A Witness by Rev John Bunyan. Pitt Street Uniting Church Epiphany, 06-Jan-2013 Gospel: St Mark 2:1-12

Transcription

1 A Witness by Rev John Bunyan Pitt Street Uniting Church Epiphany, 06-Jan-2013 Gospel: St Mark 2:1-12 I am reading the Gospel (St Matthew ) from the Authorised Version because its language, poetic, beautiful, antique in character, today helps us to understand what kind of stories the Nativity narratives are. St Matthew Let the words of my lips and the music of our hearts be now and always acceptable in thy sight, O God, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen. My witness this morning and I like that description my witness is somewhat longer than usual so a warning- or perhaps an assurance that you can doze on a little longer. But I do regard it a privilege along with lots of other witnesses to speak from this lectern, by coincidence on the first Sunday of this year as on the first Sunday last year, this year the lovely festival of the Epiphany. The earliest Gospel that we have, S.Mark s, begins its account of Jesus with the story of his baptism at about the age of 30 by John in the river Jordan, and next Sunday this will be the main theme in many churches, an important one because it concerns the first main historical element in the biography of Jesus. But we can understand that people wondered what had happened before that. Later some made up fairy-tale kinds of stories of our Lord s childhood and youth, but earlier, the authors of S.Matthew and S.Luke wanted to convey what they came to believe about the birth of their Master, Jesus, and it was to their own Jewish scriptures that they looked to see what the prophets seemed to have foretold. Witness by Rev John Bunyan, 06-Jan 2013 Page 1 of 6

2 They found, for example, some words in the prophet Micah that seemed to say Jesus must have been born in Bethlehem. But then the question was, how did this Jesus of Nazareth, - in Galilee up in the north, come to be born down in the south in Judea in Bethlehem? Well, in S.Matthew s story, that is where his family originally lived, and later they flee to Egypt and then come north and settle for the first time in Nazareth of Galilee. S.Luke s story is different. In S.Luke the parents of Jesus live in Nazareth & the author gets them to Bethlehem for a census and then almost immediately they come back to Nazareth there is no time or room in S.Luke s story for any flight into Egypt. They are two different stories - in S.Luke there are shepherds abiding in the field, watching over their flock by night, but earlier in S.Matthew there are wise men who come from the east following a star and a part of this marvellous story in S.Matthew has been discovered, as it were, from such passages as that from Isaiah that we heard read today the reference to gold and incense being brought in tribute to Judea from the nations. In the western part of the Christian Church unlike the Eastern - this festival on January 6 th, the the Epiphany, came to be primarily associated with this story of the wise men, the magi. Almost literally a magical story, because the words magi and magician both go right back to an old Persian name for God, Ahura Mazda. Nothing to do with cars, but Google tells me Ahura meant light, and Mazda meant wisdom and hence, the God of light and wisdom. The Authorised Version wasn t so silly after all in speaking of wise men. Later, beyond the writing of the Gospels, this particular story developed further into a tale of kings, again because of words that Christians found in the Old Testament, for example, in Psalm 72, part of which was also read this morning, which speaks of the kings of Arabia and Saba bringing gifts, and of one unto whom gold of Arabia would be given. Indeed, because three gifts were mentioned, the wise men became thought of as three kings, eventually even given names, Caspar, Melchior, and Balthazar, and indeed given a burial place in the cathedral of Cologne and these developments of the story of course we can treasure The Witness by Rev John Bunyan, 06-Jan 2013 Page 2 of 6

3 Australian carol is another development, when the kings are replaced by three drovers though since they are described as blithe and gay that make that version somewhat suspect! But to try to rationalise the story and, for example, to try to find out whether there was a bright star or a conjunction of planets or a comet or whatever in the sky at the time, or to seek evidence for a massacre of children by King Herod is to miss the point of the story which, like S.Luke s, has depths of meaning that time doesn t allow one to explore this morning -, conveying not historical facts but spiritual truths, expressing above all in a Jewish way what came to be believed about Jesus. This is not a new insight. It is something accepted by most Biblical scholars, and indeed, 150 years ago, one of my great heroes, the missionary Bishop of Natal, John William Colenso, discussed these ideas in his sermons to crowded congregations in the little S.Peter s Cathedral in Pietermaritzburg. But to come back to my theme - as the American carol by Phillips Brooks puts it, the hopes - and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight. He is speaking of Bethlehem but these words are really true of our Lord Jesus the hopes and fears of all the years are met in him on Christmas night, and every night, and today and every today. The writer of this Gospel and his Church and the early Christian communities came to believe and trust that the best hopes of his people and then of all people, Jew and Gentile alike, were focused, were met, in Jesus, and also the answer to their fears, fear of oppression, fear of God s absence, fear of meaninglessness, fear of death. The answer to those fears is found in the child born of Mary and Joseph who grows up to become healer, and teacher, and friend, and saviour, and they believed, and I believe, one who was more truly all that, than any other prophet or any other son or daughter of God. The Magi, the wise men, come into the house there is no stable in this story come into the house and they see the child with Mary his mother. It is interesting how Mary comes and goes in Gospels, sometimes seemingly turned aside by her son, perhaps sometimes misunderstanding him, yet calling others to do what he tells them, there not only at his birth, but at Cana in the Witness by Rev John Bunyan, 06-Jan 2013 Page 3 of 6

