Danger...Come in!
From Wellington Cathedral of St Paul
12 September 2010: am
The Revd Judith Wigglesworth
- Psalm 14
- Jeremiah 4:11-12, 22-28
- 1 Timothy 1:12-17
- Luke 15:1-10
“Danger: Keep out!” It’s hardly the sort of message to encourage church attendance, especially on Back to Church Sunday! In fact the word “Danger” might not be one that you would normally associate with church at all.
Yet signs of danger are all around us.
Literally they are on the scaffolding in the Cathedral this morning.
Jesus also courted danger in his ministry. In the words of the Pharisees, “this fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them”. In Jesus’ time this spelt danger. Prescribed social conventions distinguished between who was clean and who was unclean; between who was included and who was excluded. But Jesus often turned those social conventions upside down, and honoured the very people the Pharisees shunned.
For example, both parables in today’s gospel reading involve people considered to be on the underside of Jewish society. Shepherds had notorious reputations and were generally avoided as outcasts. Women were often treated as second-class citizens. Yet Jesus used those very people to make a point about the nature of God. More on these parables a bit later.
“Danger: Keep out!” is also a sign familiar to the people of Christchurch. Following the recent earthquake, many buildings and homes, crumbling or uninhabitable, are out of bounds. Many people have lost homes and businesses. In response, Bishop Victoria Matthews has urged her people in the diocese of Christchurch to “Go!”, to get out amongst the community and talk to people. "And if anyone thinks that 10am Sunday will do it, it actually won't”, she said.
Bishop Victoria’s words remind us that taking church out of the tidiness of Sunday worship into the messy and broken world around us is a challenge: it’s risky – perhaps dangerous.
The fullness of what is “church” is not this Sunday service. Nor is it this building – or any church building. At our Clergy Conference in July, Bishop Graham Cray inspired us with stories of “fresh expressions” – innovative efforts being made all over the UK by people creating new ways of being church and engaging in their community. “Fresh expressions” are happening in our part of the world too. Bishop Richard Randerson’s book "Engagement 21" sets out some of those initiatives happening across New Zealand.
Bishop Victoria observed that the Christchurch earthquake is both a crisis and an opportunity: an extraordinary opportunity to rethink how we relate to each other and to rethink our identity as church.
Today – Back to Church Sunday – is an opportunity too. The occasion may have encouraged you to take the risk of stepping inside a church building and being with a community you’ve not been part of for a while. But I hope it’s much more than that.
Whatever your previous ideas about “church”, I’d like us all to think about “church” primarily as connection: about connecting with God, and connecting with people. Today, and every day, offers you an opportunity to come back to God, your creator.
Connecting with God may take place here for us today. But it may also happen in our home or in our workplace, in our resting or in our walking, in our helping and talking with others or in our own prayers, however faltering or inadequate we may feel them to be.
The parables in today’s gospel were told by Jesus to stress God’s radical inclusiveness: God wants to connect with each and every person.
In both stories there is a similar pattern. First, there is a problem: something is lost – Jesus uses the examples of a sheep and a coin.
Then, there is action. Without hesitation, the shepherd goes after the lost sheep, not stopping until he finds it – because it’s his livelihood at stake. The woman lights a lamp, sweeps the floor and searches carefully for the coin until she finds it. There’s no giving up, no deciding the job is too hard or too time-consuming. It was crucial that she find the coin: it was about the equivalent of a day’s wages.
Both parables end with celebration. The stories don’t stop when the shepherd finds the lost sheep, or when the woman finds her coin. The news is so good that they can’t keep it to themselves, and they don’t want to celebrate alone – so they call together their friends and neighbours and throw a party!
The God that Jesus portrays in these parables is a God who actively seeks out the lost, and never gives up on them. It is a God who shows unbounded joy when the lost are found. Wherever they are, and whoever they are, God values and treasures them.
Can we relate to the “lost” in these parables? Perhaps we feel adrift spiritually or emotionally, morally or physically. The good news in these parables is that there is always hope for “lost souls”, and this hope is found in God.
And in God’s kingdom, there is no sign saying “Danger: Keep out!” All are welcome, just as I hope you feel warmly welcomed here today.
But we haven’t invited you to put your feet up and take your ease. Indeed there is a danger in this thing we call “church”. By connecting with it, our settled world may become unsettled, and our expectations may be turned upside down. The searching nature of the gospel may challenge us out of complacency to a new way of being.
And Jesus, who walked the streets, who welcomed sinners and ate with them – that same Jesus walks the streets with us now, welcomes all of us, and invites us to his table. He also asks us to re-order our thoughts, re-set our compass and re-direct our path to connect with his. From wherever we have come, whatever journey we have made to be here, Jesus now asks us to join him.
May this day, this church, this dangerous gospel message, this interconnected community of faith, beckon to you, encouraging you to “Come in!”, rejoice with one another, and then to “Go!”, newly found by God, and newly strengthened to minister in the name of Jesus Christ.
Amen.
