Midwives of the future
From Wellington Cathedral of St Paul
Midwives of the future 21 August 2011 The Revd Jenny Wilkens
- Psalm 124
- Exodus 1:8-2:10
- Romans 12:1-8
- Matthew 16:13-20
http://wellingtoncathedral.org.nz/index.php/Sermons
Leadership - what's it worth? The front page of Saturday's DomPost expressed this is in a way that couldn't be more stark - on one half of the page we had 'the great divide' between the pay-rate of this country's highest paid chief executive and that of his employees, a pay-rate that not even the combined average pay of 50 of his employees could match. That is one way of thinking about leadership - putting a price on it.
On the other half of the page was the tragic news of an as yet unnamed Kiwi SAS soldier killed in a firefight in Kabul, while seeking to save the lives of others under attack. One of our elite defence force personnel killed while showing leadership and mentoring to local Afghani security forces. Greater love has noone than this, to lay down ones life for one's friends (John 15:13). What is leadership worth? Such leadership as this - priceless, without price.
And what of leadership in the church? This week our country has mourned and celebrated the life of Sir Paul Reeves, Archbishop of this Church, Anglican Observer at the United Nations, and former Governor-General. Yet what was impressive about him is that the one who lived at Government House in Newtown did not forget his roots, born in the Newtown community, 'the suburb which I loved and where I was loved', he said. I recall as a very new young Vicar in Picton being taken by surprise by a phone-call from Government House letting me know that Sir Paul would be attending a local relative's funeral that week. But he was always very gracious, down to earth, happy to sit down at the communal table and share food and conversation.
What do we see of leadership in our Scripture readings today? Interestingly enough, in our First Testament reading, where we begin the saga of the leader Moses, we hear first of all of the leadership of women. And amazingly enough the two Hebrew midwives are also named - Shiphrah and Puah, two resourceful characters, who faced with the absolute power and command of the Egyptian Pharaoh, yet feared God more and were able to defiantly stand up for life, and bring to birth new life, foreshadowing there is hope yet for God's people.
Then we come to three women who act together to save one child, Moses, the future leader of God's people out from slavery. Three women - the child's mother, not named here but called elsewhere Jochebed (Ex 6:20) and Moses' older sister whom we know from elsewhere is Miriam. Both Jochebed and Miriam go to extraordinary lengths of courage and ingenuity to protect the infant Moses, but they are assisted in this through the compassion of Pharaoh's daughter, who will adopt the child as her own, while allowing his birth mother to raise him according to the surrogacy arrangements of the time! And yet we know this must have been a dangerous undertaking for all, contravening all the orders of those in power, in order to protect and nurture the child Moses to maturity.
Hebrew tradition has it that Pharaoh's daughter was named Bithiah, and that she went out with Moses and the Israelites from Egypt into the wilderness. She chose her adopted son's God as her own, and changed all her allegiances and her life, from a place of power to allying herself with the powerless, putting a higher value on relationship than blood.
Moses we know as the inspirational leader of his people, his name meaning 'one drawn from the water', he will in turn lead his people through the waters of the Reed Sea and through the long years in the wilderness to the brink of freedom in the promised land. Yet we know he too was not without his flaws, he committed murder in his youth, he tried to wriggle out of the call to leadership, he had a fear of public speaking - Here I am, Lord, send my brother! (Ex 4) Yet God worked with that, gave him the companionship in leadership of his brother Aaron and sister Miriam, and the wisdom of his father-in-law Jethro (Ex 18) to encourage him to share the load of leading the people of God with many others.
Our Gospel reading also raises the question of leadership, just who is this Jesus whom the disciples are following …Jesus has taken his disciples to Caesarea Philippi, two days’ walk north of Galilee, a place marked out by its name as a centre of emperor worship, named for Caesar and Herod Philip the Tetrarch. It was also a place linked with Syrian Baal worship and was said to be the birthplace of the Greek nature god Pan.
So Jesus has taken the disciples out of their comfort zone, into a place where many competing religious and political leaders' names ring in their ears, and challenges them – Who do people say that the Son of Man is? What are people saying? What’s the news, the goss, the media equivalents of the time?
