Homily for Pentecost Pentecost 11 - August 19, 2007
The Very Rev’d Michael J. Pitts
Christ Church Cathedral, Montreal
Isaiah 5:1-7
Hebrews 11:29-12:2
Luke 12:49-56It is not often that any of us who offer homilies from this pulpit, has the opportunity to preach on two successive Sundays. On the whole, I find that a good thing. It offers more time to think about and research the material for each homily. On the other hand, when the present situation does occur, it is useful to be able to amplify or modify what one said the previous week.
Last week I spoke of God’s loving, compassionate and nurturing reality. But that is not all that needs to be said. Let me go back again to Prof. Wallis’ sermon on angels. She drew our attention to the fact that almost every time in Scripture when and angel visits someone, the angels opening word’s are “don’t panic”, “do not be afraid”. We have, she said, domesticated angles, confused them with fairies who wave a magic wand and make everything wonderful, while clearly in scripture the presence of an angel is a terrifying experience.
Now the visit of an angel is almost an encounter with God. In fact, in some of the stories in Hebrew Scripture, it is not always clear whether the narrative is about an angel, or about God. So it is not surprising that what we have done to Angels we have also done to God. God, for so many Christians, is a kindly old gentleman in the sky, who, on receipt of our requests, makes life good for us and provides everything we want, be it health, wealth, the finding of a loving partner, or a parking spot just when we need it. Aside from the obvious anthropomorphism of such an understanding of God there is another deeper problem. Again and again the scriptures bear witness that an encounter with the holiness of God is a terrifying, life threatening experience. The response to meeting with God is to tremble and fall on the face to the ground. I am not speaking here of the cosmic evil of which Professor Wallis spoke. That is something quite other. I am speaking of the human encounter with the loving, compassionate and nurturing God, which is never the less a deeply disturbing experience. Even this we have tried to domesticate: the wrath of God has become the playful tossing of the odd thunderbolt by the old man in the sky, against some terrible sinner, who is, of course, always somebody else, never me.
Isaiah has an understanding of God more truly consonant with the whole Biblical image;
And now I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard. I will remove its hedge, and it shall be devoured; I will break down its wall, and it shall be trampled down. I will make it a waste; it shall not be pruned or hoed, and it shall be overgrown with briers and thorns; I will also command the clouds that they rain no rain upon it. For the vineyard of the LORD of hosts is the house of Israel, and the people of Judah are his pleasant planting; he expected justice, but saw bloodshed; righteousness, but heard a cry! 1
This is not a God who is annoyed at the silly peccadilloes of some naughty people. It is a God whose holiness expressed as justice has not been reflected by his people but rather denied by them. It is a God who is outraged at this denial.
So we should not be surprised by the image of Jesus presented by our Gospel reading this morning:
(Jesus said,) "I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! I have a baptism with which to be baptized, and what stress I am under until it is completed! Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division! From now on five in one household will be divided, three against two and two against three; they will be divided: father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law." 2
Is this gentle Jesus meek and mild? I don’t think so.
But again, I repeat, I am not trying to make an opposition between a nice God and a nasty God, between a nice Jesus and a nasty Jesus. I am speaking of a loving, compassionate and nurturing God, who, because, of our unlove, injustice and lack of compassion, is experienced by us as a terrifying wrathful presence.
It is our insistence on domesticating God, our failure to understand that an encounter with God is always an encounter with judgment, that leads to the frighteningly simplistic political/national theology of which we hear so much on this continent. God is on our side. God bless Canada, God bless America. God is with the troops as we invade another country. God inspires our politicians as we impose our brand of freedom and democracy on the other side of the world, while ignoring the poverty, deprivation, injustice, racism, sexism and multiple other prejudices of our own society.
At the heart of our Christian faith is Jesus, described by the writer of the letter to the Hebrews as:
The pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the sake of the joy that was set before him endured the cross…. 3
But the cross too has become domesticated. It is a piece of jewelry studded with precious stones, or a monument of wrought iron on a mountain, the symbol of the supposed Christianity of a society, and now illuminate by lasers and optic fibres.
For the Greek scriptures cross is the very symbol of judgment, of the meeting of the holy God with the unloving world, of the world’s rejection of the justice and compassion which should flow into the world from God’s holiness through God’s people. But the cross is also, for Christians, the symbol of God’s answer to the problem, forgiving love and the always present possibility of new beginnings.
How can we move to a more realistic assessment of the human situation, to a more profound understanding of God, to a deeper theology? I think the heart of our problem is our view of ourselves. We think of ourselves as basically nice people, who occasionally do mistaken, and very occasionally, really wrong things. But it is usually other people who do the really wrong things. And in this optimistic view, our wrongdoings are always individual wrongdoings. We neatly ignore the wrongdoings of collectivities, societies and nations. Even the seminal thinking of Freud and Jung, even the writing, art and music that has flowed from their insights, even the horrific history of Hitler and Hiroshima, 9/11 Afghanistan and Iraq has not shifted us from this naïve optimistic view of our own humanity. The words of the confession which roll off our lips as we prepare to celebrate the presence of God among us seem not to disturb our easy self acceptance and self love. So I think we need to focus on our self image. We need to realize that our humanity is broken, that in the depth of our being there is darkness and distortion, that even our best actions are compromised by our narcissistic faith in ourselves and our ignoring of the darkness within.
I believe that once we have realized our own darkness, then we can see the darkness of our society and our world from a deeper perspective. From there we can begin to understand why the encounter with God is one of trembling and judgment. And then finally we may understand why we need salvation, a new humanity, God’s compassion and love and a new beginning in our own lives and in the life of our world.
1. Isaiah 5:5-7
2. Luke 12:49-52
3. Hebrews 12:2