Small protests to affect large changes

 Today there is a remarkable number of injustices being perpetrated upon the world and its people.  From racist comments to the incarceration of those looking for new homes. From ideological maniacs seeking their own power to those who have rights blocked by bigotry and hatred, with a misplaced and unshakeable understanding that will fracture at the slightest push. In Isaiah God seems to indicate to us that his presence alone will give us the plenitude we long for even in the midst of desolation (Is. 51.1-6). Sometimes we need to assist the changes that God will bring by making a small protest to change the bigger realities. In the midst of trial and labour brought about by the rulers of the day the Israelites managed to assist life by a small protest (Ex. 1.17-20). The world around them seemed to be falling apart for their people and yet by their simple act of defiance they allowed their people to have an opportunity at the start of a journey toward the realisation of becoming God's people. Their protest brought life not death and in doing so secured a new future for the world.

Our instinct is to protest against the injustices of the world, which is right and proper, but sometimes our instincts can lead us astray and we have to take care that we are not being led down the wrong path. However much good we think we are generating or however much we think God is leading, we can and are led astray. This seems to be counter everything that we might think is right. It is often the smallest protest that sparks the road to life and not the major undertakings of change that bring about Christ's freedom in our lives by initiating God's swift deliverance rather than shouldering the issues ourselves (Is 51:5).  The midwives, in the Exodus story, did a small thing, they delayed their coming to the scene of birth and as a result allowed new life into the world contrary to the law.  In allowing life into the world they allowed the seed of hope that was Moses to become a moment of grace and change later in life.  The major protests of the world have been sparked by a small change in someone's attitude, a small protest against and injustice which has slowly built, sometimes over generations. I wonder how many people actually thought that protesting against the issues in the Middle East or the violence and war in the Ukraine were dumb ideas at the time or get fed up with the protests of those wishing to see change in climate policy? Even thinking about the diocese's own issues and the protests over property sales will achieve a new prosperous diocese or an old aging behemoth.

Are you a midwife of life and faith or selfishness and despair?

(https://www.stemfellowship.org/the-history-of-medicine-childbirth/)

Peter confesses Christ (Matt. 16.13-20) but just shortly after this he is rebuked by Christ as in his enthusiasm he reaches out to over protect Christ. For him a seemingly small protest but one that goes awry. Peter's protest was not a protest for righteousness but a protest for self preservation. He protested for himself and for the concern for his future not for the concerns of those who suffered. In comparison the protest of the midwifes was for a community.  In our individual lives we need to be careful about what we are protesting. Our protest, even if it is a small one, needs to be a protest for the wider oppressed community and not for our personal survival in the world. We need to be honest in our reflection of God's justice in the world.  We need to remind ourselves that at the beginning of creation God made humanity in his own image; a humanity that strives towards the life that God has given to us. The signboard outside the Gosford Anglican church is used a a small sign of protest for many things. It names for us those things that we feel ashamed of because we do not say anything. The midwives also named something because the rest were not. Each of us are capable of stepping onto the faith journey and naming the things that are detrimental to life. The moment we do this we invigorate those who are suffering and bring hope into the world and we bring God's righteousness into being. We become the midwives of new birth and new life in faith. In reflecting on the midwives and on Isaiah's message we need to ask for ourselves: In our protest are we protesting for ourselves or for the oppressed and for God's justice?

Ma'en or amen

 It is not often that we are accepting of others within our midst. Unfortunately our innate wariness of things that are different prevent us from seeing the good in others. Often the attitudes of those around us in society are the attitudes that we portray to others. In the Gospel passage today even Christ appears to succumb to the attitudes of the day (Matt 15:23-26), most particularly the reference to "dogs" (Matt:15:26). Each community determines the boundaries that it is willing to accept within itself and those boundaries and prejudices are in built into the society in which we live. Generations of people have passed down their own understanding of who is in and who is out, which leads to our present day issues around the other who is different.

Matthew's Christ eventually comes to the inclusive understanding of community which we need to follow today. His thinking is not so much different from any in society and yet acknowledges that faith can be found outside the accepted boundaries that we the people have put in place. And yes it is we people. Irrespective of when, people have been responsible for the institution of our dogma and our own prejudices determine our reaction to those who are external to us. We can see this in recent movements such as Black lives matter and other movements throughout the world. Today the world is about a people who have been grafted one onto the other through the numerous interconnections that we all share. Paul was only concerned with those who were grafted on to a single root (Rom. 11:17), today we are considering multiple grafts on multiple roots. Our inter-connectedness in the world is greater now then it has ever been in the past.

