St Michaels Church Podcast
A different King, a different Priority | Mark Beard | 22.09.2024
[Music] This morning's reading is from Luke's Gospel, chapter 5, verses 12 to 32, which can be found on pages 1032 in the church Bible. While Jesus was in one of the towns, a man came along who was covered with leprosy. When he saw Jesus, he fell with his face to the ground and begged him, "Lord, if you're willing, you can make me clean." Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. "I am willing," he said, "be clean," and immediately the leprosy left him. Then Jesus ordered him, "Don't tell anyone, but go, show yourself to the priests and offer the sacrifices that Moses commanded for your cleansing as a testimony to them." Yet the news about him spread all the more, so that the crowds of people came to hear him and be healed of their illnesses. But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed. One day, Jesus was teaching and the Pharisees and the teachers of the law were sitting there. They had come from every village of Galilee and from Judea and from Jerusalem. And the power of the Lord was with Jesus to heal those who were ill. Some man came carrying a paralyzed man on a mat and tried to take him into the house to lay him before Jesus. When they could not find a way to do this because of the crowd, they went up onto the roof and lowered him on his mat through the tiles in the middle of the crowd, writing in front of Jesus. When Jesus saw their faith, he said, "Friend, your sins are forgiven." The Pharisees in the teacher of the law began thinking to themselves, "Who is this fellow who speaks blasphemy? Who can forgive sin but God alone?" Jesus knew what they were thinking and asked, "Why are you thinking these things in your hearts?" which is easier to say, "Your sins are forgiven" or to say, "Get up and walk." But I want you to know that the son of man has authority on earth to forgive sins. So he said that to the paralyzed man, "I tell you, get up, take your mat and go home." Immediately, he stood up in front of them, took what he had been lying on and went home praising God. Everyone was amazed and gave praise to God. They were filled with awe and said, "We have seen remarkable things today." After this, Jesus went out and saw a tax collector by the name of Levi sitting at his tax booth. "Follow me," Jesus said to him, "and Levi got up, left everything and followed him." Then Levi had a great banquet for Jesus at his house and a large crowd of tax collectors and others were eating with them. But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law who belonged to their sect complained to his disciples, "Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?" Jesus answered them, "It's not the healthy who need a doctor, but those who are ill. I've not come to call the righteous, but sinners for repentance." Thank you, Harry, for that reading. For those of you who don't know me, I'm Mark. I'm part of the clergy team here. I'd like to be bringing the word to you this morning. We're in a series in the book of Luke. We are looking the way the Luke, the gospel writer, presents Jesus as the king, a king but a very different king. And so in chapter 1, we were looking at Luke as, rather, looking at Jesus as a different king with a different kingdom, then in Luke 3, we were looking at a different king with a different coronation. Luke 4, we looked at Jesus as a different king with a different manifesto. And here in Luke 5, we're going to be looking at Jesus as a king with a different priority. So here in Luke 5, we encounter three stories, three, I think, fairly well-known stories, three incidents in the life of Jesus, that Luke places together one after the other. Now these stories appear in the other writings, the other gospels, but not in this order. But as we have seen in the previous weeks, Luke is very deliberate in the way he recounts the stories of Jesus. And at the beginning of the series in chapter 1, we learned this, Luke says of himself, "I have carefully investigated everything from the beginning to make an orderly account." So we can be pretty sure that the reason that these, there is a reason why these stories are together. And so what was it that Luke wanted to see that runs across these three stories, these eyewitness accounts that have been so carefully ordered us? Well I believe that Luke is presenting us with a king and a kingdom with completely different priorities. A kingdom that comprises those who are the excluded, the prohibited and the disapproved. In other words, the outsiders. He wants us to see that they are desperate and audacious. In other words, they are outrageous. And finally, he wants us to see that they are determined and resolute. They are outspoken. Easy to remember, outsiders, outrageous and outspoken. So let's begin. The outsiders. So here we have three men, three stories, a leper, a paralytic and a tax collector. And it sounds like the start of a pub joke, doesn't it? You know, on Tuesday this past week, a number of us performed a prayer walk around the boundary of our parish, praying for the people who live here in the enterprises that make up the neighbourhood. You missed a great night, by the way, those of you who are here. But we will be gathering again next month for prayer, so do look out to that. This walk around the parish is an ancient tradition, it's called beating the bounce. It's an unusual name, but we still use a phrase similar to that today when we talk about a policeman on his beat, walking his beat. But where, in this case, the bounds are the boundaries of the parish. And they would in, historically, have been marked by a stake, a pointed stake of wood stuck in the ground. And in ancient villages and settlements, these sticks were called pales, that's why I get the name Palisade. So they were called pales, and then they considered that anything outside that boundary was unsafe and civilised. That is why we get our modern phrase beyond the pale. It means that things out there are too dangerous, too unsavory to countenance, behaviour which is uncivilised by a barrack distasteful and repugnant. And each of these men in these