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SERMONS Sean Gilbert At Home in the Mystery of Christ Allow me to begin by saying how good it is to return to 2nd Newton and again be entrusted with the preaching. But you know, I’m still waiting for Richard to venture down our way so as to offer him the same privilege and to return some overdue hospitality. In fact, he might want to think in terms of a study tour of some description, and in our winter of course, so I can help further explain the finer points of Australian Rules football! I’ve asked Richard if I may read the Epistle immediately prior to my reflection because in many ways it represents the beginning and end of it. For in 12 short verses – some of them strange and difficult to comprehend – St. Paul uses the word ‘mystery’ four times, all in relation to what he describes as the revelation or unveiling of the gift that is Jesus Christ to the world; The Epiphany of Christ, by a more theological and liturgical name. And unlike some of his detractors who promoted mystery as a ready form of spiritual elitism and separation from most things human, Paul understands the Incarnation to give rise to a shared participation in God, squarely within the here and now. It wouldn’t be his language, I know, but he sees this as a truly humanizing experience that broadens, deepens and enlivens the human spirit; a mystery that surely invites us into its confidence and by virtue of such drawing beauty and trust, in turn opens the human heart toward greater compassion and joy for the living. Ephesians 3:1-12 Sixty years ago a white priest in Johannesburg doffed this hat to a black woman who was walking down the street with her nine year old son. Socially and politically – not to mention religiously at that time - it was unthinkable act. The white priest was Fr Trevor Huddleston and the small black boy was Desmond Tutu. Such an unsuspecting gesture made a decisive impact on Desmond Tutu’s life. Huddleston was, according to him, one of the chief architects behind the eventual overthrow of apartheid, his courage and grace enabling Tutu to write reflectively a number of years later, “You cannot love an abstraction.” You cannot love an abstraction. In other words, love and faith is ultimately about embodiment, an encountering and transformative presence, not simply a good intent, a pretty song or a well phrased theory. And for many of us, I sense, God can remain but an abstraction; something of a good ideal, a vague and distant notion, not a relational principal impinging upon the core of our being. Yet for St. Paul and the Christian tradition, in Jesus of Nazareth, the veiled is unveiled, the disembodied is embodied, and the Mystery of God, whilst never fully disclosing of itself, is nevertheless made humanly accessible. And again, not for the sake of increased knowledge or special favour, but for the sake of love and compassion; a growing, desiring love that as I have said, humanizes, thus ennobles our hearts and minds. So rather such mystical language further distancing us from what it means to be a Christian in 2007, it may well be that this pivotal experience Paul attests to, needs to be reconsidered; particularly by the Liberal Protestant tradition, that in my country at least, is at the cross roads so far as what its authentic Christian identity really is. We certainly don’t want to be numbered with the fundamentalists, nor with the overly conservative voices that now dominate the airwaves, but what shall we say about the hope and faith that resides in us? Is it purely a political, social or ethical agenda - Jesus being the ideal revolutionary or is it a much broader and deeper vision than that, one arising out of a yielding heart, and one born out of an encounter with incarnated Love; a love that continually renews and radically reorients our way of being in the world if we so allow it to? For it occurs to me that until we again grasp the nettle of this key confession and gladly live out of the mystery that is the Incarnation, our legacy and creative impact will be minimal. As Paul Tillich once suggested, unless transcendence and immanence (divinity and humanity) are brought together as an experiential whole, there is little hope for transformation; either on a personal or communal level. For we will merely profane or empty the gift of faith by resisting encounter with its Giver, and the Christian life but becomes more plays to perform, more obligations to fulfill, and an impossible ethical standard to live up to. The joy of faith is lost and the soul retreats into a hard crusted, self reliant shell. Friends, what we have then in the mystery of Christ and indeed in what we have before us in these symbols of bread and wine, is the promise and hope of participation; of being both affirmed and liberated in our humanity, so as to recognize and celebrate our divinity, and the divine origin of all things around us. To live out of such a self respect, a self hallowing even, that all peoples are to be equally hallowed in the faith experience that is God with us, God in us. So rather than Epiphany being a difficult word to try and understand – even pronounce at times – far better to embody it, to be that generous gift of Christ to the world; each one of us contributing in our own small but highly significant way. For in the end, I believe, only a truly spirited humanity can even begin to face and practically address the destructive and unjust realities that our world lives and breathes on a daily basis. A radically re-creative and compassionate spirit that is familiar with what it means to relinquish power and control, therefore with what it means to be shaped and formed in the empathic spirit that was surely Christ’s. I’m under no illusion that this is an easy faith path. Yielding to love is both demanding and costly. That is just the nature of it and no amount of window dressing or religious hyperbole can change that fact. But giving in to the all embracing love of Christ is also our way homeward; a coming alive to our own creative being and sense of vocation, so as to live a life not of abstraction and good intent, but a life of substance, a life of meaning – a life of incarnation - wherein the mystery and goodness of God is unveiled through us and in us, not necessarily in earth shattering ways, but in truly significant ways nonetheless. To echo Nelson Mandela, playing small can serve no one, and this hope of being in Christ is no small thing. For it broadens horizons, undermines prejudice, and repositions traditional enemies into potential friends and teachers of life. In short, we are not just talking about a personal piety or religious preference here. We are talking about a revolution within the human spirit, so needed in this age of self protection and self sufficiency; a revolution of the heart, which for the sake of love, tenaciously chooses to remain open and generously chooses to give of all that it is and can become. Thanks be to God. Amen
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