RCL Proper 17C
28 July 2013
Saint Faith’s Anglican Church
Vancouver BC
During
the last fifteen years our church has been racked with conflict over the place
of gay and lesbian Christians in the life of the church. This conflict has divided friends, families
and congregations. It has led to
scriptural duels in which opponents fling Scripture at each other much in the
same way that the warring wizards and witches of Harry Potter’s world fling
curses and hexes at each other. Most of
the casualties have not been among the warring wizards and witches but among
those who have been on the sidelines.
One
of the scriptural passages that has been frequently invoked in this conflict
begins with are chapters 18 and 19 of Genesis where the destruction of Sodom and
Gomorrah is both debated and accomplished.
The great debate is over what the ‘sin’ of the cities is. For some this sin is sexual immorality with
an implication that this immorality is a homosexual one. But what is a more compelling explanation is
found in the word God uses to describe the reason for divine intervention: ‘How great is the outcry against Sodom and
Gomorrah and how very grave their sin!’ (Genesis 18.20). The word ‘outcry’ is a term used elsewhere in
the Hebrew Bible to the cry of victims of injustice and oppression (see Exodus
3.7 and Isaiah 5.7). [1] It suggests that the sin of the twin cities
is one of social and economic injustice, a very different kettle of fish, and
one which permeates our own societies. [2]
But
our debates about sexuality may have clouded our eyes to what is an even more
important teaching embedded in today’s reading from Genesis 18. This teaching emerges out of Abraham’s
bargaining with God over the fate of the two cities.
Notice that
Abraham’s demand is not that the guilty be punished and the innocent spared,
but rather that the Lord forgive [the entire city] for the sake of the innocent
. . . who are in it. [3]
What Abraham is pleading for God to
consider is that those who are righteous, who are faithful to God, even if they
are a tiny minority, shield the unrighteous, the violent, the unjust from God’s
justified anger and destructive power. [4]
Later
Jewish theological and spiritual reflection will develop this idea into the
notion that the world as we know it is shielded from destruction by the
existence of thirty-six righteous persons.
So long as there are these Tzadikim Nistarim, the ‘hidden righteous’,
God preserves this world, even if we were to fall into total barbarism. While this may seem at first to be a strange
teaching, it has at its core the belief in God’s compassion for all that God
has made and the unconquerable hope that God’s purposes for this creation will
be accomplished.
So,
what has this to do with us, Anglican Christians living in the second decade of
the twenty-first century? It is a
reminder that prayer matters. Prayer
shapes the one who prays in ways that we cannot imagine and forges us into
tools that God uses to renew the world in which we live. To be righteous is to seek to be faithful to
God at all times and in all places; to be righteous is to be a living sign of
God’s compassion and a source of hope for others.
It
is this kind of righteousness that Jesus seeks to establish among his disciples
when he teaches them how to pray.
‘Father,
hallowed be your name’: I once read a
foolish essay that suggested that God’s name is ‘Father’. When Jesus calls God ‘Father’, he is inviting
us to share in an intimate relationship with the one who created us. Even though the universe we inhabit is
immense, we dare to claim that the One who created all that is can be known and
experienced as personally as we know any other friend or family member.
‘Your
kingdom come’: In one brief phrase we
express our belief that God is sovereign and that God’s purposes will be
achieved. We are surrounded by real and
imagined authorities who sometimes act as if they are sovereign. While they have power over us, they cannot
claim our ultimate allegiance. This is a
radical political statement that we often make without contemplating the full
implication of it.
‘Give
us each day our daily bread’: With
another brief phrase we undermine all our illusions of self-sufficiency. All that we have is first and foremost a gift. Our every breathing moment is gift; every
morsel of food we eat is gift; every possession we have is ultimately gift.
‘Forgive
us our sins for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us’: There is no more difficult petition in
Christian worship. If there is one thing
that I know about myself, it is how hard it is for me to forgive. Yet, when I recite this prayer, I hold myself
hostage to bitterness and narrowness, so long as I am unable to forgive others. I tell you truly; I know too many people who
are burdened with wrongs that they cannot set aside and with wounds they keep
open.
‘Do
not bring us to the time of trial’: This
is a difficult petition and much ink has been used in trying to explain
it. I have found some guidance in a form
of the Lord’s Prayer that reads, ‘save us in
the time of trial’. We have faced, are
facing and will face temptations to turn away from following the way of
Christ. What we need is God’s wisdom
when we come to these moments and courage to act as Christians even when it is
not convenient to do so.
To
seek to live as one of God’s righteous ones is not about arrogance or pride or religious tribalism. Righteousness is found in
doing justice, fostering reconciliation, loving steadfastly and serving all of
humanity and all of creation with humility.
Each time the Lord’s Prayer is recited, we hear anew petitions that help
us understand the shape of genuine righteousness. We are reminded that the world is upheld not
by many but by a few 'oaks of righteousness' who are known to God and on whose behalf God continues to
work for the renewal of this fragile earth, our island home.
May
the number of God’s ‘hidden ones’ increase and may we be found among them. Amen.
1 comment:
I'm amazed daily at the things we are introduced to by different views of the bible. I had never thought of the word "outcry" in this story as being how you describe. The definition given is indeed a new kettle of fish. Thank you, Geoffrey.
Post a Comment