stories were themselves considered to be beyond the pale. Because in first century Jewish society, a leper, a paralytic, or a tax collector, they were each beyond the pale, each in their own way, distasteful, repugnant. In Jewish law, they were variously either medically, morally, or socially repugnant. And yet Jesus welcomes each of them to experience his cleansing, his healing, and his friendship. You know, as we walked the parish, as we beat the balance this past Tuesday, it was notable just what an incredible parish we live in. Just by the things that we're praying for, yes, on the one hand, there were some obvious things to pray for, like the homeless people, obviously needy, the people who live in public housing who might be struggling to make ends meet. But on the other hand, at the other extreme, we note that just down the road in Chelsea Barracks, that it's reported that a flat sold recently for £120 million, I think a record. That's our parish. And what I want you to realize is we shouldn't think that these rich people, and you might be among them, that you are the insiders, the acceptable ones. We just don't, we can just think about just how many tycoons inhabit Chester Square and they're called Chester Square, they're home. We are surrounded by those who, for various reasons, medically, morally, socially, are outsideed and considered beyond the pale for various reasons. But I just want to tell you, if you are in the congregation today, or if you're watching online, Jesus loves you, and we welcome you here at some Michaels. But being an outsider of itself was not enough. Jesus wasn't just trying to pick off the disaffected in the week, like a lion hunting for a pack will look for the weakest person on the edge of the pack, the weakest animal. Jesus wasn't like some online troll bot looking for weak minds to meddle, peddle their political ideas or messages. You know, that way, Jesus would just end up with a church full of weirdos. Please do not look round at this point. You see, you remember him, the story of him healing the ten lepers. Only one of them came back, so he's not just looking for outsiders. He was looking also for people who were outrageous. Now what do I mean? Well this from an online news source, Taylor Swift concert tickets. Fans have exhibited remarkable creativity and determination in their efforts to secure tickets for Taylor Swift's highly sought after eras tour. Many fans have opted to travel to Europe for concerts, where ticket prices for shows in Paris were available for under 250 euros, while the U.S. resale prices average around $3,800. Some fans have taken to camping outside concerts to hear the music from outside, viral moments have captured fans crying as they listened to the concerts from a distance. Some fans have even expressed willingness to make significant financial sacrifices, including selling personal belongings or even contemplating extreme measures like selling organs, just two or four tickets. That's what I mean by outrageous. These fans were desperate, determined and audacious, they were in a word, outrageous. And what we see with each of these guys in the story is a similar desperation, which causes them to reject all restraint. Any sense of decorum, any social niceties, any politeness or respectability is abandoned in the face and the need their desire to get to Jesus. The leper, it says it was covered in leprosy. It was obvious he was a leper. He should not even have been in town, let alone close enough to someone for Jesus to be able to touch him. Losers were required to live outside of the town, separated from the population. But this man is so desperate that he wanders into town, he flouts the laws and the rules and he risks as a leper in town being beaten or stoned to death, outrageous behavior. The paralytic is so desperate to see Jesus that has his friends carry him on a stretcher to the house where Jesus is teaching, they can't get in, they carry him on to the roof, they still can't get to him, so they lower him down through the tiles. Mark's translation says this, "They made an opening in the roof above Jesus by digging through it, through the roof." Even somebody so desperate to hear my sermons this morning that they drive a JCB through the wall, and that's what we're looking at, outrageous behavior. Matthew 11 verse 12 says this, "From the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven has suffered violence, and the violent take it by force." I like the guy, I guess he's homeless, I don't know what his background is, but I like the guy who stands outside Slaughton Square Station screaming, "If you've been through Slaughton Square, you'll have seen this guy." Unlike the other beggars who might sit there with a cop quietly waiting for people to give them donations, this guy wanders around and shouts, "Will nobody help me? Will nobody help me?" And he looks awful, he's covered in filth and his clothes are ragged, "Will nobody help me? Will nobody help me?" And then he quietens down until another tube train comes and stops at the station, everybody comes out, "Will nobody help me? Will nobody help me?" How rages, but you know the privileged are crying out too. We are surrounded by incredible wealth in our parish, people who seemingly have everything, but we also have the highest concentration I would reckon in the world of wellness therapies in our parish. We have got clinics, well-being outlets, herbal treatments, skin rejuvenation, light therapy. In Eccleston Yards alone, I can go for an extreme workout, ballet stretches, static cycling, wellness counseling at Remind Calming Therapy Studio. I can go for Pilates or then I can go into the blistering heat of hot pot yoga and then straight next door to Cryo London to lock myself inside of an ice cold cryo chamber. Now that is outrageous behavior. You see, people are desperate seeking solutions for their emotional, physical and mental well-being, but it is spiritual hunger and a desire for immortality that often underlies these treatments and exercises. So while we don't see these people crying out like the homeless begging man, nevertheless they equally spend their time, their