Rev Pam Hynd's sermon for Pentecost 15
Rev Pam Hynd's sermon for 14th Sunday after Pentecost - Season of Creation
A woman whose back has been bent and stiff for eighteen years; A man whose heart has been bent and stiff for - who knows how long? Jesus came to bring freedom and healing to them both. But only one of them accepts.
Giving away money, power or platform to people who need them more is an investment in God’s Kingdom that changes our hearts and sets our attention more and more on that which we hope for but don’t yet see. And Jesus says we can do that without fear because it is God’s pleasure to give us the Kingdom. We don’t have to worry. We don’t have to exhaust ourselves trying to force God’s hand. God wants to do this for us and in us.
When we look at what others have and we say, “That’s not fair”, is it because they have something we want? Or is it because we have something they need? And what do we do about that?
Do you remember those Colgate adds where Mrs Marsh breaks a piece of chalk that has been sitting in ink and a child says, “It does get in”? I guarantee that anyone who is my age or older and who was living in Australia at the time can remember it! It is the same with the Lords Prayer. It does get in. The repetition rewires our brains and us changes us from the inside out.
If you have read or watched Handmaid’s Tale, where Biblical names and imagery are used by an evil theocratic regime to repress and control women, you will remember that the regime gave the name Martha to the women used by the regime as their tools to keep other women in line. The author, Margaret Atwood, knows her Bible and was thinking of this passage from Luke, which is often understood to be about one woman telling another woman to get back in her box - to conform to the gender roles her society has forced on them both, and stop inserting herself into the “male” role of disciple to Rabbi Jesus. I have taken this approach at times when preaching on this scene, but is that really what this story is about? Or is it all it’s about?
We are shocked when people like Elon Musk claim that empathy is the fundamental weakness of Western Civilisation – echoing his hero, the twentieth century novelist Ayn Rand. We are shocked because we don’t want to live in the sort of world Musk and Rand want to build. We want to live in a Good Samaritan world – a world in which every human being believes we have a responsibility to offer assistance to every other human being, whether or not they look like us, think like us, worship like us, or love like us.
“Come to the edge," he said. "We can't, we're afraid!" they responded. "Come to the edge," he said. "We can't, We will fall!" they responded. "Come to the edge," he said. And so they came. And he pushed them. And they flew.” - Apollinaire