Wonky Donkeys

From Wellington Cathedral of St Paul

Wonky donkeys 11 July 2010 The Revd Jenny Wilkens

• Amos 7:7-17
• Psalm 82
• Colossians 1:1-14
• Luke 10:25-37

http://wellingtoncathedral.org.nz/index.php/Sermons

New Zealanders are said to be the greatest readers in the world, and our children are no different. They know a good book when they see one. This year's Children's Choice in the NZ Post Book Awards is called the Wonky Donkey, and is a favourite of our Bumps & Babes group, and has become one of my favourites as well.

If you look at the Wonky Donkey from outside, he doesn't have a lot going for him, in fact he has a few problems: he has only three legs, and only one eye, and he smells really, really bad!

But if you really look at him, and give him your complete attention as children do, and not just glance at him and hurry on, you soon find that he has many redeeming and endearing features, so much so that by the end of the book with the children we can chant: "He only had three legs, one eye, he liked to listen to country music, he was quite tall and slim, he smelt really really bad, that morning he'd got up early and hadn't had any coffee, he was always getting up to mischief, but he was quite good looking! He was a spunky, hanky-panky, cranky, stinky-dinky, lanky, honky-tonky, winky wonky donkey!"

By now you might have gathered that I am quite fond of donkeys, and not just because a jenny is a female donkey, maybe Jenny is a good name for an ass-ociate priest!

One of the things I was looking forward to seeing in Oberammergau again this time was the statue outside the Passion Play theatre of Jesus astride the Palm Sunday donkey, holding aloft a palm branch. That was the one thing I remembered from my first visit to the village. And there it was!

But of course this time in the play I also had the delight of seeing Jesus ride on stage on a real donkey, in a wonderful crowd scene reenactment of Palm Sunday, surrounded by the children of the village, who surreptitiously offered the donkey 'donkey treats' to keep it happy. The affection in which that donkey was held by Jesus and the children was obvious.

That was the donkey of Oberammergau, but then of course there were the many donkeys of Greece, very much the original beasts of burden, working animals. I have a clear picture of the donkeys of Santorini, toiling their way up the cliff path carrying overweight tourists who would have done better for the walk themselves!

We had been advised to take the modern cable car up the cliff face and so we sailed over the donkeys plodding up the path far below us. Yet Frank and Christine walked down that same cliff path midst the donkeys and found them the most gracious of companions. Christine commented, 'one felt its hoof touch Frank's foot as they passed and froze in mid air till he had passed.'

We can have preconceived ideas about smelly donkeys and super fast hi-tech cablecars, but when we look again, we might see something different. Perhaps we feel sometimes a bit like a donkey being overtaken by technology, especially when our computer freezes on us, or we can't get our mobile phone to work! We can feel like those donkeys, will I become redundant, is all the world passing me by, sailing away up the cable car while I'm plodding away down below on the cliff face? Life can feel a bit like that in the middle of winter.

One of our choristers, Nina, read G K Chesterton's wonderful poem about the donkey at the RSCM choir school final service yesterday. When forests walked and fishes flew And figs grew upon thorn, Some moment when the moon was blood, Then, surely, I was born.

With monstrous head and sickening bray And ears like errant wings— The devil's walking parody Of all four-footed things:

The battered outlaw of the earth Of ancient crooked will; Scourge, beat, deride me—I am dumb— I keep my secret still.

Fools! For I also had my hour— One far fierce hour and sweet: There was a shout around my head And palms about my feet.

It all depends how you look at it, what you see. Our Bible readings today all illustrate very clearly people who are willing or not willing to really see what is in front of their eyes, what is going on. One of my father's favourite sayings to me as a child was "You should be more aware of what's going on around you", no doubt because I always had my head in a book!

The Lord says to the prophet Amos, what do you see? Amos can be forgiven for thinking he is stating the obvious in saying, well, a plumb-line, but then he is given the message. God is setting a plumb-line of righteousness and truth midst his people Israel, a measuring stick if you like, and they will be found wanting. Amos speaks in the 8th century BCE, an era of unprecedented prosperity and affluence in Israel, but his message to them will be that this has been achieved through injustice and exploitation. As our Psalm (82:2) says, how long will you judge unjustly and favour the cause of the wicked?

And surprise, surprise, Amos' message is not received well by the establishment, by those who have benefited from all this, even by the priest of the equivalent of the Chapel Royal at Bethel. They put up a sign - No Prophets allowed, prophets, go home! Don't rock our boat. But Amos is given the vision, the far-sightedness to see the consequences of this way of living, and feels compelled to speak it out, regardless of the cost.

The lawyer who tests Jesus in our Gospel reading, thinks he sees very clearly what is the essence of the law - love of God and love of neighbour, and Jesus commends him, you're right, do this and live.

But then the lawyer's vision seems to cloud over, to get a bit blurred. He decides to push the point - 'and just who is my neighbour?' He wants to get his categories sorted out, his boundary-markers, his limits, just how far do I need to go? This was a common enough debate, for in the same chapter of the law that said 'you shall love your neighbour as yourself', there was also the verse 'you shall love the alien / the foreigner as yourself' (Leviticus 19:18, 34)

But did this include Samaritans - those who were beyond the pale to the Jewish community, considered half-breeds because of their mixed race history?

We have lost the shock value of what it meant for Jesus to make the hero of the story a despised Samaritan. We have gone and named the story the Good Samaritan, and yet nowhere in the text is the term 'Good' used. Indeed, for a Jew a 'Good' Samaritan was a complete oxymoron, a contradiction in terms. Our society thinks of Good Samaritans as at worst busybody do-gooders, at best secular saints, like the Samaritans who work from our crypt, offering a 24 hour listening service to those in need.

Several versions of the Good Samaritan parable have been written more recently to try to reclaim some of the shock value of Jesus' original tale. There have been The Good Punk Rocker; The Good Gang Member; The Good Terrorist; our choristers acted out recently a version called The Good P Dealer.

You see for the Jewish man who'd been mugged and left for dead, to look up and see a Samaritan coming towards him, was to be out of the frying pan and into the fire! But the scales fell from his eyes, when in extremis, when he was stripped down to nothing, and not cushioned by his own resources, when he was vulnerable and dependent, when he was willing to receive mercy and care from the person in front of him, he saw him as he really was, he saw that this was a Good Samaritan.

I was reminded of this on Friday when two people came into the Cathedral separately but at the same time, with whom we have had problems in the past. That history came before me, my anxiety levels rose, but this time at least, both left the Cathedral calmly after some conversation and prayer. This time I 'saw' them differently.

This was the sting in Jesus' tale, and why Jesus changed the question from a 'noun' question - who is my neighbour? into a 'verb' question - which of these three was a neighbour to the man who fell into the hands of robbers? Which of these three 'neighboured' him, we might say, acted as a neighbour, put love of neighbour into action, regardless of cost to self, regardless of how the recipient sees you?

Who will I be a neighbour to this week? Who will be a neighbour to me? And am I willing to see more clearly in the process?

May you be made strong with all the strength that comes from God's glorious power (Colossians 1:11), as you do so. Amen.