Sermon: Shamley Green 27 July 2014

Preacher:

Date:

Sunday 27th July 2014

Venue:

Christ Church, Shamley Green

Readings:

1 Kings 3:5-12

Matthew 13:13-33, 44-52

The sales brochure for One Commercial Street boasts of a bespoke entrance lobby... with the ambience of a stylish hotel reception area, it creates a stylish yet secure transition space between your home and the City streets.  

That entrance isn't for everyone. The journalist Hilary Osborne drew attention to the poor door:  a considerably less glamorous lobby, tucked away in an alley to the side of the building, alongside the trade entrance for Pret a Manger.   Sales directors explain that flat dwellers have separate entrances because not all residents can afford the service charges to cover additional facilities. Some residents have a stylish yet secure transition space; others feel unsafe and insulted; a dimly lit side door is far from ambient.

The thousands of comments on The Guardian website reflect on the social and political implications; the reality of getting what you pay for  versus the increasing gap between average wages and the super-rich; but I wonder if this is a parable of our own time, challenging us to think about wealth and possessions; about individuals and vision for community; about the long hours people work and the things that hold us in bondage; is it a microcosm of the tensions around wealth, power and difference? Where is God's Kingdom breaking in?

Jesus uses parables to teach his followers about how they are to relate to one another as members of God's family; and to enable them to discern how the kingdom of heaven is established.  In the words of the American theologian, Stanley Hauerwas, they are crucial for the church too; they help us imagine the kind of community that we must be in order to survive in a world that assumes that biological kinship is more determinative than our kinship with Christ.

Alongside biological kinship, our world holds a lot a things as fundamental to understanding our embodiment:  judgments and priorities are made on the basis of wealth, status, possessions, the work we do; difference and conformity; autonomy versus interdependence. As Christians, we are called to begin by attending to our kinship with God; his love of us. Solomon does just that in response to a dream in which he is asked to name a gift from God.

Rather than being overwhelmed by greed, he begins with God's steadfast love of his father; he humbly compares his inexperience with David's walk with God.  He then turns his attention to the people before him and the task ahead of him.  Only then does he ask for wisdom: for an understanding mind in order to govern the people and to discern God's will.

This double attention, to God and God's people, was pleasing to The Lord.  How easy it would have been to ask for long life, riches or victory over the enemy?  The love of God is the beginning of wisdom; we are made in God's image and are called to serve him in all we do, but also discern him in all we see. In his parables, Jesus opens our hearts and minds to an imaginative engagement with how we serve and how we discern the things of God.

Common life is made strange by Jesus' vivid imagery; he extends metaphors and makes comparisons; he adds unexpected challenges. Parables witness to the new age begun in Christ; the draw us into a new awareness of reality. The reveal something of God's will; they call forth a response.

Parables don't just reveal what we know about seeds; or how we react when we find something precious; or how we know which fish to keep.  Parables are to be lived. They leave us with all sorts of niggles and puzzlements; they don't allow us to come to precise applications. They leave us wondering - and that imaginative thought shapes our action.  All that is rooted in who Christ is; and a vision of God's kingdom.

Let's begin with perhaps the hardest image of all:  a net bursting with fish of every kind which is drawn ashore to be sorted.  There's a practical logic to that - we don't consume decaying or poisonous fish. Yet when applied to the end of the age the language of fire and gnashing teeth makes us shudder.  Jesus is emphasising just how serious discipleship is. We can't be indifferent, or complacent, taking the hope of the kingdom for granted; redemption is a reality, but one which brings us under deeper scrutiny.  Jesus has called us to a way of life which is both demanding and liberating.

 

The kingdom of heaven is like... treasure... like a pearl.

The kingdom is so important: that you give everything you have to secure it. This is not about commerce - trading in pearls or buying land in the hope that it will go up in value; this is commitment. Our former lives and priorities are given up, abandoned; this is a joyous experience. It is response to the love of God and an invitation to live by that steadfast love. 

That stands in stark contrast to the pressure many of us are under.  There is the risk that our wealth (real in global terms) stifles our imagination; our possessions possess us. We live with aspirations and longings; demands are made of us.  Would we describe the life of our diocese as being possessed by the joy of the kingdom?

Neighbours and friends are under immense pressure. The cars are parked at the station point to long working days; our young people are under pressure to achieve; the anguish of loneliness, reliance on food banks, fear of failure effect the elderly, families and children too.

Here you are: a church set on a hill in centre of parish, on edge of the village; surrounded by old and new; by commuters and farmland.  We are called to imagine an alternative world where we aren't possessed by wealth and possessions; to model a way of being in community that transcends the division between the ambient transition space and the poor door.  In the power of the Spirit you witness to the generous love of God revealed in Christ Jesus.

You are the soil where the gospel is taking root; you are a people with a range of different gifts; you are faithful in worship and engaging with your community. Your commitment to prayer, to study and discussion; the diversity of your social life; the work with families and young people; supporting the baptised and those who mourn. All these things are signs of the kingdom.   We are being called to live lives of patient confidence; God is working his purpose out.

The tiny mustard seeks is full of promise and power; it is full of potential stirring within.  Yet its growth in and of itself is not the point; the character of the kingdom is distorted by chasing so-called successes; our key task is to be no more, no less, than nesting place for birds.  We are to be a people who can welcome others in joy, distress and weariness. 

The yeast too is hidden yet at work in the proving process; bursting forth in nourishing bread.  How might that relate to the life of the church dispersed in our communities and relationships?  By God's grace, his kingdom grows in quiet and concealed way.  Look at the world in a spirit of discernment; see what God is doing; respond to the invitation to join in.

Jesus speaks in parables so that we might become scribes for the kingdom of heaven, capable of revealing the new that has been in the old; sometimes our familiarity with them means that we fail to recognise Jesus in them; or to be challenged, or encouraged by them.  Like Solomon we are to have a wise and discerning mind: being mindful of God's patient love towards us and all creation; living out of that well of faithfulness to embrace others in their humanity; call to mind the diversity of those we've met and will meet day by day.

The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed; full of the potential to offer shelter, support and rest.  It is like yeast working away within the dough until it's proved and baked; transformed into a source of nourishment. It is like a treasure or a pearl that we give everything to embrace; it's like a net full of fish; serious, joyful commitment.

The kingdom of heaven is a place where there is one door for all; where all may be treated with equity and dignity; where they dwell in safety. May they find here a simplicity of life lived rooted in God's love. We all need refreshment and relief from all that overwhelms us.  We find that here:  bread and wine, peace and blessing. Gifts to refresh us on our journey; gifts to share with others in theirs. May we love God in all things and above all things: that we and all creation may know the good things God has prepared for us in his kingdom.