"Increase Our Faith!" – a realistic demand?

A Church Anniversary Sermon

Luke 17: 5-10

Some are saying the monks of Myanmar are no more. The saffron revolution is over. The dream of these peace-loving clerics was that they might act as a conciliatory go-between for the impoverished population and the brutal military junta that has reigned for over a decade.

Today monasteries are empty, international communications are severed and most of what we now hear comes from anecdotes told by the occasional refugee that stumbles out of the jungle on the Thai border.

See a report here

Why did these monks, in their thousands, believe they could make a difference? Was it faith? Many are now dead or disappeared. Did it work?

“Increase our faith!” the disciples said to Jesus.

On Feb. 12, 2005, Sr. Dorothy Stang walked along a dirt road deep in the heart of Brazil’s Amazon, on her way to meet a handful of poor farmers bearing up under harassment from illegal loggers and ranchers. She trudged along, until two hired assassins blocked her way. In response to their challenge, she produced maps and documents proving that the government had designated the land as a reserve for the landless poor.

“Do you have a weapon?” they asked.

Yes, she answered, showing them the Bible she carried for decades.

She opened it and began to read aloud: “Blessed are the poor in spirit. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for justice. Blessed are the peacemakers …” Then, she said, “God bless you, my sons.”

The two shot her six times and ran. Her body lay on the dirt road all day, nearby witnesses later said, because they were afraid they would be shot if they moved it. As it rained, her blood mixed with the dirt.

See full account and commentary here.

Was Dorothy Stang foolhardy? Was her faith fruitful? Did it make any difference to the poor that she served? Did it change her killers in any way?

“Increase our faith!” the disciples said to Jesus.

ONE year ago last Tuesday, a man entered a one-room Amish school in Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania, dismissed all but 10 girls, and fired at them execution-style, killing five before shooting himself.

Donald B. Kraybill, coauthor of the book, Amish Grace: How Forgiveness Transcended Tragedy writes:

Within hours, the Amish community forgave the killer and his family. News of the instant forgiveness stunned the outside world – almost as much as the incident itself did. Many pundits lauded the Amish, but others worried that hasty forgiveness was emotionally unhealthy.
In dozens of interviews with Amish people since the tragedy, I discovered that the Amish approach to forgiveness is indeed quick and unconventional – but also inspirational to the rest of us.
Members of the Amish community began offering words and hugs of forgiveness when the blood was barely dry on the schoolhouse floor. A grandmother laughed when I asked if the forgiveness was orchestrated. “You mean that some people actually thought we had a meeting to plan forgiveness?”
As the father of a slain daughter explained, “Our forgiveness was not our words, it was what we did.” Members of the community visited the gunman’s widow at her home with food and flowers and hugged members of his family. There were a few words, but it was primarily their hugs, gifts, and mere presence – acts of grace – that communicated Amish forgiveness. Of the 75 people at the killer’s burial, about half were Amish, including parents who had buried their own children a day or so before. Amish people also contributed to a fund for the shooter’s family.
For most people, a decision to forgive comes – if ever – at the end of a long emotional journey that may stretch over months if not years. The Amish invert the process. Their religious tradition predisposes them to forgive even before an injustice occurs.
Amish faith is grounded in the teachings of Jesus to love enemies, reject revenge, and leave vengeance in the hands of God. As a father who lost a daughter in the schoolhouse said, “Forgiveness means giving up the right to revenge.”
Unlike those who hire lawyers at every turn to protect their rights, the Amish yield to divine providence in the case of an unspeakable tragedy such as the one at Nickel Mines – believing that God’s long arm of justice removes that need for human retaliation.
In the Amish view, forgiveness is a religious duty. As a young Amish carpenter said, “It’s just standard forgiveness,” but he was wrong. Conventional Christian forgiveness posits a God who forgives sinners and urges them to forgive others – to pass the grace on to those who wrong them. The Amish refrain – “If we don’t forgive, we won’t be forgiven” – shows a different impetus. Their salvation hinges on their willingness to forgive, a powerful motivation to extend grace to others. They cite the Lord’s Prayer, and Jesus’ story about an unforgiving servant as their motivation. One bishop, pointing to verses following the Lord’s Prayer, said emphatically, “Forgiveness is the only thing that Jesus underscored in the Lord’s Prayer.”
“Forgiveness was a decided issue,” one bishop explained – decided, that is, by Amish history and practice over the centuries. When the religious ancestors of the Amish were torched at the stake for their faith in 16th-century Europe, many of them, echoing Jesus on the cross, prayed aloud that God would forgive their executioners.
Despite their front-loaded commitment, the Amish still find forgiveness to be a long emotional process. Though there were no expressions of outright rage or hopes that the gunman would burn in hell, the wanton slaughter of their children did bring deep pain, tears, and raw grief.
While forgiveness means not holding a grudge – “the acid of bitterness eats the container that holds it,” one farmer explained – the Amish are clear that it does not free the offender from punishment. Had the gunman survived, they would have wanted him locked up, not for revenge but to protect other children.
In mainstream society, retribution is a taken-for-granted right. Around the world, names of deities are often invoked to fuel cycles of revenge generation after generation.
In refreshing contrast, rather than using religion to bless and legitimize revenge, the Amish believe that God smiles on acts of grace that open doors for reconciliation.

