonal forces of the world which draw us away from God.

Redemption gives us impetus and inspiration to resist the powers that enslave us; we are called to proclaim his peace and reconciling love; we are drawn into a struggle against injustice. It is here in the Eucharist that we both receive afresh the power of the gift of Christ – for here we stand as Rowan Williams put it as ‘traitor, penitent and restored.’ As follows of Jesus we are to name and challenge the powers in this world that enslave us or seduce us; the powers that hold others in social or economic bondage.

To fulfil our calling we must be rooted in prayer. When one of Jesus’ disciples find him at prayer; he asks for teaching and guidance. Jesus’ response sets all our concerns before the holiness of God, called Abba, Father; he invites us to set all that we are, all that we desire for ourselves and our world, within the scope of God’s Kingdom.

Luke’s account speaks of a radical dependence on God for our daily needs. At the heart of prayer is a longing for forgiveness and a commitment to forgive those who’re indebted to us. Jesus also teaches us to persist in prayer – asking, seeking and knocking. The door that is opened for us, the gift that we receive is the Holy Spirit. We do not always find a straightforward answer; we aren’t spared complexity; but we do receive the gift of the Spirit to guide, inspire and sustain us – that we might not come to the time of trial.

Prayer is at heart the direction of our whole selves towards God – as we long to receive direction from God. When Jesus teaches his disciples, including us, to pray, he is inviting us to imitate him. We spend time in praise, resting in God’s presence; we spend time laying before God all our concerns and hopes, the intractable complexity of our lives, of our world. Prayer is rooted in the honesty of all that; but prayer is also opening ourselves to God that we might known his purpose for our lives.

This leads to a flourishing of God’s gifts in us; it restores our vision of God’s Kingdom. There is intimacy, longing and energy in prayer. It leads us to sing not just a redemption song; but to redemption lives.

Our whole life is to be prayer-full; our lives as disciples are to faith-full. That demands of us a moral density which acknowledges the powers that holds human lives in bondage; and seeks to resist and transform them. We are called to hold to vision of something better – which has an impact here and now. To be redeemed, to be a new creation in Christ means being agents of change in our world. We can ask challenging questions; we can use of social and economic capital call for a just and equitable system of finance. We are to ask not just what % of an investment is ethical, but to what extent our investment might help society to flourish.

Live lives in Christ Jesus; rooted and built up in him and established in the faith. Amen.