“Hope”

In today’s Gospel reading from Matthew 15:21-28, a Canaanite woman who has given up hope for her daughter, begs Jesus to heal the girl. Though the woman and her daughter are outsiders, Jesus miraculously reaches out to them and heals the little girl. This story shows us an image of Jesus acting with grace and powerful compassion. It’s a story that encourages us to have hope.

St. Athanasius was a great theologian of the fourth-century. In a brilliant little book, On the Incarnation of the Word, Athanasius writes that the entire world benefits from the incarnation of the Word even before being aware of it. “You know how it is when some great king enters a large city and dwells in one of its houses; because of his dwelling in that house the whole city is honoured and enemies and robbers cease to molest it. Even so it is with the “king” of all; he has come into our country and dwelt in one body amidst the many, and in consequence the designs of the enemy against mankind have been foiled, and the corruption of death that formerly held them in its power, has simply ceased to be. For the human race would have perished utterly had not the Lord and Saviour of all, the Son of God, come among us to put an end to death.”

This explains why our hope is valid. It gives us a foundation on which we are able to build our Christian ethics and our Christian life. Jesus is Lord! We have a reason for our hope. The kingdom of God is here! Life that is lived in the light of that saving knowledge is eternal.

Introduction

Friends, the season after Pentecost is Green season, a time of growth. Living our questions is a helpful tool to deepen our experience of faith; thus, the congregation is invited to submit questions that we can all reflect on. The following points explain my approach:

 1.       Following Anglican tradition, I frame a response to each of these questions using three main sources of theology: reason, Scripture and Tradition. A fuller explanation of reason, tradition and Scripture is offered in the previous week’s bulletin and on the blog and I entrust the reading of this to you reflections/2020/7/20/QnA.

2.      I do not imagine that what I offer is a definitive response, I hope instead to provide architecture for you to think about your response.

3.      In this spirit, when assertations are made I invite you to receive any these as questions.

 Question 1:

It is often extremely hard to understand the meaning of parables, why would Jesus have chosen this way to explain things? They have often been misunderstood and the true meaning lost.

Godly Play is a process that equips people (adults and children) with skills in spiritual praxis, rather than information only. Materials for each parable are contained in a gold box.

Parable from godlyplayresources.com 1

Godly play introduces parables with the following words:

“Look! It is the color gold.

Something inside must be precious like gold.

Perhaps there is a parable inside.

Parables are even more valuable than gold, so maybe there is one inside.

The box is also closed. There is a lid.

Maybe there is a parable inside.

Sometimes, even if we are ready, we can’t enter a parable.

Parables are like that.

Sometimes they stay closed.

The box looks like a present.

Parables were given to you long ago as presents.

Even if you don’t know what a parable is, the parable is yours already.

You don’t have to take them, or buy them, or get them in any way.

They already belong to you.

You need to be ready to find out if there is a parable inside.

It is easy to break parables.

What is hard to do is to go inside.

I have an idea.

Let’s look inside and see what’s there!

I wonder what this could be?

(from Godly Play Volume 3 by Jerome Berryman)

See also https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLd8UFTdIPH2cdkUutFNa1_8Pp_nyyZytc. 

The above is a poetic way to introduce people to the truth of parables, let us now reflect on the reason for the use of parables in Scripture, our Christian Tradition and reason.  

Scripture

Simply put the word parable means to through alongside. In Scripture, different types of parables are offered. In other words, a parable is not a single genre, but there are several ways in which a parable is used. Some parables challenge and provoke (e.g. the parables of the Good Samaritan and the Prodigal Son). Some parables offer examples of Jesus teaching (e.g. the parable of the mustard seed, pearl. Most importantly, Jesus’ actions are parables. For example, on Palm Sunday, he travels into Jerusalem on a colt or on a mother donkey that has just given birth to a colt that is walking next to her. Jesus’ action is parabolic, it is a challenge to the status quo where rulers would ride triumphantly on a stallion. Moreover, the parable is saying something about the sort of Messiah Jesus is.

 In Godly Play when we reflect on the Faces of Easter, we recognize that “the work of Jesus was to come close to people through healing and telling parables. Then Jesus realized that he would have to become a parable.” What Godly play is communicating is that in addition to saying parables and acting in parables, Jesus was himself a parable.

 A purview of parables in Scripture should make clear that a parable is not an earthly story with a heavenly meaning. The reason we can be confident of this is that Jesus died a political death. If Jesus were merely a spiritual teacher who told ethical and moral stories, he would not have offended the Roman and religious leaders of his day who organized his execution, clearly, he was more than an ethical and moral teacher.

