Sunday 13th September 2009

I

Another passage from Proverbs… Wisdom as the revelation of God, the fountain of life, giving us discernment which frees us from death and leads to life.

Note the sense of movement in this passage,  Wisdom as initiative, proactive… Wisdom calls aloud, raises her voice, cries out, makes her speech.  If hesitancy leads to silence, then a conviction that there are things to be said - however uncomfortable - leads inescapably to speech.  Reference Hungary / extreme Right Wing.

Wisdom’s words are not offered behind closed doors… public places beckon.  Public squares, noisy streets, the gateways of the city.  Right up our street… in theory, at least.  Lesslie Newbigin, one of the truly great URC ministers, had a passionate concern for bringing the gospel to bear on every facet of modern life: science, art, literature, education, history, communication.  He spoke of, ‘The Gospel of the Public Square’, and of, ‘The Gospel as Public Truth’.  Debate in public as integral to faith.  Lectures…but what else?

Wisdom proactive, public… and bringer of challenge.  Knowledge of the repeated rejection of God’s ways gives rise to frustration and strong words.  Repeated opportunities have been pushed to one side…  and consequences must be faced.  Punishment envisaged for a failure to seek divine wisdom is not a thunderbolt from heaven; it is simply that the foolish will reap the consequences of their own folly.  Yes, the passage does contain some strong words, but I feel that these have more to do with tiredness that the implications of cause and effect have not been grasped, rather than a gleeful delight in the knowledge that punishment follows neglect of God.

Some of us struggle with this idea of causal effect, A leading to B…but it may be that there are times when we need to rediscover what it means to be a church of proclaimed consequences.  We were happy to learn Newton’s laws in physics at school - for every action an opposite reaction; we follow with interest current debates on the impact of advertising on drinking by young people and the like… so much material to do with the effects, the consequences of action or inaction… yet we are strangely reluctant to assume a prophetic voice and spell out something of what this might mean from the perspective of the Kingdom.  The likely consequences of the tacit worship of money, overdependence on weapons of violence, continued neglect of those on the margins…  The voice of Wisdom would have had much to say about these things.

II

What a lot is going on in this passage!  Peter’s apparent recognition of Christ, teaching about the need for suffering, the rebuke of Peter by Jesus and teaching about the need to take up a cross.  Material for myriad sermons: the fewer the words that Jesus uses, the longer it takes us to work through the implications - and here, several core strands of the gospel are interwoven.

Clearly, this is a passage to do with an unexpected kind of Messiah.  Peter is told that Jesus would suffer and he is outraged.  Most Jews at that time understood the Messiah as ‘Son of David’ - a conquering king who would throw out the Romans as David had the Philistines, and who would restore the glory of Israel.  A suffering Messiah would have been unimaginable to Peter… hence a rapid fall from insight to ignominy, and some pretty direct teaching to boot.  We do simply read this from afar, however: the question remains - in what ways does Jesus continue to be an unexpected kind of Messiah?  Much has been mellowed with the passage of time; are we prepared still for Christ the Rebel, Christ the Liberator, Christ in opposition to the world?  Are we happier with Christ the cuddly comforter than a man at the margins, the prophet of passion, the champion of the cross?  We continue to make Jesus in our own image; every act of worship is partly to do with God’s balance restored.

A second point - to do with the cross.  Do we have a realistic perception that things do not automatically go well for those who follow God’s way?  I think so… certainly, this is our individual and shared experience… but then we have to face another question.  How do we share the gospel as something supremely attractive, if it does not bring with it the promise of an easier life.  I feel that one of the great attractions of the gospel is the fact that it is genuinely counter-cultural: people question, voice ever greater concerns about the world we are in, the lack of values which inform global decision-making, the uncertainties which follow from greed and abuse and so on.  Jesus is not the unquestioning supporter of the status quo; Jesus represents the possibility of turning the worldly order on its head.  Let us not underestimate the potency, the attraction of this message.