Pentecost 15, Year A, 2011, Patronal Festival
Text: Isaiah 26: 1-4; Colossians 1: 9-14; John 12: 20-26.
Let us bow our heads in prayer –
Loving God, you have called us to drink of your cup and undergo your baptism. May we lose our lives for your sake. Amen.
__________________________
Believe it or not but this is the first time that I have actually preached on our Patronal Festival in the eight years that I have been here. We have generally always had the Melanesian Students leading this service and have always had visiting preachers.
I have to admit that handing over control of services as a Priest can sometimes be a harrowing experience – especially when you’re a perfectionist and something goes wrong and it’s totally out of your control.
What about you, do you like being in control?
When I was at University I had to study an experiment which has always stuck in my mind, even all these years latter, because of it’s meanness, and because I can’t stand unnecessary cruelty to animals.
The experiment consisted of two sets of monkeys being placed on electric chairs. Both sets were given random mild electric shocks. The difference between the two groups was that one had the power to partly control the shocks. If they learnt a complex routine of pushing buttons, they could reduce the number of shocks. However, the pattern of button pressing was too complicated to completely master, so that, no matter how hard they tried, they could never completely prevent the shocks.
The other group however, had no control at all over the number of shocks they received. They had a button to press, but it made no difference.
The monkeys who could sweat and struggle to have partial control over their world tended to develop ulcers and other signs of stress at a great rate, whereas the monkeys who got lots more unpleasant shocks, but had no control at all, showed no signs of ulcers, no signs of stress.
The moral of the story: For a comfortable life, if you are going to be in control of anything make sure you are in total control!
We can see the similar raising of the stress levels in M.Ps as they begin to debate and face again the possibility of a change from the lower level of control with M.M.P back to the more powerful control system of first past the post with the up coming election and referendum on this matter. Not that I’m suggesting that politicians are monkeys even though they sometimes behave like them.
All of which suggests that God probably suffers from chronic ulceration of the stomach lining, because that is the way God works – having ultimate responsibility, but not having control of the situation from day to day.
Not only has God handed over control to others, but, in our case, has handed most control over to a bunch of squabbling incompetents.
And Jesus was equally foolish. For three years he taught his world-changing message, and at the end, instead of writing a divine constitution, publishing a spiritual “Mein Kampf” and setting up an international university to train his disciples, with himself as the controlling head of a powerful world wide corporation; instead he let himself be killed in a most untimely manner, leaving it up to a rag tag bag of peasants and other illiterates, who thought he was a great personality but who hadn’t even grasped the fundamentals of what he was on about.
And these were the people that Jesus relied on to carry out his work, which was God’s work. No proper quality control. Like Father, like Son.
It’s uncomfortable, it may cause ulcers, or even worse; but it is the only Christian way. In every aspect of our lives, our power as Christians comes from giving away power and control. The Cross taught us this so clearly, that we took this potent symbol of power through – the – giving – away – of power as our very symbol.
If God has taught us the need to hand over control to others, even to apparently inadequate others, then we need to heed that lesson.
Today we celebrate the Martyr’s of Melanesia to whom our church is dedicated. Both the original Martyr’s of the nineteenth century being, John Coleridge Patterson and his companion Martyrs’ and the more recent seven Martyrs of the Melanesian Brotherhood who are featured on the front page of this week’s newsletter in an icon dedicated to them. All of these men were people who went to seek peace knowing full well the dangers to their lives. Through their faith in God they were prepared to hand over control of their lives to others, even inadequate others.
So who is a Martyr? To me a martyr is someone who has been able to relinquish their ego to the extent that their true self, the part of us that is Spirit and God like, shines through. That person, walking in the steps of Christ and therefore in truth, has come to the realization that even death is an illusion and is ultimately not to be feared. That is not to say, of course, that they don’t experience physical pain and fear on their journey to martyrdom. And I’m sure that Jesus experienced these same human emotions as he journeyed to the Cross. In a very real way a Martyr challenges our views of our physical existence and calls us to see beyond this world of fear to a world of hope, love and eternity.
We may not be called to give up our lives physically like a Martyr, but like Martyrs each of us is call to relinquish our egos, live in God’s Spirit, and walk in the steps of Christ.
So what are the things in your own life that you need to relinquish, what are the things that you need to cast off to find your true self? The part of you that is God centered and eternal.
And on this our Patronal Festival as we remember the Martyrs that we honor as a congregation what are the things we need to relinquish to reveal to our wider community the love of God more fully in our lives, so that God’s love might be more fully known? Amen.