 As we turn from resources in Scripture to influences in our Christian Tradition, we plumb the writings of scholars who answer the question as to why Jesus spoke in parables.

 Tradition

Several contemporary scholars are worth consulting including John Crossan, William Hertzog III (Parables of Subversive Speech), Marcus Borg, Ched Meyers and Richard Horsely. For our purposes, the reason Jesus uses parables may be summarized as follows.

 Technique

Firstly, a parable is a technique that forces people to participate in the story.  In this way people remember the story. The parables lure listeners into argument. The parable provides a type of hook that reels people into the subversion Jesus proposes through his kingdom of God campaign. Think about your own reaction to the story of the Prodigal son (read Luke 15). Are your feelings about the elder son, the younger son and the father’s response to both completely academic? Or does the story invite some emotional response such as irritation, a feeling of unfairness or discomfort? I imagine that you know the story of the prodigal son well and that even the mildest reaction to the story points to the powerful technique that the parable is in allowing participation. I would suggest that unless the parable annoys you, it is likely that you have not even scratched the surface of its meaning.

 Turn the world upside down

The second reason Jesus uses parables is that his aim was never to maintain the status quo. Jesus’ message of the kingdom of God is provocative, it turns the world upside down. The parable invites you to see the world as Jesus sees it, upside down. The upside down world view of Jesus is summarized in Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5), a type of Constitution for the kingdom of God: blessed are the poor (not the rich), blessed are the peacemakers and blessed are the meek who inherit the earth. The parables both illustrate the upside-down worldview of Jesus and are a tool to enlist your participation in the subversion of an unjust society.  

 Transformation

Thirdly the most important reason to use parables is that for Jesus the kingdom of God is about a transformation in perception. The point of the parable is that it creates in the listener a change in thinking, a paradigm shift A paradigm shift is a fundamental change in approach to underlying assumptions. Many are familiar with the illustration of a paradigm shift where the viewer sees  either the old or young woman. In order to see one or the other, a change in perception or a paradigm shift is required.

 Transformation is a critical factor for the kingdom of God which is why it is so necessary that Jesus adopt the approach. The questioner comments that parables are at times misunderstood. I suggest that the degree to which parables are misunderstood is the degree to which we (or preachers) resist participating in the parable and resist the transforming the parable wants to do to us.

Further, failure to understand parables is often when we (or preachers) force the parable to fit our perception of reality, rather than allowing the parable to do what it is designed to do, namely interrogate our perception which could lead to transformation. An example of forcing a parable into our perception of reality is when we insist on reading the parables from the perspective of the wealthy citizens we are, instead of being cognizant of the economic and political oppression behind the parables.

 Having reflected on our Christian tradition we determine how relevant the parable is for our experience of the Kingdom of God.

 Reason

Reason as a source in theology includes experience. The power of the parable is that although it is culturally and historically specific, the possibility of participating in the parable is timeless. Throughout the centuries the parables have formed the basis for deep prayer and a way to experience the immediacy of God. One example of this is the Benedictine tradition of Lectio Divina. Lection Divina  (divine reading) is a slow, prayerful, repetitive, reading of short parables. Would you like to participate in one such experience?

1.       Read any short parable a few times.

e.g. “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his field. Though it is the smallest of all seeds, yet when it grows, it is the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds come and perch in its branches.”

2.      Read the parable slowly now again listening in the silence for any word or phrase that shimmers for you, an image or word that stands out for you.

3.      Write this down.

4.      Read the parable again asking if what you have written down is inviting you to anything. Write this invitation down (if any).

5.      Read the parable again. Would you like to respond to the parable or invitation in anyway?

Ah! The parables! Enigmatic entities whose meaning is not immediately clear, Spirit filled seeds of creation, brimming with promise of life and vitality. Some seem simplistic, others baffling, yet others tiresome. The shorter they are, the more meaningful they seem to be. The longer ones invite unfortunate critical analysis that destroys the purpose of their formulation, the presence of the living God.

Think of The Pearl of Great Price, or the Treasure Hidden in a Field - one-liners that carry a stupendous wealth of Presence. No other words are necessary. One is invited into a liminal space of boundless possibility that is - really, truly, madly - ineffable.