Recognise the connection through the root stock that is God

Our predispositions to hatred and ostracisation need to be re-evaluated in light of our connections not only with other people but also with our environment. Joseph was sold into slavery and found a way forward but still held a dislike of his brothers which is played out in the story of his trickery and deception when they come to Egypt for relief. This is overcome not through his own immediate insight but rather as a result of his interaction with his brother, Judah. Like most of us Joseph needs proof of the brothers' credibility and honesty after his betrayal; can he trust these men who are his brothers? If he can then he can reveal himself and his connection to them and their family. Just prior to the passage that has been read today we hear Judah's impassioned speech, which for the midrash descriptions, is a re-description of himself which influences Joseph's understanding and thus eventual breakdown before the brothers. Joseph moves away from the need to seek proof towards an acceptance of who they are and their inter-connectedness with with each other. Prior to this he was unable to believe their words, not accepting (ma'en) as opposed to accepting (amen).

It is this moment of change that we need to achieve within us in our own interconnected world. It is an understanding that overcomes the awkwardness of our conditioned response to the other and an acceptance of our own inter-connectedness. We need to be able to say amen rather than our normal ma'en to those that surround us. Christ has a moment of denial before he too can admit the amen and need to establish God's community with those who are exterior to the community. It is only when we become one recognising that the divisions we uphold our of our own making, whether they are a result of selfishness or tribal preservation, are little more than tactics to preserve our individuality as opposed to our acceptance of God in the life of others. We do not have to control everything but rather we need to overcome our reluctance to accept God's presence even if we have no proof of God's presence. Our ideas of self have overcome our ideas of knowing even without grounds, so that we can say "Amen" to God in our lives. In doing so we overcome our reluctance to see beyond the graft and discover the root in others is their connectivity to God.

Imagining faith

  Reliance on our own understanding often leads to issues and challenges in our lives that are frequently beyond our ability to cope. In doing so we may interpret situations and form our own interpretive story that fits with our view. Through our interpretation we form an understanding of the world around us and its impact upon our lives. Joseph's story starts, for many sources, a long and convoluted interpretation not of Joseph but of Jacob and his whole family (Gen 37.1-ff). It is a story of the loss of connection with God leading to a re-imagining of familial and community connections over time. For those interpreting in this manner it is not a simple story of betrayal and remorse but one that sees the actors as caught within God's plot rather their own individual autonomous tale. In seeing this story from this perspective our own interpretive perspective is altered as we in turn look at the story of our lives and our community.

These interpretations point to our own lack of imagination when it comes to our faith and how we engage with our communities. We are in a similar boat to Jacob in that to a large extent we seem to have lost our connection to God as a community. Not just as a parish community but as a community in the much wider sense both nationally and internationally. Peter's attempt to walk on water demonstrates that failure of the imaginative process in our own faith journey (Matt. 14:28-29). Peter is called out of the boat onto the water by Christ but is almost immediately side tracked away from the impossibility by the mundane. There is a certain amount of imagination that is needed when we encompass our own faith journey. An imagination that suggests we can do anything beyond the normal that Christ / God calls us into overcoming the mundane that pulls us away from God.

Allow our faith to follow God's imagining

For most of us we are, like the brothers, unable to come to terms with the imaginative process so that we become caught up within the mundanity of our lives and concentrate solely on the ever increasing calls upon our time that is the world in which we live. Our response to the act of imagination that is the faith journey, is to hide it away in a hole or sell it of to become enslaved to situations that we are unable to comprehend or become involved in. The sleazy normality of the flux and flow of the ties that we have to the modern society prevents us from rising above the waves that overwhelm our lives. The very concept of retreating from the everyday into prayer or reflection or the imaginative process is abhorrent to modernity. The press of society around us is towards an evermore efficient lifestyle that is filled and, at the end of the day, exhausting of our life energy.

