Sunday 23 October 2022

We’re coming to the ending of the Church Year, and with this comes what we call the apocalyptic readings with their dramatic pictures of endings and calamities. That word ‘apocalyptic’ has been somewhat distorted by dramatic films about the end of the world, but that’s not the word’s meaning in the scriptures. It does include the end times, but it doesn’t stop there. The theme underlying apocalyptic scripture is that of the reversal of privilege and oppression – a message that Jesus continually hammers out. But apocalyptic scripture doesn’t stop with doom and destruction; it also sings of restoration and renewal – of God’s new creation. Today’s reading from the prophet Joel fits into this latter category very well.

We know very little about Joel, or the historical context of his book. It clearly quotes from older texts, so it’s conventionally taken to be as late as the Persian period, but this is only speculative. The book begins by dealing with some profound historical or ‘natural’ crisis – some kind of tremendous onslaught on Israel that puts the community in deep crisis. Something plainly terrifying. Joel talks about an invading army of locusts rather than military might, and somehow this cranks up the terror. Science fiction horror films are given to using destructive monsters that come from nowhere, and they’re often of the insect persuasion. Or else they use mysterious diseases that sweep across continents, and have unseen causal agents. Like pandemics.  Israel knew about locusts, and the ravaged crops they left in their wake, with resulting starvation. For that matter we know about pandemics, and other natural disasters like droughts or tsunamis – or earthquakes. We can’t predict them and we can’t control them.

We do, of course, know rather more about the natural world than our ancestors. Sometimes we fool ourselves into thinking that we know it all – but of course, so did they in their time. It’s a very human reaction to want – and produce – explanations for anything that happens. Our ancestors blamed earthquakes on spiritual forces – gods, or God. We look to the geodesic scientists, who can tell us about tectonic plates and fault lines, but who still can’t predict earthquakes. We look to other scientists to tell us why floods are more frequent. Maybe in a hundred years or so, our descendants will pity our ignorance. Our understanding of our natural environment isn’t static. And I very much doubt if we will ever know everything there is to be known.

For that matter, our understanding of our faith isn’t static. Our ancestors know that they were reaching towards mystery when they engaged with God. We are in exactly the same place. We may have more knowledge of the movements of the earth – we know what an earthquake is – but we are still growing into an understanding of God’s relationship with God’s creation.   One of our learnings is that this does move in the realm of relationships. God doesn’t cause earthquakes, but God asks of us that when disaster, any disaster,  happens, we respond with love and compassion and generosity to those most badly affected, and that those of us who escaped lightly, are also called to build community and offer hope to others.

After the first big quake we had, I still remember one of the significant hopeful community gatherings.  There was a big band event in Hagley Park. The day before I had a call from the Dean of the Anglican Cathedral asking if I would be available to be part of an interfaith group that would be there at the start to bless the whole process and set it on its way.  The Dean said that the initiative for this invitation had come from the organizers of the event, which, in itself, makes a statement about what people of faith have to offer. It was quite an experience.  Even getting to the venue was a choreographed process. We were Moslems, Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs, Jews and Christians. We met in the Cathedral carpark to get our security passes for the stage area and permits for car parking, and made our way there to be on the spot by 10am for further instructions. The ‘artists’ area’ was extensive, and there were dozens of busy people with headphones and cell phones and clipboards and lists, and it was quite something to see the set-up from behind the scenes. I had no idea how much equipment there is under and around the stage! There was a purposeful atmosphere: busy professionals getting on with the job. The younger members of our party were joyfully collecting celebrities as artists came and went.

Because we were there an hour before blast off, that there was time for our diverse group to talk to each other and exchange experiences, and learn names, and even have some theological discussions before we lined up behind the kapahaka group and were marshalled onto the stage so that one member of each group could offer a prayer for Christchurch.

Two things stick in my mind about the prayers. Nobody talked of a calamity brought about by God’s action. And every speaker referred to the spirit of community and good will that was shown in the aftermath of the earthquake, and the need to go forward together.  The different faiths were seeing one vision. (I hope we are still aiming for that sort of unity.)

Thirty-three professional bands gave their time to the event. That’s amazing in a profession where fee for service is such an important issue. I was also heartened by the numbers of people pouring into the park, and so many family parties. One of my orchestra friends got very cross with an acquaintance who said, no way were they going to Hagley Park. What if there was a massive aftershock. Well, a great many of the rest of our citizens seemed to want to get together, no matter what. They were in a forward-looking mood. As is our reading from the Hebrew Scriptures. (And, by the way, I was talking to one of the Jewish representatives that day, and she said that God’s concern is with life, not death.) And then, after the Mosque murders we had another gathering in Hagley Park, when faith communities and secular communities came together again to support the Muslim community.

