Trinity 8 “You are great O Lord God” 13/07/08
2Sam7.18-end; Luke19.41-20.8.
‘You are great O Lord God; for there is no one like you, and there is no God beside you.” 2Sam7.22
Freaky Friday
I saw a film last week which I would never have chosen to look at given a choice. But it was our young people’s film and pizza night, and they made me an offer I could not refuse. So as Nadal and Federer broke for rain in a thrilling third set, with the promise that it might go to five, I sat on the floor, near the door, to watch Freaky Friday.
Freaky Friday, made in 2003, features Jamie Lee Curtis and a flaky plot. A mother and teenage daughter can’t understand each other, Oh really? What a novel idea. The mother Tess, fails to grasp her daughter’s preoccupation with rock music, body piercing and leather clad bikers. (she plays guitar in a metal band). Anna the daughter, is grappling with the imminent remarriage of her mother, her father having died some years earlier. Her relationship with her mother’s fiancé is frosty.
They go to a Chinese restaurant where, as a result of eating magic fortune cookies, they switch bodies, but keep their own minds. (I told you I would not have chosen to see this.) There is plenty of humour as daughter Anna gets her hands on a wallet full of credit cards, collects a new car and goes on a spending spree. She also has to avoid a close encounter with her fiancée. Tess the mother, now in her daughter’s body, cheats in an exam, falls for a leather biker and plays in a rock band.
Walking in each other’s shoes is painful, and they are anxious to change back but learn that the effects of the fortune cookie can only be reversed when they discover selfless love.
Tess discovers that her wayward daughter and her friends have many fine qualities. Anna, realises the anguish of widowhood and finds that her prospective stepfather is genuine and welcomes him into the family. You can guess how it all turns out.
There was a strong hint of cheese but in parts it was fresh and delightful. And anyway, there are far flakier plots to be found in opera where suspension of disbelief is regularly exercised by devotees.
If like me, in the wake of GAFCON, the York Synod and two days to go before the start of the Lambeth Conference you are suffering from “Issue Fatigue” a phrase Rowan Williams used last week, then this film is a powerful antidote. We will return to it.
Jesus and the Money Changers
Thinking of Jesus and the moneychangers in the temple, people sometimes ask me what Jesus would make of our work at St Mary’s. Would he overturn the tables of the conference goers. “This is a house of prayer but you have turned it into a Talking Shop!” I usually say something like ‘We are the temple now so what would he say to us about that?” The answer of course is that I don’t know what he would say to his church today.
Lambeth Bishops
But I did have the privilege of listening to 5 bishops and a dean from the Anglican communion yesterday at a meeting of our diocesan synod.
Between them I learned that we are to be a sign of God’s self giving love in a broken world. In Brazil this means being the church of the voiceless and the powerless, not as popular as it sounds. “When I give to the poor they call me a saint. When I ask why they have no food, they call me a communist.”
I heard of efforts in Atlanta Georgia to keep up with the growth of new churches and a mission priority to build he kingdom of God among black, disenfranchised communities.
Our brothers and sisters in Tanzania are seeing growth in numbers coming for ordination as they battle against the scourge of Aids, Malaria and the transportation system.
I hadn’t realised that our link with Argentina grew out of a shared loss in the Falklands war. They lost the “Belgrano” and we lost “The Sheffield.”
As prisoners of hope, we learn here in Sheffield to grapple with the challenges of generosity, diversity and fast changing communities.
Our Challenge
How can we in the words of Rhidian Brook, live life to the full and help others to do the same, unless we learn to put ourselves into the shoes of others. It is very difficult to do this, in fact it takes costly love to do it. Nothing less than the self giving love we see in the Good Friday story.
The challenging truth for us is that if we cannot practice this in our own Communion, how can we show by example the life of he Kingdom of God, where there is neither Jew not Greek, Slave or Free, Male nor Female, but all are one in Christ Jesus.
Here is a suggestion. If we have lost touch with Good Friday then perhaps we need to do two things. Order a Domino’s Pizza with all the toppings you can fit on it. Then round to Block Buster Video and take out Freaky Friday and settle down to an interesting take on the power of self giving love to transform us in Christ’s image. Amen.
When I finally reached home, they were still in the fifth set and the rest is history.
“You are great O Lord God; for there is no one like you, and there is no God beside you.” Help us to know the depth of your unconditional love that finds us as we are and knows us better than we know ourselves.
