Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost

I have found myself crying recently as I watch the news about the disaster in Nepal and Tibet: shocked by the images of people running for their lives, children orphaned,  and teachers saving school children; the devastation of lives, homes and communities as mountains react to a warming climate with avalanches and ice melts.   We are seeing huge wild fires across the world, not simply in the ‘usual’ places, but spreading in number, intensity and destructiveness.   Extreme heat is killing people as are floods and cyclones; the shifting climate is also killing wildlife and vegetation.  Water is precious and cities and communities are running out of this life-giving gift from God.  These stories meant I read the gospel this week with a child’s eyes and ears as I listened to Jesus speaking.   In Matthew’s gospel I found a description of God’s care for the least and the lost which is profoundly moving and it brought me to my knees. 

Let me go back a few verses.  Jesus’ disciples had been bickering over who would be the most important in his kingdom (18:1-5).  We’re told Jesus ‘called a child, whom he put among them’, and pointed to a child’s vulnerability and openness; because Jesus loves children’s openness to stories: they listen differently, see the world clearly, they are not influenced by adult perspectives and ideologies.  Jesus reminded his listeners, this openness is what God desires from us; anything else is irrelevant in God’s kingdom.  As Jesus always does in such moments, he asks the disciples, you and I, a different question: 

What do you think?  If a shepherd has a hundred sheep and one of them has gone astray, does he not leave the ninety-nine on the mountains and go in search of the one that wen astray?  And if he finds it, truly I tell you, he rejoices over it more than over the ninety-nine that never went astray.  (Matt. 18:12-13)

The stories Jesus tells us remind us no-one is excluded or forgotten, all are welcome and we all need to listen and respond like children, caring for those who are lost.  God celebrates our willingness to listen, change and respond to God’s call, rather than becoming resentful, sitting back and refusing to shift our opinions; sticking to what we know, rather than what God knows.  We often stop leaving room for God and so we go astray by not caring any more about God’s invitation to belong.

Such a response ignores Jesus, who has left 99 citizens who are safe, and it is Jesus I see scouring mountainsides, wading through mud, holding those in flood ravaged villages, in burnt out communities, holding the dying and comforting the bereaved; and, working alongside those researching the cost of climate change on all of God’s creation.  Jesus says: ‘So, it is not the will of your Father in heaven that one of these little ones should be lost’. (Matt. 18:14)

Many have to leave their countries because of poverty, hunger and loss of livelihoods. Before we blame them for coming here, we know lands are in drought with stock dying and people starving, forced off the land.  Wells are drying up, deserts are spreading. Lands and oceans are becoming unlivable; wildlife, plant life, fish, and coral ecosystems are breaking down and people are dying as a consequence.  In this beautiful, ancient land which has supported its First Nations peoples for tens of thousands of years, people are now struggling. First Nations people are being displaced off their islands in the Torres Strait because we are doing too little too late.  We have not learned how to be good stewards and we have not listened to or loved our neighbours as ourselves.  Our livelihoods are drying up, in tourism, farming, and in the sea.   

As we think about the challenges I have briefly outlined, I know as many people as there are in this congregation, there will be different opinions, disagreements and solutions.  I don’t pretend to know the answers, but I’m asking the questions more loudly as I listen to Jesus, and ask God to show me God’s Way, I wonder how we decide what is God’s Way in these circumstances.  What do we want for our children and grandchildren, when we are told the world we are leaving them is changing dramatically and powerfully.   Do we think Jesus would sit still, in places filled with greedy, demanding, selfish stewardship in our desire to be safe and untroubled in our own lives?  Given God’s cosmic creation encompasses the whole universe, I believe God is concerned about those living beyond our borders and wanting to work for justice for our neighbours and with those interested in environmental reconciliation.     

Matthew’s Jesus then offers us a process for resolving conflict; (Matt. 18:15-20) saying if we disagree, you and I can work it out between us.  I can say sorry quickly if I have hurt or offended, or been careless and unloving.  If I don’t listen, more people can come and talk to me to try and help me see how I have misunderstood or misbehaved. Finally, you can call me out publicly if I don’t pay attention, don’t change; and as a church, our responsibility is to still see me as the one who has gone astray and after whom, Jesus as shepherd has also gone in search, to heal and restore as we forgive, forgive and forgive again.  But I too have a responsibility to change, to repent and start the healing process. The story of disagreement and reconciliation is broad, it affects all of us, and so, I wonder about those who don’t have power, when such a process is expected and imposed on them.  It’s hard to confront someone who has hurt you and still trust they will listen to you and not seek to do further harm.  Less powerful neighbours, children and young people, all those despised groups in our communities who either don’t have a voice, or it’s a voice which can be safely ignored, regularly have this experience.

Isn’t Jesus on the margins with them?  So, if Jesus is in Nepal as the torrent of mud and water came rushing and drowning, what might be our response?  If Jesus is weeping with the woman whose child is dying of starvation or who is bereft and homeless because of fire, because of climate change, where the land is convulsing and dying too, what might we do and say with our governments and with one another.  Apart from saving individuals and Jesus, what will be our next step?  With whom will we be standing, to seek justice and a better outcome for all of God’s creation?  And will we speak to those with power?  Or do we see ourselves as being the ones with power and if so, what are we doing with our power, in response to God’s call?    If God is asking us to pay attention to the way we are abusing God’s creation in all its glorious life-giving diversity, are we listening?

Jesus’ final point is remarkable: ‘Where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.’ (Matt. 18:20).   Like the child Jesus put among the disciples, Jesus is among us now.  Let us acknowledge God’s presence, and pay attention to what we are asking for and how we will respond to God’s answer.      

The Lord be with you.