Sermons

Sun, Jan 24, 2021

Radical reorientation

Series:Sermons
Duration:13 mins 17 secs

It’s not long, now, until the Covid vaccination programme begins here.

Of course, that’s a source of great relief and hope.

And, so it should be.

But, I get the sense that many people think that will be the end of it;

that, once we’re vaccinated, life will go back to normal.

It won’t.

 

Recently, three significant mutations to the virus have been identified.

There are some preliminary reports that one of these…

the South African strain…

may, partially, be able to circumvent our immune response.

There’s a suggestion that the vaccines being rolled out now may be less effective against it.

And, even if that isn’t the case…

it’s possibly only a matter of time before that does happen.

This virus will continue to mutate.

And vaccines will have to be adapted.

It’s going to be a bit like the flu vaccine.

According to one evolutionary biologist, “We’re in a race against viral evolution”.

Not only do we need to “roll out vaccines as quickly as possible”… 

but, he suggests… 

we need to “stem the flow of variants by restricting interactions and travel”.

 

At the same time… 

while the main Covid vaccines that are currently being used overseas––

and will be used here––

are very effective in preventing serious illness…

we don’t know if they prevent the virus from being transmitted.

People who have been vaccinated may not get sick…

but they could still pass the virus on to people who aren’t protected.

As a result, the government has warned that international travel will continue to be restricted… 

probably at least until the end of this year.

Similarly… 

they have warned that it could still be more than a year until Covid restrictions––

especially around social distancing––

are eased.

Professor Peter Collignon––

an infectious disease expert from the Australian National University––

argues that border closures…

hotel quarantine…

and indoor venue capacity limits… 

should be maintained until at least March next year.

But, if we’re aiming at eliminating the virus in Australia… 

he warns…

“it might be two years before you take these down”.

 

Meanwhile, health authorities in the UK are warning that many who have been vaccinated there…

believe that they’re “good to go” immediately;

whereas protection is really only effective a fortnight after the second dose.

As such, there is a real risk of them getting infected…

and passing it on to others.

Indeed, according to some scientists…

modelling suggests that people failing to follow Covid-prevention practices “could more than offset the benefits of vaccination…

before there is a high degree of coverage”.

 

According to the president of the Australian Medical Association…

we all have to accept that the virus is now endemic…

and we have to “learn to live with it”.

That calls for a very significant change in the way that we think…

the way that we interact…

and the way that we live.

It really does call for a radical reorientation. 

 

Sometimes I don’t think we appreciate…

that, for that first generation of Christians…

especially for those in the wider Graeco-Roman world…

their experience would have been a bit like that.

This new God…

this new faith…

to which they had given their allegiance…

demanded a radical reorientation of their life.

So much of the life of their cities…

and families…

revolved around the traditional gods.

So many of the values, beliefs, traditions, and aspirations of their culture––

and their world––

seemed at odds with those of this new faith.

Sometimes, it’s hard to know what had attracted them to this strange…

marginal…

socially-suspect religion…

and why they had become Christians at all.

And, to be honest, many of them did struggle––

especially in the Corinthian church.

They had to work hard to make connections;

to juggle their allegiances;

to find some sense of religious, social, and cultural rapprochement.

And, we see some of that, here, in this morning’s reading from First Corinthians.

Following a lengthy piece of advice regarding how they might handle matters of marriage and sexuality…

Paul broadens the issue…

and speaks, in a sense, of their whole way of being…

their way of engaging with their world.

Based on his belief that the return of Christ––

and the consummation of God’s intention for creation––

was immanent…

he urges them to loosen their attachments to the things of this world:

their relationships…

their possessions…

their everyday life.

It was not so much that he was encouraging a radical renunciation…

but a radical reassessment and reorientation.

If, as Paul argues, “the present form of this world is passing away”…

then… 

they need to ask themselves, “how should we live?”

And the starting point for Paul…

always…

was theological. 

Of course, Paul’s end-time expectation was wrong.

It was––

at least in part––

the product of a particular religious tradition that he had inherited.

But it was also predicated on a particular understanding of time and history…

and a particular metaphysical understanding––

which we would no longer share.

 

So, is there anything in what Paul says here that applies to us?

 

Unlike those earliest Christians…

none of us come to this with a blank slate.

We have centuries of Christian thinking and writing…

and centuries of tradition and ways of being…

upon which to draw…

and which shape who we are and how we live as people of God.

And, while the church is not held in the regard that it once was…

faith, for us, is not a potentially dangerous commodity.

It doesn’t place us at odds with our families or communities…

not like it did for the early Christians.

Most of us have inherited ways of being Christian:

patterns of thought and practice;

values and aspirations;

and ways of engaging with––

and reconciling our faith to–– 

our wider life and commitments.

 

But is that, in a sense, part of the problem?

 

We have inherited these things.

The “brands” of Christianity that we have… 

come to us, in a sense…

shaped by…

entwined with…

even compromised by…

that long history of cultural engagement and rapprochement.

Whether we realise it or not…

for so many of us, our brand of Christianity is shaped by…

entwined with…

compromised by…

a particular political ideology…

a particular set of, and attitude towards, morality…

a particular set of cultural values and attitudes and aspirations…

a particular image of who we are, who we should be, and how we ought to live.

Beyond what is contingent in Paul’s advice, here, there is…

I believe…

something quite crucial:

the call, always, to return to first principles––

to put aside the inherited traditions…

and the enculturation…

and to ask the basic theological questions.

It may not be quite like Paul does here––

we do not expect an immanent cosmological event––

but, in light of our own mortality…

in light of the fact that nothing for us in this world is permanent…

then, how should we live?

What sort of world do we want to leave behind?

 

And yet, even more than that, given whom we know God to be––

loving…

gracious…

compassionate…

inclusive…

and, One who cares about the hurting… 

the oppressed… 

the poor… 

and the excluded––

then, how should we live?

Everything else––

our politics…

our values…

our attitudes…

our way of life––

flows from that.

 

Or, it ought to!

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