When we pick up the book of Joel, the prophet has moved on from the account of catastrophe to that of future vision. He speaks about ‘afterward’, an interpretation of the coming future in much larger scope than a straightforward historical event such as a return from exile.  It’s a visioning for the future that’s not rooted in visible circumstances but in the unfettered freedom of God’s creative spirit. Not only are the people restored, but the land itself is told not to fear; the pastures will become green. Before, the whole world was in disorder; now it is brought back into order.

Verses 28 and 29 are perhaps the most memorable in the Book of Joel. It’s an expression of hope for the reordering of the whole world. God’s Spirit will be poured out an all people. Sometimes we say, all would be immeasurably better if……if the crime rate went down; if the number of beneficiaries went down; if the gangs were disbanded; if the teenagers stopped drinking. If, if, if. Always talking about ‘the others’. But Joel says the answer isn’t transformation of selected groups. The vision of transformation is for everyone.

And, of course, our Gospel reading reminds us that words by themselves won’t cut it. The Pharisee was a paragon of all the virtues. In his own eyes, and in the eyes of his society, he was a good person and a religious person. He obeyed the commandments, he didn’t steal or covet, he wasn’t unjust or adulterous, he fasted even more than on the official fast days and he tithed. In fact, he’s just like the singer in Ps 17:

If you try my heart, if you visit me by night,

 if you test me, you will find no wickedness in me;

my mouth does not transgress.

As for what others do, by the word of your lips

I have avoided the ways of the violent.

My steps have held fast to your paths;

my feet have not slipped.

No wonder he was so confident, and no wonder he knew that he was so much above the tax collector. After all, tax collectors were collaborating with the occupying power.  Don’t think Inland Revenue here, think corrupt regimes. (Like some of our modern regimes. How do oligarchs get so much money?) Tax collectors in occupied Palestine were wealthy by definition. They paid the Empire a set amount for the privilege of extorting whatever they could squeeze from their neighbours in any way they liked, and anything above the official amount owed was their profit. Moreover, they were often foreigners. No wonder they were despised.

This tax collector, though, acknowledges God’s judgment, and throws himself on God’s mercy. He also prays with the help of a psalmist – this time Psalm 51:

Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love;

according to your abundant mercy, blot out my transgression.

On first reading, this doesn’t exactly seem like reason enough for Jesus to say the taxpayer is made just by God’s mercy, unlike the Pharisee. We’re not told what the tax collector did next. Was this a revelation? Did he turn his life around like Zacchaeus? Who knows.  It seems a little unfair. But if we dig deeper, we see that the Pharisee’s problem was not his religious observance or his piety, but his inability to see and to name his dependence on God. He was so busy keeping the rules that he forgot the reason for all that activity.

That can be a wake-up call us too. Those of us in denominations that emphasise good works and social justice – admirable in themselves but not the core reason for doing what we do can fall into the same trap. We have a hymn that has the line: ‘Faith without works is dead’, but we also have to turn that line on its head, and remember to call on the name of the Lord.

We can start small – we don’t have to have world-changing visions. These days we are forever anticipating the next disaster. In a sense, we’re becoming what one theologian calls prisoners of darkness. We need to turn towards hope in ourselves, and hope in our environment. If we stay in the dark, we’ll get hurt. We can’t deny the night. Darkness does come, but is it really so very bad that night turns to day and day to night? What if we put our energies into being reenchanted with the world God made rather than being continually disenchanted with it and with ourselves? And what if God is about to do something good, and we miss it because we’re too scared to look.

Jesus continually challenges us to avoid trusting in our own efforts at fulfilling God’s law and trust instead in the mercy of God. The Iona community in Scotland is good at articulating some of the joys and challenges of discipleship. There’s a song that sings ‘Hey’ for the carpenter (Jesus) leaving his tools. And it goes on to sing hey for the Pharisees leaving their rules, sing hey for the fishermen leaving their nets, and – take note – sing hey for the people who leave their regrets.  Followers leave their regrets. The tax collector’s humility doesn’t involve wallowing in self-loathing.

If we truly believe that God is merciful and loving – to all (and that means all of creation)- then we can stop relying on our achievements in our faith community or the communities around us. They’re important, but they’re not at the centre of our relationship with God. One of the taonga of our Protestant tradition is that concept of sola gratia – we are justified by God’s grace alone. We don’t earn it, and it’s no business of ours, ever, to enquire into the merits of anyone else, or make judgments about anyone else’s faith journey. That’s God’s business, not ours. So we can sing hey for God’s grace, and go on doing the best we can for God, and for God’s creation that we are part of.

So – never forget to take time to look around. See the unfolding of the new growth, and the restoration of the land, and honour the world God made.

Rev Dr Barbara Peddie