Rev Hugh Perry

The Readings

Exodus 16: 2-15

Maurice Andrew says ‘that creation does not liberate oppressed people but liberated people must be able to live from creation’ ^[1]  That was very much the reality of the early migrants to this country, both Polynesian and European.  The early hunter gardener Polynesian migrants would have needed to develop new skills for new species and environment and many of the plants they brought wouldn’t grow in the more temperate climate.

Early European migrants came with farm animals and exotic plants from a similar climate and there were established communities of hunter gardeners to trade with.  But the land they came to was covered in forest, so they still had to forage for much of their food until their form of agriculture became established.

In any migration both big and small there is bound to be a time when the past is viewed with envy and the decision to move is seen as the greatest disaster ever made.  Faced with challenge people prefer slavery to freedom because slavery also has security and freedom is always freedom into an unknown wilderness.

Matthew 20: 1-16

Hiring day labourers was a normal occurrence in Jesus’ time although usually carried out by the manager rather than the householder.  Those offering themselves for hire would likely have been people uprooted from peasant farms by wealthy landlords foreclosing on debt or forced from their farms because they could not support their household.  During harvest and planting work at minimal wages on a daily basis was readily available but in-between times it was not.

Therefore, life was unpredictable and marked by unemployment, malnutrition, starvation, disease, minimal wages, removal from households, and begging.  Their situation was more precarious than slaves since an employer had no long-term investment in them.^[2]

Sermon

The Israelites would have known how to deal with the quails just has early settlers, both Polynesian and European, world have quickly adapted to killing and eating the birds of Aotearoa.  However, the reading tells us they were a bit cautious about the white flakes that arrived with the morning mist.  ‘When the Israelites saw it, they said to one another, ‘What is it?’ For they did not know what it was’. (Exodus 16:15)

Of course, they did not have Terry Pratchett’s advice that ‘All Fungi are edible. Some fungi are only edible once.[3]‘.  But the Exodus Saga is set far enough forward in human history for most communities to be aware of the need for caution when eating fungi.

Moses gave them the OK to eat it ‘It is the bread that Yahweh has given you to eat’. (Exidus 16:15)

But how did he know?  We might surmise that, because he had been raised with the Egyptian aristocracy or because of his time as a wandering shepherd, he had a wider experience of exotic foods or wilderness foraging than slaves on a limited diet.

However rather than speculating on any hidden reality in the story we should accept the learning in Moses statement that everything we eat, with or without GST, is a gift from God.  Not everything magically comes from multi-national supermarket chains.  Food has a life before shelves and packaging  but not everyone knows that!

When we first planted the community garden at St Albans one of the local people helping did not know that potatoes planted in the ground would grow.  But the classic story from the garden was about a boy who was given some potatoes from the garden to take home.  Next time he appeared he was asked if he enjoyed eating them, but he said his mother threw them out because they had dirt on them.

It is good to be cautious about things that are new and different, but both these readings highlight the fact that the common human response is not to accept new learning.  People find it easier to complain than learn.

So much so that I can’t resist labelling this series of Exodus readings, where the people complain to Moses, ‘The whingeing in the Wilderness.’

People whinge about all sorts of things and when we turn to our gospel reading we find that people are complaining in Jesus’ parable as well.

Nevertheless, like all of Jesus’ parables, today’s reading is not about continual dissatisfaction but about the kingdom of God.  It is not about whinging, or industrial relations or even refusing to vote because the government did nothing for them.  Like all Jesus parables the story has extra layers to it.

Many organisations have a defined process to obtain full membership.  When I joined Scouts at the age of eleven, I had to pass my tenderfoot badge before I was allowed to wear a scout uniform. Continue reading Sunday 24th September →

Theme: Peacemaking and Renewal

Rev Hugh Perry

Readings:

Exodus 12: 1-14

Maurice Andrew notes that this part of the narrative is in the form of regulations for performing the rite of Passover  ^[1]

The Passover probably had its origin in seasonal migration with stock in search of grazing and the lamb was killed about the time of the spring equinox, as a means of warding off evil forces when shepherds and flocks set off on potentially dangerous journeys.^[2]

Andrew further notes that an unleavened bread ritual marked the beginning of the barley harvest signifying everything beginning new and responding to God’s new gifts.  The firstlings offering of the first fruit acknowledged that everything belonged to God and everything is part of creation.  He quotes the Maori practice of returning the first fish caught as an offering to Tangaroa the god of the sea as a similar practice for a similar reason.

Matthew 18: 15-20

Carter notes that conflict is inevitable among humans and especially among a hard-pressed, minority and marginalised communities which Matthew’s community was.  Therefore, it is logical that Matthew would offer a formula for conflict resolution.