Story received from here.

Is the Amish perspective realistic? Has their unusual and isolated lifestyle resulted in a Pollyanna response to deep tragedy? Or are they simply modelling the way of Jesus?

“Increase our faith!” the disciples said to Jesus.

Here we are again celebrating a church anniversary. 42 years of faith finding expression through our worship, witness and mission here. We have stories to tell. Perhaps not as extreme as those I’ve just relayed – nevertheless, we have our stories of faith that we have collected from our experiences together in this place.

In spite of all, and particularly when confronted with stories like those we have just heard, we find ourselves at times confronted with uncertainty and doubt.

We stand with those first leaders of Christ’s church making our plea – “Increase our faith!” the disciples said to Jesus.

If ever there was an icon for magnificent focused saintly faith during the 20th century, it was Mother Teresa. In surrendering her life to working and living among the poor and the dying of Calcutta, her name has been a household word for decades.

“What faith, what tenacity, what focus,” we whisper admiringly. “If only that kind of faith was possible in my circumstances.”

A recent biography (Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light) that makes heavy use of Mother Teresa’s 50 years of private correspondence with her confessors and spiritual directors reveals that Mother Teresa continuously hungered for this kind of faith that eluded her all her life.

Her correspondence reveals an agonising lack of the experience of the presence of Jesus and an excruciating darkness of the soul that convinced her of his absence.
(see Time magazine article )

Even to her later years, much of her dealings with her counsellors focus on this crisis of faith.

So what are we, in our humble strivings, to make of all this talk of faith, the faith that if we had just a small inkling, just a poppy-seed size amount of, we could make trees jump into lakes?

The monks of Myanmar tried it – they were stamped out.
Sr Dorothy Stang tried it – she was murdered.
The Amish community of Pennsylvania practice it and remain a curiosity, an oddity to be stared at by many but emulated by few.

What then can we expect from our plea, “Increase out faith?”

We can expect exactly what Jesus replied. Hear it in Nathan Nettleton’s dynamic translation.

Think about this: If you employed a full-time servant, you expect him to do what you pay him for, don’t you? If he comes in from a day working your land or shearing your sheep, you are not going to tell him to put his feet up while you run his bath and fix his dinner are you? Instead you will tell him to take his boots off, fix your supper, and wait on your table until your meal is over. After that, you’ll let him knock off and fix his own meal. You don’t pin a medal on him for just doing what he’s paid for, do you? So remember that it is the same with you. When you have done what is required of you, don’t go expecting anyone to put your name up in lights. Instead say, “We are nothing special; we were just doing our job,” and leave it at that. ©2001 Nathan Nettleton www.laughingbird.net

There’s our timely marching orders, folks, as we launch out in faith into our 43rd year in this place. Don’t squeeze yourself trying to get a few extra drops faith out for what we are meant to be doing or being here anway.
You are simply called to do the task that Jesus has called you to do – follow him – and don’t expect fanfare or reward.

That’s all the monks of Myanmar were doing – knowingly or not, they were treading the path of Jesus.

That’s all Sr Dorothy Stang did.

And it’s the path of obedience that the Amish of Pennsylvania follow.

And Mother Teresa? Her life speaks for itself.

And her biography reveals an even greater gift – an insight to the human and Jesus-like struggles of the most faithful in the Church’s long 2000 year old story.

