Sermon: St Martha's 9 Mar 2014

Preacher:

Date:

Sunday 9th March 2014

Venue:

St Martha's Church, Guildford

Readings:

Romans 5:12-19

Matthew 4:1-11

Yes, I'm giving him up.

The moving final words of Coetzee's novel "Disgrace".  David Lurie's academic and teaching career ended in disgrace following an impulsive affair with a student.  He refuses to repent publicly; instead he retreats to his daughter's smallholding.  He hopes perhaps to find acceptance amidst the familial relationship; he seeks stability and peace, an opportunity to rebuild his fragmented life. 

There personal strands of unhappiness and failure are woven together into the fragility and uncertainty of life in South Africa at the end of Apartheid. Power, property, resources are all being renegotiated in the new political and social landscape.  It exposes his vulnerability and he has to let go of the artifice of his own image; in the wake of violence his daughter negotiates a form of acceptance which he finds humiliating.

In apologising to the student's family he finds forgiveness; but also the challenge to live with a different purpose; to embrace, whether he is capable of praying or not, the path God has ordained; to find a way of understanding how to live differently; one which sees him endeavouring to give up in order to engender healing; building bridges of compassion, accepting compromises and simplicity; facing suffering and death with dignity and care signals an end to living out of fear.  Somehow, he walks from disobedience and disgrace towards a new footing and a new start.  It is in his work at an animal centre that he sees love in the face of death; a compassionate letting go of a canine companion makes him more human. Yes he says I'm giving him up.

A small space opens up for grace.

It is unexpected and painful.

Yet there is honesty in this stripping away.

Resilience in the face of disgrace; altruism as a channel of grace.

Coetzee's novel explores in the words of one reviewer the furthest reaches of what it means to be human.  If the journey to a heart of narrative darkness has become a safe literary destination, almost a cliché, then this book takes us beyond that to allow something more nuanced to break in.

The possibility of grace.

Paul is at pains not to minimise the impact of Adam's trespass: judgement, condemnation and death.

Paul is also clear to demonstrate the impact of Christ's act of obedience: the abundance of God's grace, righteousness and life.

Disgrace and grace: both are intrinsically bound up with the nature of God's love for us.  God creates in perfect freedom and generosity; the outpouring of his love is risky.    It risks our disobedience in the hope that we we freely return to that love he has for us. 

God does not coerce us to share in that love, which is the very life of the Trinity. 

We however refuse what the American theologian and ethicist Stanley Hauerwas calls the God's peaceable love; preferring to secure our lives by our own devices. This leads to violence against ourselves and others. 

God's love flows out into the world in creation; but in our creaturely freedom we have a propensity to assume equality with God. Our self-reliance, our desire for self-determination shapes our responses; we are susceptible to temptation which strikes at the heart of our dependency, our need for sustenance, control and our sense autonomy.

All those things lie at the heart of Disgrace: the stark description of the human condition where sex is dehumanising, where possessions become bargaining chips and controlling others an assertion of our will.

Yet God continues to love us; to reach out to us; to meet us in our places of need, vulnerability, selfishness and rebellion.

Such love is shown in Jesus Christ, the one who does not cling to equality to God, but who empties himself for us. He takes the form of the servant and loves us to the end.

How much greater is the impact of his act of righteousness for our sake, and for the sake of all humanity?  Elsewhere in Romans, Paul talks about the breadth and length and height and depth of God's love for us; a love which powers and dominions cannot separate us from.

Today in Matthew's Gospel we are given substance to that love. Jesus is filled with the Spirit following his baptism; and that same Spirit then leads him into the wilderness.  This time apart from the world gives us a glimpse of the cost of the Son's obedience to the Father in the power of the Spirit.  The dynamic, abundant love of the Trinity is made manifest alongside us; yet it is also made manifest in a way that does not coerce us.

Having fasted Jesus is famished. The first line of attack taken by the one who tests and tempts goes to the heart of our human need:  command these stones to become loaves of bread.    Jesus did not draw us back to God by satisfying pangs of hunger; knowing that tomorrow we'd hunger again. He wants us to love him because he is love:  We do not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.'  There is more to our humanity than physical appetites; our deepest longings are satisfied in God's love and forgiveness.

In the second challenge Jesus is led to the pinnacle of the temple.   Throw yourself down.  The challenge is to seize power; to take his life in his own hands; to force the Kingdom to come to test God, rather than to trust in his faithfulness.  But God's Son choses a different path;  Again he quotes scripture: ' do not put The Lord your God to the test.' God's love is revealed in this refusal of power - the refusal of making dramatic gestures. Instead he chooses to reveal love by walking in the way of humility.  He rules by bringing justice and compassion.

The final temptation makes explicit what is at stake: is God's love just another power amongst many earthly kingdoms?  Are we to worship the idols of splendour and wealth, security and might?  Jesus' first response is to dismiss the tempter.  There is one thing alone at the heart of his ministry. That is, obedience to his Father's will.  Worship me says the tempter; no: worship God; serve him alone.

In these exchanges, we do not just see a human Jesus being tested; we see the very nature of God with us.

In these exchanges, we see God's patient and loving will being worked out for our redemption.

Hauerwas calls the devil another name for impatience.  We want things now: we want bread and we want peace; we want to force God to act now, to rescue us.  In the midst of such wanting we sometimes miss God's presence.  Jesus is our bread, our salvation our peace.  As Hauerwas continues: we have to learn to wait with him in a world of hunger, idolatry and war to witness to the kingdom that is God's patience. The Father will have the kingdom present one small act at a time.   

Paul identifies the cost of disobedience and sin; the cost of living in fear.  We find ourselves cut off from God and separated from one another, living lives that are impoverished and destructive.  Our wants will never be satisfied; we will never be free; if we are controlled by this fearful and competitive way of life.

Paul also identifies the great gift of God's loving response to us.  Jesus resists the cheap gimmicks of satisfying physical needs, or creating impressive spectacles; he knows that he does not have to compete with kingdoms of power and scarce resources because he is God's abundant love.

That power not only redeems us from the controlling power of fear; it is also at work in us.  We live in what our Archbishop called an untidy church; we live in an even more complex world.  In the midst of that, what is demanded of us as followers of Jesus Christ?  What does it look like when we act out of love rather than fear at work or in our relationships; when we show compassion rather than control; when we let go of the powers of this world and embrace God's will and purpose for us?

As we gather to celebrate this Eucharist, we are given a sign: we are reminded in a profound and tangible way of the cost and abundance of God's love for us.   Here we receive the gifts of bread and wine, in order that we might become the body of Christ in the world. We are to let go of all that dehumanises or controls, and live instead as channels of healing and reconciling love; it is a demanding path of patience for which we rely on the grace of God; we learn by taking small steps, gradually increasing our capacity to love.