St George's Cathedral, Cape Town

A sermon preached by The Reverend Bruce W. B. Jenneker in the Cathedral of St George the Martyr, Cape Town, at the Cathedral Eucharist at 10h00 on the XV Sunday of the Year, 12 July 2009

Robert Burns, the 18th Scottish poet, pours out his heart:

Ah, woe is me, my mother dear!
A man of strife you've born me:
For sad contention I must bear;
They hate, revile, and scorn me.

Woe is me, writes Robert Burns, in flood of self-pity and misery. We know the feeling too, don't we. When a child we love stubbornly makes wrong choices and rebelliously casts aside the future. A welter of emotions surges in us – anger and rage at the stupidity of the choices, fury at the waste of potential, deep sadness at the loss of a dream, intense grief for the pain the child must bear and the cost the child must pay. Woe is all of this – rage at wickedness, anger at wilfulness, sadness and grief, a convergence of lamentation and wrath, heartache and sorrow.

As it was for Robert Burns, so it is for us: woe is exquisite and personal pain, a me-thing. Not so for Jesus.

Tonight we find Jesus near the end of his ministry. For three long years he has laboured among the people, seeking by his words and actions to draw them into the kingdom it is his purpose to announce, to invite them into the new life of abundant grace which he is inaugurating. At the end of his labours his heart is breaking. He is profoundly misunderstood, his message is rejected. Worse than an outlaw or a criminal, he is accused of blasphemy, of undermining the good of society and is denounced as a threat to all that is sacred and holy.

It is the religious leaders who have rejected him. It is they who have challenged him at every step, first ridiculing him, then dismissing him as an upstart of no significance and now accusing him of the ultimate blasphemy, of claiming to be God's son. Disconsolate and weighed down with a deep sadness, Jesus gives vent to his disappointment. Seven woes he speaks, wrung from his broken heart, expressions lamenting how far the people have missed the mark.

'You keep people from the kingdom of God, deciding who is in and who must be kept out' he says, 'Woe to you.'
'You are concerned with numbers, counting up your members,' he says, 'Woe to you.'
'You don't know what true holiness is: you venerate places, things and ceremonies, but you neglect what is truly holy' he says, 'Woe to you.'
'You rigorously insist on small, unimportant things but you neglect justice and mercy' he says, 'Woe to you.'
'You are scrupulous in keeping the feasts and fasts, literally observing all the minutiae of religious practice, but your greed and self-indulgence you overlook,' he has, 'Woe to you.'
'You are deeply hypocritical. Your behaviour denies the intentions of your heart. Superficially you are good but essentially you are filthy and rotten' he says, 'Woe to you.'
'You claim to be custodians of our traditions, but you respect the tombs of those who murdered the prophets,' he says, 'Woe to you.'

Your heart should be breaking, Jesus is saying in these sharp words. The goodness of God is coming towards you and you turn away. The grace of God is seeking you out and you spurn it. You are being chosen and blessed; you reject the choice and curse the blessing.

It is not only the Pharisees and Scribes of first century Palestine that are convicted and condemned by these words. They dart down the centuries to accuse us. For aren't we, you and I, individually and collectively as the Church, eager to protect the boundaries that keep some in and fence others out. Not Christian, we say, or too Evangelical, too Catholic. White, we say, or Muslim, or Jew, or Coloured or Indian. Too young, we say, too old. Too conservative, we say, or too radical. Gay and Lesbian, we say, divorced, never married. Woe to you Jesus says to us: you build false fences of pride that deny the common humanity in which the image of God is painted among you. The dream of God is the family of humanity fully restored, in which every condition, shape and experience of humanity is recognised and understood, in which no one is forgotten, excluded or left behind. Woe to us.

Scrupulously we observe the Calendar, fasting now, feasting then, making our offerings, paying our pledges, genuflecting, crossing ourselves, getting every response right and saying our Amens with bold confidence. Woe to you Jesus says to us: you pride yourself on the ceremonial purity of your ritual observance, but you stand by as justice is brutalised and mercy held captive by greed and corruption.

The dream of God is the family of humanity established as community, ordered by compassion, structured for interdependence and reciprocity and governed by merciful justice and reconciling peace. We strain out a gnat but swallow a camel. Woe is us.

Outward appearances matter to us far more than the integrity of our hearts. We wear the right clothes, make the right gestures, walk with the right posture and put he right expression on our faces. We arrange our lives to match the accepted image of the good life. But in our hearts indifference and apathy fight for supremacy over greed and self-indulgence. We are hypocrites, every one of us. Like apples that are rosy on the outside but rotten to the core. Woe to us.

Hard words these, every one of them. Words from a disappointed Saviour who expected from us zeal for the kingdom of God and found only outward observance. Hard words these, every one of them. Words from a grieving Lord who saw in us the salt of the earth and the light of the world but who now must stand by as we do the works of darkness and lose our flavour.

We need to turn, you and I, and turning turn and turn again until we come round right. The Shakers – that radical American Christian sect – felt called to separate themselves from everyone and everything for fear that they might put their faith at risk and contaminate the purity of heart which was their vocation. In much of this they were mistaken. But they were right when the taught that it is in simplicity that our vocation found its truest expression, and that simplicity and freedom are simple gifts.

'Tis the gift to be simple, 'tis the gift to be free,
'tis the gift to come down where we ought to be,
and when we find ourselves in the place just right,
'twill be in the valley of love and delight.
When true simplicity is gained
to bow and to bend we shan't be ashamed,
to turn, turn, will be our delight
till by turning, turning we come round right.

Let the sadness of Jesus draw us back to him from where we have strayed. Let the disappointment of Jesus lead us to contrition and remorse. And let the hope of Jesus renew and inspire us, that we may be what we are called to be. And then turning, turning, turning, may our complicated woes be transformed into simple joys.

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