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Christ Church St Laurence August 2017 Lections for the Eucharist Feast of St Laurence Tobit 4:5-11 Revere the Lord all your days, my son, and refuse to sin or to transgress his commandments. Live uprightly all the days of your life, and do not walk in the ways of wrongdoing; 6 for those who act in accordance with truth will prosper in all their activities. To all those who practice righteousness7 give alms from your possessions, and do not let your eye begrudge the gift when you make it. Do not turn your face away from anyone who is poor, and the face of God will not be turned away from you. 8 If you have many possessions, make your gift from them in proportion; if few, do not be afraid to give according to the little you have. 9 So you will be laying up a good treasure for yourself against the day of necessity. 10 For almsgiving delivers from death and keeps you from going into the Darkness. 11 Indeed, almsgiving, for all who practice it, is an excellent offering in the presence of the Most High.
Psalm 17:1-16 2 Corinthians 9:6-10 The point is this: the one who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and the one who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. 7 Each of you must give as you have made up your mind, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. 8 And God is able to provide you with every blessing in abundance, so that by always having enough of everything, you may share abundantly in every good work. 9 As it is written, ‘He scatters abroad, he gives to the poor; his righteousness endures for ever.’ 10 He who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your righteousness.
Matthew 6:19-24 19
‘Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal; 20 but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. 22
‘The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light; 23 but if your eye is unhealthy, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness! 24 ‘No one can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.
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Sermon May the words of my lips and the thoughts of all our hearts be now and always acceptable in your sight, O Lord our Rock and our Redeemer.
Thank you Fr Daniel for the invitation to preach at your Patronal Festival and the warm welcome you have given to me and my wife Elizabeth this weekend. It is a joy to worship our Lord with you and the people of CCSL this morning. When I was Archdeacon of the Upper Hunter the choir of CCSL visited St Alban’s Church Muswellbrook and we sang Evensong and Benediction, celebrating the 25th Anniversary of my ordination as a Priest. It is a joy to be with you all in their home church today. A Church dedicated to Christ and the Deacon Laurence martyred according to tradition on 10th August 258 is a fitting ecclesiastical anchor for a church known for its care for the poor, marginalised and needy. The early Church historian Eusebius tells us that by the year 250 the Christian Church provided meals and support for some 1,500 destitute people in Rome each day.1 It was far and away the largest provider of practical assistance to people in Rome. John Dickson of the Centre for Public Christianity in his book The Best Kept Secret of Christian Mission says that all around the Mediterranean churches were setting up food programs, hospitals and orphanages.2 Christians were known for their kindness and charity – far more than other people. Such practical love and compassion was a very significant contributor to the advancement of the Gospel and the message of salvation in Jesus Christ in the Roman Empire. In 257 Pope Sixtus II ordained St Laurence as a deacon, a position of great trust that included the care of the treasury of the Church and the distribution of alms to the poor. Just a year later in August 258 during a time of persecution, the Prefect of Rome demanded that Laurence surrender to the Emperor Valerian the treasures of the Church. Laurence sold the gold and silver, gave away the money and then brought to the Prefect, the poor, lame and blind and
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declared, “These are the treasures of the church!” Needless to say, his bold stand was not appreciated and he was martyred for his faith. Laurence knew the priorities of the Church and Christian people: the worship of God in Christ, the proclamation of the saving grace of God through Jesus, and works of mercy done in his Name. Our readings today make us make us look again at our priorities. Will our priorities be like Laurence’s? Where is our treasurer? Are our eyes healthy, gazing upon God’s love? Do we serve others with God’s grace and love? What will be of first importance to us? Tobit is told, “Do not turn your face away from anyone who is poor, and the face of God will not be turned away from you.” St Paul in Corinthians is passionate about his collection for the poor of Jerusalem. He spent years gathering this money. He could not turn his face away from the poor. Paul taught the young church in Greece to be generous like God, so that by their acts of love for their sisters and brothers in Jerusalem they leave room for God to be generous to them. These readings, in which we can see connections with the story of St Laurence, link into our Gospel reading about the generosity of our God and the way in which people who follow Jesus are called to reflect this generosity in their lives. In the consumerism of our country I find this call to complete discipleship very challenging, but Jesus does not let us off the hook, “No one can serve two masters”. You will find that I’ve given you all a bookmark. It’s now expected that wherever I go in our Diocese I prepare a bookmark summarising my sermon. “No one can serve two masters”. There are three sayings in this Gospel reading and they are making the same point. There is a challenge to sort out our priorities – are we living for now (this life) or are we living in God’s life (that life from above)? So Jesus talks about: Treasure on earth or in heaven; the eye healthy or dark;3 and then serving Mammon (or wealth) or living for Jesus as Saviour and Lord. Ultimately do we devote ourselves to serving ourselves: wealth, power and security or to seeking first God’s rule of love and mercy?