The retreat into the imagination to allow ourselves to take the step that enables our feet to walk upon the fluid surface of the water is an almost forgotten understanding. It s being retrieved into modern life by the more esoteric spiritual journeys of the Far East and alternative culture. The church appears to have lost itself within the fabric of modernity without realising that it has lost the imaginative process. This allows it to be divided by the self delusion that a reading of scripture is best interpreted by a literalist or someone embedded in a specific understanding and outlook. This dogmatic thinking is robust but static and does not allow for the breaking in of God's presence to lead us into the wonders that God's love brings to those who dedicate their lives in contemplation and reflection of that love. Our failure in our worship, in our lives and in our understanding of God's fluid and changing nature is re-lived in a lack of commitment to the belief that God can perform the imaginative miracle even while we shiver in the fear of overwhelming mundanity.

Lead from the front or from the rear

 I am not sure about you but when I make any major decision I struggle. I can spend a number of nights and days just coming to grips with the fact that a decision has to be made. In some respects I think we are all prone to this sort of struggle at least once in our lives. In a manner of speaking this is what is represented in the story of the night long wrestling match that results in the change of name from Jacob to Israel (Gen. 32:22-31). The decision from the various rabbinic sources is a decision with regards authenticity and authority rather than something more mundane. The change in name realises the change in Jacob's acceptance of who he is and his relationship to power and authority. This is not just a struggle that makes a decision but rather it is struggle that makes us change. In this understanding lies the challenge due to the fact that the result is a change to ourselves something that we fear that we will become injured and debilitated in the process.

Jacob sends his family and his household ahead of him across the river, like a good general he is leading from the rear by planning and trying to gauge the effects of his coming meeting with his brother. Also like any good leader he looks to rest from the distractions of leadership to have quiet time, like Christ (Matt. 14:13), to review the past and set up for the future. Yet, he is set upon and has to wrestle the night away. His wrestling is within himself, and is allegorically displayed by the "angel", perhaps Esau's guardian angel, as he struggles with his own doubts and fears of the life he is living and has lived. The decision to hold on to what has been or to move into a new life is a large one and is only made after we see the harm holding on does to us. The pain can become physically disabling not only for ourselves but also for the communities that we lead. Acceptance means that we begin to see ourselves in a new light and our ideas mature us towards the person that God wants us to be. In our own wrestling with our selves we begin to understand the needs of the people in the community around us. We place out needs behind us so that we can give to our community in such a manner that the gift becomes life giving. Where others may quail and step back we are able to step forward and find the solution that God has already prepared for us.

Leading from the front takes the pressure off but is a struggle

In many ways when we wrestle with our decisions we are wrestling with God as we are wrestling with a decision that will change our lives. If we are to grow in accordance with God's will then we struggle as our own thoughts and perceptions colour our decisions and deceive us away from what God would have us achieve. While we wrestle with God and our own way of doing things we will naturally change, even our names just as Jacob did. Even if we think we are not leaders or in positions of leadership we are indeed leaders as we portray God's way of love to the world and should be leading in this very thing. If we push people from behind, like Jacob, we will soon loose their interest and our own ability to lead them into new life. At some point we need to have courage to actually lead from the front with our convictions centred in God's presence. God inspired leadership takes us out of ourselves to see and lead with compassion from the front. The disciples come to Christ in a quandary about food even though Christ has been giving his all all day (Matt. 14:15). Instead of telling them to make the decision or moving of for quiet space, sympathy and compassion lead so that others may find comfort. In our own way we need to be able to do the same. We too often allow the attitude of Douglas Adams' SEP to come to the fore and not take the initiative. We often allow ourselves to make suggestions and let others do when often it is needful for us as Christ followers to lead our communities from the front. We then place God's love to the fore and become true disciples. This is where the struggle becomes part of our own being as we overcome and make things smoother for those behind.

Looking beyond the ephemeral

 We often overlook things in life especially when it is close to us. In finding out the excellence that has been hidden from us we quite often become total boors in our outlook much as the friends and family of Christ did when he preached in Nazareth (Matt. 13:53-58). Instead of praise we become jealous of that which has been hidden in plain sight but we have completely overlooked or assumed something that was different. This most often occurs within the family but is rife within our society and community. It can be seen in the way we react to difference and our assumptions as to what should and should not be present. The other side of the coin is as equally true in that those who are different often feel discouraged by the reception they receive from those who are assumed to know better. In this case the light is lost as a result of our own perception of unworthiness as we rely on the perceptions of others rather than on the perception of God's presence (Rom. 8:31-35).

