An urgency about the times and the challenges
Ordinary Sunday 21: 22nd August, 2004
Fr John Davis, Vicar of St Peter's, Eastern Hill
'Will only a few then be saved?' is a question of importance. It carries with it all the usual connotations of rescue from perhaps a life-threatening situation, along with implications for the very long term. The religious use of this expression – 'being saved', 'salvation' has to do with coming to grips with ideas of eternal life, as well as an abundance and richness of life now. For some people of faith it is not a question about the future. It is a matter of present reality: Are you saved? When were you saved? This is the sort of question you might find yourself being confronted with say at the corner of Collins and Swanston Streets. Some would care to date their salvation from when they accepted God in Jesus Christ as their Lord and Saviour. When they said yes to God. They can give you date time and place.
Mountaintop religious experiences are like that. You never forget. And of course, such experiences of the wonderful near presence of God or an overwhelming awareness of the love of God, a life-changing redirection – none of these are foreign to a catholic spirituality, though the words used will be different to those used at a revival meeting, or possibly at that corner of Collins and Swanston Street. But taking into account differences of dialect and tradition, we are actually talking about the same thing. Personality and life-circumstances and experiences will mean that there are going to be different ways for God to find us. Wherever and however that happens, is a most significant step in the spiritual journey.
Some of us for instance might prefer to leave the absolute certainty of our relationship with God to God, and would prefer to speak and live in the Christian community somewhat less spectacularly than their mountaintop colleagues; seeing the Christian life more in terms of steady faithfulness and service and discipleship. Trying to love God and neighbour as best we can, without the bells and whistles. That is no bad thing. But without question, Christians are all people called to hope and expectation.
In Holy Baptism, the entry point into the Christian community, whether as a little child or an adult, the language we use is full of this hope and assurance. Every baptised person is signed with the sign of the cross, to show, as the priest says, 'that you are marked as Christ's own for ever.' And then, 'God has brought you out of darkness into his marvellous light' and finally 'God has called you into his Church'. This is when God says yes to us and we and our sponsors say yes to God. It is a two way relationship that is started out upon here; an agreement, a loving understanding, a covenant and a promise, that of course needs to be taken up and confirmed, as our lives take their course. As we all well know, any relationship has to be worked on and never taken for granted or as simply given. This religious relationship is the same. We need to work at it and take it seriously.
And so far as the questions of the ultimate are concerned, the community of faith joins in the credal statements of belief and hope that flow from our baptism and which find expression in our living out the life of a disciple, a follower of Jesus. So we all join together to say in the Creed that 'we look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come'. Meanwhile, we acknowledge that salvation is also about living the life of what the gospel writers call the kingdom. Remember all those parables about what the kingdom of God is like: how precious, how special how much to be desired? Glimpses of that life and that gift are indeed a present reality. We can find them anywhere and everywhere. We can certainly find them here.
Having said all that, today's lessons would certainly not encourage an easy complacency. Luke 13 is a mixed bag. It starts with reference to a building accident, which caused sudden and random deaths. It introduces the element of the unpredictable; unplanned for events that change everything and leave no time for re-thinking. It includes the story of the healing of a woman who had been crippled for 18 years – but the Lord did it on the Sabbath and then out-argued the indignant religious leader who criticised him, much to the delight of the crowd. That introduces the concept that even those of high religious responsibility can get things wrong, or can be trying too hard to fence the workings of God around will regulations and rules of human devising. Then there are two parables of the kingdom: one of the mustard seed – so small growing into a big tree, and the other about the yeast, making all the difference to the flour and the bread that results. Surprising, unexpected growth and change, but in the normal and the everyday things of life. And finally there is the gospel reading we had today, where the host is inviting guests in through a narrow door to a great banquet that many are going to find themselves not attending. This would have been immediately understood to refer to the messianic banquet – one of those images of heaven or of eternal life as a great feast in the presence of God. Not a bad image.
The context of all this teaching in the gospel according to Luke is that the Lord is on his way to Jerusalem for the final confrontation – and as we would know, the final triumph that is Holy Week and Easter. But those who were listening to him then and challenging him, did not know that. There are many who were opposing him; there were many who were not convinced that what he had to say was of any importance to them. They were not on the way to salvation. They were a long way from God. They were a long way from life, in that religious sense. Perhaps indeed then, it will be only a few who will saved – not because that is God's intention, but because that is how what God is offering in Jesus Christ has been responded to. How then do we respond to the challenges that are all around us?
On Friday evening at St John's Camberwell a large crowd heard the Primate of our Church, Archbishop Carnley, speak on the future of the Church. The fact that so many came out on a cold August Friday night was testimony to the hunger that so many have, especially here in Melbourne, where it would be easy to become institutionally disheartened, if we had a mind to be. This was an audience that wanted to hear a message of hope, yes, but also one that was looking for honesty and a degree of frankness, along with scholarly reflection and a well-developed spiritual insight. There is that expectation that we still have of our bishops.
At that Friday meeting, there were detailed and specific answers to particular questions and problems, but there was also a broad-brush vision of a Church of the future that would be one, holy, catholic, apostolic and prophetic – that took us much further than mere denominationalism. There were issues that flowed from there, in areas of ecumenism, in the leading of a holy life, in inclusiveness across existing barriers, in connectedness to the faith and witness of the early Church and in strong engagement with the issues of the day in justice and peace, even if that brings criticism. One aside from the Primate was his observation that there is a sense in which the Church today and our experience of it and in it, was able to be likened, as it were, to the 'coming attractions' part of the cinema program; giving us a taste and looking ahead to a 'main feature,' that lies ahead of us.
There is much to be done. And there is a degree of Advent urgency about the times and the challenges. That stands alongside a message that is open to all and that invites a response. We are challenged again to consider our own response.
Then people will come from east and west, from north and south, and will eat in the kingdom of God. Indeed, some are last who will be first, and some are first who will be last. (Lk 13:29)
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