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When Jesus talked about “treasures in heaven” I don’t think he was saying, “Don’t worry about this life; get ready for the next one.” In the Bible “heaven” is God’s space and “earth” is our space. Heaven is where God rules in love (where God’s will is done as we say in the Lord’s Prayer); earth is the fallen, broken world where we live day-by-day (what C S Lewis called “enemy occupied territory”). Jesus was saying something like this, “If you learn to love and serve God now, in this broken and divided world, you will have treasure in the present and in the future.” This is the first Beatitude (if I can paraphrase), “How blessed are those who know their need of God – for those who open their lives to him, in them God will reign in love now and for ever; for love never ends.” This way of single-minded commitment to Christ is hard – even in the church. Earlier this week I was working alongside a woman who now works in the church but has spent a lot of time in the corporate world. She said to me, “In business I experienced rudeness, back-stabbing and unchristian behaviour but the amount of it I’ve experienced in the church has taken me by surprise. I’m disillusioned by the church.” I was hurt and saddened by her observation. We do try to serve both God and Mammon. Those of you who like me loved and devoured every volume of the Harry Potter series will know of Albus Dumbledore. He was the much-respected Headmaster of Hogwarts School. Dumbledore, as well as Headmaster, was a guide and mentor to Harry. He’s the only person who really seemed to understand the growing up experiences and conflicts of this young boy. Indeed, towards the end of the second book Dumbledore took Harry aside and in the course of a longer conversation wisely commented, “It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.”4 As the series unfolds we realise that this statement comes from deep within Dumbledore’s personal struggles, for there is another side to Albus Dumbledore – somewhat darker, mysterious and enigmatic. Yes, he fights against the dark powers and the tyranny of Voldemort but while he does this he is experiencing a deeper struggle with the temptations of possessions and power. Serving “Mammon” even for benevolent reasons, leads only lead to death and ruin. In poignant self-reflection Dumbledore
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understood that he, the most powerful wizard of his day, "Was not to be trusted with power." In the last book Harry finds the grave of Albus Dumbledore’s mother and sister, Kendra and Ariana. Written on it are the words, “Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.”5 Both Kendra and Ariana died violent and accidental deaths. His mother died as a result of a magical explosion Ariana could not control. That sent Ariana over the edge. Knowing that she killed her own mother traumatised Ariana completely. She needed the most basic need of all who are in pain: love. Sacrificial love. It was at this point that Albus Dumbledore, her brother, failed her. As a young wizard he was intent upon pursuing his ambitions for power – finding the Deathly Hallows for these would give him power, power he could use for good, but that ambition rendered him incapable of caring for his sister. His passion for power led him into conflict with another powerful wizard and in a three-way dual Ariana was killed. Dumbledore knew that his greed (though cloaked with good intentions) for the most powerful of earthly treasures, the Deathly Hallows, ultimately led to his sister's death. J K Rowling unfolds how his failure to devote himself first of all to the love of his sister helped Dumbledore to comprehend that "No one can serve two masters".6 The Harry Potter books revolve around the power of sacrificial love – selfgiving love. We are reminded time and again that Harry himself is alive because, when the evil wizard Voldemort attacked his parents, his mother, Lily, surrendered her life so that Harry could live. No wonder that when Harry finds his parents’ grave the inscription on it is, “The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death”. Because there was so much controversy around her books J K Rowling was sometimes asked what she thought about Christianity. To this she replied that she went to church more often than Christmas and Easter, but that if she answered that question people would work out how the Harry Potter series would end! The self-giving love of God is at the very heart of the Christian faith, and the Harry Potter series ends with Harry surrendering his life, because as he discovered, no one can serve two masters; and the only way to conquer evil is through sacrificial – self-giving love.7
