NEW BANKING PHILOSOPHY

TERRIBLE JOKE DU JOUR

An old country preacher who had a teenage son, and it was getting time the boy should give some thought along the line of choosing a profession. Like many young men, then and now, the boy didn't really know what he wanted to do- and he didn't seem overly concerned about it.

One day, while the boy was away at school, his father decided to try an experiment. He went into the boy's room and placed on his study table a Bible, a silver coin, and a bottle of whiskey... "Now then," the old preacher said to himself, "I'll just hide behind the door here, and when my son comes home from school this afternoon, I'll see which of these three objects he picks up. If he picks up the Bible, he's going to be a preacher like me, and what a blessing that would be! If he picks up the coin, he's going to be a businessman, and that would be OK. too. But if he picks up the bottle, he's going to be a drunkard and Lord, what a shame that would be."

The old man was anxious as he waited, and soon he heard his son's footsteps as he came in the house whistling and headed back to his room.

He deposited his books on the bed, as a matter of routine, and as he turned
around to leave the room he spotted the objects on the table. With a curious set in his eye, he walked over to inspect them.

He picked up the Bible and placed it under his arm.

He picked up the silver coin and dropped it into his pocket.

He uncorked the bottle and took a big drink...

"Lord have mercy," the old man whispered, "He's gonna be a politician!"

The gospel reading this morning has been called the Manifesto of the Kingdom - what Jesus is proclaiming is the nature, the calling, and the activity of the Kingdom of God. It’s very different to the political agendas we may be used to, and looks towards a very different society.

SO WHY TODAY?

But why is this passage set for us in Epiphany? Epiphany is when we think about the manifestation of the Christ. God stepped into our world in the incarnation - that’s what we celebrate at Christmas. And as part of the Christmas season we start asking questions about what that manifestation meant then and means now for us. So far we’ve pondered:

the visit of the Magi - how foreigners paying homage to the Christ child shows the Nations responding to Jesus, and underlines the universal inclusion of God’s love;

Jesus getting left behind in the temple - how he was in his Father’s house about his Father’s will, about how the teachers and his Mother realising the importance of this child;

the water made wine - how Christ completes the Old Covenant, the Law, the being made right with God, how Jesus fulfils the system of knowing God

So having pondered WHO Jesus is, today we’re invited to ponder on WHAT JESUS HAS COME TO DO. Today, as the last bit of Epiphany and the showing forth of who Jesus is, we come to the REASON for Jesus’ coming - the scope of his mission and the will of God.

AN AVERAGE SABBATH AT NAZARETH...

Jesus is at home, as he often was, he’s in church, as he often was, he’s asked to read, as he often was, and then asked to speak, as he often was. So far so good.

He reads from the prophet Isaiah - actually what Luke presents is an artistically woven combination of verses from Isaiah because for Luke this is about fulfilment and promise. The text speaks of how one on whom the Spirit of the Lord rests will be commissioned or set aside to preach good news to the poor; freedom to those imprisoned; to restore sight to those blinded; release for the oppressed and to talk about God’s Jubilee - which was about forgiving and cancelling debts.

So far so good. No doubt some moist eyes and wistful sighs amongst the congregation.

...UNTIL...

But then Jesus says: These words are about me, and now they have come true!

Jesus quite clearly aligns himself with the one the prophet foretells - the servant of Yahweh who will work to do God’s will.

There is a difference between John the Baptist and Jesus - John’s is a message of judgement, of doom and threat calling for repentance. Jesus has come to bring Good News (which is where we get our word “gospel” from - it means Good News) to the lowest of the low. Help and favour from God for those who cannot help themselves.

LITERAL OR SPIRITUAL?

a. LITERAL

“Ah” we say “but surely this is spiritual?... it means the spiritually poor, the metaphorically blind, the metaphysically imprisoned...”

And the answer is - in terms of a good Anglican! - yes and no!

The prophet Isaiah - in common with most of the OT prophets - was a voice for the voiceless; he was one who challenged the status quo, who championed the cause of the literal poor. So to align himself with Isaiah’s Servant of the Lord, Jesus aligns himself with the literal and actual poor.

So no, if we are trying to smooth over some awkward or uncomfortable words... if we are trying to shirk our responsibility to the most vulnerable and marginalised in our society, then we cannot “spiritualise” it away, or try and make out that Jesus meant his Good News was actually for a different group of people...