Rowan Williams once referred to Christ as a “riddler”, “one who makes us strangers to what we think we know,” whose “sharp and enigmatic words … oblige us to imagine ourselves anew …”

So, in considering the parable of the Sower, let us not get entangled in the details, but seek the greater truth, the Sower Herself. Forget the possibilities for careful agriculture, husbandry of soil types, farmers negligent or otherwise, weeds and what not; the Sower in this tale is extravagant, reckless,
abandoned, indiscriminate. Seed is scattered everywhere.

The late R S Thomas’ poem
Raptor has in part,
You have made God so small
setting him astride
a pipette or a retort
studying the bubbles,
absorbed in an experiment
that will come to nothing
I think of him rather
as an enormous owl
abroad in the shadows
I have heard him crooning
to himself, so that almost
I could believe in angels.

(Based on Matthew 14:13-21)

Jesus said to his disciples “You give them something to eat”
We are often just like the disciples in this Gospel story of loaves and fishes. We think that we are not very well equipped and have little or nothing to offer others.

It’s distressing for us to see advertisements on TV showing babies dying of starvation,
families living in tents in muddy refugee camps and kids living in poverty without the proper school uniform or food. These advertisements move us from distress to despair. Often, we think “Jesus, please just send them away!”. At other times, our sincere prayers are “Jesus, we want you to work some kind of miracle and to look after and feed these unfortunate people”.

In this story of the feeding of the five thousand, Jesus shows that he can take what little we have to offer, bless it, and give it back to us so that we are then able to bring fulness to the needy.

In Holy Communion, Jesus transforms the eucharistic bread. He also transforms us into Eucharistic people. The meal of Jesus is always obtainable. The twelve baskets of leftovers collected by the
disciples are a lesson to us that the miraculous nourishment provided by Jesus is still available for those who seek it.

As long as there are people looking for the gifts Jesus offers, this nourishment can never be totally used up. But the Gospel story also tells us that Jesus wants disciples who are prepared to distribute his gifts. Jesus calls us to become his “subcontractors” to nourish the needy.

Jesus certainly works an amazing miracle. The miracle is seen as Jesus asks each one of us, “What do you have?” This isn’t necessarily a question about money; perhaps it’s about other resources such as time or a special talent.

The reality is that we don’t have much. Just a couple of fish in our basket, and a few loaves. But Jesus encourages us to take what little we have and to recklessly share it. Jesus desires us to give it away. We are urged  to share our meager resources with the multitudes.

Whenever we respond to this urging of Jesus, the real miracle is that whatever we have to share turns out to be enough.

Matthew 13 is chock full of parables that start with the words, “The kingdom of God is like …”

In the OT, the phrase “kingdom of God” is, an eschatological concept that first appears in the prophets. Eschatology refers to a future world in which all human hopes will be fulfilled according to God’s purposes.
Micah (4.1-4) describes it attractively; all peoples shall stream to it, and

In days to come
the mountain of the Lord’s house

shall be established as the highest of the mountains,
and shall be raised up above the hills.

Peoples shall stream to it,
and many nations shall come  

they shall beat their swords into ploughshares,
and their spears into pruning-hooks;

nation shall not lift up sword against nation,
neither shall they learn war any more;

but they shall all sit under their own vines and under their own fig trees,
and no one shall make them afraid …

Jesus asks the disciples “Have you understood all this?” and they say “Yes!” I wonder what they mean? Is it “Yes!” to Micah’s image, which I presume they knew; or yes to the string of parables laid out for them like a necklace? How do you see it? Do you say “Yes!” that readily? What do you respond to?

Jesus’ response, his punch line if you will, is telling. “Therefore every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like the master of a household who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old.” The old treasure, the Scribe’s treasure, was the “Law and the Prophets,” in which they were comprehensively schooled. The Scribes were the guardians as it were, and significantly they were guardians of social cohesion.

Jesus indicates that the old and the new belong together; the new being that which Jesus has laid before his disciples in his life, teaching, and works. In the language of the old dispensation, the disciples are to be the Scribes of an enlarged treasure that contains the old and the new, strongly indicating that the new Scribes will be agents not just of personal change, but also of social change. “A new heaven and a new earth.”

Rev Doug Bannerman

Question and Answer Series

August

Liturgically, the season after Pentecost is a time of growth. The feast of Pentecost is a time when we celebrate the gift of the Holy Spirit given to all creation. After Pentecost the Holy Spirit (the breath of God’s love) assists our growth in faith; a growth that is symbolized in the church with green garments, green decorations and flower arrangements.

One way that we can develop more confidence in our faith is through asking questions. Thus, every August, during the season of growth, members of the church are invited to pose questions.

