“Love wastefully”

Jim Malcolm 06/03/2022

Readings - Deut 26:1-11; Psalm 91:1-2, 9-16; Romans 10:8b-13; Luke 4:1-13

These are disturbing times indeed. And, in times like these we might look to scripture to provide consolation, but today’s readings tend rather to pose more disturbing questions.

I’m reluctant to guess now, as I write these thoughts at the beginning of the week, about how things will be on Sunday morning regarding the Russian invasion of the Ukraine, but I think the significance of the passage from Deuteronomy won’t change – it will still make me very uncomfortable.

The passage is looking back at a past event, effectively an invasion by the Israelites. And it is told in a way to justify that invasion and the bloodshed and dispossession that accompanied it. It claims that this dispossession and murder was God’s will and done with God’s blessing. You can see why it had to be written. To allay their understandable feelings of discomfort and, perhaps, shame.

Sadly, we don’t need to go to the Ukraine to find a parallel. The bloodshed and dispossession suffered by the first Australians and the way those shameful events were never mentioned during my schooling is a pretty clear example that, like the Israelites, those who invaded Australia found it hard to live with the shameful history and preferred not to talk about it.

Now we have President Putin inventing a fictitious justification for his invasion of the Ukraine, laughably labelling it as a liberation in the interests of peace! Not peace for the Ukrainian people, however. It seems that nothing has changed.

But for us the message is clear. The attempt to pretend that murder and dispossession is God’s will is a dangerous self-delusion. It is fake news! It is not the way of Jesus and the God of Love. It is right that this bloody history should make us ashamed, and we should not deny or minimise that shame. The way of Jesus, in response, is to be with those who have and still do suffer and to commit to ensuring such crimes are never repeated.

The second matter that has been in the front of my mind has been the bushfires and especially, for my family, the recent fires at Denmark. We followed the progress of the fire as it was mapped on the emergency.wa website, and it was scary! At first it seemed that our little house at William Bay was right in the path of the fire. Then, thanks, we were told, to the water bombers, the progress towards our house was stopped, but it continued on to the north and west and, all told, 4 houses were lost. There was a forecast wind change that could bring the fire back over our house and on to the town of Denmark but, thankfully, that didn’t happen. We’ve now been down there, and our little house is unscathed.

Why am I mentioning this? It would be tempting to make the claim of the Psalmist – “Because you have made the Lord your refuge, no evil shall befall you”. But that’s nonsense! How could the Psalmist make that claim? He had no New Testament but had he not read the Book of Job? There is no free pass from the troubles of this world.

I certainly feel thankful that our little house was not burnt, but I am not directing my thanks to a God who allowed other houses to burn but saved ours. The God of Love can rejoice with us over our unburnt house and console those who suffered loss. Bad things can and do happen and the God of Love is with us through all of that. And to be fair, the Psalmist has God say not “There will be no trouble”, but “I will be with them in trouble.”

The Psalmist’s view of the world was different from ours– he (and it was a ‘he’) assumed he was addressing Jews, God’s chosen people. He was saying, “You are God’s favourites, trust God and God will keep you safe.” For Paul, since Jesus, it is different. The good news is for all. He tells the Romans “God is not like that”. As Bill Loader puts it “Paul runs with the notion of God’s compassion which transcends differences and rejects favouritism.”

And how about the devastating floods in Queensland and northern New South Wales? If God will be with them in trouble, where is God now for them? It seems to me that these days God is spending a lot of time wearing Hi-Vis gear, flying a water bomber to douse the flames, using a boat to rescue stranded flood victims and, of course, wearing full PPE to look after those with Covid.

Think about it. Jesus did not preach of a God who would magically change things, he spoke about people caring for each other – the good Samaritan, the father receiving the prodigal son. That’s why Jesus’ rejection of the temptation to use divine power to change stones to bread or protect himself from harm is so significant. It is a statement that that is now how God works. God works through people – even you and me.

The other thing that happened to me in the past week was that Sandy and I watched the movie “Shirley Valentine”. It was both funny and thought-provoking. For much of the movie Shirley looks directly at the camera and shares her thoughts. There was one particularly poignant moment when she does some deep self-evaluation and as soon as I heard it I thought it needed to be in this sermon. Here’s what she said:

I’ve led such a little life, and even that’ll be over pretty soon. I have allowed myself to lead this little life when inside me there is so much more. And it’s all gone unused, and now it never will be.

Why do we get all this life if we don’t ever use it? Why do we get all these feelings and dreams and hopes is we don’t ever use them?

Unfortunately, Shirley didn’t proceed to give us the answer, but I couldn’t help seeing a parallel between her time of self-analysis (which was certainly not in the wilderness – it was on a Greek island) and Jesus’ self-analysis in the temptations in the wilderness.

It is hard not to see this as an invitation to you and me to do some self-analysis. In Shirley’s words – “Why do we get all this life if we don’t ever use it?” Let us make sure we do use it! Let us each decide to make our little life just that bit bigger. As the late John Spong put it, “live fully, love wastefully, and be all that we were meant to be.” Amen