Small numbers and insurmountable odds… On one hand that
equation sits at the heart of many of the stories, real and mythical, that
fascinate us… King Leonidas and the 300
Spartan warriors hold back the Persian army in the battle of Thermopylae in
480BC. In the 2006 film about it that imbalance is picked up in the first
battle scene when the ground shakes and rocks roll down the steep side of the
ravine, to the feet of the soldiers, and one soldier says to Leonidas
“earthquake?” to which he replies “No battle formations”. How about remember the Alamo! Winston
Churchill’s summation of the battle of Britain… ‘Never have so many owed so
much to so few’… I’m a Marvel and sci-fi
tragic and film after film, story after story has the same base thought, a
small group overcoming insurmountable odds and yup saving the world again, just
in time. Crime stories are the same, criminal minds a TV series that is into
its twelfth season has captured this by focusing on the relationships between a
small team, who battle pure evil week after week. Did you notice that we New Zealanders were
very quick to point out that we were number up there on the medal table this
Olympics, that is on the table for medals per capitia, a small nation doing so
well against incredible odds. In real life we see it in social movements
started by a small group committed to the cause. Anthropologist Margaret Mead said
‘Don’t think that small groups of people can’t change the world; they are the
only ones who ever have.”
Small numbers and insurmountable odds… on the other hand are
things that can intimidate and discourage us, that can crush and destroy us. Let’s face it while the Greeks held out the
Persians in the end the 300 died, the Alamo is remembered because it too was a
massacre. I don’t know anyone who has the sort of powers that characters in TV
shows and movies do… and none of us have that great team of writers working on
how we will be victorious this week. Evil and social injustices still flourish
despite the best efforts of small and not so small groups.
And yes I couldn’t help but think of St Peter’s as I read
this passage… On another scale small numbers and insurmountable odds come
together for me at 9:29am on a Sunday morning. Numbers at worship is a real
issue for us as a church, there are challenges about sustainability, I question
my call to ministry. It seems as if the
dwindling numbers in Christianity in the west becomes very real… and the
challenge of how to share the gospel in that context really comes to the fore.
In the passage that we had read to us today from Luke’s
gospel Jesus is confronted with questions of small numbers ‘will only a few be
saved?’ and insurmountable odds, Herod is out to get you… and in his response
to that I believe is hope and encouragement for us.
At the beginning of this passage in verse 22 we are reminded
that Jesus is on that Journey to Jerusalem. In the latter half of this passage
we see that Jesus is aware that to go to Jerusalem for him is to die, that is
here they kill the prophets, so this is Jesus on the Crossroad. It’s a journey that started in Chapter 9:51
and that we’ve been following through the gospel narrative. It’s a journey and
narrative that takes up the central third of Luke’s gospel. It is a journey
that focuses on Jesus teaching, as he moves through the towns and villages on
his way to Jerusalem.
The passage starts with the question that someone asks Jesus,
‘Lord are only a few people going to be saved?’ Jesus answer to the question is
to tell a parable which shifts the emphasis from ‘is it only a few?’ to ‘what
about you?’ Instead of idle speculation
it becomes a personal charge to make every effort to enter in through the
narrow door. Where are you at with Jesus
Christ, do you recognise him as the way to be reconciled with God, are you
listening to him and putting his words into action.
It is hard for us to comprehend Jesus words about strive;
make every effort to enter the Narrow gate, because quite rightly we see that
door way to relationship with God being about grace. It is because of Jesus
Christ, his life, death and resurrection that we can be restored to a
relationship with God as our heavenly father. This passage seems to imply we
have to work for it. In Philippians 2:12 Paul sheds some light on this when he
encourages the people he is writing to keep the teachings he has given them,’
he says they are to continue to work out their salvation with fear and
trembling’. Yes we are saved by grace, the striving and the working is how we
live that out. The key in Luke’s gospel again is hearing the word of God and
responding by putting it into action in our lives.
This becomes clearer as Jesus continues the parable by
talking of a banquet being thrown. At some stage the house will be full and the
door will be closed. People will be left outside. People who expected to be let
in because they had had contact with Jesus, he had eaten with them and they had
heard him teach in their towns, but the owner of the house; Jesus, says I do
not know you, and goes as far to call them evil doers. It is not having heard
the word of God that means we have gone through the narrow door, but rather that
we have allowed it to transform our lives.
For the Jews there would have been a sense that they were
welcome because of family affiliation they were sons and daughters of Abraham
and Isaac, maybe for many who confess a Christian faith they may expect to be
welcomed because of the same thing family affiliation or having simply met
Jesus rather than having committed ourselves to following him. In our reformed
faith, the only way to see the genuine nature of our faith in Christ is through
perseverance, not what Dietrich Bonhoeffer calls cheap grace, a relationship with Christ that we think gives
us eternal benefits but does not cost us anything in terms of how we live.
Then Jesus finishes the parable by focusing on the fact that
people will be invited in from the four corners of the earth. In fact people
that Jesus Jewish listeners would consider being the last people to be welcomed
into the banquet with Jesus are before those they would think would be first.
