Pitt Street Uniting Church, 26-Jan-2014 A Reflection by Rev Dr Margaret Mayman Is 9: 1-4; 1 Cor 1: 10-18; Matt 4: 12-23 Contemporary Reflection Towards a Just and Beloved Community: Called for a Purpose If the person preaching on Australia Day has to begin preparation for the reflection by googling Australia Day and researching it on Wikipedia, then perhaps said person is not really qualified to be preaching at all this Sunday. I have been resident in Australia for 59 days. I knew Australia Day marked the beginning of the process of colonisation. I did not know that date marked the arrival in Sydney Cove of the first fleet of British ships and the raising of the British flag here by Governor Arthur Philip in 1788. I did not know that The First Fleet consisted of 11 ships which left Great Britain on 13 May 1787 to found a prison colony. Or that the first fleet consisted of two Royal Navy vessels, three store ships and six convict transports, carrying more than 1,000 convicts, marines and seamen, and a vast quantity of stores. And that it took them 252 to sail here. In New Zealand, the status of Australia as a former prison colony is a bit of a joke. I had little idea about the awful conditions that prisoners suffered on the journey and on arrival. Though thanks to Australian folk singer Judy Small, I knew how trivial were the crimes of many of them through her song Mary Parker s lament. I also learned that some refer to this day as Invasion Day. Through attending a workshop on constitutional reform at the recent Uniting Church National Christian Youth Convention, I learned that the existence and history of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians is not recognised in the Australian constitution and that the constitution still allows laws to be made on the basis of race, including banning people from voting based on race. On this and on so many other matters related to Australia, I still have a lot to learn. And so I am simply not going to preach on what Australians should do or say about Australia Day. I join with many in giving thanks for this nations cultural and ethnic diversity and for its abundance of natural beauty. But today I am going to reflect on a historical figure, Rev Dr A Reflection by Rev Dr Margaret Mayman Page 1 of 6
Martin Luther King, Jr and on the bible passage from Matthew s gospel. These are things I know much more about. I will leave you to draw your own conclusions about the history of Australia Day and Australia s present blessings and challenges. Last Monday was the anniversary of the birthday of the Rev Dr Martin Luther King, Jr. He was 38 when he was assassinated. I remember hearing about the assassination while listening to transistor radio in bed on the night that he was killed. My provincial home town radio station in Timaru had request programme which I listened to as pre-teen. It was interrupted by the terrible news. I went downstairs and told my parents. April 4, 1968. 46 years ago this year. King taught the concept of a "beloved community," an inclusive vision of humankind striving together for peace and justice. King was a Baptist minister but his vision of the beloved community was for people of all faiths and no faith. It was a vision for all races and nations, a vision which is needed in our world now as it was fifty years ago. This morning we remember Dr King s story alongside a gospel reading that reminds us that there is a call to our lives, a vision that has been left for each of us. It is the same vision that King responded to, a just and beloved community. For Christians, it is a Jesus vision. Dr King stood in the line of disciples called by Jesus like Andrew, Simon Peter, James and John. The gospel narrative describes the beginning of Jesus public ministry. John s arrest inspired Jesus, first, to withdraw to Capernaum by the sea and, then, after a time of reflection, to proclaim the coming reign of God. In this narrative we learn about how dangerous it was for the Jews who were proclaiming change. John the Baptiser was been killed for his activities, and Jesus was afraid enough to relocate to Capernaum. At this point in the story, Jesus publicly gathers followers to preach an end to the current empire. He knows what is at stake, and he moves forward without being overly cautious. He calls for a turn-around, repentance. He calls for transformation, personal and societal. What will it take for us to drop what we are doing and follow on this path? For many people, the call to repent is one of the foundational phrases of the church. It s loaded and complicated, having been associated with the priestly story of sin and confession. A Reflection by Rev Dr Margaret Mayman Page 2 of 6
Yet surprisingly it is very infrequently heard on the lips of Jesus, and usually put there by the gospel storytellers. When Matthew has Jesus using it, it is not a call to any person in particular, but the context of a general invitation to others, such as those named in the reading: Peter, James, John and Andrew, to become wandering and homeless companions, cutting family ties, and relying on the support of local sympathisers. It s not talking about sin. It is a dangerous invitation that would also bring them in to relationship with the likes of Herod Antipas and the political powers of their world. And surprisingly, when it is not used as an invitation, it is most often directed towards the religious people of Jesus' day. Those who worried about other people's so-called sins, needed to repent - not the so-called sinners. The conversion experience of Paul was not to turn away from a life of so-called sin to living a life of everlasting moral purity. It was to stop persecuting others in the name of God and religion. So the call to repent is a call to live life in all its fullness. It is a call to be transformed. It is because Christians so often fail to hear this and fail to communicate this call to others, that the world hears the word repent and assumes we are saying: "Become religious like us..." When if anything it should be heard as the opposite of this: "Be accepting, and inclusive, of others..." Act justly. To repent is not to feel bad, but to think differently. To repent doesn't mean to grovel in self-hatred or pious sorrow. When you repent you turn around, change directions, choose a different path, or make a radical rupture. Repentance signals an abrupt end to life on autopilot or to business as usual. That's exactly what happened when Jesus called two sets of brothers. Jesus invited Simon Peter, Andrew, James and John to reorient their lives by following him because in his own person the commonwealth of God has arrived. Jesus both announced and embodied God's rule or reign on earth. There was an unmistakable element of cosmic fulfilment in his preaching, teaching, and healing: "The kairos has come. The reign of God is at A Reflection by Rev Dr Margaret Mayman Page 3 of 6
