Part 4 | Series ‘‘The Love of Jesus through the Ages’

 Matthew 22: 1-10 (Parable of the Wedding Feast)

Jesus spoke to them again in parables, saying: ² “The kingdom of heaven is like a king who prepared a wedding banquet for his son. ³ He sent his servants to those who had been invited to the banquet to tell them to come, but they refused to come.

⁴ “Then he sent some more servants and said, ‘Tell those who have been invited that I have prepared my dinner: My oxen and fattened cattle have been butchered, and everything is ready. Come to the wedding banquet.’

⁵ “But they paid no attention and went off—one to his field, another to his business. ⁶ The rest seized his servants, mistreated them and killed them. ⁷ The king was enraged. He sent his army and destroyed those murderers and burned their city.

⁸ “Then he said to his servants, ‘The wedding banquet is ready, but those I invited did not deserve to come. ⁹ So go to the street corners and invite to the banquet anyone you find.’ ¹⁰ So the servants went out into the streets and gathered all the people they could find, the bad as well as the good, and the wedding hall was filled with guests.

 1 Corinthians 9: 19-27 (The Apostle Paul’s adaptability)

¹⁹ Though I am free and belong to no one, I have made myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible. ²⁰ To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews. To those under the law I became like one under the law (though I myself am not under the law), so as to win those under the law. ²¹ To those not having the law I became like one not having the law (though I am not free from God’s law but am under Christ’s law), so as to win those not having the law. ²² To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some. ²³ I do all this for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings. ²⁴ Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize. ²⁵ Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last, but we do it to get a crown that will last forever. ²⁶ Therefore I do not run like someone running aimlessly; I do not fight like a boxer beating the air. ²⁷ No, I strike a blow to my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize.

Quick quiz:

• Who remembers when most people travelled to Europe by ship not plane?
• Who remembers when milk and bread were delivered to your door?
• Who remembers growing up before television?
• Who remembers when most people were married and buried from a church?

If we answered yes to any of these questions, we are officially dinosaurs! Just ask your grandchildren.

It’s often said that “the only constant in life is change”. The Book of Ecclesiastes in the Old Testament and the Greek philosopher Heraclitus from the same era both said as much.

How are you coping with everything going digital: using your computer or smartphone for doing banking, paying bills, communicating with friends and family, accessing government services, booking medical appointments?

Do you find it frustrating and difficult to adapt? Do you sometimes feel like you are being left behind?

Charles Darwin said “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is most adaptable to change.” That’s why there’s no more dinosaurs but there’s still crocodiles.

The Christian church has survived two thousand years and has flourished so now there are Christians in every continent. This is because Christians have adapted to different circumstances and cultures. As we look back over different eras, we see how Christians responded to changing circumstances: the persecutions under the Roman Empire, the chaos of the waves of invasions and the triumphal era of Christendom. But those changes are nothing compared to the last 500 years of Revolutions.

What revolutions do you connect with:

• Johannes Gutenberg
• Christopher Columbus
• Martin Luther
• Galileo Galilei
• James Watt
• Karl Marx
• Tim Berners-Lee

Have you noticed they were all old white men?

Are you familiar with the story of another old white man named John Wesley? During the Industrial Revolution in the 1700s, the Church of England parish system failed to keep up with the mushrooming of huge population shifts to mining and manufacturing areas from one end of the country to the other.  As a result, a growing number of working-class people grew up with no contact with the church or the the gospel of Jesus. Then along came John Wesley, a neat, learned, conservative Church of England priest, the son of a rural parson. His background didn’t lend itself to a natural affinity with rough and tumble miners and factory labourers. However, after a profound conversion experience Wesley shared the same heart for people as Jesus for the neglected and marginalised. He took to heart Jesus’s words to “go to the street corners and invite to the banquet anyone you find. So the servants went out into the streets and gathered all the people they could find, the bad as well as the good”. Of course, the banquet of the parable is the Kingdom of God and Wesley accepted the call to be one of those servants.  Following Paul’s principle “Though I am free and belong to no one, I have made myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible… I have become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some. I do all this for the sake of the gospel”, Wesley was prepared to sacrifice his reputation and respected position as a member of the fossilised and complacent Church of England establishment to reach people with the gospel. He reached the unchurched masses through field preaching, organised the converts into discipleship classes, trained lay preachers, taught good theology through hymns he and his brother Charles wrote, and encouraged the education and betterment of the working class through writing and publishing wholesome books on topics like science and medicine. Wesley’s influence had a transformative effect across Britian, America and the new colonies in Australia. His influence went far beyond the founding of the Methodist Church. The origins of trade union movement, the abolition of slavery, the Salvation Army and Pentecostalism can all be traced back to Wesley.

But God didn’t just use old white men. Around 1900 the most remarkable, most revolutionary Christian was a tiny Indian woman with striking grey-green eyes named Ramabai. She did us the great favour of writing her testimony which is readily accessible on the internet.  Her father was a Brahman scholar, one of the spiritual elite of Hinduism, who scandalised his peers by teaching his wife and daughter the ancient, sacred Hindu language Sanskrit.  After she and her brother were orphaned, they survived by travelling around India reciting the Sanskrit Scriptures. In Calcutta Sanskrit scholars honoured her with the title Pandita the first woman to be ever given the title. But in her study of the Sanskrit Scriptures, she became appalled at what she found out about the Hindu attitude towards wives. Worshipping the gods was the husband’s task. The wife’s task was to worship her husband. Worst still was the attitude to orphan girls and widows who were regarded as cursed, therefore abandoned and so often had to resort to prostitution to survive. As a young widow herself Ramabai made contact with Christian missionaries who arranged for her to get a modern education in England. While staying with some Anglican nuns she converted to Christianity. What had impressed her most was their work with “Distressed Women”. When she read John chapter 4, she was stunned. Here was Jesus accepting and comfortably conversing with the Samaritan woman who had five husbands and was with a man she wasn’t married to.  Ramabai had to agree with the woman’s astounded neighbours that this man was truly “the Saviour of the world”. Back in India she lobbied the government to train women to be doctors and teachers and started the Mukti Mission for 1500 orphan girls and widows which continues to this day. Her final achievement was to use her brilliant mind to translate the Bible into simple Marathi from original Hebrew and Greek languages for women to read. She had it printed and bound by women in the Mission making it the only Bible to ever to be completely produced by women. Today she is recognised in India by people of all religions as a pioneer of women’s emancipation.

So, what’s the takeaway? As Christians in a changing world who want to share the love of Christ in a relevant manner we need to distinguish between the changeable and the unchangeable, between what is negotiable and what is non-negotiable, between what is constantly in a state of flux and what is eternally true. Jesus is the same “yesterday, today, forever”. He is always relevant in every era and every culture because he diagnoses the disease of our broken human nature and also provides the ultimate remedy. His love for all people and his particular attention to the poor and marginalised never changes. On the other hand, the society and culture we live in is constantly changing.

So, the secret is to value and cling to Jesus and the new identity he gives us as God’s children. Only then can we safely shed our prejudices, leave our comfort zone and meet others on their terms to share Jesus with them. We see that most clearly in missionaries like Maurice and Amanda leaving home and family at Copping, learning the Khmer language and adopting a whole new diet and lifestyle. Closer to home we need to do this at St Luke’s to reach the people of Taroona.

Amen.