Luke 4:14-21
These are challenging times for Christians. One reason is that our faith is now at the edge of society instead of the centre, and when Christian people actually make the news it’s usually for the wrong sort of reasons. It’s usually because they have said something that is intolerant or done something stupid.
And unfortunately for Northern Ireland it is religious fruitcakes from that part of our world that have been making headlines recently.
First we had MP Iris Robinson – wife of first Minister Peter Robinson. Last year in a BBC interview she described homosexuals as detestable human beings – claiming her views were thanks to her strong Christian faith and using the Bible to support her bigotry.
Now of course we know that she had been having an affair with a man three times her junior, breaking government rules, and lining her own pocket with cash. And her own misuse of the Bible comes back to bite her. Because the same book of the Old Testament she used to condemn homosexuals also states that someone who commits adultery should be stoned to death.
So bad luck for Mrs Robinson…
Now we have another Northern Ireland minister in the news. On BBC Radio Ulster last week Jonathon Campbell said that it was the practice of Voodoo by the Haitians that had caused the terrible disaster. God’s judgement is on them. This terrible earthquake is God’s punishment that we have witnessed over these last days.
His comments were echoed in the United States by another religious fruitcake: TV evangelist Pat Roberston. He reckoned that when the indigenous Haitians rose up against their French oppressors in the 17th century, they sold their souls to the devil, and now God was getting even with them. (To think that this guy was once in the running for President!)
The God they believe in is the kind of God that zaps people. The world they live in is a world where, if tragedy strikes, it is God that is behind it all. That’s some kind of God! That’s some kind of God of love!
If we take every single thing that is said about God in the Bible (from beginning to end) and say that its all literally true and that to understand God we need to incorporate all of this into one giant picture, then we end up with a terrible God.
We end up with a God that is morally reprehensible. And we end up with a God that we might well fear but can never trust.
Why?
Because this God is not constant.
This God is not dependable.
This God is not reliable.
Because this God is capable of anything.
Today God loves us all with a love that never ends – and tomorrow when we die, if we have not accepted Jesus, God will punish us for all eternity!
Today God sends the sun and the rain to help our crops grow. But tomorrow God will send hurricanes and earthquakes to create suffering and destroy people!
Today God calls us to love our neighbour. Then tomorrow God calls us to attack our neighbours and take their lands - leaving no man, woman or child alive!
Today God tells just to be kind to our children and not over-bearing with them as they grow up. Tomorrow God says if they disobey us we can just kill them!
Today God promises to bless the world. Tomorrow he might send a plague against us!
That is why it is imperative that we understand that not every notion about God in the Bible is true. Not every idea about God is worthy of God.
And we need to do what Jesus did and what Jesus told us to do – to ask God’s Spirit to speak to us and guide us so that we can understand more of the true nature - the real nature of our God.
The other day The Independent newspaper had as its leading story – “Alive! Joy as Kiki is found after 8 days in the rubble”. And there followed the wonderful story of a remarkable rescue operation in Haiti. Remarkable indeed that anyone could survive in the heat without water for such a length of time. But this wee boy is now safe after his ordeal.
Imagine interviewing God about this story.
What does God think about this wee boy being rescued?
“I’m disappointed. I wanted all these people to die in the earthquake I sent.”
Can you imagine God saying that?
Or suppose God says “Its brilliant that the wee boy is okay. Although I have to admit I was the one who sent the earthquake in the first place.”
Does that sound like the God we want to worship?
Imagine it was possible for human beings to create an earthquake. Imagine it turned out that some guy in Australia actually deliberately sent this earthquake to the poor folk in Haiti.
What would our response be?
Would we want to worship this guy and call him good?
Or would we lock him up in jail?
When people say that God sent the earthquake to Haiti they are saying something terrible about God. It is blasphemy. The God we know through Jesus Christ would never do such a thing.
The truth is that God never sends suffering.
There may be tragedies and accidents and consequences in this world, and there are tragedies and accidents and consequences in this world - but God is not the author of them. Instead God is solidly on the side of those who suffer to give them strength and hope. Tragedies break God’s heart just like they break ours. But they never stop God from organising to bring new life and healing and light out of the darkness.
God is good (in other words). That’s the simple yet wonderful truth.
God is good and God is on the side of good.
Today’s reading shows us again the focus of Jesus’ ministry.
Jesus said the Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has called me to bring good news to the poor.
The words that he read out were really his manifesto. And I was saying earlier to the children they could be summed up by saying that Christ has come to build a fairer world.
