Rev Don Reekie

New Age
New Challenges

Ad Lib:
The chapter of Matthew that we focus on today begins with Jesus and
his disciples in Jerusalem – the previous chapter has the driving money
changers from the Court of the Gentiles where the Other people could
pray. The neighbours given a place then treated as though they don’t
matter. But Jesus is furious. But this chapter 22 of parables and
discernments opens with a story of a wedding feast that is cruel. It
paints God as wrathful. The king sends troops to kill those who failed to
attend the feast. I am glad I can pick and choose a little. Well long ago
in Theological College I recall the writer of the book of Matthew writing
a hundred years later and aimed to bring in the Israelites and accepting
their concepts of purity and wrath. Anyway there are other texts more
helpful.
[As I am conscious of the All Black’s in Paris. I have just returned from
holiday in Niue. One Sunday in July 1969 I led worship in the village of
Avatele and every parishioner worshipping had and active – thus sized –
radio in their pocket ear piece in place. Through out the service the
landing module sent a clear beep to reassure the people at Cape
Canaveral.]
Probably the next 27 years will have the greatest change in a quarter
of century that has the earth has seen in human’s history.
Possibly half the worlds population displaced and seeking new land or
new lands with borders being defended against refugees as never
before. The ice caps gone or diminished. Animals, fish and birds
shifting from traditional homes to find new sources of support and feed
in unfamiliar places. AI being experimented with and attempts to control
it on the edge of human ingenuity. New government choices needed to
meet new employment factors and to end differentials of wealth and
poverty.
Tendencies of protectionism, with pressures for Trump and Putin and
Fascist leader, governments protecting borders and national privileges
rather than taking masses of refugees.
As work changes old measures of settling disputes will need to change
and working week shortened productivity improved.
Deuteronomy – last chapter. Moses dies. Burial place a secret. He is
not allowed to enter the promised land.
The Israelite’s gather to cross Jordan. They will establish “settlements”.
But there are people living in this land. How will they respond – give a
visitors visa – hand out work permits – reject the refugees – see the
newcomers as welcome labour – or fear a take over. And the Israelites
will they peacefully absorb or seek dominance. It is not an empty land.
I have been to Niue – after fifty years gap this last week. The population
drastically reduced. All villages functional – many empty houses. One
village – the smallest when I was there – surprises me – all the houses in
good condition and lived in. Why – only one small Niuean family still
living there, I’m told. But 50 TuValan’s. People whose island home was
one of the first to go under the rising seas. Twenty years settled there
and included and embraced in the community.
Will Niue be happily home to many each taking a village to their home.
New Zealand has also taken TuValan’s and also Tokelauan’s as well.
How many more island nations will we need to house.
Who will be our Joshua as we enter these new changes in our church
life with new challenges?
May be better to ask – since we are not quite with Moses yet ourselves
although we have said farewell to many of our number who faced
previous challenges alongside us – may be better to ask how can we
collectively be the new Joshua in this place – and say to each other “Kia
Kaha!”.
[We might wonder who. In and surrounding Gaza today consider’s what
it means to love God and neighbour and who is my neighbour – and
who do I not really have to consider in that calculation. How do people
live together by what Treaty, Agreement or Co Governance. Something
that allows peaceful solutions.]
In the first chapter of Thessalonians we pick up the theme of call to
new work, new purpose and new challenges. They are approached a
little differently – this time emphasising the importance of example.
Being good exemplars Paul say they copied him and his colleagues in
Thessalonians. Now countries and cities around the were imitating
them. They were the exemplars leading the way for others to follow.
Rev’d Gardner at the close of his Ministry lodging with my family when I
was 18. The Assembly in London he from the Lake District in the far
north. As we stood talking by the gate in the evening he said he
believed he had come to my house to call me to MInistry. I was
shocked and I thought deeply and after some months I thought God
was calling me to be a servant of Christian communities and serve the
needs of people in their daily living.
Each of you will have had a call or challenge to be a Christian and to be
in service. We will have had exemplars – people to follow and model
ourselves on. People or groups important in our story. For whom we
give thanks.
Paul and the early Christians, similarly to ancient Joshua, faced new
challenges. We too live in testing times. We meet them with the
resources we have and the vision and wisdom of advancing years. We
have shared in resources for a Christian Ministry of service and
community that will be a blessing into the future. As Paul said to the
Thessalonians: “. . calling to mind your – work of faith – labor of love
and endurance in hope of our Lord Jesus Christ, before our God and
Father.”
Then Matthew 22. So much effort put in to pulling Jesus down and
tripping him up – by Sadducees and Pharisees.
One “Cunning plan” after another. But they could not trap him. They
sent the young students first. No matter their ploy he answered directly
with integrity and was never caught by them.
No one seems to like paying tax – though it pays for the necessary and
the care of those who face hardship. When its a foreign power who
imposes the tax, and some of it will pay for its military to keep you in
line it is even more of a burden. The Israelites own tithes and temple
taxes had special coins of their own religion. Roman taxes in Roman
coinage. Temple taxes their own coins. In the previous chapter
remember he drove out the money changers from the Court of the
Gentiles.
Here questioned about taxes by Sadducee’s he asks whose image is
on the coin – Caesar’s “ and says “Then give to Caesar what is
Caesars.”
“The Pharisees had a lot more in common with Jesus theologically and
politically than did the Sadducees. So, why would they try to trap him
again? The Pharisees were the interpreters of the law, they had
positioned themselves as advocates for the people, but they had been
promoting practices such as the “purity laws” that were at odds with the
interests of many ordinary people. Jesus has been interpreting the Law,
similarly to the Pharisees, but he liked to interpret it with clarity, integrity
and commitment to needs of the people at the margins. This made him a
forceful voice and a threat to their authority and popularity. In this
instance, their question about the greatest commandment is seemingly
straightforward but it is far from one.
They have been presenting their emphasis on tradition and purity as an
expression of their love of God and their commitment to the greatest
commandment articulated in Deuteronomy 6:5. If they can get Jesus to
admit that the commandment to love God was, in fact, the greatest
commandment, they can claim that they have been right all along and
so silence Jesus. If he refuses to admit that it was the greatest
commandment, they can accuse him of sacrilege. He does declare this
commandment from Deuteronomy 5 as the greatest of Commandments.
Their hoped for triumph is short lived. For he immediately adds that
there are a pair of commands. You can’t have one without the other. The
second from Leviticus 19 is “Love Your neighbour as yourself”.
Their “purity” relationship with their God in all God’s holiness is the
vertical relationship. Like the vertical beam of his cross. But the
horizontal beam is the one stretching his arms out as thought to
embrace all his neighbours and his definition of who is his neighbour
exclude no one. It embraces all.
He speaks of love and he is giving only one definition: it is his own
person – his own actions – and his own loving.
So this forced the Greek language to grab a shadowy neglected word
amongst the several it had for love. Clarifying what it is to love other
people as “neighbours”.
“Agape” became the Jesus form of love – “selfless” yet strangely full of
self.
For your love must be how you love yourself. So if you do not value and
prize yourself? If you do not honour yourself giving your body care
treating yourself with respect and dignity? Then what worth will your
gifting love to your neighbour. Love through service to neighbour can
only be done the Jesus way.
Love to others just as if they – everyone – were Jesus. He spoke of that
too.