Faith and Fairness

Pentecost 5 year B Sermon  Luke 4:14-28

This week…David Beckham’s dream
of playing for the UK Olympic team
just fizzled out…and his fans are crying foul and unfair especially since Britain’s most famous soccer star…
has been such an outstanding ambassador
for the London Olympics.

Of course Beckham himself received the news
with characteristic humility…but the news media
and many of his fans are saying… it’s just… not… fair.

They say Beckham deserves his day in the Olympic sun. After all his hard work…helping the UK get the games
in the first place… and carrying torch in the build-up…
many believe Beckham’s entitled to a place
on the Olympic squad.

But it’s not gonna happen…

The story splashed across our television and computer screens… this week… alongside an outcry at how unfair ACCs pay-outs were…to those whose privacy they breached
One commentator was asked
‘But how do you measure…fairness?’

And that’s a really good question isn’t it?
Have you ever heard Christians asking similar questions over a cup of coffee…in relation to faith?  I certainly do…

Like…It seems so unfair…
Sophie’s lead such a good life… now she has to fight that terrible disease…Or it doesn’t seem fair the Farrington’s can’t have a baby, they’re such a nice Christian couple.’
Or how can one person be expected to endure so many tragedies…it just doesn’t seem fair…
  

We might ask the same questions about our own life too…
Why is this happening to me God? It’s not fair?
Haven’t I been through enough!

Last week we imagined what we’d say to a friend over a cup of coffee…a non-Christian friend…who asks us
‘what is faith anyway?

And in working out our answer… we learned that Christian faith isn’t something we have in greater or lesser quantities …but something we do…a decision we make…
over and over again…a decision to trust in the wisdom and purposes… of our gracious God of love…
revealed in the person of Jesus.

So following that logic in relation to our faith…
wouldn’t it make sense to ask
‘what fairness can possibly mean…
in light the good news Jesus was sent to proclaim.

And of course…these aren’t questions we get asked in café’s by non-believers …they’re our questions…
they’re believer questions

Scary question…like does God intend life to be fair?
And what would it look like if life was fair…for everyone?
Should Christians have some sort of advantage?
Does a good Christian life entitle us
to perpetual good health… wealth… and happiness.
But what if these aren’t even the right questions?

Maybe there are better questions…when we’re facing illness
or distress…like…what does Jesus’ suffering have to
teach us… about our own suffering?

Or ‘what can we learn about what’s fair…
from Jesus’ teaching…or the practises of the early church.

Early church mosaic

You know the phenomenal success of the church
in the Roman Empire of the first century…
was precisely to do with fairness …

not because they promised everyone…
a life of perpetual health wealth and happiness…
but because the wellbeing of everyone was their definition of fair…everyone…male and female, Jew and Gentile, slave and free.

Women and slaves and pagans were attracted in droves
to this good news…no longer could people be excluded because of their gender or status…and the intention was
to widen the circle gathered around Jesus
until the whole of humanity… was included. [pause]

Did Jesus and his followers promise some sort of entitlement to health and wealth and happiness… or did Jesus call his followers to work… so everyone has their fair share of health and wealth and happiness…

Coffee slide

Our answer to these questions
is absolutely critical for the world…
spiritually economically and politically. Why?

Because if we say Christians should have an advantage …because of our faith…then our sense of entitlement could make us indifferent to the suffering of others.
When we have a sense of entitlement the risk is
our first priority will always be
to hold on to what we possess… at all costs.

But that kind of thinking arises… from a works based salvation not from a grace…based faith…

A works view of salvation has led to an Empire of Entitlement…in places like the United States. If the gospel of grace isn’t consulted when decision are made about what’s fair…those who have…will fight to protect what is theirs
at all costs… rather than share…

So who decides for us as Christians…what is fair…
is it the media…is it the loudest voice…the one with the most fame or power and wealth… Because what seem fair might to David Beckham’s fans will certainly feel unfair… to the one who missed out were Beckham chosen to play…

Or is it Jesus gospel we consult…and those who act out his good news…for the poor and the captive and the oppressed.

One thing I’ve always loved about New Zealand
is that fairness is defined differently here…than where I grew up…certainly when I arrived 40 years ago…

Supreme Court slide

In the States…only two days ago…
the US Supreme Court decided…to uphold affordable healthcare for every citizen… regardless of wealth…

This view of fairness Kiwis accept as a given…
had to be fought for all the way to the Supreme Court…
and if President Obama loses the election this year…

his opponent is vowing to overturn the policy…why?

because people who will vote for him…
simply don’t want to share their wealth through higher taxes… so the health system can operate fairly.

political slide…

And check out who gets to make the decisions
about what is fair…. In the States

Change slide

Only one per cent of the population are millionaires.
While fifty per cent of the Senate… are that wealthy.

Change slide

In the States…
there are eight hundred and twenty thousand
homeless people
yet there are twenty two empty houses for every one of them.

Were Americans to ask the politically incorrect question…

Were Kiwis to ask the politically incorrect question…
What would Jesus do…and act on it…
would things be more fair…

well clearly it depends on where you stand
and what you have to lose…
and who you think of Jesus good news is for.

Coffee slide

Ok, Diane, you say… that’s all very well and good
in relation to politics and health care…
we agree everyone deserves affordable health care…we’re kiwis aren’t we…

but …what about other questions of fairness in relation to suffering and death…the questions we’re wrestling with in our own lives…the ones our friends ask us…over cups of coffee. How is it fair for God to allow a child to die…
or a good person to suffer?

Well, if it’s your friend… asking in the café…
of course you could point to Mary the mother of Jesus…
to answer both questions…
for Mary was powerless…to stop the death of her boy…
and there was no sin in him …yet he suffered terribly

The frailty of her son’s body… was simply a reality…
a given…a condition of the incarnation.

Jesus wept…Jesus was tempted…Jesus bore the wounds of his tormentors…and Jesus died…
in faithfulness …to the Way…to the good news…

he was sent to reveal…

Jesus refused to benefit from the harm of another
by retaliating…even though it surely meant his death.
Breathing words of forgiveness…with his last breath.

In the incarnation, Jesus took on all it means to be human… even our frailty…even our suffering and our death…
so we would understand… not only…
the height and depth and breadth of God’s love for us…
but also… that we might understand more perfectly…
what it means to be human

Of course we must work hard to stay fit and in good health
in gratitude for this body given to us…the body with which to experience tenderness and passion…and the softness of a babies cheek. But our body is a fragile vessel…
and there’s a sense in which its frailty and vulnerability
are the trade-off…the fair trade-off…
for all the joys and delight that life brings.

If we were indestructible cyborgs and felt nothing
then maybe we could live forever in this world.
But thank God we’re not…

And yes there comes a time… in all our lives
when we must surrender to that reality…
and maybe…just maybe it has nothing to do with fairness.
Maybe that’s why we can’t just faith some things out or faith our frailty away…maybe we just have to trust
God’s wisdom and purposes of love…

and because this vulnerability applies to every person born

…there’s a sense of fairness in it after all.

We are not called to reverse the second law of thermodynamics…God’s physical laws are not ours to control…what we are called to do…
is dismantle what is unfair and unjust…and selfish and greedy. What we are called to do is what the prophet Micah fortold which Jesus announced in the synagogue was his life’s work…to do justice…and love kindness…and walk humbly with our gracious God…

that is the work of the Cross.