4 Johannine story, and at the Cross, and at the gathering at Pentecost, and a great Methodist writer, J.Neville Ward, in a book about the mysteries of the rosary, Five for Sorrow, Ten for Joy, says, how much, how much, humanly speaking, Jesus must owed to his parents, to Mary and Joseph. So the magi come to see the child with his mother Mary, and they bow down and in that beautiful Authorised Version, worshipped him or more correctly translated, did him homage. As for the gifts, gold, and frankincense, and myrrh, both in sermons and songs, people have read all kinds of significance into these for me perhaps gold worthy of the King, our God, the nearness of whose kingdom Jesus came to proclaim, incense worthy of the God who Jesus said alone is good and who alone, Jesus said, we are to worship, the God who is revealed to us above all in this child, this man, this rabbi, this prisoner, this crucified one, the God who by the Spirit of Jesus is here with us and for us in the Holy Communion today. And myrrh, a gift worthy of a saviour who has died, not by God s intent or design, but at the hands of the chief priests, and the governor Pilate especially, that death the almost inevitable culmination of his utter commitment to his Father as he lived his life for his friends, and laid down his life for his friends. But what are the gifts, the treasures, that we can bring if we are wise enough men and women, not as owners but as stewards of all that for a time is entrusted to us? There is a children s hymn we used to sing, Wise men seeking Jesus, travelled from afar, guided on their journey, by a beauteous star. But if we desire him, he is close at hand, for our native country is our holy land. for our native country, our homes, our towns and suburbs, our countryside, and all the good, the good, inter-related, inter-dependent elements of our environment and biosphere - are - our holy land, where we too can pay homage to the Jewish prophet of God who ever calls us back to the service of his Father s kingdom and the reign of God s holy Spirit, offering our treasures in the cause not of the church as an end in itself but to help the church to serve that kingdom, that realm, and not least our Lord in the person of those who in the eyes of the world are often of least importance. Witness by Rev John Bunyan, 06-Jan 2013 Page 4 of 6

5 Some of them were mentioned, I noticed in the opening meditation given us today those without homes, those without work, too many of the elderly whom I see on my hospital rounds, sometimes in pain or perplexity, or left alone, too many little children, and people of some other tribe than our own, and those with disabilities and those caring for them, too often with insufficient support, and people in countries torn at present by war with suffering almost beyond our imagining. It is good men and women and societies of the Christian Church, though not only those others including such atheists as Fred Hollows also, but in general good men and women of the Christian Church who have especially done so much to help and still do so much to help, despite all that the aggressive atheists say. One of today s Epiphany hymns was written by Sydney s first bishop, Reginald Heber, Bishop of Calcutta, at a time when the Church of England here was part of the Indian Church, the Diocese of Calcutta. He wrote a wonderful, vivid journal of his travels throughout India, and his wife wrote an equally wonderful story of her husband s life after he died of heat stroke at a young age. Heber had his limitations he was a man of his age, but he was a great-hearted missionary and writers of hymns. I know it is fashionable now to decry everything about those imperial days, but it was Christians in India who sought to bring justice for women, justice for married women by seeking to end the practice of suttee, that had them burnt with their husbands when their husbands died, and, Christians also who fought against the murderous religion of the thuggish devotees of the goddess Kali, still worshipped really by terrorists today. And it was Christians in India who founded most of its hospitals just as, for example, it is the now tiny minority of Christians remaining in Gaza who maintain the Al Alhali Hospital of the Arab Episcopal Church. In my own part of Sydney there are those Christians who, with others, seek to help some of the disturbed young people, or some of the aboriginals about the town, or individuals with various addictions, and others who are at the bottom of the ladder for some other reason, or some of the young unmarried couples or single parents and their children whom I see on my bus who are really victims of our society s disorders, our society s worship of money and success, victims of those who have too great and it seems every growing economic or cultural power and influence. I thought of them when I watched last Friday that wonderful and moving film of Les Misérables. Witness by Rev John Bunyan, 06-Jan 2013 Page 5 of 6

6 I have lived long enough to see great advances especially in medical care and scientific knowledge, but also long enough to see I think a cultural decay, more shackles of various kinds placed upon people s minds and hearts. Some of the Church s agencies do help greatly although some Churches themselves sometimes seem to be too often comfortably cut off from all of that, too self-absorbed, too obsessed, too heavenly minded to be of any earthly use. This week I did come across an action by a church, a Uniting Church as it happens that indeed made me angry, to use the word earlier in the service which originally I had jibbed at, but I ve decided not to tell that rather awful story now of a Church s failure to get its priorities right. Heaven help the hindmost is an old saying, but no, it is we who must help the hindmost through us as individuals and as a church. Not by talk, not by preaching, not even only by praying unless we are infirm and that is almost the only ministry we have left, but, in this new year of grace, this new year of our Lord, perhaps just in some new, some new, small, tangible, simple, easily remembered, sacrificial way, large or small depending upon what God has given us. As we come to the Holy Communion, I hope we are saying, in effect, we want to be and we need to be, by God s grace, more deeply in Communion with the God upon whom we always must utterly depend, more honestly in communion with the Man of Galilee, more truly in communion more with one another, in nearer communion with whoever happens to stand by us in this church at communion time or beside us in the street when there is genuine need, genuine need I have to say that because my collar attracts a fair number of rogues and rascals, in communion indeed more wisely with the creation of which we are part, and doing that in and through and because of our Lord s offering of himself in his few short years of ministry, costly as that was in the end for him, offering ourselves, the gold, and myrrh, and incense of our lives, to him wherever we encounter him, sharing in one way or another in the angel s glad tidings of great joy that are for all people the good news of the kingdom of God that, in Jesus in deed, and above all in Jesus, has come down for us to earth from heaven. Amen. Witness by Rev John Bunyan, 06-Jan 2013 Page 6 of 6