Readings: Nehemiah 6.1-16 John 15.12-27
We may be feeling a little like Alice,
falling down that rabbit hole into Wonderland,
where nothing is quite what it appears at first to be!
Everything changing from moment to moment!
We had early warning to expect massive hikes in the cost of power.
And then, our newly chosen PM, and her newly chosen Chancellor,
finally got the chance to burst their long incubated, Tufton Street goals
onto an unsuspecting population! Capitalism in the raw:
every man – every woman, for themselves!
Tax cuts for the rich – funded by state borrowing!
Penalties for the low paid – their encouragement to work harder!
That old trope: the poor are poor because they are lazy!
‘The stock markets are the surest plumbline for what is best for a country!
We must trust the Markets to guide our way forward?’
And indeed, the Markets have responded!
Pronounced their view on the government’s fiscal event!
They are crashing! The pound is sinking! Pensions threaten to collapse!
Inflation, interest rates, mortgage rates,
soaring to unprecedented levels in the twenty-first century!
Right now many are deeply afraid for their futures.
Prime Ministers have speech writers
weaving together the best way possible to get their thinking across.
And behind those speech writers are the idealogues.
Shadowy secret ‘thinktanks’, funded by the uber-wealthy,
often overseas oligarchs. Selling their plans to us,
via takeover and control of our media: print, radio, television,
and of course, the unstoppable rise of social media
with its astonishing ability to capture our minds.
Those who gather in Tufton Street, the so-called Neoliberals,
believe in unfettered capitalism; Free Ports, Charter Cities.
Communities where wealthy industrialists, business men and women,
will take over, will make the decisions as to how their citizens will live.
The final and fullest outworking of Reaganomics!
George Mombiot, environmental activist –
often himself portrayed as an extremist to discredit his thinking,
has produced some clear succinct videos, explaining what is happening.
You’ll find them on social media!
I don’t doubt that Liz Truss sincerely believes in ‘Trickledown’! Nevertheless, what she is proposing is a massive and extreme,
experiment in economics imposed on the people of the UK.
A wolf in sheep’s clothing! With no electoral mandate!
Truss also understands, that her focus on support for the wealthy
while cutting benefits for those at the bottom,
will be unpopular with most in our country –
including some of those business people she hopes to rally to her cause.
‘Not everyone will be in favour of my policies – but everyone will benefit’!
From doing things differently. Cutting taxes and simplifying red tape.
Creating those new industrial ‘zones’, free of all those ‘limiting factors’!
She is equally aware this may not be enough to convince us.
To unite us behind her policies. She continues:
‘We need an economically sound and secure United Kingdom.
And that will mean challenging those who try to stop growth.
I will not allow the anti-growth coalition to hold us back.’
She then lists a string of individuals and groups
who are part of this so-called ‘Coalition’.
For Truss and her Cabinet, it becomes a badge of honour even,
to be ‘hated’ by such a ‘coalition’.
The powerful psychology of ‘insider’ ‘outsider’.
The cohesive pulling power of an enemy to resist!
Although obviously very different in context,
the root causes of their circumstances are similar.
In the year 90, the people of Jerusalem
also experience fierce disruption to their lives.
As Jesus had foreseen – weeping for his Holy City and her people.
A city whose ruling authorities, religious authorities,
greedy and in collaboration with their colonial overlords,
have done well, very well.
A few decades earlier those divisions between rich and poor,
are deeply entrenched. Voices raised against injustice, ignored.
Unrest growing by the day.
In the city, James, brother of Jesus, and leader of the Jerusalem Church, seeks to bring change, bring relief to the poor.
Earning for himself the sobriquet ‘James the Just’.
A serious annoyance to the Jewish authorities,
he was protected by an unusually fair and upright Procurator, Festus.
But Festus died suddenly around the year 64, and the High Priest
now grabbed the opportunity of a vacuum in Roman power
to execute those he considered troublemakers. including James.
The outrage of the ordinary people,
and of those robber bandits of gospel fame, the political insurgents,
their outrage, and their resistance, grew and spread,
until in the year 66, outright war with Rome became inevitable.
By the year 70, the besieged Holy City was once more,
0razed to the ground, her streets running with blood.