Matthew’s formula recognises conflict and offence but seeks to restore the offender to reconciled relationship within the community. ^[3]

Matthew’s code fits well in the Jesus’ tradition of peace through reconciliation and, like so much of Jesus’ teaching, stands in sharp opposition to the shame honour codes that operate in many communities and lead to intergenerational vendettas.   Bill Loader suggests that at an international level the most obvious application is: negotiate and don’t immediately rush to sabre rattling.

Much more can be achieved through negotiation than is usually assumed and this passage affords an opportunity to throw some gospel perspectives on the meaning of love and compassion in the handling of conflict in personal relations because each of us has a story to tell.  We all share expertise in failure and success in whatever area we live and work.^[4]

Sermon

Spring is a time of renewal and new beginnings but there is much about our world that is still cold and frightening.

Spring storms in our part of the world and autumn floods and wildfires in the northern hemisphere appear to be influenced by climate change and global warming.  Effects to mitigate climate change seem to be inhibited by human greed.

In the midst of unnoticed wars that rage continually Russia has invaded Ukraine and western powers are self- righteously supplying weapons.  Those same governments are frantic to stem the flow of refugees and boatloads of people are drowning in the Mediterranean and the English Channel.

Meanwhile we are in the midst of an election campaign.  We are encouraged to believe that our children are not being properly educated, crime is at an all-time high, and inflation and the cost of living will have dire consequences.

However, on the day that the first daffodil burst into bloom on our front lawn The Press carried an opinion peace under the headline ‘Only a better life back home can stop the boats.[5]’

The article suggested that Western Democracies would be better to spend money on humanitarian aid for people in war torn, struggling and bankrupt economies than expensive and dehumanising refugee camps and detention centres.  People make wilderness journeys to flee from slavery and war to earn money to send home.  Like the people in our Exodus reading forty years in the wilderness is worthwhile if it gives a better life for their children’s future.

Perhaps our children might have a better chance in the future if they left their cell phones at home and spent an hour each day on reading, writing and arithmetic.  But, at my first primary school cell phones didn’t exist and we got the strap if we got our spelling wrong.  I got so frightened I still can’t spell and the teachers that told me I would be a failure frightened me from enrolling in university until I was in my early fifties. Continue reading Sunday 10th September →

Who are you?

Pentecost 14A 2023

Today’s reading from the Hebrew scripture can only be described as enigmatic. I’m sure that Moses himself would have been comfortable with that description of a very strange confrontation coming out of nowhere.

Moses was a working man – and an immigrant – with a comfortable and ordered way of life. After he ran away from Egypt, he’d found himself a new life. Wife, kids, and work in the family business – his father-in-law’s business. He had married into his new career. Egypt with its disturbing memories had probably slipped into the back of his mind. In the life of a shepherd, one day would be much the same as any other. Like all other nomadic herdsmen then and now, Moses would mark the passage of time by subtle observation and calculation. Each day, each season measured out each day, until death or disaster intervened. And so Moses’ life had ticked on for thirteen years.

We don’t know much about his father-in-law, Jethro, the priest of Midian, but the writers of the Book of Exodus treated his memory with respect. Rather surprising respect, given the usual attitude towards pagan priests in the Hebrew scriptures. For that matter, we don’t know how much Moses knew or remembered about his Hebrew ancestors or their religion. After all, he’d been brought up in the royal household of Egypt and may never have walked among the houses where the Hebrews lived.  In his new life as Jethro’s son-in-law, he may have given an occasional passing thought to the God of his own ancestors while he watched over the animals in his care, but he would have had the gods of Egypt in his mind as well. He could easily have ignored the burning bush. Just another bit of brushwood that had succumbed to the desert heat. But something nudged him into stopping and really looking. As the text puts it -; “he turned aside”. And for once – for a few seconds – he was in a space where God could break through into his consciousness, and set him on a whole new journey.

But, at the beginning, the confrontation was decidedly unsettling. Moses hid his face – like a child who thinks ‘if I hide myself, you can’t see me’. God then launched into a very grandiose account of Godself  and the extravagant project to overcome the greatest nation in that region. No surprise that Moses wasn’t convinced either that it was possible or that he should allow himself to take part. And so we come to that very testing question that Moses threw at the voice. Who are you? We’ve been trying to answer that question ever since.

In that short reading from Jonathan Kirsh that I shared with you, the suggestion was that in the ancient Hebrew world there was a tradition that the name was known by the elders and passed on to succeeding generations. If you knew the name it would prove you were indeed an emissary of God. But is that really what’s at stake here? What’s at stake for us, here and now? Does it matter so much what words we use to address the Creator, or is it more about coming to an understanding of what each of us is called to be and do in our lives. Continue reading Sunday 3rd September →