Jesus does not say that being poor, marginalised, powerless or downtrodden is a privileged place to be - it is not virtuous to be poor, and neither is it God’s punishment. God has a bias towards the poor, and Jesus mission - like that of Isaiah before him, both of whom are following God’s will - is to balance the scale of justice when they have been tipped in favour of the rich and against the vulnerable, poor and powerless. The poor are to be made rich.

And so the rest of Luke’s gospel shows Jesus acting out this manifesto of deliverance - those who are poorly are cured; those who are oppressed by evil are released; the dead are raised; the blind are made to see; children, tax collectors, women, prostitutes, the leprous - all those on the margins of society, those not counted - are given Good News.

So those to whom God wants to whisper Good News are not the Fat Cats in our society. The prophets called the rich to account for why they had become rich at the expense of the poor.. why they had ignored the plight and pleas of their workers, their customers, their suppliers...

There is a vitally important principle of justice in the gospel that refuses to tolerate oppression or exploitation. Harsh words of judgement are levelled at those who have no pity on the outcast, the weak, the vulnerable. Those who deny justice to the poor will be punished.

b. SPIRITUAL

And yet Good News to the poor also means those who are poor in spirit... those who have but little understanding of God.. those who feel that life has let them down... those who have been broken or crushed by life... those who find faith, or optimism or hope so hard... Jesus came to speak God’s words of Good News to them too.

And there is to be liberation too - for those who are restricted and held back by disease, or by the words or actions of others, or by economic factors, by what society thinks of them...

Those who had no vision, those with low or narrow horizons, those unable to perceive anything more to this world than what they could see and touch, will have their eyes opened... the religious establishment will be challenged by the extraordinary depth and scope of God’s love, the triumph of love over rules, the upturning of respectability... The God they though they controlled bears little likeness to the God Jesus reveals.

So years later former slave trader John Newton can write “Amazing Grace - I was blind but now I see!” The poor in spirit will be made rich!

And debts will be forgiven. The idea of Jubilee was that in Israel’s society debt and monopoly and ownership should not be allowed to accumulate. So every 7th year debts were to be cancelled, and every 50 years - the year of Jubilee - the land was to lie fallow, mortgage debts were remitted and slaves were freed. Why? because all life and land belonged to God, so could not be “owned” by people.

So Jesus ushered in an era of God’s forgiveness, and again we see this double edged concept - the forgiveness of debts, or sins which we see summarised so beautifully in the Lord’s prayer “Forgive us our trespasses [“debts” as Matthew says - Luke says “sins”] as we forgive those who sin against us”. The debts ,the forgiveness is spiritual. But the debts and the forgiveness are literal and actual too - the Jubilee demands we recognise God’s priority, God’s ownership, God’s pre-eminence.

This is pretty revolutionary stuff that Jesus lays claim to!

AND FOR US...?

And so what?

What of us?

Well there is an assumption in what I’ve said so far that as followers of Jesus we are called to follow his manifesto, to share God’s vision of liberation. We are called to work alongside him in ushering in the kingdom of God - God’s Royal Rule.

How?

That is for us to work out. If mission is looking for what God is doing in the world around us and rolling up our sleeves and joining in, then our response will partly depend on what we see around us. And for some that has led to Liberation Theology, it has led to Feminist theology, it has led to the abolition of slavery, it has led to the abolition of apartheid, it has led to the establishment of hospitals, and schools, to caring for the poor - many movements, ideas, positive contributions to the vulnerable and weak the Church has initiated and society has taken over.

It’s also worth remembering that although this manifesto is about as radical as it gets, and challenges the core of most western civilisation and economies now as it did then, how did Jesus live it out? He didn’t campaign for the abolition of slavery. He talked about “rendering to Caesar that which was Caesar's”, in the parable of the unjust steward there is a rather eccentric treatment of indebtedness.

He healed. He released. He loved. He valued those he came into contact with. He gave dignity. He offered hope and new horizons.

What we witness in the rest of Luke’s gospel is not the overthrow of unjust social and economic order. Instead we see someone going about doing good. One by one he sets us free...

So here are two ways of living out the manifesto of the Kingdom of God... by large scale engagement with the political and economic climate - and by small day to day acts of love, charity and mercy, ushering the kingdom in at macro level and at micro level.

Our job is work out what God wants us to be doing, and do it!

Fr. Andrew Perry
Rector, St John the Evangelist, Pevensey Rd, St Leonards on Sea