A fairer world is the world God wants.
From the beginning to the end of the Bible this theme is repeated.
From the proclamations of the prophets, through the teachings of Jesus and the activity of the early church, God wants to see the world made more just and more fair. We are called to build a world where the gifts of creation are shared, where people are equally valued and where everyone has the chance to live a decent life.
A fairer world is a safer world.
We all long for peace in our world. Or most of us do at least. But how will we see peace? How will peace come?
Maybe with all the greed there is on this earth there will never be a complete and perfect peace, but there is one factor that will undoubtedly play the biggest part. And that is justice, or fairness.
So much of the trouble in our world stems from the perception of injustice. Most (if not all) terrorism, for example, comes about where a group of people feel they have been unfairly treated or abused by other bigger powers.
Now I am not justifying any kind of terrorism. But I think it is undeniable that the less people feel grievances and that they are victims of injustice the less there would be acts of violence like terrorism or suicide bombings.
Years ago someone gave me a wee badge which said “Only Justice Brings Peace.”
It’s a simple slogan, but it is completely correct.
Justice and peace go together.
A fairer world will be a safer, more peaceful world.
But here is another thing, which might surprise you.
A fairer world is a better world for everyone.
I’m on the Community Responsibility Committee of Glasgow Presbytery.
One of our members went to a conference on Poverty in December hosted by the Scottish Churches and the STUC. And she came back raving about a talk delivered there by a guy called Richard Wilkinson. He is the Emeritus Professor of Social Epidemiology at the University of Nottingham. And he has co-written a book called “The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Societies Always Do Better.”
After hearing what she said about it I decided to get it for myself and I’m reading it right now.
Basically the whole book is a study that backs up one straightforward claim. Wilkinson says that the thing that matters most about a country is the differential between the highest and the lowest paid people in that country. If the gap is wide the whole country will have more problems. When the gap is closer then the whole country will have less problems.
Now we would tend to assume that if a society is unequal then its bad news for the poor people in that country. And that is true; those who are the poorest will suffer the most. But Wilkinson has discovered that if the gap is big the whole of society suffers and not just the poor people.
Now two of the most unequal societies in the world are the USA and the UK. And two of the most equal are the Nordic countries and Japan. When they plotted the figures for life expectancy, infant mortality, murders, rates of imprisonment, teenage births, obesity, mental illness and social stability they discovered some amazing facts.
For example mental illness is three times more common in unequal societies, obesity rates are twice as high, rates of imprisonment are eight times higher, and teenage births increase ten-fold.
The research found that in more equal societies, even well educated people with good incomes will be likely to live longer and enjoy better health, and their children will do better in school, will be less likely to take drugs and less likely to become teenage parents.
Now I know I haven’t got time to really explain all this too well in a couple of minutes here. But the bottom line is that their research is proving that more equal a society is the more everyone will benefit.
A fairer world really is a better world for everyone.
Jesus began his talk in the synagogue by saying that Spirit of God was with him.
Let me finish with a question.
What is a sign of God’s Spirit in our lives?
Is it that we all speak in tongues? (That’s what our Pentecostal brothers and sisters would say. I’m not deriding that, but there is no evidence that Jesus ever spoke in tongues, and no one had more of Gods Spirit than he.)
So what is a sign of Gods Spirit in our lives?
Is it that our lives are all together and problem free?
Is it that we go about with a stupid grin on our faces all the time?
Is it that we can read out passages of the Bible to bash other people over the heads with?
Here is what Jesus said…
Jesus said the Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has called me to bring good news to the poor.
Bringing good news to the poor - doing what we can
to help those who need the most help
to support those who need the most support
to speak up for those with no voice
to defend those who are being attacked and exploited
to include those who are being rejected
to befriend those who are left alone,
to pray and work and speak and live to make this world a better and a fairer place - this is the sign of the Spirit in our lives… just as Jesus said it was the sign of the Spirit in his.
God is involved in the tragedy of Haiti.
God’s involvement is not in the sending of the disaster but in the rescue operation.
When that earthquake struck, this was not an act of God.
But the response to help and aid is the act of God.
And the compassion shown by so many across the world is the working of God’s Spirit, prompting people to care and to act.
We are called to be alive to God’s Spirit and one way we do that is in our care, our concern, and our practical action to make this world better and fairer.
If we will echo Jesus’ concerns in our own lives, caring for others, sharing with others, standing up for them, and working for justice and fairness then we should know that the Spirit of God is with us too.