Say no to cynicism:  Ezekiel 2:1-5, 2 Corinthians 12:2-10, & Mark 6:1-13 

 

Cynicism.   Ezekiel faced cynics, Jesus faced cynics, and Paul faced cynics.

Those of little faith.  Those who could not see past the ordinary.  Past the slightly odd priest who was prone to have visions and dreams that were hard to understand.  Past the man who we grew up with, whose brothers and sisters we know.  Past the man who built our house.   Past the funny little ugly tent maker.  There is a lack of imagination, a lack of openness to something new, a lack of vision to see what is here now and what is coming soon, because of the limited experience of the past. 

It seems to me that cynicism is one of the hall marks of our culture in this country right now.  Throughout public debate and news stories is a deep current of mistrust.  There appears to be an underlying assumption and idea that most people lie most of the time, and that we are being misled.  

I believe that this is so corrosive to the human soul that it is heart breaking.   How can we live in community if we don’t trust people?   It seems to me that down this road lies isolation and loneliness.  Cut off from each other, with no common ground on which to meet, we end up alone.

And this is not to say that there is not, in some cases, grounds for mistrust and dismay.   It is almost as if over the last fifteen years there has been a vicious circle in place in our society.   Repeated episodes of deceit and lack of openness by public figures in authority, political and church leaders, have led to a reduction in trust in our leaders, and this in turn has led to a reluctance on the part of leaders to be open about failings and mistakes.

It is one huge mess that is characterised by a lack of truth, a lack of forgiveness, a lack of openness, a lack of generosity and a lack of trust.  Our country is in a mess.

Around six hundred years before Jesus was born, God’s people were in a mess.   They had been unfaithful to God, and they had worshipped created things, rather than the Creator.  A series of weak or evil Kings had led to them being defeated by the surrounding superpowers.  Jerusalem, the centre of their worship, had been over run, and several thousand of God’s people had been forcibly deported to Babylon.  They were exiled, homeless, in a strange land.  They had no place to worship.  They felt like they had been abandoned by God, and they did not trust God, or God’s messengers, the prophets, to have any good news for them.

When Jesus was born, God’s people were in a mess.   They had returned to Jerusalem, but it was a shadow of it’s former glory.   It had been overrun by foreigners again, and although God’s people could continue to live in Jerusalem, and worship at the temple, they were ruled by strangers.  The leadership classes had become separated from the way in which normal people lived.  Some of them set up lots of religious rules and laws to try and  make sure that nobody ever disobeyed God again.  But these rules became burdens rather than freeing people in worship, and God’s voice was silent, despite the rules.   Other rulers colluded with the Roman overlords and grabbed power and wealth for themselves.   The people did not trust their leaders to look out for their best interests, either with God or in their politics.

About twenty-five years after Jesus died, the people of God in Corinth were in a mess.  They had first heard the good news of Jesus from Paul about five years earlier, when he had been there for around eighteen months, preaching and teaching.   During this time, people had come to believe in Jesus, and a church had formed in this Greek city.  However, since Paul had moved on his relationship with the people of God in Corinth had come under increasing strain.  It seems that disagreements within the church and other false apostles coming and attacking Paul’s integrity and authority to preach had led to a breakdown in trust between the church and Paul.  Connected with this breakdown in trust was a breakdown in community within the church, a church which seems to have been characterised by a lack of self discipline, a lack of holy living, and a lack of love for each other.

Three different messy situations in three different cities, in three different countries into which God sent faithful messengers.

God sends Ezekiel to speak into the mess.  God warns him that it will be hard task, that the people will not listen to him, but that he will be proved right in the end.  He will be shown to be a true prophet, someone who has trustworthily spoken God’s word.   

The message of Ezekiel has two important themes that I want to pick out today.   The first is one of judgement.  He leaves the people in no doubt that they are in a mess, and that mess is a direct result of their sinfulness and rejection of God.  I think that this is important for us to hear as well.  At the root of the mess that we see in our public life is sinfulness and rejection of God.  We, with Ezekiel, have a call to repentance to deliver.

The second theme is one of hope.   Although the people cannot see the way out, and have lost faith and hope, Ezekiel delivers God’s promise that as they turn from their sin and turn back to God, God will forgive them and take them home.  God can be trusted to do away with the mess when God’s people turn to God in hope and faith.

God sends Jesus to sort out the mess.  He comes to earth, not as one of the leadership class, not as a prince or religious ruler, but as a normal bloke.   One of the people, to live among the poor and the lowly, the obscure and the ordinary. He is not one of the ones who sit on high, telling people how they ought to live, or busy building palaces whilst the people are subject to higher and higher taxes.  He is the one who came to live and die with people.   But, the levels of mistrust are so high in that community that his very ordinariness becomes a problem for his fellow townsfolk.  They know him, and they know his family.  One of the things that makes Jesus credible and believable for most people, is a huge problem for the locals.   They are cynical, they don’t believe that anything great or good can happen or come from their community.  They have no faith or hope.   They won’t let Jesus sort out their mess, as he did and continues to do for people and communities around the world and throughout the ages who turn to him in hope and faith.

God sends Paul to sort out the mess.  Like Ezekiel, Paul has two major themes that I want to pick out from his letters to God’s people in Corinth.  The first is a call to repentance.  Much of these letters is taken up with Paul pointing out the lack of love, lack of generosity and lack of self discipline in the lives of the Christians in Corinth.  He calls them to change, to repent, to turn to God and follow Jesus’ way more faithfully.   Again, we might want to reflect and ask God to show us the ways in which our church life fails to follow Jesus faithfully.

The second theme is one of seeing things as God sees them, not as the world sees them.   Paul is aware that he appeared weak, that he had infirmities and a manner that wasn’t always appealing.  But he also knew that God worked through these things, and despite these things, to bring the good news about Jesus to many places and people.   He encouraged the Corinthians to look through the eyes of faith and hope to see as God sees and so to get closer to God and be enabled to live and work with God more closely to sort out the mess that the world is in.

And now, as Jesus sent the disciples, we are sent by God to sort out the mess.  We are called to grasp with faith and hope the vision of the Kingdom of God breaking through into our country.  Into every city.  Into every community.  We are the messengers and deliverers of the Kingdom of God into the places that we live and work.  So, as we look with God’s eyes, what does faith and hope look like in our streets? 

In Etruria at the moment we are doing some survey work, to find out how people experience living in that community, what they believe about God, and how we, as God’s people can serve them.  As we have gone round talking to people, we have found many different things.   There is concern that youth unemployment is becoming a big problem.  There is awareness that there are a lot of elderly people in the community who are not well supported.  There is loneliness and a yearning for greater community.  People working away and coming home to their little box houses, never seeing the neighbours.  I met someone who asked us to pray that she might have a baby.   I know what God’s Kingdom coming would sound like for her and her partner.  It would sound like a baby gurgling.

We cannot solve all these problems, we are not strong enough.  But we are sent by a God whose power is made perfect in weakness, and who, I believe, will give us vision for the way in which we are being called to bring the good news of Jesus to that community.  So, that is what we pray for.

We are continuing this work over the next few weeks.  If you want to come with us, and hear some new stories first hand, then please talk to me.  If you have other ideas about how you can bring God’s Kingdom into your street, then do it.   With imagination, hope and faith, say no to cynicism, and ask God to give you vision for what God is calling you to do.

Amen.