We can imagine the scene, with the disciples eagerly putting in their pennyworth, well, I’ve heard people wondering if you’re not John the Baptist come back to life? Or Elijah, the one we were told would come before the Messiah? Or Jeremiah or one of the prophets? All feisty out-there public figures, note, none of this ‘Gentle Jesus meek and mild’ stuff here!
'But who do YOU say that I am?' You can see the eyes quickly cast down, feet shuffling – now this is a bit closer to home, a bit more personal! Who will be brave enough to reply? To take the risk of commitment, of allegiance?
As ever, it is Simon who goes out on a limb – “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” And you can imagine the collective sigh of relief, including Simon’s, when he gets it right, and Jesus acknowledges that this answer is not just a human bright idea, but a God-given insight, which has enabled Simon to recognise the activity of God in Jesus, to see that God was at work in him and to have the courage to name it.
But this is not just some sort of intellectual coup that Simon has scored, for calling Jesus the Messiah means a commitment that will call all other commitments into question, including to the existing political structures – hence Jesus’ order at this stage for the disciples to keep this news quiet.
Mind-boggling stuff, and not least for Simon who receives a new name, as Jesus puns on the Palestinian Aramaic word Kephas which works for both Peter and Rock. In Greek, you are Petros and on this Petra, rock, I will build my church. Before Peter’s head swells too much though, Petros means a little stone or pebble, and Petra means a big rock, a boulder. Peter is but a chip off the old block, the real rock is Jesus, the rock of ages, the church's one foundation.
But Jesus will build from Peter’s faith, from the commitment to follow Jesus that Peter and the other disciples have built up over the three years of relationship with him. And it will have its ups and downs, this commitment and this relationship. I find that strangely consoling that Peter, a man of such huge strengths, and yet of such huge weaknesses and failings, a very flaky rock at times, is still chosen by God to be the rock on which the church is built. And God still chooses such people to be part of his church, people like us. It was the early church father Origen who said of this passage: ‘For a rock is every disciple of Christ…For all bear the surname ‘rock’ who are the imitators of Christ…these bear the surname of rock just as Christ does.’
Perhaps our Epistle reading from Romans reminds us that Jesus also asks us a question - Who do I say that you are? Paul reminds his hearers, Romans, like us, capital dwellers, close to the centres of power, movers and shakers, civil servants, Paul reminds us that the most important thing about us is that 'we are one body in Christ, and individually we are members one of another' (Rom. 12:5).
As he reminded the Galatians (3:28), all the things that society uses as identity markers, whether we are Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male or female , race, gender, class, all these things are washed away in baptism, so that we might die to conformity to this world, and rise with Christ to a new life, transformed, literally metamorphosed, transformed from caterpillar to butterfly. It is the same word used of the transfigured Christ, in glory.
It is in that context that we see the call to recognise and honour the gifts we each bring to this Cathedral community and which we bring to our lives as we offer them each day to God as a living sacrifice, a living breathing walking-about self-offering to God for his glory.
One of the things that I valued from the speaker at our recent Clergy Conference on Missional Leadership, Alan Roxburgh, was the range of images he used to describe leaders. I am ruminating on some of these and invite you to also as you reflect on places where you are called to exercise leadership in your life and work and relationships. Alan talked of leaders as being 'detectives of divinity' in our midst, which I think is a good translation of Romans 12:2 'that you may discern what is the will of God - what is good and acceptable and perfect.'
Another image he used was that of being poets, those who listen to stories being told among people and then give voice to them, interpreting them in the light of God's story. Being attuned to the 'restless hearts' of our collect today, based on Augustine's great prayer (Almighty God, you have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless till they find their rest in you…) But perhaps the image that most resonates with me today, in the light of our 1st reading is that of being midwives of the ordinary, trusting that the Spirit of God is at work among us, gestating the future in our midst, and we are called to help along that bringing to birth of God's creative life, in each individual life here and where we see God at work in the other 167 hours of our week not spent in this building. So pick your image - midwife of God's future, detective of divinity, poet, interpreter, or perhaps another - and live it out this week, and then tell me what happens! Amen.