Text: Isaiah 26: 1-4; Colossians 1: 9-14; John 12: 20-26.
Let us bow our heads in prayer –
Loving God, you have called us to drink of your cup and undergo your baptism. May we lose our lives for your sake. Amen.
__________________________
Believe it or not but this is the first time that I have actually preached on our Patronal Festival in the eight years that I have been here. We have generally always had the Melanesian Students leading this service and have always had visiting preachers.
I have to admit that handing over control of services as a Priest can sometimes be a harrowing experience – especially when you’re a perfectionist and something goes wrong and it’s totally out of your control.
What about you, do you like being in control?
When I was at University I had to study an experiment which has always stuck in my mind, even all these years latter, because of it’s meanness, and because I can’t stand unnecessary cruelty to animals.
The experiment consisted of two sets of monkeys being placed on electric chairs. Both sets were given random mild electric shocks. The difference between the two groups was that one had the power to partly control the shocks. If they learnt a complex routine of pushing buttons, they could reduce the number of shocks. However, the pattern of button pressing was too complicated to completely master, so that, no matter how hard they tried, they could never completely prevent the shocks.
The other group however, had no control at all over the number of shocks they received. They had a button to press, but it made no difference.
The monkeys who could sweat and struggle to have partial control over their world tended to develop ulcers and other signs of stress at a great rate, whereas the monkeys who got lots more unpleasant shocks, but had no control at all, showed no signs of ulcers, no signs of stress.
The moral of the story: For a comfortable life, if you are going to be in control of anything make sure you are in total control!
We can see the similar raising of the stress levels in M.Ps as they begin to debate and face again the possibility of a change from the lower level of control with M.M.P back to the more powerful control system of first past the post with the up coming election and referendum on this matter. Not that I’m suggesting that politicians are monkeys even though they sometimes behave like them.
All of which suggests that God probably suffers from chronic ulceration of the stomach lining, because that is the way God works – having ultimate responsibility, but not having control of the situation from day to day.
Not only has God handed over control to others, but, in our case, has handed most control over to a bunch of squabbling incompetents.
And Jesus was equally foolish. For three years he taught his world-changing message, and at the end, instead of writing a divine constitution, publishing a spiritual “Mein Kampf” and setting up an international university to train his disciples, with himself as the controlling head of a powerful world wide corporation; instead he let himself be killed in a most untimely manner, leaving it up to a rag tag bag of peasants and other illiterates, who thought he was a great personality but who hadn’t even grasped the fundamentals of what he was on about.
And these were the people that Jesus relied on to carry out his work, which was God’s work. No proper quality control. Like Father, like Son.
It’s uncomfortable, it may cause ulcers, or even worse; but it is the only Christian way. In every aspect of our lives, our power as Christians comes from giving away power and control. The Cross taught us this so clearly, that we took this potent symbol of power through – the – giving – away – of power as our very symbol.
If God has taught us the need to hand over control to others, even to apparently inadequate others, then we need to heed that lesson.
Today we celebrate the Martyr’s of Melanesia to whom our church is dedicated. Both the original Martyr’s of the nineteenth century being, John Coleridge Patterson and his companion Martyrs’ and the more recent seven Martyrs of the Melanesian Brotherhood who are featured on the front page of this week’s newsletter in an icon dedicated to them. All of these men were people who went to seek peace knowing full well the dangers to their lives. Through their faith in God they were prepared to hand over control of their lives to others, even inadequate others.
So who is a Martyr? To me a martyr is someone who has been able to relinquish their ego to the extent that their true self, the part of us that is Spirit and God like, shines through. That person, walking in the steps of Christ and therefore in truth, has come to the realization that even death is an illusion and is ultimately not to be feared. That is not to say, of course, that they don’t experience physical pain and fear on their journey to martyrdom. And I’m sure that Jesus experienced these same human emotions as he journeyed to the Cross. In a very real way a Martyr challenges our views of our physical existence and calls us to see beyond this world of fear to a world of hope, love and eternity.
We may not be called to give up our lives physically like a Martyr, but like Martyrs each of us is call to relinquish our egos, live in God’s Spirit, and walk in the steps of Christ.
So what are the things in your own life that you need to relinquish, what are the things that you need to cast off to find your true self? The part of you that is God centered and eternal.
And on this our Patronal Festival as we remember the Martyrs that we honor as a congregation what are the things we need to relinquish to reveal to our wider community the love of God more fully in our lives, so that God’s love might be more fully known? Amen.
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