It is the reference here to people coming to faith in Jesus Christ outside of
those we would have expected; in this case it is the gentiles. It’s you and I
from the ends of the earth who God has chosen to call to him in Jesus Christ. You
get the feeling when Jesus says the feast of the kingdom of God, this is not
some small family gathering but in actual fact a large gathering. The answer to
the question about is it just a few is… well what about you and also a view
that goes beyond our limited human ability to see to a more global view a more
God’s eye view.
Then Jesus is interrupted, and have you noticed how much of
Jesus teaching in this section seems to come from peoples interruptions. I
wonder how much ministry in Jesus life and in ours we might consider
interruption, but is in actual fact the Holy Spirit moving. This time it is the Pharisees and this time
they seem to be on Jesus side, while they still don’t understand who Jesus is
and what is doing they are concerned for him. They have heard that Herod is out
to kill him. Herod is the king with
limited authority under the Romans. This Herod is the son of the one who was
King when Jesus was born. He had John the Baptist killed and is determined to
stop any religious opposition to his rule.
Jesus responds. Firstly by putting Herod into perspective; He
calls him a fox. Now in our European way of thinking Fox is a metaphor either
for a very alluring women, or a very cunning adversary, it is used almost as a
form of admiration, for example the way the British troops nicknamed Rommel the
desert fox. However in Jewish thinking foxes were no more than vermin, bend on
damage and destruction. While in earthly terms Herod may have had power and
authority, Jesus is quick to point out that God will still achieve his
purposes. Jesus would not die outside of Jerusalem. Jesus sees Herod’s
opposition as he does all opposition in terms of God’s purposes and plans.
Secondly, Jesus says that his focus is still going to be on
going about the mission that God has sent him to do. He will go on driving out
demons and healing people, as we looked at a few weeks ago these are the
inroads of the kingdom of God in to the realm of Satan, bringing liberty and
release and restoration from the powers of sin and death. Jesus will continue
to proclaim in word and deed the kingdom of God. He will continue to walk the
road to the cross. In Jesus using the term today, tomorrow and then the third
day we can look back at Jesus continuing to fulfil his mission by facing death
on the cross and the resurrection. Then
lastly in a passage that we are more used to in Matthew’s gospel coming as
Jesus draws near to Jerusalem, we see Jesus continues in his compassion for his
people. He longs to gather Jerusalem like a mother hen gathers her chicks, but
he knows that Jerusalem does not want that. Despite that resistance and
rejection this opposition will not stop Jesus mission of compassion. Opening
and leaving open the narrow door.
O let’s bring that back to us as we face small numbers and insurmountable
odds.
The first is we to need to look not at how few, but be
willing to search our own hearts and lives we need to ask the question what
about you? What about me. Edward Burke
said “the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for Good people to do
nothing.’ In Dr Suess’s masterpiece on
environmental concerns the Lorax… when the magical Lorax is lifted and taken
away he leaves a stone platform behind with the word “unless’ on it and it is
only when the onceler who had devastated the natural world to get bigger and
bigger sees a young Boy with a seed to plant standing on that platform does he have
hope, unless someone comes and cares and dares and makes a stand. Here Jesus invites us to not look at the few,
or the empty pew but to explore our own heart. In a Church spiritual growth
actually comes from the Spiritual health of those in it. Their passion for
Jesus, there compassion for those around them. Just as Jesus called people from the west and
the east the north and the south, it is the fact that God takes care of
bringing people to his cause.
Dealing with insurmountable odds, well Jesus does it by
firstly naming those powers opposed to him: Seeing them in the light of who God
is. Herod may have been a powerful tyrant but in the end it is God who is the
one who was in control and working his purpose out, and it is the same
today. I don’t know if you are aware of
the debate of the name of the new ministry for vulnerable children, where the
childrens’ commissioner Andrew Beecroft has said he won’t use that ame as it
excentuates the problem he will only use the Maori name Oranga Tamariki because
it is asperationsal and means “the weelbeing of children’. Very often in naming
and describing those things that oppose us we can come to understand them more
and begin to work our way through them. It allows us to work strategically to
overcome them.
Jesus other response was to keep on doing the things that
God had called him to do. Jesus knew what God had called him to do and what his
real opposition was so he kept on doing the mission God had sent him to do.
Proclaiming the gospel, seeing people Freed from the demonic and healed,
Despite rejection keep on with the compassionate love of God. To give his life
for the world. When we are confronted
with insurmountable odds it is easy for us to let them call the tune. To be
about putting out the fires or fighting the agenda they set rather than to
focus on what we should be about. We can get caught up in keeping an
institution or form or tradition going as well but we need to focus on the
mission Jesus has given us to witness to him and see people set free and
restored.
It’s interesting as I look at church history those words
Small numbers and insurmountable odds have often arisen, you look at the
pattern of that in the book of acts, as the good news spreads, you see it time
and time again as the church has found itself in decline or in threat of just
becoming a gerontological curiosity and God has raised up people with passion
and compassion to revive and renew. AS I
was sitting down to write this message I came across a great quote from my
daily devotions which I think sums up what I’m saying here…
“it seems that where
God opens a huge (be it a narrow) door of opportunity for good work we should expect
that there will be mushrooming opposition Do not let such opposition deter you
from making the most of the great opportunities when they arise.”
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