In the 1950s, she drew great comfort from the advice of one of her spiritual directors, Fr Joseph Neuner,

When she turned to him with her “darkness,” he told her three things
– that there was no human remedy for it (thus alleviating her feeling of being responsible for what she was experiencing)
– that “feeling” Jesus is not the only proof of his being present
– and that the felt absence was in fact part of the “spiritual side” of her work or Jesus.

So Mr Teresa continued the work of the faithful servant in Jesus’ illustration to his disciples, saying in the end, “I am nothing special, I was just doing my job.”

Now here’s an idea. See if it works for you.

Try the word “focus” in place of the word “faith.”

“Lord, increase our focus”

“If you had focus as sharp as a needle, you could be the disciple I am calling you to be.”

Sunday Morning Harangue

Luke 16:19-31 The Rich Man & Lazarus

A green-thumb I am not, but my attention has been drawn to what will be familiar to some of you gardeners – leaf miners! A few clicks of the mouse button led me to discover that leaf miners are insect larvae that live within leaf tissue. They feed within the tissues of the leaves themselves forming tunnels that reveal their presence and activity.
Why this sudden and uncharacteristic interest in leaf miners?
It was this quote from Annie Dillard:

Our life is a faint tracing on the surface of mystery, like the idle, curved tunnels of

leaf miners on the face of a leaf. We must somehow take a wider view, look at the whole landscape, really see it, and describe what’s going on here.

This, I mused, is what Luke’s gospel is trying to tell us in its presentation of the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus.

It’s a fascinating story that raises a number of questions when we hear it for the first time.
Who is Lazarus? Why is he named and the rich man not? What was the rich man’s fault – after all he provided the means for Lazarus to survive by embracing his society’s “trickle-down” economy, did he not? Perhaps, like the leaf miner, the rich man was not able to lift his eyes to recognise or even relate to Lazarus. Yet he recognises him in the afterlife. But it’s too late – the horse has bolted. Then there is the rich man’s last ditch plea from Hades (which is not what is commonly understood as hell, by the way – it is the place of non-being, a shadowy space of non-existence in the Greek underworld) – send Lazarus back to warn my brothers.
Abraham replied,

‘They have Moses and the prophets; they should listen to them.’ 30He said, ‘No, father Abraham; but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent.’ 31He said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.’

I am pondering this morning whether the front door into this story is from the end rather than the beginning. ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.’

Annie Dillard challenges us to rise above the leaf miner like preoccupation with the faint tracings of our lives to take in a wider view in order to really see what is going on around us.
Most often, like the one who lives well behind closed gates, we are not aware of Lazarus eking out his existence at our door. Lazarus is aware of us, he knows that it is our gate where he has taken up his post. He knows where the crumbs upon which he subsists come from. But do we know Lazarus, are we even aware of him? This is what the parable asks.

Do we know the names of the five Zimbabwe orphans we sponsor? At least in the afterlife the rich man was able to call Lazarus by name.
Steve was spitting chips he could not be here this morning – this is his favourite parable – he suggests that this is one of those stories that carries the whole meaning of the gospel.
I invited him to send some thoughts. Here are some of them.
Lazarus, as a poor/destitute man is, I think in Luke, already part of the kingdom, remains in the kingdom in the afterlife. The rich man who is outside, despite being part of the ‘chosen’ (chosen in a religious sense but also in a social ‘sense’ ie rich, powerful) in life remains outside because he doesn’t do what is required according to Moses and the Prophets – i.e. justice, mercy, compassion.
There is a fair amount to be made I think of the status of the resurrection – put simply the resurrection (whatever that is – I think this ties in to Luke’s post-resurrection events, particularly the Emmaus story –recognising the stranger/hospitality etc seeing Jesus in others) is meaningless without the faith/works to back it up. For anyone who doesn’t follow the path of justice, compassion and mercy, there was no resurrection (of Jesus) and will be no resurrection of us.

Steve touches on the kernel of what the whole early Christian community struggled with. What are the implications of Jesus’ resurrection for how we live together and in the context of a society that promotes and lauds self-centredness?

Alan Culpepper, in his commentary on Luke’s gospel, also draws attention to the Emmaus connection. This story is at the end of the gospel section of Luke’s documentary, acting as a kind of bridge into Acts, the story of the first Christian communities seeking to live the resurrection life.

