[Propertalk] 4 Epiphany a 2017 - Part 1

[Robert P Morrison]

An early start!
I thoroughly recommend Scorses's film "Silence". I saw it last night.
Bob

	THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH OF ST, ALBAN, ALBANY   THE FOURTH SUNDAY AFTER
THE EPIPHANY a

	MICAH 6:1-8   29th JANUARY, 2017

	1 CORINTHIANS 1:18-31     PSALM 15

	MATTHEW 5:1-12

	 How incredibly appropriate our Scripture readings are as a morale
booster for the day of our Annual Meeting! 

	 I don’t believe that God pulls strings like this. God simply hopes
that we’ll be open, continually, to prompts to see God in all around
us, and to pay attention to how the words of the prophets and of Jesus
are a strong moral compass no matter in what age we live.

	 So, whether we hear, and whether we respond to God’s guidance, is,
once again, maddeningly, up to us. I’m sure some of us might gladly
give up part of our brain and part of our conscience in return for God
making all the choices. But that’s not how God works! Remember that
telling couplet from the prayer of confession? “…by what we have
done, and by what we have left undone …” or “we have left undone
those things which we have ought to have done, and we have done those
things which we ought not to have done …” or, again, “… the
evil we have done, and the evil done on our behalf …”

	 There doesn’t seem to be of an out for us. We ARE responsible –
for what we say and do; for the way we interrelate; for the actions at
the annual meeting; even for the food we bring to offer one another.

	 So how do we decide? On what do we base our decisions and our
actions? The advice passed on by the prophet Micah has grabbed
people’s attention for twenty-seven hundred years. “The Lord has
told you mortals what is good, and what it is that the Lord requires
of you: only to act justly, to love loyalty, to walk humbly with your
God.” (6:8)

	 Both Amos and Micah lived in times that were very prosperous.
“Micah had, like Amos, the simple heart of a country-man. He was not
lured away by the glittering façade of the new culture – fine
houses, advanced fashions, get-rich-quick businesses – but kept a
firm grip on the moral realities that make for true national
greatness. He shared Amos’ passion for justice, and was particularly
concerned with the same ruthless expropriation of peasant farmers as
Amos had protested against in Israel. Like (a) previous namesake
Micaiah-ben-Imlah (1 Kings 22:14-28), he was not afraid to speak the
unpopular words, and to speak it all alone.

	 “Perhaps the worst difficulty facing Micah was that which also
faced Micaiah (and countless prophets in multiple generations) – the
popular and welcome belief that because Judah was God’s people,
their security could never be destroyed.” 1 And many then, as now,
hold that if you’re doing well, whether physically, emotionally, or
economically, then that’s a sign that you’re right in step with
God, and that God is beaming.

	 The problem is that life , life as God defines it and as God wishes
us to focus on it, is NOT defined by our physical health, or emotional
health, or economic health. Life is defined by relationships, by the
way that we interact with one another, by the way we imitate Jesus, by
how we honour God by honouring one another. Justice, Loyalty, Humility
– I wonder why these words, these ideals haven’t made it into a
nation’s motto. What would such a nation look like? What would such
a congregation look like?

	 And turning to the Gospel reading – the famous Beatitudes –
especially in Matthew’s carefully nuanced version, we may be led to
consider that economic status and so on aren’t what Jesus was
driving at. And we’d be right – up to a point. What Jesus said
cuts across all economic groupings, all health issues, and so on. What
Jesus talks about is the way in which everyone has to accept the
attitude of humility before God and one another. When we talk about
“Me first”, no matter who’s talking, then justice and loyalty
fly out of the window.  When the window is shattered in such a way,
everyone gets trampled. Dignity, compassion, mercy, peace, above all,
love, the very things which filled Jesus’ conversations with the
people of His day, they become lost – and so do the people! THIS is
that from which Jesus came to save us, to reform and renew us.

	 Martin Scorsese’s film “Silence” has just been released.
It’s both harrowing and very inspiring. It’s based on a novel
written about fifty years ago by Japanese author Shusaku Endo and
deals with the introduction into Japan of Christianity and then the
persecution of both clergy and laity when too many challenges were
raised, when the power of the local lords was threatened.

	 The first chapters of the book are written as letter from Fr.
Sebastian Rodrigues after the intense persecution had begun.

	 He said, “My hunch from some time back was not wrong. What are
Japanese peasants looking for in me? These people who work and live
and die like beasts find for the first time in our teaching a path in
which they can cast away the fetters that bind them. The Buddhist
bonzes simply treat them like cattle. For a long time they have just
lived in resignation to such a fate.

	 “Today I baptized thirty adults and children. And not only from
here; for the Christians make their way through the mountains from
Miyahara, Kuzushima and Haratsuka. I then heard more than fifty
confessions. After Sunday Mass for the first time I intoned and
recited the prayers in Japanese with the people. The peasants stare at
me, their eyes alive with curiosity. And as I speak there often arises
in my mind the face of one who preached the Sermon on the Mount; and I
imagine the people who sat or knelt fascinated by his words. As for
me, perhaps I am so fascinated by his face because the Scriptures make
no mention of it. Precisely because it is not mentioned, all its
details are left to my imagination. From childhood I have clasped that
face to my breast just like them person who romatically (sic)
idealizes the countenance of one he loves. While I was still a
student, studying in the seminary, if ever I had a sleepless night,
his beautiful face would rise up in my heart.


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