Sermon: Blessed be!

From Wellington Cathedral of St Paul

Blessed be!: 14 February 2010: am: The Very Revd Frank Nelson

• Psalm 1
• Jeremiah 17: 5 - 10
• 1 Corinthians 15: 12 - 20
• Luke 6: 17 - 26

Today our church, the Anglican Church of Aotearoa New Zealand and Polynesia, is in mourning. Last Thursday Archbishop Jabez Bryce died quietly in hospital in Fiji, surrounded by his family and the prayers of Anglicans here and across the world. A bishop for 35 years, and, at the time of his death, the longest serving bishop in the Anglican Communion, he is remembered as one of those who crossed many of the divisions we so easily erect. With a Tongan mother and a father who claimed both Samoan and Scottish blood he lived most of his life in Fiji. Our own Bishop Tom writes of him – “Jabez is the longest serving Bishop in the Anglican Communion and the komatua bishop among the bishops of our province. His graceful manner and his love of the church have endeared him to us all. From a personal point of view, he has been a good friend and a great listener.” Bishop Tom will be at his funeral on Thursday. Archbishop Jabez knew Wellington Cathedral well, probably most recently here at that wonderfully colourful and joyful celebration of the Eucharist on Pentecost Sunday 2008. I invite you to stand an, in a moment of silence, give thanks to God for this man – a faithful follower of Jesus.

Rest eternal grant unto him, O Lord: and let light perpetual shine upon him.

It seems fitting that as we remember Archbishop Jabez we should be reading the Gospel of Luke; and a passage as powerful and revolutionary as Luke’s version of the Beatitudes. For in many ways the Archbishop was a faithful disciple of the sort encouraged and envisaged by Jesus in today’s Gospel reading. The reading divides easily into three sections.

In the first we see Jesus as a man of magnetic attraction to many people. He was one of those people with a sense of presence, even before he did or said anything. We can feel the expectation in the crowds who flocked to him. He was, in every sense, a spirit-filled man. That raises a question: If you have power, how will you use it? In Jesus’ case it was for the good of those who were in need – the troubled, those with unclean spirits, the sick. Next week we will be reading the story of the temptation in the wilderness – and will hear again how the devil tried to tempt Jesus to abuse the power he had.

In the second section we find Jesus speaking specifically to his disciples, those who responded to his invitation to follow him. Blessed are you who are poor; blessed are you who are hungry now; blessed are you who weep now; blessed are you when people hate you, exclude you and revile you on account of the Son of Man. In his own day many of those who followed Jesus may well have known poverty, hunger and mourning. They were, after all, living in a country that was occupied by a harsh regime. One reason why so many flocked to hear Jesus may simply have been that they hoped he would win a better life for them by challenging the Romans. A few decades later, when Luke actually wrote down the Gospel, the fledgling Christian Church found itself expelled from the synagogues and used as a scapegoat.

This second section invites us to think carefully about our own country – and just how fortunate we are in world terms. This Cathedral stands at the cross-roads of power, with parliament on one side, law courts on another, and surrounded by places of education and learning. For many, New Zealand has been, and continues to be, a place to go to in the search for a better life. We have so much – and it is easy to take it for granted. The earthquake in Haiti has forced the world to look, not only at the devastation caused by natural disaster, but the devastation caused by corruption and greed of those who seize power. A month later and we can still only begin to imagine what it is like for those hundreds of thousands of people who are still poor, hungry and in deep mourning. The contrast between their lives and ours could hardly be greater – when we are able to buy fresh bread and fish at our own Farmers Market, sing the glorious music of Mozart and hymns accompanied by an organ boasting 3,531 pipes, and enjoy diving in and out of the swimming pool as part of a chorister summer school. This attractive life becomes all the more real when tragedy strikes, as it did two weekends ago for an Auckland taxi driver, one of many who came to New Zealand from places of poverty, hunger and tears.

The third section, which begins with all those woes, draws heavily on the Old Testament writings where life was seen in black and white. If you obeyed God, loved your neighbour, paid your taxes, then you were blessed. If you disobeyed God, cheated your neighbour, and followed dodgy business practices, then you were cursed. Unfortunately, life never seems to be quite so simple, so straightforward. Many of the psalms we sing ask why it is that bad people often seem to do so well, and good people seem so often to suffer. Jesus’ words in the Beatitudes suggest the very opposite of what is admired in today’s society. He stands on end the materialistic world of wealth, good food, entertainment and flattering words. Jesus seems to be saying that these things are not enough!

So what is Jesus on about? Jeremiah used the picture of two trees – one which dies in the heat of the desert, the other which has deep roots and drinks from the water far below the surface of the ground. St Paul suggested to the Corinthians that without the resurrection of Jesus from the dead, their faith was worthless, leaving them as people to be pitied. Both these writers add something to Jesus’ words in the Beatitudes. It is not enough just to live for the moment, live for our own pleasure. Embedded deeply in the Jewish and Christian writings are ethical concepts that suggest human beings have a responsibility for each other. This may be exercised in the large amount of money raised last year when our head choristers shaved the heads of the Assistant Organist and the Dean for research into leukemia; or the call from the World Council of Churches to donor nations to forgive the debt of Haiti. Neither makes much sense in a world seeking only profit and pleasure; both make sense when seen in terms of the Gospel of Jesus.

Like the roots of the tree Jeremiah talked about, we should be drinking deeply from the river of life – Jesus the Christ. Like the Corinthians challenged by St Paul on their belief or otherwise in the resurrection, we need to think carefully about where we place our faith and hope.

For 35 years as a bishop, Archbishop Jabez taught and lived this way of life, following the example of countless people before him who believed that Jesus and His teaching and example could make a difference in the world. As we prepare to begin Lent on Ash Wednesday, let us also take stock of our lives, give thanks for the good things with which we are so richly blessed, and determine to follow Jesus – more nearly and dearly, day by day.