Easter 2007
Given by Hector Cumming on the 8th April 2007
Readings : Isaiah 25:6-9; I Corinthians 5:6b-8; Luke 24:13-49
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be wholly acceptable to you, our God.
What is to be understood from tonight’s scripture readings?
Paul cautions against keeping even a small part of malice or evil within us. Malice comforts us when we say “he/she wronged me” Worse still, says Paul, is when we take pride in our malice and wear it with arrogance, like a badge on our sleeve. We have all seen news items where the camera shows us faces filled with malice, their mouths spouting evil. Paul cautions us that malice grows like yeast until it contaminates the whole person.
Christ has been sacrificed. We must first purge ourselves of the yeast of malice and evil so that we can celebrate, with Christ ,on the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.
Isaiah tells us of the feast that God has prepared for all people. “A feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wines.”
Coming from a Father like that you can well understand how Christ’s detractors called him a glutton and a drunkard and a friend of sinners and tax collectors. So that we may enjoy such a feast, God will not hand out cholesterol-lowering tablets nor berrocca. Instead God promises to swallow up death forever.
For me one of the lovliest verses in the Bible follows:
“Then the Lord God will wipe away the tears from all the faces and the disgrace of his people he will take away from all the earth.
A glutton and a drunkard son, tortured and hung naked for all the world to see. A disgrace to many. Women wept for him and a stranger recognised his glory. “Truly this man was God’s son.”
Tonight’s reading from Isaiah ends with the verse:
“Lo this is our God, we have waited for him, so that he might save us.”
In St Luke’s gospel we heard the story of the road to Emmaus. There may be some here tonight who have walked their own road to Emmaus. All of us need to make such a journey.
On the road there are two disciples. As they walk along they talk about the things that have happened. Jesus joins them and asks what are they discussing. In the modern vernacular they might have said “What planet do you live on?” Instead they ask him “Are you the only stranger in Jerusalem who does not know the things that have happened?” Jesus says “What things?” Jesus can see that they are sad and cast down and wants them to tell him what is troubling them. He knows what is troubling them and also knows that they need to acknowledge and accept what their problems are so that they can be helped.
Have you ever met someone you know in different surroundings or in diferent clothes and not immediately recognised them. I remember one time, when dressed in my best business suit, a woman exclaimed, Hector I did not recognise you with your clothes on. To the astonished looks , Pam laughingly explained that she had only ever seen me, in a swimsuit, at the pool. I think that the two disciples did not recognise Jesus because the last image they had of him was of a bloody broken wreck of a human being, and they never expected to see a live Jesus, ever again. Would they have recognised Jesus wrapped in blood-stained bandages in a wheel chair.
Cleopas goes on to tell the ‘stranger’ that some women of our group astonished us, they went to the tomb early this morning and did not find his body, but they saw angels who said that he was alive. Some of the men went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said, but they did not see him.
Had Jesus been less caring he could have borrowed a line from Kath and Kim and said to Cleopas “Cleo, look at moy, Cleo, look at moy, look at moy.”
Instead Jesus expounds the scriptures beginning with Moses and all the prophets, concerning himself.
This now is the crux of tonights homily, and if you remember nothing else remember these two words and act on them
Kindness and hospitality.
Jesus walked ahead as if he was going on.
They urged him strongly saying “Stay with us..”
Jesus stayed with them, broke bread and gave it to them.
Kindness and hospitality and they recognised Jesus.
Lot showed kindness and hospitality to strangers when the townspeople of Sodom only wanted to rape and kill them. and God spared Lot and his family in recognition of their kindness and hospitality.
This week we read in the paper about the earthquake and tsunami in the Solomon Islands. Peter Jenkins has send out an e-mail about the Solomon Island’s need for assistance. Mr Toma, visiting his elderly parents, died while trying to save his Mother, who also died, and his Father is missing. The New Zealand Air Force showed kindness to Mr Toma’s family by flying his body back to New Zealand , at no expense to the family.
Those of us on the e-mail list will have read about Liz Nicholson in Baltimore visiting with her son and daughter-in-law, Lara. lara is Jewish and invited Liz, her mother-in-law, to share Passover with them. Basil, a stranger to Liz, sat on her right hand and explained the significance of the things they were doing, during the Passover. Liz ends her e-mail with these words “ I was thankful for the hospitality extended to me, a visitor, who happened to be there in Baltimore, when Passover was due to take place.”
Those of you who know the play “A Streetcar named Desire” will know the character Blanche DuBois. Blanche said that “Intentional cruelty was the only unforgiveable sin “ Concerning the soldiers who physicaly nailed Jesus to the cross, before parting his clothes between them; Jesus said “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”
At the end of the play , Blanche, raped and abused by her brother-in-law, disbelieved by her own sister, when being led away, by unknown health workers, says in a desperate ironic appeal
“I have always relied on the kindness of strangers”.
In our busy world, we sometimes block out appeals for help. This Easter, if we are kind and hospitable to strangers, like the two disciples on the road to Emmaus, their reward and our reward, will be to recognise the risen Christ.
Amen.
Contacts:
by email: info@aucklandcommunitychurch.org.nz
by phone: Cathy and Liz (64)(09)578 1292 or Hugh Dyson (64)(09)579 1850
by snail mail: c/- 187 Federal Street, Auckland, New Zealand.
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