In the love life of Jacob, we see how this playing out of perception actually works in the lives of people and because we are so often guided to see this story one way we miss the obvious undertones that are present (Gen. 29:15-28). We focus on the love of  Rachel and Jacob without paying much attention to Leah. Perhaps it is time for us to actually take a little more note of this hidden character because we have been taught to disregard this person, we know that she is there but she obviously has little bearing on the story as that is about how Jacob has been denied the love of his life Rachel. Do we really know any information other than the fact that she appears to be "dull eyed" (Gen. 29:17). How derogatory can we get? What does the story actually tell us of this person? Let us just imagine ourselves in her shoes for a few minutes. Here is a woman who has put aside any enmity she might feel for her beautiful sister despite being married to the same man. Here is a woman who actually bears the majority of Jacob's children and is obviously very much in love with him. We could almost say more so than Rachel as she does not appear to have any animosity towards her sister while the same cannot be said for Rachel's jealousy. Despite her looks she does more for Jacob then Rachel and is in some ways more honoured as in her death she is buried in the family plot while Rachel is buried on the road to Ephrath (Gen. 48.7).

Determining the value of anybody from what is seen is difficult without God's help

We are extremely quick when it comes to our relationships and how we see others. If things are not quite what we would like we are very quick to charge those that we do not get on with for bringing down the establishment. We often miss the jewels of God's love that works in all our hearts and minds because we judge only by what we think and not in prayer. Like Leah some people are just rough or rather have a demeanour about them that is problematic to our own way of thinking. They rub us up the wrong way because they either hold strong views as to the way things should be done or else they do things that we believe are wrong or disrespectful. The moment we set our eyes on others without seeing to the depths that God sees we lose sight of the gem that glows. This does not mean that every one is good, it just means we actually have to strive harder in love to see the good if it is obscured by our judgements. The merchant in the parable was able to see more than those around him to value the pearl. By selling everything he obtained the wisdom that the pearl represents. The question that this suggests is that can we see beyond our own prejudices and presumptions to see the pearls that are in those who we have rejected within the community in which we live? Just as Christ was rejected in his home town so we often reject those we have known within our own communities because we "know" them. The answer is that we do not truly know those in our own community until we have strived to be with them and walked beside them. We miss the pearls because "well everyone knows that (s)he is no good". Is that really the case or is it our imagination because we think or have been told it is the case? Are we able to put aside our past interactions and form a new relationship with those who are despised by others?

Immediate satisfaction or a long term solution?

 Christ tells us stories (Matt 13.24 ff) that come from an agricultural landscape that we are probably unfamiliar with in today's world of high tech and vicarious pleasure.  As with last week, it is story set in the seasonal growth of a agrarian growing period and not the fast paced www highways that extend around the world.  It is about looking towards a future that is down the long road and not immediate, it is about looking at our fast paced lives through the eyes of God.  The human agenda is strewn with details and minuscule events that in actuality turn out to be non-events in the bigger picture world that is the God story, the story of salvation.

We are sometimes pathetically upset by the long way round or we become fascinated by the view of time held by those who work the land.  We often fail to see the driving motivation resulting in an agitated state when the result is not immediate.  Not to be overwhelmed by traditional methods that take the slow way, we have moved this attitude of speed into our modern farming productive methods because we want to have immediate results.  A good example of this need for speed is found in the modern production of vinegar. Unfortunately, nature and God do not really work like that no matter how much we would like it to be.  Like God we need to start to look towards the future, it may not happen in this generation but if the seeds are correctly planted no matter what the vicissitudes of life there will be a harvest at the end.  We sometimes concern ourselves overly much, like the servants and the workers in the Matthew parable, with obtaining an immediate satisfactory perfection.  This can be applied to any situation within our spiritual as well as our mundane lives.  Yes, occasionally, there is a need to act with haste and immediacy but we need to remember that there is a consequence to every hasty action we take.

Can you tell the difference?  What is wheat in God's eyes and what is a tare?

The servants and stewards in the parable want to remove the weeds immediately but it is the sagacity of the owner who reminds them that in taking out one weed the probability of taking out good plants is high and therefore likely to reduce the final yield.  We want to focus on the irritants, we want to dive in and save the day with our programmes and our schemes.  Once again we forget that God is the one who is leading us along the path to redemption and salvation. We only have to look at our hasty actions of the past (reminding ourselves about the effectiveness of hindsight) when it comes to our goals in terms of the environment and our human sustainability.  We see the immediate benefits of something and jump in to utilise that for our benefit.  In this day and age it would have been thought that we would have learnt from the hastiness of the past and be more deliberate about how we take up new things.

