Does doctrine divide? I sometimes hear that these days. Indeed, I have even heard people say they do not believe in doctrine at all. That, if you think about it, is quite a contradiction in terms. For anything you believe in, or do not believe in, is itself a doctrine. Doctrine, after all, really just means teaching. So, if someone says they do not believe in doctrine, are they really saying they do not want teaching in our world? Are all viewpoints, from flat earthers to conspiracy theorists, really equal? I suspect that what people really mean is that they do not believe in dogma: understood as authoritatively claimed beliefs which are essentially simply imposed, and resistant to questioning, reason and experience. Modern law and science are not, in that sense, dogma, but they are forms of doctrine: guidelines or teaching which enable us to live, and, hopefully, grow together. The same can be said of doctrines of faith. Like law and science, they can be used to divide. However, if they are open to development, they can be vital as a means to enable us to live, and grow. This is core to our Gospel passage this morning (from Matthew 16.13-20), which both contains powerful and particular expressions of faith in Christ and also an abiding invitational question; ‘but who do you say I am?’ It is, I believe, in that creative doctrinal tension, that Christians best live and thrive…
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How do you feel about being called a dog - and/or not quite human, or sub-human, unnatural, intrinsically disordered, not biological, unclean, heathen, pagan, infidel, heretic, wild, rabid, crazy, illegal, alien, or one of the long, long, list of ethnic[1], gendered, and other slurs some continue to endure today? So many people know this only too well. If you have more than one type of marginalised human identities then you may face this even more intensely. Today’s Gospel story puts such ‘dogs’ firmly in the centre of life and faith, in the figure of the one named as a Canaanite woman. Note well: this is someone not even given a name. For denying people’s true names and authentic identities is a game as old as time, and it is still well and truly alive today. Every day, there are people treated like dogs who, at best, can only aspire to the crumbs which fall from the tables of the privileged. This story therefore is still our story as a human race, and the light it brings comes from speaking in crumbs… One of the particular spiritual sayings I often return to is from the Irish poet-priest John O’Donohue: ‘When you see God as an artist, everything changes.’ We are so used to hearing about God as a law-giver, an instructor, and/or a judge, that we can so easily miss this central truth of living faith. Of course, law and specific guidelines and moral codes can help us in our lives. Yet we have often so over-emphasised the will, and judgement, of God almost to the exclusion of the imagination and creativity of God. That is one reason to look at Van Gogh’s great painting of the Sower at Sunset alongside the parable of the Sower and the Seed in today’s Gospel. For we are helped by viewing the parable as art. Indeed, we might see Jesus’ life and teaching as so much more a great artwork than a set of rules, never mind a clear blueprint for living. Like a great artwork, the parables particularly invite us into fresh perspectives, and encourage us to become artists of our own lives, sharing in God’s imagination and creativity… The Bible is known to many as ‘The Good Book’, but is it actually a good book, morally speaking? In the USA this has become a political, as well as a theological, question. A Utah school district recently banned the Bible from its elementary and middle schools for what it named as ‘vulgarity and violence’.[1] This followed a parent’s complaint that the Bible has material unsuitable for children, after Utah’s Republican government had passed a law in 2022 banning ‘pornographic or indecent’ books from schools. This is not an isolated case. For recent conservative bans on books have been particularly aimed at education around LGBTIQA+ issues. Yet this can easily rebound, as it draws attention to the Bible’s moral ambiguities. Religious conservatives often assume the Scriptures to be unadulterated good news for all. Meanwhile some secularists tend to assume bad news. However, read as a whole, the Bible’s reality is that it rarely offers simple black and white morality. Rather it invites us to wrestle with its challenges, and inspirations. From this we can indeed grow in the faith, and power, of God to which the Scriptures witness. We do so however by deepening our sense of God working with and through our very human realities, not escaping from them. This is certainly true of Rebekah and Isaac, who are centre-stage in our Genesis story (in chapter 24) today… Sorry, as Elton John sang, does often seem to be the hardest word, doesn’t it? We know that personally. We know that as a nation and as a world. Other words can be hard too. Yes is one. Of course, No can also be hard. That is why there are so many moral injunctions. Whether we look at things personally, or corporately - say in terms of climate change - we human beings so often fail to say no to those things which do us and others harm. Yes can certainly be hard though. Saying yes to God’s life and grace can be tough, even when we know it sets us and others free. We are too often afraid: afraid to take the risk; afraid of the unknown; afraid of making a mistake; afraid of the consequences even when we know saying yes will be good for us and others. That is human nature, and human nature, and human will, alone, tends ultimately to fail us. Yet, by God’s grace, these simple but so hard words are possible… As I have lived most of my church life primarily in Anglican and ecumenical settings, I have to admit to some bemusement about the annual marking of the Uniting Church’s founding. I guess it is partly the equivalent of the patronal festivals in other mainstream Churches. However these typically centre on a particular saint, or an aspect of faith (such as the Holy