GOD'S WAY OF LOOKING AT PEOPLE

Dave Barry is an American writer and comedian, whose material makes me laugh... As well as the best ever travel guide I’ve read he also assembled “19 lessons that it took me 50 years to learn”. I won't give you the full list, but here are a few of my favourites:

2. If you had to identify, in one word, the reason why the human race has not achieved, and never will achieve, its full potential, that word would be "meetings."

3. There is a very fine line between "hobby" and "mental illness."

7. No matter what happens, somebody will find a way to take it too seriously.

12. The most powerful force in the universe is gossip.

14. You should never say anything to a woman that even remotely suggests that you think she's pregnant unless you can see an actual baby emerging from her at that moment.

18. (This is very important. Pay attention. It never fails.) A person who is nice to you, but rude to the waiter, is not a nice person.

Today’s gospel is all about what God thinks about us: and therefore logically, what we must think of others and how we must treat them: hence the quip about the waiter!

Do you ever wonder what God thinks about you? You may have a fairly clear idea what you think about yourself, but I wonder whether we ever really consider what God thinks about us?

Over the summer we’ve been encouraged to look at what life is like in the Kingdom of Heaven... and even if we’ve not been fully paying attention the thing that must strike us forcibly is the huge difference between the way the world does things and the way God does things.

For God the individual is of utmost importance. God doesn’t seem worried by the numbers game; God doesn’t seem worried by the social status game - God doesn’t even seem to be worried by the religious game... So in today’s gospel we see Jesus upsetting the good religious people, spending time with the despised and corrupt and we hear that heaven rejoices when one in a hundred discovers salvation. What a bizarre set of values... Or, just may be, it’s us who’ve got the bizarre values - rejoicing in numbers, valuing status and making our religion so strict that it excludes people.

Isn’t it interesting that it is Jesus preaching and teaching which draws the “sinners” and outcasts, that - presumably - the good religious people cannot reach... (Or perhaps aren’t trying to reach...) If we are preaching the same kind of gospel, if we are living the kingdom life, we should be finding that our churches are full of sinners and outcasts... the walking wounded, those who know their need of - and reliance on - God... well, look around you... what do you see?!

But it also means that OUR values should be the same bizarre ones that God has: we should be those who value the individual, who are not hung up on social status; rejoicing when people find wholeness and salvation. A person who is nice to you, but rude to the waiter, is not a nice person.

When Jesus describes God as a shepherd, out looking for his sheep, don’t forget that although there was some good and respectable OT pedigree to this image, shepherds were still outcast sinners in the time of Jesus... remember that they were the first on the scene in Luke’s telling of the Christmas story... They were looked down on because their job was unsocial - they couldn’t get to the temple or synagogue services, so they were ritually unclean.

There are lots of themes running through Luke’s telling of the Good News, and one of those themes is an ongoing argument between the religious authorities and Jesus about whether some people are outside the limits of God’s mercy. The Pharisees thought that God drew the line at some people - in such a way as to exclude them. Gentiles, obviously (non-Jews - like the Romans, or the Samaritans), and those who were unclean, because of the job they pursued, or the lifestyle, or their activities (such as soldiers, tax collectors, prostitutes, shepherds - but interestingly the Pharisees would still pay taxes and eat lamb...).

The message of Jesus was stark and radical in it’s inclusion: nobody was - or is - beyond the limit of God’s mercy. Profession, status, lifestyle - non of these things put you beyond God’s help. And neither does God wait until we improve before he reaches out to us. The God that Jesus shows us accepts us as we are: not waiting until we’re old enough, or clever enough, or moral enough, or sorted out enough. This God meets us here and now - he sits and eats with us.

Of course we do change as we allow God into our lives; we change as a response to allowing ourselves to be loved; and eventually that filters through to our behaviour. It may be that we no longer think it’s appropriate to be a prostitute, or to cheat, or lie as a matter of course... But note carefully the order of things: NOTHING can separate us from the love of God; we don’t change in order to become acceptable to God - any change comes as a result of allowing ourselves to be loved...

So the Pharisees were looking forward to joy in heaven over the destruction of sinners, rather than joy over their salvation... And Jesus turns the tables on the good religious people - they are so concerned with the holiness of God that they wish to protect God from any hint of nastiness or uncleanness.

The trouble is that this is where their ideas have taken over, rather than God’s. And God effectively becomes a frail old maiden aunt who can only drink Earl Grey tea out of a china cup and saucer and who mustn't be upset. We end up making God in our image - not the other way around. The religious become those who offer access to the frail aunt - provided you jump through the hoops they set up.

And remember that anything Jesus says to the religious authorities of his day he says to us today - we are today’s religious people! So does our faith and our religion exclude? Do we seek to have God on tap? How do we think of God? Do we fear upsetting the frail maiden aunt? Have we decided that some people are beyond God’s grace, love and mercy?

I think we often lose the radical and shocking nature of what Jesus was saying to his society... Imagine your preacher telling you stories where God is a drug user, or a child with disability, or a gay or lesbian person, or even a politician...

But here Luke’s Jesus gives us two unlikely images of God: God is a ritually unclean sinner in the first illustration, and God is a housewife in the second example! Again women were not at the top of the pile in the society of Jesus’ day: so the way Jesus spoke of God was wholly radical, and clearly connected with his audience’s experience

And what did he say about God? That God is merciful... slightly bonkers in his value system.. but he can be trusted not to be angry or punish us as we flounder around trying to find the light... God searches for us - he doesn’t just wait and watch us running round in ever decreasing circles: he is out walking the hillside; he is sweeping the house with a broom...

Nobody is unreachable, nobody is beyond his grace love and mercy, nobody is not made in God’s image... so everybody is precious - no matter what they’ve done, or who they are.

So if we are to be those who hear the message Jesus speaks and not be like the religious authorities of Jesus’ day, we need to be aware of what God thinks about us, and thus how we ought to think of one another - God’s values should be ours too.

There’s an old Celtic rune of hospitality: “Often, often, often Christ comes in the stranger’s guise”, and to that we can add the wisdom of Dave Barry: A person who is nice to you, but rude to the waiter, is not a nice person...

Fr Andrew Perry

Rector, St John the Evangelist, Pevensey Rd, St Leonards on Sea