Looking at our political decisions in recent years it is fairly obvious that greed is the motivating force behind many decisions and not the good of the world or for the long term benefit of humanity.  Even when we consider the benefits for a country we only consider the economic benefit in the short term not the long term.  We do the same thing within the church.  We look to solve the short term issue and not look at the long term issue.  Christ shows us God's view point in this parable, a viewpoint taken up by God in the vision that Jacob had on his journey (Gen. 28.10-19).  This is not a dream of the immediate goal but a dream of a long term vision.  A dream that takes Jacob into a blessed future but one that does not suggest that there will be no hardships.  In looking to the future whether politically, spiritually or in our everyday lives we need to hold to the dream not to overcoming the small irritants and details.  They have a way of working out but not the way we either expect or necessarily want in our own minds.  Yet, they will be what God wants.

Is the sower a professional?

 The old saying is that we reap what we sow in life. So what is it that you sow or have sown during your life? Looking back we often find that we have regrets somewhat like Esau, who sold his birthright (Gen 25.32-33), had later in life. Ours may not have been as great a foolishness but looking back it often rankles and hurts. Yet, sometimes what we perceive to be a disaster is what God is asking of us as he plants a seed to mature in the time to come. Retrospective looks back in time are said to be 100% and that is how we learn. Yet the ramifications from our regrets may actually be positive in the lives of others.

In the parable that Christ sets up in Matthew's gospel (13.1-), the sower does not appear to understand what it is that he is doing.  Seed appears to be scattered willy nilly all over the place.  Christ gives a very specific meaning to each type of ground the seed falls on, yet, I feel we are missing something if we take a simplistic view. Jewish midrash interprets the simple and finds some very interesting understandings as a result. They want to know the story behind what is written. Christ was a rabbi a known interpreter of scripture. Lets try thinking more laterally in this well known case.

The seed falls here and other times some falls there. Surely, one has to ask, when sowing for good yield shouldn't the sower be a little more deterministic when it comes to the scattering of the seed. If we want a good harvest we must direct the seed into good ground.  There is no point in scattering it around. I would have fired the sower, if it was my farm, I want a good yield not a bit of this and a bit of that (100% or nothing).  That is how we operate in today's world.  That is how any good farmer would want from his employer or himself if he was sowing the seed, care in deployment. No matter what we do, the expectation is that the out put of our work will be beneficial to the company for whom we work. I suspect in earlier times the same would also be the case especially with regards to the distribution of valuable seed. In looking at the church or the parish in terms of what we do, a recent trend has been to emphasise mission based programs.  We are told you have to do this, or you must do this or this is where you will achieve growth in the church, follow this evangelistic method / program / etc.

Let God direct the sowing of the seed not our own imaginations

God does not work with programs, God works with the world the way God wants the world to be.  God calls us into difference not sameness.  Each programme of evangelism that is promoted is looking for sameness not difference. God determines where the seed should fall, by placing all our seed into the one basket of programme evangelism we deny God access to the fruits of the seed.  Our evangelistic programme may well be scattering the seed on a well trodden path that does not allow for it to grow.  I suspect that more often than not, this is precisely what is happening; we continue to sow good seed onto the well trodden paths of human expectations only to find it trodden under foot.  It is only when we allow God to direct the sower of the seed that we begin to see the fruits of God's labour.  We talk of good and bad ground as if these were dualistic opposites.  Perhaps yesterday's poor ground will become today's good soil as God directs the seed and the growth.

Paul reckons us to live on the level of the Spirit not on the level of what has gone before (Rom 8.5-6) when we live in Christ.  Yet we tend to live in the world and ignore Christ except as a passing whisper or throw away line.  If something has achieved good results elsewhere then surely it will achieve remarkable results here in this place all it requires is the 'minister' to put in the energy.  Or if what has worked in the past should be re-iterated, again and again and again, then we will achieve the same results now as then. However, good soil soon becomes poor if we over produce again and again.  In undertaking these thoughts we also actually undermine God. We are second guessing where the seed that the farmer has granted to us through grace is to be planted by our knowledge not by the farmers understanding of the fields to be sown and then reaped. Only when we understand that it is by allowing God's hand in our work for God that we achieve the remarkable. It is not in following previous things or other programmes as these may not be what God is calling us to in the present. In living into the Spirit we live into Christ and we allow Christ's guiding light to be ever present in our hearts. We go where Christ wills not where we will.