God for Everyone
A sermon for Trinity 1.
Meet Jeremiah.
Jeremiah comes from Jerusalem and he is a prophet. He was called as a prophet when he was a boy,
or at least a young man. As his calling,
Jeremiah speaks God’s word to the people of Israel, whether they want to hear
it or not. Mostly they don’t. That’s probably because mostly Jeremiah’s
message is one of doom and destruction.
He warns the people that they need to change their ways and return to
God’s ways, and if they don’t then God will bring destruction on
Jerusalem. Jeremiah is not popular. And today, Jeremiah is fed up. He knows that he is hated. He doesn’t particularly like speaking words
of destruction and doom. So today
Jeremiah is fed up, perhaps a little depressed – after all, speaking doom and
destruction at all times has to have some effect? This is the effect of his calling.
Jeremiah’s calling is causing him distress. If he were to go to a therapist, or a life
coach, or even one of his friends, he would be told to change his job. ‘Don’t do it if you can’t enjoy it’, they
would tell him. And that would sound
like good advice. But Jeremiah can’t
change his calling, perhaps because it is a calling. Perhaps he has tried. But he failed. It actually makes him more unhappy!
What is going on here?
Jeremiah’s dilemma can be seen in the lives of Christians and in Jesus’
teaching on the calling of a disciple.
What Jesus promises in this passage is being maligned by those in
authority, death, division, a cross and losing our lives. Not perhaps the most obvious advertisement
for being a Christian. Jesus’ teaching
in the Gospel reading this morning contradicts much that is often understood
about Christianity and being a Christian.
Christianity is sometimes thought of as a respectable way of life, and
in the Church of England (and dare I say especially in its Cathedrals),
respectability has been elevated to a position of great importance. And yet here we see Jesus telling his
disciples that people will malign them and when they do, the disciples are to
carry on regardless. Christianity is
often said to be a religion of peace, promoting reconciliation and eschewing
violence. And yet here we have Jesus
saying that he has not come to bring peace, but rather a sword. Family values is often seen as a vitally
important plank of Christian teaching; respect for parents, and love for
children being especially important. And
yet here Jesus speaks of dividing families, son against father, daughter
against mother. He even goes on to say
that his disciples must love him more than they love their parents or their
children. This is a difficult passage but a very important one. It is important because it tells us about the
nature of God, about the demands of God, and about the life of God. The nature of God, the demands of God, the
life of God.
We learn from our readings about the nature of God, and we
learn that God is the God of the whole world.
That is to say that God does not belong to anyone, not to the powerful,
not to the religious and not even to Christians. Joseph Heller’s book Catch 22 includes a scene in which the Colonel is shocked when the
chaplain suggests that the enlisted men should be included in a gathering for
prayer as they pray to the same God as the officers. But God does not belong to the officers, or
to the powerful. God is God for
everyone. Sometimes the Bible speaks of
God being a jealous God. Sometimes the
Bible speaks of God being one God. Both
of these are ways of saying that God is God for everyone, for the rich and the
poor, for the powerful and the weak, for those we know and those we don’t, for
those we like and those we don’t. God is
not our special property. God is God,
and we do not control God. That means
that God cannot be held within our own divisions and groups. God is God for the Church of England, but
also for the Church of Rome. God is God
for the British, but also for the Iraqis and the Syrians. God is God for those of us who gather here
this morning. But God is also God for
all those others who don’t. God is the
God of the whole world. God is not ours.
So we learn that the nature of God is that God is the God of
the whole world. And we learn that God
makes demands. The God of the whole
world makes demands on people, and they are demands that cut across everything
else. Jesus tells us that they cut
across the demands of family, and that can be a hard truth to grasp. Pope Francis was yesterday in Calabria, where
he condemned the mafia’s operations. The
mafia are family institutions, but ones where the demands of family are clearly
contrary to the demands of God. I don’t
think that Jesus is condemning family life, but he is saying that there are
more important things and that the demands of God can run contrary to family
life. As Jesus goes on, we learn that
there are times when the demands of God run contrary to the demands of staying
alive. That too is all too apparent in
our world. Think of Father Frans van der
Lugt, killed in Syria because he refused to treat Christian and Muslim
differently.
The God of the whole world makes demands on us that we
should live in his ways, ways that mean justice for the whole world and not
just for ourselves or our country or our party.
Ways that mean treating everyone as human and valuable. Not just those who look like us or who take
our side in conflict. The demands of God
follow from his nature as the God of the whole world – and they mean that we
will come into conflict with those who want to claim that God belongs to
them. But, remembering that God is their
God as well, Christians have died in witness to the God of the whole world and
in obedience to the demands of that God.
God is the God of the whole world, and he demands that we
live in the ways of the God of the whole world.
That can, warn Jesus and Jeremiah, lead to death. But in fact it leads to life. Those who hold onto life, and so give up on
the demands of the God of the whole world, will lose it, warns Jesus. They will not know the true meaning of life. Those who follow the demands of the God of
the whole world will truly live, even though they might die. Jeremiah is more of a poet, he puts it this
way: “O Lord, you have enticed me and I was enticed; you have overpowered me
and you have prevailed”. This is love
poetry. For Jeremiah, the God of the
whole world makes demands like the demands of a lover. It is not difficult to follow them, rather it
is more difficult not to. “If I say ‘I
will not mention him or speak any more in his name’, then within me there is a
fire shut up in my bones; I am weary with holding it in, and I cannot” says
Jeremiah. The God of the whole world
comes to us intimately, as a lover. To
know the God of the whole world, and to follow his demands is to fall in love,
it is to know true life. It is to truly
be ourselves, the people we were made to be.
This is something to proclaim from the housetops, something to tell in
the light.
God is the God of the whole world, he demands that we live
in his ways – the ways of the God of the whole world. He does so because this is where our true
love and true life will be found. That is the Good News found in these
difficult passages. But let me leave you
with a question to challenge you. What
is it that the God of the whole world demands of you today, this week, or for
the whole of your life? What is it that
will be like a fire in your bones, will entice you, overpower you and put you
in touch with true life? There is no
other question that can be as important.
Amen.
Given at Derby Cathedral. 22.6.14.
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