In the aftermath, those who survived took sides
0- and blamed each other for the catastrophe.
Thus we find in John’s gospel,
the last to be written at some point in the 90s,
that surviving Christian and Jewish groups have become opposing camps.
Our fourth gospel is much influenced by Greek philosophy,
Greek ways of thinking, with poetic, but difficult tautologous arguments!
Especially where Jesus asserts his authority
based on his own relationship with God his Father,
the very God who has given him the authority he owns!
In difficult times the Johannine evangelist is hard at work
to establish a strong identity for his surviving Christian community.
In particular, vis a vis the Jews.
To clarify who is insider – and who outsider! Who is for us, who against.
In this gospel we find secret knowledge: Chapter 14:
You know the way to the place where I am going.’
I am the Way, the Truth and the Life.
The gift of the Holy Spirit: I will ask the Father,
and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you for ever.
The Spirit who will teach you everything.
And then the beginning of Chapter 15:
picture symbols to remind us who we are, who we belong to:
I am the vine, you are the branches.
And later: You are chosen. Chosen by God.
Jesus names us ‘friend’. He shares with us the secrets of God, very God.
That we might bear fruit in our lives.
The fruit of joy. And gladness shared with others.
0In Jesus’ name we shall know our longings answered.
Summed up at the begining of our gospel tonight:
This is my commandment, that you love one another.
Verses 11-17 of John chapter 15 are indeed beautiful and uplifting.
Do ponder them. Meditate on them.
Let us allow them to inform our sense of self – as is their intention.
And then… The shock of that ice bucket thrown over our heads!
The insider-outsider trope that follows: You are hated – I was hated first!
You do not belong to the world, I have chosen you out of the world –
therefore the world hates you. Because of me you will be persecuted.
Whoever hates me, hates the Father. They have no excuse for their sin.
Precisely what Liz Truss was doing at the end of her speech last week.
Making those who don’t agree with you, ‘outsiders’!
That ‘The Anti-Growth Coalition!’.
If we are not with her, we are trying to stop her. Stop growth!
Of course this is a manipulation of the thinking of those who oppose her!
Paying a level of tax that enables all to enjoy solid infrastructure: education, youth services, social care, health care, safe housing,
good affordable transport links, these things are not anti-growth.
It is precisely health and safety regulations,
and protections for the environment, that enable
those at the bottom of the pay scale to do better – to ‘grow’ even!
For Jesus, no-one was ever ‘outsider’. All are included.
Though interestingly, in John’s gospel there is no commandment:
love your enemy. Nor even, love your neighbour, for that matter!
We are to love each other.
No fierce command to forgive – as there is in all the Synoptic gospels.
Gospels whose teaching would almost certainly
be already known to John’s audience.
John is writing to encourage his beleaguered communities.
Where they are the excluded ones, he tells them they are not alone –
for they walk in the steps of their Saviour.
We too, will meet with resistance as we seek to walk the Way of Christ.
Seek to share God’s call on our lives –
which is about far more than simply growth in material prosperity.
Joy is rooted in knowing our security in relationship with Christ –
which affords us a different, more profound freedom.
Including the freedom to give a hearing to our critics – without being felled.
A freedom where we are not passive in the face of injustice –
or our current turmoil.
And freedom where we are led by the Spirit into new ways of addressing
the deeply flawed agenda of our current government.
The freedom to resist making our PM ‘outsider’.
For we are all doomed when we regard ourselves ‘exceptional’.
Let us pray, listen to one another, talk together about what we might do.
For it is our responsibility to act – to be politically involved.
Let us pray for the Spirit of Truth
to guide us forward through our dystopian times,
to move those seemingly immovable mountains. Amen.
Prayer of Doom Helder Camara, Roman Catholic archbishop in Brazil until 1985:
and famous for his lament: “When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint.
When I ask why they are poor, they call me a Communist.”
Come Lord, do not smile and say you are already with us.
What is the point of your presence if our lives do not alter?
Change our lives Lord, shatter our complacency.
Take away the quietness of a clear conscience. Press uncomfortably.
For only thus that other peace is made, your peace. Amen.