hand. Repent and believe the good news!" Like Martin Luther King Jr, he lived with a hope that was not merely optimism but embodiment of the new possibilities. The Greek word kairos signifies a critical juncture, a divine intervention, or a special moment, in contrast to chronos or everyday clock time. You plot chronos on your calendar, like a lunch at a Darling Harbour restaurant at 1:00 pm. With chronos you might procrastinate and it won t really matter. Kairos is different. Because kairos signifies a unique opportunity, it invites a radical response, an urgent choice, or a fundamental reorientation. Simon Peter, Andrew, James and John sensed God's kairos, and so they left everything at once to follow Jesus everything that was safe, predictable and familiar. Throughout the New Testament, peripheral outsiders who are marginalized by mainstream insiders connect with Jesus's urgent invitation the religiously suspect, the ethnic enemy, social outcasts, the economically poor, and the morally impure. Smug establishment people often reject the invitation, don't believe it, or choose not to hear. A wealthy businessman "went sadly away " when Jesus invited him to "Come, follow me" (Mark 10:22). Reconciliation is central to this Gospel. Paul describes the work of Christ as one of reconciliation between warring factions (in his day, Jews and Gentiles): For Christ is our peace, who has made the two one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility.... His purpose was to create one new humanity out of the two, thus making peace, and in his one body to reconcile both of them to God (Ephesians 2:14 16). In the reading we heard from 1 st Corinthians, Paul addresses the early church appealing that there be no divisions among the community, which is to be united in mind and purpose. Part of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s many-faceted genius was his recognition that chronos, mere clock time the passage of days, weeks, and years, no matter how long or short, no matter how trivial or important is no match for kairos, that opportune moment of God's presence. He knew that since racial reconciliation is part of the Gospel, the Gospel necessarily has political ramifications. His life and ministry, and the larger role of the black American church, have much to teach us. A Reflection by Rev Dr Margaret Mayman Page 4 of 6
Toward the end of the nineteenth century the black church quickly established itself as the dominant institutional force in black American life. King himself was a churchman, and there was never a time when he was not a pastor at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, then Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta. He once described himself as "the son of a Baptist preacher, the grandson of a Baptist preacher, and the great grandson of a Baptist preacher. The Church is my life and I have given my life to the Church. King understood that the power of the pulpit wielded a two-fold function: pastoral mediation to reconcile people to God and to one another; and prophetic exhortation to bring the Gospel to bear on one's contemporary culture. In King, the man and the moment met. He made a Christian decision on behalf of social, economic and political justice, and the world was changed. King constantly pointed out to those in the freedom movement that their refusal to respond in kind to the violence and terrorism of their opponents was increasing their own strength and unity. He reminded them and the world that their goal was not only the right to sit at the front of the bus or to vote, but to give birth to a new society based on more human values. In so doing, he empowered those on the front lines. But also he developed a strategy for transforming a struggle for rights into a struggle that advances the humanity of everyone in the society. A struggle that brings the beloved community closer to realization. This is what true revolutions are about. They are about redefining our relationships with one another, to the Earth and to the world; about creating a new society in the places and spaces left vacant by the disintegration of the old. True revolutions are about hope, not despair; about saying yes to life and no to war; about finding the courage to love and care for the peoples of the world as we love and care for our own families. King s revolutionary vision is about each of us becoming the change we want to see in the world. We tell the story of the call of the disciples this Sunday, not for historical interest but because we too are in a moment of kairos. We face challenges in a world where reconciliation, justice and inclusion are not on the agenda of the powerful. We face challenges in a country where war has been declared on a relatively small number of vulnerable people who seeks asylum here. We face challenges in a country where the effects of human initiated climate change are becoming obvious to anyone with eyes to see. A Reflection by Rev Dr Margaret Mayman Page 5 of 6
Who are we in this story, this Australia Day? Do we sense the threat and opportunity of Jesus call? What would it mean for us as the congregation of Pitt Street Uniting Church, to leave our settled lives and to take risks to really follow the Jesus way? How will we respond in 2014. Some Christians say we are called to belief; others would say to church membership; others would say we are called to serve. I think we are called to more, to what Dietrich Bonhoeffer called radical discipleship. We are called for a purpose. We are called to repentance which is transformation of our own hearts and of our nation and our world. We are called to the creation of just and beloved community. In Jesus name. A Reflection by Rev Dr Margaret Mayman Page 6 of 6