Today we are ordaining and commissioning Emona, Papali’i, Bruce, and David as ‘ruling’ (or maybe a better word is ‘governing’) elders. Once ordained an elder you are always an elder. But, in the constitution of St Luke’s, you are only a governing elder for your term of office on Parish Council.

Governing Elders historically have had the following responsibilities:

1. pastoral care and discipline;

2. determining the times of public worship, including the frequency of Holy Communion;

3. assisting the minister in the conduct of worship (upon the request of the minister);

4. selecting and reviewing material for Christian Education;

5. overseeing all teachers and leaders in the congregation (except the minister);

6. working closely with the Community Resource Team (CRT) in relation to the stewardship of resources;

7. developing and maintaining programmes of mission and outreach;

8. supervising the life of the congregation, including the election of elders, maintaining the congregational roll, overseeing all groups meeting under the auspices of the congregation;

9. approving baptisms and ensuring ongoing pastoral care and spiritual nurture of the baptized.

Some of these duties are delegated, for example to our Community Development Team (CDT), but oversight still rests with Parish Council. Importantly, governing elders carry the vision for the parish in the long term. They are a part of the history and tradition of the parish and have a deep knowledge of and relationship with their congregation.

There is also, unfortunately to my way of thinking, a statement called ‘The Formula’ that elders (and ministers) are to assent to. I’ll explain what I mean by‘ unfortunately’ shortly. Firstly, this is what it says:

“I believe in the Word of God in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments and the fundamental doctrines of Christian Faith contained in the Kupu Whakapono and Commentary, the Westminster Confession of Faith, and other subordinate standards of this Church. I accept that liberty of conviction is recognised in this Church but only on such points as do not enter into the fundamental doctrines of Christian faith contained in the Scriptures and subordinate standards. I acknowledge the Presbyterian government of this Church to be agreeable to the Word of God and promise to submit to it. I promise to observe the order and administration of public worship as allowed in this Church.”

The second sentence about ‘liberty of conviction’ and what is or isn’t a ‘fundamental doctrine’ (and how those doctrines and their interpretation evolve) is the wriggle-room in which St Luke’s exists, and most of us, and many Presbyterians in this land, find some theological breathing space.

Yet this quasi-legal language, the use of something called ‘the Word of God,’ the elevation of any confessions, creeds, or affirmations of faith to serve as control gates to give entry, or deny it, to give authority, or deny it, are high problematic.

Let me be blunt: God does not speak words. God is not a person, a being, a thing, or anything we can put a boundary around or control. The word God is best kept in poetry, song, or story- where imagination and license are expansive. That's why I would argue theology belongs with poetry, song, and story, and we should be wary of seeing it creep into science, political speeches, or ecclesial (or, heaven help us, government) legislation. Not that science, politics, and law aren't (at their best) 'doing God' - bringing, for example, hope. It's just that using the God word, a very imprecise word, muddies things.

You may have noticed in the affirmations of faith I have written since returning from Iona, that if the word God is mentioned at all, I use it tentatively, cautiously, and certainly not definitively. 

So, in today's affirmation, I mention at the last - almost as a throwaway line: "I trust in hope - a touch of God". But it's not a throwaway line, it's a pointer. I'm saying to those who wish to seek this mystery we call God, hope is one of the paths. Or, more plainly put, when you meet someone or group or organization that sows and nurtures hope, you are meeting people who are doing the work of God (or 'doing God') regardless of their allegiance to any religion, politics, or none. So observe, join in, and learn from them. They might be as little known as my late grandmother who, regardless of losing her legs to diabetes, was one of the most unrelenting positive and encouraging people I've ever met. Or they might be as well-known as Agnes Callamard, the inspiring Secretary General of Amnesty International, who in defence of the suffering and victims of war and greed, speaks truth to power, and incurs power’s wrath.

To return to the Formula and its elevation of the Word of God in the Bible, the Kupu Whakapono, and the Westminster Confession. I understand the institutional need for it, marking tribal boundaries and what's permissible, but it has little to do with faith or, dare I say, God. My chief problems with them, in addition to what I’ve already said about ‘God,’ are that, firstly, all language is limited by time and culture, and reflects who is trying to control who. Yes, we should learn from them. But then we need to go and write our own, and keep writing and revising our own. We don't live in 1600s England (Westminster Confession) or early 2000s Aotearoa (Kupu Whakapono). 