money and their effort screaming out because they are experiencing spiritual hunger. The privileged are crying out too; our fields, our parish is indeed white for harvest. Now what about us? Do we solve the same desperation? Are we equally outrageous? You know, I was not around last Sunday. I was in Deathing, attending the wedding of my oldest daughter, Hannah, a very happy day and I'm pleased to say that Hannah is now married to a wonderful young man called Merlin and the wedding was at the home of Merlin's parents in a house that has been passed down for many centuries, many, many centuries through the family. It's a modest farm, but it once was part of a much larger estate and lands and as the usual way with these things it shrunk over the centuries, but rather unusually the estate is passed down through the female line of the family. Now I've never given that much thought, but on the morning of the wedding at breakfast my brother-in-law, who's kind of interested in things, began to share that he'd looked up the story of this. But essentially it begins back in the days when the estate was, really did constitute a vast fortune, an absolute fortune, and it begins with one son, one heir, who decided to follow Jesus. Not only that, he decided to become a clergyman, a priest, and to remain single, thus disinheriting not only himself, but effectively ruining out the possibility of having offspring, and thus ending his own line of succession, his line of succession to a vast fortune. Now that's outrageous. The disciples were told in verse 11, just before our passage, left everything to follow Jesus. In verse 28 of our passage it's said that Levi got up, himself a rich man, Levi got up, left everything, and followed him. From the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven has suffered violence and the violent take it by force. How about us? How outrageous might we be to be followers of Jesus? So outsiders who are outrageous, but who are also outspoken. You see, each of these guys in their own way is transformed by meeting Jesus. When the leper is healed, he is told not to tell anyone, but to go show himself to the priest so he can get a certificate of cleanliness. That's like, remember during the pandemic, if you wanted to go abroad and fly in a plane, you had to go to a clinic and get one of those fit-to-fly certificates, a COVID test certificate. But instead, he's so excited to tell everyone what's happened to him that it says this in the Gospel of Mark. Instead of keeping quiet, he went out and began to talk freely, spreading the news. And as a result, Jesus could no longer enter a town openly, but stayed out in lonely places. That's outspoken. He's telling everybody, "Boy about Levi, he's also outspoken in a different sort of way." You see, he goes out to all of his privileged friends. It says in verse 29, "Then Levi held a great banquet for Jesus at his house, and a large crowd of tax collectors and others were eating with them." "Hey, everyone," he says, "all friends, you outsiders, tax collectors, pimps, prostitutes, you fraudsters, you estate agents." I slipped that one in. All your rejected ones come to my place, come and hear this guy. You won't be sorry. That's how Levi was outspoken. Okay, let's wrap this up. A different king, a different kingdom with different priorities. As if to sort of underline how unusual Jesus' priorities are. Luke ends this passage by referring to the Pharisees and the teachers of the law again. Either very people, one would imagine, would be the insiders, but they're now the outsiders on the outside complaining. Verse 30, "But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law who belong to their sect complain to his disciples. Why do we eat drink with tax collectors and sinners? And then with one of the world's most brilliant one-liners, Jesus says, "It's not the healthy, you need a doctor, but the sick." I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. So how about you? Are you healthy, or are you sick? Perhaps you're one of the excluded ones, morally repugnant, drug dealer, arms dealer, or may you just feel excluded in some other way? Well, I can tell you Jesus wants you. But are you satisfied or desperate? Are you willing to push through the crowd? For you it might mean suffering the embarrassment of your friends jeering at you. Are you willing to be outrageous like that, leper risking taking a beating to get to Jesus? Will you be like that priest willing to give up everything to follow him? And do you already know Jesus, but you're a bit shy and you need to be more outspoken? The vast majority of us don't live on the streets, we're not like that leper, we're not going to be around and about telling people that we bump into. We're probably most of us closer to Levi, the tax collector. And so here's a simple suggestion. Do what Levi did, invite your friends and your neighbours to a party, better still. On October the 2nd, in a week's time, we will have a quiz night here. Get some friends together, come along, make up a team and have a great, fun evening, a chance to bring your friends along to church without them being preached to. At worst, we're just going to mention the car service, that's all, that they'll be invited to come back to. Be an outsider, be outrageous, be outspoken, let's pray. Lord, thank you for the neighbourhood we live in, so beautiful but so needy. Our fields are indeed ripe for harvest. Help us to welcome those who are medically, morally or socially repugnant, the outsiders. Help us, Lord, to be outrageous in our commitment and search for you. Help us to be outspoken in our witness to your goodness, amen. We've got to come now to our time of confession. And in confession, we come before God and we recall to mind those things in our lives that have got away in the way of our relationship with Jesus, where we might have allowed sin to spoil our communion with God. Let's allow the Holy Spirit to search our hearts and minds in a moment of silence, but also just be thinking about those things. Being outrageous, being outspoken, where have we done less than we could have? Lord, help us to do more. [Music] (upbeat music)