Reflection 2nd June 2013

Year C Proper 4 2 June 2013
1 Kings 18: 20-39 Psalm 96 Galatians 1:1-12 Luke 7:1-10


It was a dark time for the Israelite nation. Those who pronounced judgment about the culture in which they lived were labeled crazy fundamentalists and trouble makers. They were persecuted and put to death or else lived in hiding.
Though it was a dark time, the sky was clear. There was drought. Food was scarce and the people sought a solution.
It is a dark time in many places in the world for Christians. Those who speak out and proclaim and proclaim that Jesus is the only way are labeled crazy fundamentalists who cause offense and are trouble makers. They are persecuted. In Australia and other western countries, those who speak out are branded as some kind of crazy, but there are other places in the world where their lives are in peril.

In this dark time, there is a drought of people in our churches. The Christian Church in Australia is diminishing.

What is the solution? It seems like Mission Impossible….

I’ve been reading articles for my course of study, the diploma of Anglican orders, and through this I have learnt a new word; syncretism.
The articles were dealing with the church of the unknown future and how, as a church we must change to “speak the language” of our current culture, but it warned against syncretism.
Syncretism is the melding of two opposing religious views.

I mention this because we find this issue in our readings for this week and I believe that God wants us to sit up and take notice. Forget about the future just for the moment, and let’s look at here and now. Are we already guilty of the sin of syncretism?

To explore this we’ll look at our first reading. It is supposed that the reason for the drought was that the people were hopping between two beliefs. They hadn’t deserted belief in Yahweh, their God, but they were also taking part in rituals that were identified as Baal Worship.

Baal worship included four things; the sacrifice of infants, immorality, Worship of nature and magical incantations.
Do we see these things anywhere today?
I’ll let you think about that, but add that you know that something is out of whack when a nation has laws to protect dangerous animals like crocodiles and yet abortion is readily available!

In our New Testament reading we find that the Galatians are struggling with this concept of syncretism. These people were those “on fire” early Christians who were quite radical and active. In fact they were so keen and active that they were hungry for more and more of what there might be to know about God. They figured that Jesus was a Jew and that God was revealed through the Israelite nation and therefore they figured that they needed to also take on the keeping of the Jewish law.

This was a common problem that St. Paul encountered and that he firmly, strongly and even fiercely fought against. It was an acceptance of the message of God’s forgiveness and saving power through his grace and through our faith in Jesus Christ, but then the people added that certain works were also necessary in order to be truly saved.

Having grown up in the Roman Catholic faith and education system, I know that in the history of the church there was a time when the priests sold “indulgences”. A certain amount of money “donated” to the church would ensure a shorter time for the soul in purgatory. However, when I was little I remember being told a certain amount of church attendance gave special grace… I was told that if you had a special petition you should go to church for nine first Fridays in a row and this would ensure God’s answer to that petition. There are many other forms and other denominations, unwittingly had their own more subtle forms – ie, Salvation was not sure unless certain prayer forms was said, or they knelt at the altar, or full emersion baptism, works of service, pray in tongues. Ultimately they’ve swapped one set of rules for another. These Gospel variations make their way to emails too – “pray this prayer and you will receive that thing you need”. Sometimes they are so close to being correct – but there is a slight difference.
The slight difference is that there is an underlying belief that God’s answer to our prayer depends on what we do, and not on God’s grace.
It shows that we do not understand God’s love and it shows that we do not actually have faith in God, but our faith is instead in an action. Adding certain works to our faith is like getting into a plane and then flapping your arms to keep the plane in the air.

Our Gospel reading tells the story of a Centurion who asked the Jewish elders to speak to Jesus on his behalf and to ask him to heal his servant. The Centurion was well acquainted with the Jewish ways and knew that if Jesus was to come under his roof and touch his sick servant, Jesus would be ceremonially unclean and unable to partake in the Jewish celebrations. So, out of politeness and thoughtfulness he declares that Jesus need not come to his house. He declares that Jesus need only say the word and the servant would be healed.

This Centurion knew that Jesus had power and he knew that he, as an outsider, had no right or authority to claim any special privilege, but he simply made his request. He had faith. He allowed Jesus to be the Boss! He acknowledged Jesus authority.
Jesus declared that the man had great faith and we often hear this from the Gospels and things like, “Your faith has made you well”, and we mistakenly think that if we had as MUCH faith, we’d see great things happen too…. But this is an error. The faith that heals is simply the fact that the person has “faith in Jesus” – that is the great faith, and the faith that heals…. Not some hypothetical volume of faith.

I’ll demonstrate with two chairs; one rickety and frail, and the other solid. I can walk around the rickety one seven times and praise it and offer thanks to it, but if I sit in it no matter how great my faith, the chair will fail me. On the other hand, I may not be sure about the solid chair and sit on it very cautiously…. It will still hold me… the object of my little faith is “faithful”.
And that is how it is with God. Will we have faith in him or will we have faith that the rituals or actions that we perform will somehow cause him to act on our behalf?

We can safeguard ourselves against syncretism by knowing and rejoicing continuously in the pure Gospel message that we are saved by the Grace of God and our faith in Jesus. FULL STOP.
We need to allow the fire of the Holy Spirit to come with power into our lives to sort out those superstitions and doubts that we have. It is the Holy Spirit who teaches us and leads us into all truths. In reality we are all a little guilty of syncretism – we unknowingly hold on to beliefs that are not 100% correct and we need to be in constant Christian conversation with others – through Bible study, church etc… and allow the Holy Spirit that is alive in each of us teach each other.

If we look back to the story of Elijah and the prophets of Baal we will note that prophets of Baal perform many rituals and strive to invoke Baal to act, but when Elijah prays to God it is a simple prayer. It was not his volume of faith that enabled the great miracle – it was simply that his faith was in a great God.
So here is the solution to our Mission Impossible –

If the drought is to break in the decline of our numbers of Christians in Australia, we need to pray for that great fire of the Holy Spirit to turn our hearts back to him and burn up the areas where we are unwittingly worshiping false gods and accepting fallacies. We need to proclaim the pure Gospel without any additives and have faith that God will send the rain.