Sermon: God's Good Pleasure

 

At this time of year, of course, what we should like to hear is a paraphrase of that: Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you a holiday. And some of you might be enjoying just that, and others might be looking forward to it. I have particular reason to be looking forward, for my holiday starts next weekend, and then my colleagues - along with the Bishop - have kindly granted me three months study leave to write up some thoughts I have on the Transfiguration - the Feast we celebrated on Friday - and so I have until the beginning of December to enjoy God's good pleasure.

But who are we to be considering God's good pleasure just now? Here's a story that illustrates so much of the terror at the heart of the world community: an Israeli soldier's memory of military service in Hebron:

That morning, a fairly big group arrived ... from France. They were in a good mood, really having a great time, and I spent my entire shift of following this gang around trying to keep them from destroying the town. They just wandered around, picked up every stone they saw, and started throwing them in Arabs' windows, and overturning whatever they came across. There's no horror story here: they didn't catch some Arab and kill him or anything like that, but what bothered me is that maybe someone told them that there is a place in the world where the Jew can take all of his rage out on Arab people and simply do anything. Come to a Palestinian town, and do whatever he wants, and the soldiers will always be there to back him up. Because that was my job, to protect them and make sure that nothing happened to them.

Yitzhak Laor, The London Review of Books 26/14, 22 July 2004

It is that conflict that underlies the invasion of Iraq, and the terror that goes with it. And we do not know where it will end.

Or what about the testimony of the Director of Justice Africa, on the situation in the Sudan:

... the people of Darfur face destitution, hunger and infectious disease. Apocalyptic predictions of mass starvation were made after the 1984 drought - about one million dead, aid agencies said, if there wasn't food aid. The food didn't come, and many died - around 100,000 - but Darfur society didn't collapse because of the formidable survival skills of its people. They had reserves of food, they travelled huge distances in search of food, work or charity, and above all they gathered wild food from the bush. Today, food reserves and animals have been stolen, and what use is the ability to gather five different kinds of wild grasses, 11 varieties of berry, plus roots and leaves, if leaving a camp means risking rape, mutilation or death?

Alex de Waal, The London Review of Books 26.15, 5 August 2004

Or, a little nearer home Gregg Easterbrook in The Progress Paradox:

On the first day of the 21st century, President Bill Clinton declared that Western society had 'never before enjoyed, at once, so much prosperity combined with so much social progress.' This statement was not just politics; objectively, it is true. Nevertheless the citizens of the United States and the European Union, almost all of whom live better than almost all of the men and women of history, entertain considerable discontent. Far from feeling better about their lives, many are feeling worse. Throughout the United States and the European Union, incidence of clinical melancholy has been rising in eerie synchronisation with rising prosperity: adjusting for population growth, 'unipolar' depression, the condition in which a person simply always feels blue, is today ten times as prevalent as it was half a century ago.

op. cit., xvi.

Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.
If it is any consolation, the Gospel according to St Luke is no stranger to uncertainty, militarism, terror, sickness and injustice. The story we read in ch.12 is set up with someone in the crowd saying to Jesus, Teacher, tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me. Jesus's dismisses the request by saying, Friend, who set me to be a judge or arbitrator over you? and proceeding to warn the crowd to be on their guard against all kinds of greed; for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions. He then goes on to tell them a parable about the land of a rich man which produced abundant crops, who was planning to pull down his barns and build bigger ones, but found himself having to confront his own death in the middle of the night. Thus Jesus warns of the perils of not being what he calls rich towards God.

He urges them not to worry about mere possessions; and this text is at the heart of it: Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom. In other words, the conflicts, the uncertainties, the worries, the pressures are the very material out of which the theological realities of our life are to be constructed; and it is these very realities upon which we are called to base our decisions about living with our households and neighbours in the world.

How might that be so? I want to suggest to you that what might be required of us as Christian people, as Christian groups and as would-be Christian nations in this contemporary setting is a particular kind of investment, of working at becoming rich towards God - and it comes down largely to the matter of our praying - and just four aspects of that:

First we need some clear thinking. What is our situation? What treasure do we already claim as our own? Upon what treasure shall we set our hearts? Thinking.

Second, some serious hoping. Hope is not blind optimism, but an expectation that we shall see the purposes of God, in compassion, growth, redemption, forgiveness, being worked out as we look out for him. What might treasure in heaven mean? How shall we orientate our lives towards the kingdom of God? Hoping.

Third, some conscious offering. That is what any Eucharist is about: the offering of ourselves, along with our money, the bread and the wine and the rest of our lives, for him to do with as he will. Sell your possessions, and give alms, says Jesus. Give it away!

And also, we might even make an offering of our worry, our anxiety, our care! Do not be afraid, little flock, says Jesus; and I Peter suggests that we might cast all [our] care on him, for he cares for [us]. Here is an invitation to lay aside the worry by making an offering of it to God. Offering.

Fourth, some dedicated trusting. That is to say, living in such a way that expects God to meet us from the future - in our loved ones, in our neighbours, in our hated ones, in ourselves - in blessing and in loving. Trusting.

Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.

I have mentioned holidays and study leave - and the Transfiguration. After some uncertainty in the tradition, Bishop Cyril of Jerusalem decided in 348 AD that this event took place upon Mount Tabor, to the west of the southern end of the Sea of Galilee.

For Luke, the Transfiguration is explicitly an experience of prayer. Mark, upon which Luke's story is based, has a slightly different emphasis; but perhaps they may be brought together. Mark tells us that Jesus took with him Peter and James and John, and led them up a high mountain apart, by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, and his clothes became dazzling white, such as no fuller on earth could bleach them.

Some commentators complain that Mark makes no mention of Jesus's face - as Luke and Matthew do. But the reason for that is that the text assumes that the disciples don't see it. They only see his back, as he walks ahead of them. The story then goes on to say how they misunderstand the event, and Jesus says to them that they are to tell no-one until after the resurrection.

Now there are many themes and messages here - and it's going to take me till nearly Christmas to write them up. But one thing I think may be said: it is as we follow - it is in our ascent to God in Jesus Christ in prayer and in life - that his resurrected glory will be seen in us.

A liturgical text from the Eastern Orthodox Church exhorts us:

Come let us rejoice, mounting up from the earth to the highest contemplation of the virtues. Let us be transformed this day into a better state and direct our minds towards heavenly things, being shaped anew in piety according to the form of Christ. For in his mercy the Saviour of our souls has transfigured disfigured humanity and made them shine with light upon Mount Tabor.

Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.