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I cannot help but think that when Jesus said, “No one can serve two masters” there was some self-reflection going on in him. If he was to live his calling of self-giving love then he had to learn what it meant for him to be devoted to God. This human self-surrender of Jesus lies behind the temptations he experienced in the desert, and the desire to turn away from his calling in the Garden of Gethsemane. The writer to the Hebrews tells us that even though Jesus is the Son of God, yet he too learned to be obedient and that came through suffering. So to be a faithful companion of Jesus we are asked to follow the same pathway as our Lord and Saviour – putting the pathway of self-giving love first of all. When Jesus died on the cross, in a mystery beyond our comprehension, but with a truth that is undeniable, it was God’s offering of self-giving love that broke the power of evil. The only way that evil can be defeated is by the power of love. “God demonstrates his love for us,” writes St Paul, “in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8) In the New Testament we have no great theories of atonement such as have been constructed by theologians; instead we have a narrative. We have the account of how Jesus, “having loved his own who were in this broken and hostile world with all its glitter and temptations, loved them even to the end; and on the night that he was betrayed took a towel and basin of water and washed his disciples’ feet. It was with that same love, he broke bread and raised the cup of wine saying, “This is my body, this is my blood – given for you for the forgiveness of sins.” This is his act of obedient self-giving love. And when he says, “Take. Eat. Drink. Do this in remembrance of me,” he is saying to us as we hear his Word and receive the Sacrament, if you want to be my disciple you cannot serve two masters. He invites us to pray again and again, daily, hourly, moment by moment, “God be merciful to me a sinner,” for I know that God loves me, gave himself for me and calls me to follow in his way. This week we have been remembering the life and achievements of Betty Cuthbert. She was someone who served God before she served money, fame or power. From childhood she had a deep faith in God and in later years became a firm, believing Christian.
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One of her favourite verses was Isaiah 40:31, given to her by her grandmother just before she ran in Melbourne in 1956. "Those who trust in the Lord will find new strength. They will be strong like eagles soaring upward on wings; they will walk and run without getting tired." Betty said of herself, “God meant everything to me, as from a little girl I believed that God had given me the gift to run and I used it.” In 1969 she was diagnosed as having Multiple Sclerosis and became confined to a motorized wheelchair. Later a man posing as an evangelical Christian defrauded her of all her savings and possessions, but that simply deepened her resolved not to serve money but only God. The “Golden haired girl” of Australian athletics is an example to us of making the choice to serve the Lord and only to serve him. “If your eyes are healthy, “said Jesus, “your whole body will be full of light.” Betty Cuthbert will be remembered for the light she spread. But in conclusion, “What about us?” I speak to myself, I speak to all of us in this church. I live and work in a diocese that has been terribly damaged because the leaders – many good men and women – have tried to serve both Mammon – wealth, prestige, power – at the same time as serving our Lord. It does not work. It has damaged the Diocese of Bathurst irreparably. So I, as a bishop, am challenged, “Who am I serving?” Jesus says to us all with deep love and infinite compassion, “You cannot serve both God and money.” This is neither criticism nor indeed judgement. It is a statement of truth. And when we look at Jesus we see “love so amazing, so divine” that it “demands my soul, my life, my all.” No one can serve two masters – we cannot serve God and ourselves. If you take your bookmark I invite you silently to read and then join with me in that challenging prayer of St Ignatius of Loyola: Take, Lord, and receive all my liberty, my memory, my under-standing, and my entire will; all I have and call my own. You have given all to me. To you, Lord, I return it. Everything is yours; do with it what you will. Give me only your love and your grace, that is enough for me. Amen.
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And so to God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit be ascribed as is most justly due all might, majesty, dominion and power, now and for ever. Amen. The Rt Rev'd Ian Palmer Bishop of Bathurst Sunday 13th August 2017 Christ Church St Laurence Sydney Eusebius History of the Church 6.43.11 John Dickson The Best Kept Secret of the Christian Church chapter 6 3 Throughout this sermon I’ve understood that the “healthy eye” is the “generous eye” and the “dark” represents stinginess. I have been helped by Jan Joosten, Strasbourg, Aramaic or Hebrew behind the Greek Gospels? In this he argues that if Jesus spoke in Aramaic then the meaning would be that the unhealthy (dark) eye would be the “evil eye” is an almost magical sense, but if Jesus spoke in Hebrew the contrast would be between “generous” and “stingy or avaricious”. This interpretation is reflected in the translation into the Greek. I accessed the article on line. 4 J K Rowling The Chamber of Secrets 5 J K Rowling The Deathly Hallows p266 6 I was greatly helped in my thinking about the section above by the article by Dave Bruno Harry Potter 7 is Matthew 6 in Christianity Today written in August 2007 and accessed on line 7 This information comes in reports of a number of interviews given by J K Rowling documented in Grainger Finding God in Harry Potter (but I no longer have the book) 1 2