Justice, generosity, and the God of all

 Hard as it is to imagine now, given my athletic physique and sporting prowess, but when I was a child I was rather partial to pie. I didn’t really care what type of pie it was – sweet, savoury, ideally both together in the same meal. The only thing I did worry about was whether there would be enough for me.

 

All of our lives seem to feature this kind of pie, in one way or another. However old we get, however wise we think we are, we can never quite shake that fear of losing out. The finite nature of the world continues to scare us – the scarceness of resources, whether that is a genuine, real or a perceived threat. There is only so much to go around, and we’ll be damned if we lose our slice.

 

This Sunday is celebrated as Racial Justice Sunday in many churches around the country. That celebration is as much of an aspiration as anything else – all of us know that racial justice remains a dream that we yearn for rather than something for which to be congratulated. And that ever-present fear of losing out colours so much of our thinking on matters of justice, racial or otherwise – the worry that we each harbour, to differing degrees, that we might just be left out if someone else gets their fair share.

 

We hear it in the rhetoric espoused by our politicians about asylum seekers, describing them as invaders to our land – people here to take our jobs, take our houses, as the tired old phrase goes. We still hear the fear of displacement loud and clear when black folk are raised to high office or senior positions in wider society. We hear it when people talk about the ‘changes in the neighbourhood’, or in the ‘loss of indigenous British culture’, whatever that’s supposed to mean. We hear it in the denigration of the lives of those who are different, those who are othered, those who are becoming just that little bit too powerful, that little bit too comfortable. And at the heart of all of this is a fear – a fear of losing out, a fear of losing power, a fear of no longer being quite as likely to receive our ‘fair share’ as we otherwise might do. Fear is the bedfellow of hate.

 

The disciples that Jesus was preaching to in our Gospel today seemed to have this same fear, which seems to be all too much part of the human condition. They are living alongside the son of God Himself, and yet they appear unable to recognise the abundance that the Kingdom of Heaven brings. God – our life in Jesus Christ – is not a zero sum game. We don’t lose out if others join in. Do not worry, saying ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear?’. Indeed your heavenly father knows that you need all these things. And yet soon this very same Jesus will be put to death because those he came to be alongside were worried that He might take away their power, take away those things that were rightfully theirs. Crucify him, do away with him, take him away – give us back what is ours to keep.

 

This week, the Church of England has agreed to allow those of us clergy who, in conscience, believe that there is good in same sex relationships to bless them before the altar of God. There may well be those of you in this congregation who disagree with that decision, who see it as a step too far, and there are doubtless those for whom this has not gone far enough. I will admit to you from this pulpit that my heart longs to go so much further, to bless these partnerships as marriage and to finally set our gay and lesbian friends, congregations, sons, daughters, priests, even, free. I long to offer the love of God to those who for too long have felt our hearts to be too cool, our love to be too limited. I long to open to them the Kingdom of God.

 

What the church has done this week is surely a step in recognising the great generosity of God – by letting go of power to allow the Holy Spirit to do the Holy Spirit's work. Allowing others to act according to their conscience does not reduce our own slice of the pie, for God does not work in that way – the Kingdom of God is wider and more generous than anything we can possibly imagine. Worry not, says Jesus – strive first for the Kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Strive for justice, strive for those who are powerless, raise up the lowly, honour those on the margins, make the oppressed go free – for such is the Kingdom of God. Do not worry about what might happen if you lose power – give it freely, that others might live – give it freely, like Christ’s own body was freely given on the cross in Calvary. It is in giving away that we stretch our hands out for the Kingdom and might find them held by God Himself.

 

For as a church, and as a society, we must surely open our eyes to the reality that by opening the doors, the place becomes more full, not less plentiful. The Kingdom of God is not a place where we must worry about tomorrow – today’s trouble is enough for today. The Kingdom of God is a place where all creation, as St Paul tells us, all creation is groaning in labour pains, all creation waits for adoption, to obtain the freedom of the glory of the kingdom of God. God’s Kingdom cannot come until all creation is welcomed, until all creation is brought to the throne of grace, as our collect says:

 

Almighty God, you have created the heavens and the earth

and made us in your own image:

teach us to discern your hand in all your works

and your likeness in all your children;

 

So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them. This Genesis passage has been used by some to argue for a lessening of the tent, a reducing of what God created to neat but ultimately exclusionary categories. But this is neither the meaning of the words nor the overarching text. God created each and every one of us in his own image, each and every one of us blessed and beloved and holy and cherished and desired and held in the heart of God. God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good. God saw those made black and those made white; he saw those made gay and those made straight; he saw those made male and those made female and those in between; he saw those with disabilities and those without; he saw the mentally ill and the mentally well; he saw the old and the young, the rich and the poor, the powerful and the weak. He saw all of this and said ‘indeed, it was very good’. He saw each of us created in his own image, each of us bearing the image of our heavenly father. And he said no to the divisions and fears and yes to the extraordinary truth of radical equality steeped in the reality of God Himself.

 

My friends, such is the generosity of God. Such is the reality of life – life, each moment of it, each relationship we form, each love we cherish, each holy encounter we have, each of these is a gift from our Father in heaven. And yet how often we still worry, still fear that if God loves someone else just the same as He loves us, then His love for us must be diminished. It is not so. It is not so. Oh that we might hear it.

 

There is that wonderful hymn, Great is thy Faithfulness, a hymn I return to time after time because it reminds me of the sheer, scandalous generosity of God to a mere sinner like me. It reminds me that whatever the world might throw at us, whatever the world might tell us about who we are, God gives us all we might ever need. It ends with that wonderful phrase, which – so clearly – reminds us that despite blessings being all mine, there are nonetheless ten thousand beside. The generosity of God to each of us has no bounds. There is more than enough to go around.

 

“Great is Thy faithfulness!” “Great is Thy faithfulness!”
  Morning by morning new mercies I see;
All I have needed Thy hand hath provided—
    “Great is Thy faithfulness,” Lord, unto me!

 

Amen.