You are not welcome!

From Wellington Cathedral of St Paul

You are not welcome!: 17 July 2011: am: The Very Revd Frank Nelson

• Psalm 139
• Genesis 28: 10 - 19
• Romans 8: 12 - 25
• Matthew 13: 24 – 30, 36 - 43

"He drew a circle that shut me out- Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout. But love and I had the wit to win: We drew a circle and took him In! from the poem "Outwitted" Edward Markham

Last Sunday night a number of us watched the episode on the Reformation by Diarmid McCulloch. Like so much of Christian history there is a mixed bag of good and bad. The great gift of being able to read the Bible and worship in one’s own mother tongue did not always lead to the ushering in of the Kingdom of God – on earth is it is in heaven. Instead, people became ever more polarized. Ulrich Zwingli fell out with Martin Luther, already excommunicated by the pope. John Calvin’s model religious state must have been a particularly depressing place to live in. People were burnt at the stake and beheaded for holding to their particular understanding of Holy Communion, grace and forgiveness, or who was destined for heaven and who for hell. The negative side of the Reformation was not new in the church of course, but it continues to shape the so-called western church today.

It’s this very mixed bag of good and bad, what Bishop Geoffrey Paul calls the ‘glorious ragbag of saints and fatheads,’ that is so difficult to live with. Nor is it only the church that wrestles with who is in and who is out, who is acceptable and who is not. We find it in the midst of our society – school zoning for instance, which becomes one of the key factors in which suburb to live. I was recently persuaded to join a service club – and then had to go through a screening process before being assured that I was the ‘right’ sort of person to become a member. But perhaps the most crass and in your face example of the way the world we live in is constantly on the lookout for the unwanted and unwelcome was the headline on last Tuesday’s Dominion Post. In big black bold letters across the front page were the words: “You are not welcome.” The article which followed, about boat people from Sri Lanka, took me back to a poky office in Christchurch 20 years ago. As very new, and terribly vulnerable, hopeful immigrants to this country, our family had just been interrogated by an immigration official. She barely spoke to Christine or me, focusing on the children. It was left to our three and a half year old daughter to ask the burning question: Can we stay?

I wonder what was behind the parable of the wheat and weeds told by Jesus. What did he have in mind in the Gospel reading we heard this morning? As with all parables there is often more than one way of looking at them. One thing is clear though, it is not for the slaves of the householder to go round ripping out what they think are weeds! Somewhere I have heard it said that weeds are simply plants in the wrong place. Yet inevitably it seems, we do want to weed our patch, our church, our country. There are many stories in the Bible, Old and New Testaments, Gospels and Epistles, where the radical welcome that God offers to people is underlined – no matter who or what they are.

The opening chapters of Paul’s letter to the Romans, part of which we read this morning, deal with the vexed question facing Paul about the difference between Jew and Gentile. Jews have the Law, the Torah, yes, but Gentiles have their own laws and ways of knowing right from wrong. What makes the one better than the other? In fact, says Paul, there is no one who can claim to be able to stand before God with a clean conscience since “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3: 23). As Paul works through his argument that it is God’s grace alone that justifies us before God, he builds towards today’s reading and the ecstatic outburst of joy and freedom: “Abba! Father!” (Romans 8: 15) Nor is it just human beings who long for that freedom found in the cross of Christ, in Paul’s mind the whole of creation waits with eager longing to be set free (see Romans 8: 18 – 25). St Paul had an enormously bold understanding of the power of the Gospel – the whole of creation set free. And the key, which he held, and you and I hold, is the realization that once we acknowledge God’s love, shown so vividly and in such a costly manner in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, it becomes possible to hold the outrageous hope of God’s kingdom right here on earth.

It is the outrageous hope that Christians have that has changed the world. Think of the courage needed to say, in ancient days, that there was no difference between slave and free, Jew and Gentile, male and female. Think of the courage needed for people like John Newton and William Wilberforce to stand up and campaign against the powerful rich against slavery; think of people like Rosemary Russell, among the first women to be ordained in our New Zealand church, of Bishop Penny Jamieson, the world’s very first diocesan bishop – way south in Dunedin. It is that courage which continues to feed the hope of those boat people seeking a new life; those gay people who want their relationships recognized, their calling to be priests and bishops validated; those scientists who cry out for us to take notice of the consequences of global warming. Without this outrageous hope we might well be without the libraries, universities, and now internet, that have changed our lives for the good – inspiring new inventions, pushing the boundaries of research, coming up with medicines that make the scourges of past generations a thing of the past.

Lest we think that we are too insignificant to make a difference, let’s take a moment to look at the story of Jacob in Genesis and the words of Psalm 139. Jacob is a fugitive; his brother wants to kill him – for good reason. Entirely on his own in a hostile world, he falls asleep one night. In his dream God comes to him. “I am the Lord, the God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac.” (Genesis 28: 13) The Covenant, first made with Abraham, is renewed with Jacob. “The land on which you lie I will give to you and to your offspring; and your offspring shall be like the dust of the earth … and all the families of the earth shall be blessed in you and in your offspring.” What an amazing promise to a renegade and fugitive. It’s a promise that is repeated time and again as God’s Covenant is renewed, and frequently re-imagined, through history. Ruth, David, Amos, Mary – the names are familiar and well-known to Bible readers – each put their hope and trust in the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

And finally, a word about Psalm 139. It is described by someone as “an amazing statement of the power, certitude, and confidence that come from a God-centred life. The God who is inescapable becomes a profound source of strength and well-being.” (Texts for preaching. Brueggemann et al. Year A. pg 411) Far from trying to run away from God, the psalmist is aware that whatever she does, wherever he goes, God will always be at hand. It is this faith, this hope, this knowledge, that encourages us to live as God’s people – comfortable with the wheat and the weeds (and not always needing to distinguish which is which), secure in the knowledge that we can cry “Abba! Father!” and be heard, open to being a blessing to those around us; reveling in the knowledge that we too belong “gladly and irrevocably to the glorious ragbag of saints and fat-heads who make up the one, holy and universal church!” (Bishop Geoffrey Paul)