Trinity), after which a particular congregation is named, not a particular Christian denomination. Denominationalism is, after all, a modern idea, and would be a horror to our Uniting Church Reformation forebears. Jean Calvin, for example, sought to reform the one universal Church of God, not to create an alternative. The great Methodist pioneer John Wesley also formed a vital and innovative new movement but never sought to leave the Church of England. That is pertinent in marking this anniversary. For it directs us back to the Uniting Church’s crucial ecumenical and ‘open future’ charisms. These are clear in The Basis of Union, the key Uniting Church founding document. As a body, we are only one very small part of the universal Church through time and space. Therefore, rather than being yet one more denomination, we are called to help pioneer new paths of faith and relationships. Our calling is always to be a Uniting Church, holding our structures lightly and open to new ways of being followers of Jesus with others. So how what might today’s story about Hagar say to us in that? For it is certainly a powerful challenge... Maybe what she wanted to do was punch Him (God) But she couldn’t So Sarah laughed Didn't Suzanne Terry put it well in her poem 'Sarah Laughed'? How many of us have wanted to punch God, or worse, for what has happened, or not happened, to ourselves and others? In Genesis chapter 18, Sarah laughs out of her deep experiences of sorrow, anger, and utter frustration, with God. After all she has experienced, as a childless migrant woman, in an ancient patriarchal culture where child-bearing was so important, how dare God turn up and now declare fresh hope. Why take so long to give this gift? Why put Sarah through such trials? We can easily identify. As elsewhere in the Bible, we are not presented with a simple moral or spiritual inspiration. Rather we encounter a very human struggle, with which we are invited to wrestle. Suzanne Terry’s poem is a product of this. For she was responding to a book entitled Those Who Wait: Finding God in Disappointment, Doubt and Delay. This, like other writings by Tanya Marlow, seeks to explore how we live with the realities of suffering… Last year SBS Insight told some of the diverse personal stories of faith, loss of faith, and changing faith, in contemporary Australia. One was of a young Croatian Australian woman who has committed her life to God through a faithful adherence to Islam, including covering her head and body in conservative traditional dress. In this she has found a profound sense of peace and flourishing. Some significant resistance has however come her way. She experiences some of the continuing Islamophobia within our society, and, in addition, strong extra kickback from some white Australians, not least fellow Croatians. For what, some would say, is a nice, white, western, and well educated, young woman doing taking up such a religious path? Is this not also, some would say, a betrayal of her family, and culture, too? After all, religiously speaking Croatians are almost exclusively Christian, and in particular Catholic. What on earth is this young woman doing? What is happening here? We might say something similar of the stories in our lectionary this morning, each of which involves a breaking with powerful expectations, and a profound response to needs of salvation which are simply not met by conventional culture or practice. Abraham, Sarah, Matthew, the synagogue official, and, not least, the hemorrhaging woman: each challenge us. They invite us to reflect upon what is bleeding in our own lives, hearts and souls, and invite us to reach our in faith ourselves. For what are our needs that require transformation? What salvation do we seek? What of God is calling to us?... The clergy of the Uniting Church of Australia are obliged to agree that they will baptise new members in ‘the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit’. It is one of really only a handful of non-negotiables. So, why? What does this mean? And what matters about this particular attempt at describing God?... What do sheep and shepherds mean to you? They are very much part of my story but I often struggle with them theologically in my context today. This photo is from Forest-in-Teesdale, near where I was born. Indeed, the farm in the centre is one I knew years ago, working with local farmers on pressing issues of rural stress and suicide, social and economic survival, and other faith and environmental issues. For sheep and good shepherding, literally and spiritually, is crucial to the Durham Dales. High on the roof of England, though we once had the greatest silver mine in the world, even subsistence mining of many important minerals is now near impossible. The great hunting lodges of bishops and kings have gone, disappearing with the remaining tree cover swept from the fells. Only occasional rich people’s grouse shooting really accompanies sheep today, together with the ambiguous harvest of tourists sampling one of England’s last wildernesses. Shepherds, particularly on the highest ground, therefore remain heroic figures to me: extraordinarily resilient, weathering so many vicissitudes; and, above all, deeply, intimately, connected to their/my land and its communities. No wonder Cuthbert, the greatest saint of the North, began life as a shepherd. Sheep, and good shepherding, are part of the lifeblood of my native people. What however of other peoples? In these lands now called Australia colonial society was notoriously built ‘on the sheep’s back’. Whilst that was lifeblood for some, for others it meant the blood of death and dispossession. For in the pioneering work of John Macarthur and others, the sheep was arguably a weapon of mass destruction, and shepherds key players in frontier warfare. So what kind of shepherd do we value today?... |
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sermons and reflections from Penny Jones & Josephine Inkpin, a same gender married Anglican clergy couple serving with the Uniting Church in Sydney Archives
April 2024
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