Secondly, most, if not all such formulas, creeds, and affirmations, don't reflect or contain any of the ethical directives purportedly taught by Jesus in the New Testament. They are in effect saying that faith is assenting to a body of largely unprovable beliefs and statements, rather than living and doing the God ways of Jesus.

And this is why I like our first reading today, the parable about amending or changing the Scriptures. Our faith is what we do, how we behave – rejecting intolerance and cruelty, giving dignity and welfare – not what we believe and assent to in any document, Scripture or Formula.

+

This Jesus parable, ‘a Pharisee and a Tax Collector went up to the Temple to pray,’ deals in caricatures, and so we need to be careful with it.

The New Testament depiction of Pharisees as self-righteous, pompous, and judgemental has stoked the fires of antisemitism. It’s a dangerous caricature. We need to remember that Pharisees were areligious movement for good, concerned to develop the practice of faith locally(rather than be reliant on the Temple in Jerusalem). The Pharisees were the serious and committed ones at a time when religious as well as political identity was crucial to Jewish faithfulness, and even survival, under Roman occupation. 

Paul was proudly a Pharisee (Phil 3:5); Nicodemus was a Pharisee (John 3); elsewhere in Luke, friendly Pharisees warn Jesus of plots against him (13:31), and he accepted the hospitality of Pharisees (14:1).Gamaliel, who in Luke’s sequel urges caution before condemning Jesus’ followers, was a leading Pharisee (Acts 5).

It is likely that of all the Jewish religious groupings of the first century, Jesus would have fitted with the Pharisees. So, it’s better to see Jesus’ hyperbolic depiction of this parable’s Pharisee, as one churchgoer (Jesus) criticising a fellow Christian.

As for the other character, caricature, in the story, the Tax-collector, also needs to be understood in context. Firstly, he is rich. Unlike the Pharisee. Secondly, he has gained his riches by doing work for, the work of, the Romans. Namely extorting money. Thus he is not popular, and he’s feared. Thirdly, and maybe most importantly for this story, he is considered religiously ‘unclean,’ polluted. His profession, his actions, have defiled him. While, in contrast, the Pharisee is considered ‘clean,’ holy. The Pharisee believed the right things, and abided by the requirements.

In the parable, the Pharisee uses a lot of words that underline his importance and his piety. And he leverages this importance by comparing himself to the Tax-collector. The Tax-collector, on the other hand, uses very few words, and one gets the sense that he’s out of his comfort zone, maybe ashamed. What has driven him to come to this holy place when he feels and is considered so unholy we are not told. He prays for mercy.

I would suggest to you that this parable is a better ‘Formula’ for the Presbyterian Church than what I read earlier. God is not mentioned by name in this story. But the ways of God, what I call ‘doing God,’ are here.

Firstly, in the seeking of mercy (or what I would reframe as kindness). Being kind to ourselves. Loving ourselves as, in the old language, God loves us. And being kind to others – those we work with, those we are responsible for and to, those we don’t understand, and even those we despise. When we practice kindness, practice mercy, we are ‘doing God.’

Secondly, abstain from judgement. We don’t often know, if ever, why people do what they do. Why they make money by harming people? Why they come to pray? Why they seem pompous and self-righteous (like the Pharisee),or penitent and ashamed (like the Tax-collector)? Why they hurt? And why, a ttimes, they hurt us? Abstaining from judgement is closely linked with tolerance and forgiveness. And the opposite, being judgemental, often says more about us than those we are judging. There is too much hurt in our world, and inside us, already without us adding to it. So, abstaining from judgement is ‘doing God,’ or if you like, ‘doing the work of God.’

And thirdly, lastly, this parable – and here I’m drawing on the work of Brandon Scott – suggests we need to view the world upside-down. For this parable, along with many others – like the mustard seed, the eye of the needle, the leaven – suggests that among the defiled, the excluded, the nuisances are where we find the ways of God (the Empire of God) operating. This parable turns expectations topsy-turvey. The holy one is brought low, the unholy one exalted. Maybe we need to leave piety and learn from those without. Maybe we need to forget right beliefs, and immerse ourselves among heretics. Maybe its not inside our religion where there is salvation, but outside it.

Like practicing kindness and mercy, like abstaining from judgement and being tolerant, so is asking deep questions of religion, its requirements, and structures ‘doing God.’

This is a formula, not so much to assent to, but to live by.

‍