Here are two travelling companions reflecting on how their hearts were strangely warmed when the Scriptures were interpreted to them. They are walking on the road to Emmaus. A stranger joins them and begins to explain the law and the prophets. The two insist that the stranger share their table with them. Then, as they break bread together, they recognise the risen Jesus in the stranger.
Can it be so simple?
Imagine the rich man venturing down to his gate and striking up a conversation with Lazarus. Imagine he rich man reaching out his hand to Lazarus and raising him up. Imagine him leading him inside his villa. He takes Lazarus into a room where he fills a basin and bathes his sores. He takes a towel and gently dabs them dry. From his apothecary he takes some soothing ointment and applies them to his wounds. Then together they sit at table. The rich man invites Lazarus to break the bread – and then – at that very moment – the risen Lord is revealed!
In embracing the heart of the Law and the prophets the rich man renders himself accessible to resurrection insight!
This is what resurrection looks like in Luke. It is only when the heart that is attuned to the Law and the Prophets and the call to live the life of shalom that the resurrection takes on its full meaning and gives expression to its true purpose – the Kingdom of God at large in our midst!

This, Luke’s story suggests, is the only way to fill in the chasm that separates the kin of the rich from the kin of Lazarus.

Sarah Dylan points out that “whenever we create or maintain an unbridgeable chasm between people, we automatically are on the wrong side of it.”

So we engage with and throw ourselves at the task of preparing the way of the Lord by buiding bridges across human made chasms.

And in case you think this is overly radical and out of keeping with the message of the Bible and that the gospel supersedes the law and the prophets anyway, let’s hear again Paul’s advice to Timothy:
As for those who in the present age are rich, command them not to be haughty, or to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but rather on God who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment. They are to do good, to be rich in good works, generous, and ready to share, thus storing up for themselves the treasure of a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of the life that really is life.

Just when you thought you couldn’t take anymore…

… the army of heavy machinery that turns the overhead wire spaghetti jungle into clean neat underground power lobs on our doorstep. This is the driveway we share with the church right now. Meantime the broken fence rubble is being buried under rubble from several deep holes. Judging from what’s happening around the streets, it could be like this for several weeks. There’s plenty of rock to drill through!

An ill wind indeed

Cleaning up after the storm, I concluded the wheelbarrow could do with some air in its tyre. I flung it in the back of the station wagon and took it down to the service station. I attached the air tube and pressed the button – air flowing but no gauge reading – so I adjusted the fitting and pressed and held. BANG!!! One shredded tyre, a buckled wheel, and a profusely bleeding wound on my right hand (I’m practising writing with the sinister hand – opposite to the dextrous which is temporarily not dextrous). The stitches come out next week. So be careful when you check your wheelbarrow tyres!

When the big winds blow

I slept through the explosion. Lachlan heard it as my tool shed sailed past his bedroom window. Jenny heard enough to shake me awake. The wind was howling and the rain was drumming down, but first light revealed the dawn’s drama. The shed took out the corner post of the pergola which mercifully prevented it blowing down the street. Our front fence – brick pillars and lattice work had collapsed down into the street below. Next door’s boat and trailer were upside down on our verge and we both had gaping holes in our roofs.

Our day’s plans changed slightly as the State Emergency Services and ourselves filled sandbags and replaced tiles. Visitors were aplenty. Lachlan was in his element doing TV interviews with Seven, Nine, Ten and the WA Performing Arts (?!?). There were church folk, insurance assessors, stunned neighbours and a bloke who said he was a severe weather consultant from the Bureau of Meteorology.

I just wanted to get what was left of the contents of my shed sorted out. It strikes me that the thing that disturbed me most of all was the violation of my shed! It was just a poky little thing filled with tools, left over bits and pieces and an array of unfinished projects. Rummaging through the debris I found my bush saw that I thought I had lost three years ago and some contraptions that I had no idea or recollection of what they were for. It was a mini odyssey during a morning of chaos. I’m sure that given some time to reflect I will find some sort of a parable or deep and meaningful reflection in all this.

But right now I’m saying to myself, “Surely this ill wind could have found somewhere else to leash its five second fury!”

Where The Sea Takes Us

We first met the author of this book, Kim Huynh, when he was two years old. It was at the Canberra domestic air terminal and Kim’s family had just arrived from a refugee camp – tired, somewhat bewildered, but excited and ready to make a go of things. That’s a whole other story than what this book is about, yet one catches a hint of challenges that have been met and embraced over the years since.
Kim, now an associate lecturer in international politics at Australian National University, has carefully researched and documented his family’s story against the background of almost six decades of political upheaval that was Vietnam until the 1980s. In a winsome journalistic style, he has married familial affection, academic prowess, and cross-cultural reflection as he tells his family’s story.
I am struck with how Kim manages to articulate a comprehensive overview of modern history in South East Asia, including many resulting traumatic episodes for family members, with such grace and compassion and traces of laconic Aussie humour.

Kim’s deeply expressed respect for his family and country of origin’s narrative is reflected in the note on the cover announcing that all royalties from sales of the book are being donated to Médecins Sans Frontières Australia.

State of emergency ?!?

At long last, there is some acknowledgment from our elected leaders that remote aboriginal communities are in urgent need of support and help.

National debate rages over the form this is taking. At its worst it looks like a sledgehammer approach to communities that are already fragile and vulnerable. At its best it enacts a measure that is admittedly interventionist in preparation for longer term measures to assist sustainability, health, safety and security. Subtexts of political opportunism, hypocrisy in the wake of deafness to previous pleas and the shadows of paternalism abound.

So, in the light of my previous post’s reflection on Lee Camp’s offerings om “mere discipleship,” what role does Christ’s church have to play in all this. History gives us a mixed bag of inappropriate interventionism in aboriginal affairs and admirable service in the name of the Suffering Servant.

Some challenges of mere discipleship

<!–[if gte vml 1]> <![endif]–><!–[if !vml]–><!–[endif]–>We’ve been workshopping the first three chapters of Lee Camp’s Mere Discipleship (Baker, 2003).

 

In summary, Camp lays out in winsome fashion a very clear distinction between what some would call “institutional Christianity” and radical (ie grassroots) Christian faith. Cultural myopia makes it very difficult for many to see that there is a difference between the two. Camp addresses at length the effect in the 4th Century AD of the official legitimisation of Christian faith under Roman Emperor Constantine and poses some challenging issues.

 

Does the end justify the means? Much of Christian history says yes. Radical discipleship, in contrast, puts as much emphasis on the Way as the End. The Way is modelled by the One who did not coerce, but “emptied himself” in suffering service, calling on his followers to do the same. The End is that God’s love might be revealed and the world transformed. Mostly we at the workshop gave this a tick.

 

“What can we do about…?” This is probably the most vexatious issue raised by Camp, particularly for a social justice orientated mob like us. Most of us are oriented to fixing things through various institutional means – setting up structured programmes, working in sync with government bodies, lobbying members of parliament. Camp asserts that this approach may compromise our fundamental identity, particularly where it seems that we identify ourselves more with the nation-state than with the call to the reign of God as embodied in Jesus. So do we do nothing about welfare for refugees and the sorry plight of Australia’s aborigines?

Not quite, Camp seems to suggest. Shift your orientation. Let what you do emanate from your being a follower of Jesus, not because, in sync with the state, you can fix something as if you are in charge and in control.

I guess this can be illustrated by this church’s experience in assisting refugee resettlement over many years. Initially it occurred as a cooperative venture with the State. All went sweetly – we were on the same page. Several years ago, government policy changed to the degree that assistance by the churches was no longer required and refugee resettlement became much more institutionalised. We suddenly found ourselves at odds with government policies that reduced recognition of refugees as such and the assistance to which they were entitled. This sorted us out somewhat. Who would we continue to acknowledge in this matter, particularly as our contact with affected refugee families continued unabated? Would we listen to Caesar or the Suffering Servant? Suddenly our much activity called us back to the essence of our being. As we continued our assistance in the name of Christ, some of us found ourselves for the first time venturing into the arena of civil disobedience along with vilification from those who believed Christians should always toe the government line.

 

As I write, a fierce national debate is in full swing over the Prime Minister’s declared state of emergency in remote aboriginal communities. I’ll put down some thoughts about this in the next entry.

 

In the meantime, those who were at the workshop (or otherwise) might like to use the comment facility here to extend the discussion. Just press the “comments” link at the end of this post and write in your tuppence worth. Sign off as “Anonymous” if comment in the public arena causes you anxiety. This is a place where the world can hear your voice, so make good use of it!