How shall these questions be ‘answered’?

QnA reflections are not answers to the questions, but rather a structure in which to reflect on the questions asked. The structure is threefold: reason, tradition and scripture.

By reason we mean any knowledge we produce through the active use of our minds. Reason also includes the role that reflected experience plays in pondering God and life questions. Self-reflective awareness presumes some knowledge of one’s own context, blind spots and assumptions.  Wherever possible we hope to use as a deliberate assumption the perspective from the margins. Jesus offers a preferential option for the poor and thus we practice this virtue as much as possible, aware that we fail before we have begun. Why? Our context as educated westerners, consuming most of the world’s resources, means that our wealth prevents us from noticing information that is clear to the outsider or the marginalized.

By Tradition we mean post biblical theological resources of the early church from the past to the present. Why use tradition? The conviction is that the Spirit continues to be present and at work in God’s community beyond Scripture. Tradition literally means “handed down” and refers to how we treasure insights valued and preserved in previous generations.

By Scripture we mean the canon of the Old and New Testament books. We can briefly mention that the word Scripture means different things to communities. The Roman Catholics, Anglicans and Protestants generally have different “versions” of Scripture. We can also briefly note the influence of differing translations from alternate sources whether the Greek New Testament (NIV, NRSV), the Latin Vulgate, the Septuagint (Greek version of the Hebrew Scriptures) and looser more dynamic translations (CEV or Good News Bibles). These few sentences hint at the fraught nature of Scripture as a source and we haven’t yet mentioned the opposing ways in which Scripture is interpreted. Perhaps at this point we pause and state that for our purposes we hope to read the Scripture through the “eyeglasses” of Jesus. Those parts of Scripture that are “in tune” with Christ’s vision of God’s kingdom come clearly into focus. Those aspects of Scripture that are against the Spirit of Jesus fade into the background.

In summary, we reflect on the questions our community poses through the tension of reason, tradition and Scripture, as Anglicans have done since the time of Richard Hooker onwards. As we use the tripod of reason, tradition and Scripture, the invitation is offered to receive the reflections presented as further questions to ponder and not as a definitive answer.

Questions are best submitted at Anglicans.live or left for the person delivering your bulletin or posted at the church

The Rev’d Dr Desiree Snyman

Rector

Alstonville Anglicans Sharing the Good Life

anglicans.live

priest@anglicans.live

The Parable of the Weeds in the Wheat.

The weeds in this well-known parable is probably the Eurasian ryegrass, darnel; aka poison darnel, darnel ryegrass, cockle or false wheat. The CABI Invasive Species compendium reports that darnel seeds are remarkably similar in size and weight to wheat grains and other small grain crops, which makes separation
difficult. It is widespread in temperate regions, and the seed contains alkaloids toxic to humans and livestock; although the plant itself may be used as animal fodder, up to seed set. The plant itself can play host to a number of crop diseases.

So, the tale is not about just a few relatively harmless weeds in the crop. The impacts on agriculture can be significant. Theophrastus (ca 300BCE) mentions darnel in his De causis plantarum. Æthelred the Unready complained that all the Danes had sprung up like cockle amongst the wheat and ordered the St. Brice's Day Massacre (13 November 1002) of all the Danes in England. It almost goes without saying that William Shakespeare knew darnel.
Cordelia assesses King Lear’s madness in these words:

As mad as the vexed sea;
singing aloud;
Crowned with rank fumiter and furrow-weeds,
With hordocks, hemlock,
nettles, cuckoo-flowers,
Darnel, and all the idle weeds that grow.

In this parable, it is perhaps easy to overlook the significance of the grain that is sown. The seed was (is) a
universal symbol of birth, of hope and future abundance; the ear of wheat a symbol of spring, of nature awakening, conquering the darkness and immobility of winter (death). As divine gift, it represented food for the spirit.

We are sowers. Like phosphorescence in the wake of a boat, we leave seed in our wake. It will settle
wherever; and it will flourish wherever. Bishop Giancarlo Bregantini, former factory worker, long time prison chaplain, champion of the unemployed and outspoken critic of the Italian mafia, remarked: “When a child is born an angel puts a kernel of wheat in his hand. If he tightens his fist and keeps it closed, the
kernel will become mould. If he opens his hand the kernel will fall down into the soil … it will multiply. If the kernel is mine, I am sad; if I give the kernel … open my fist, I realize that my problems are small in
comparison to other people’s problems.”

 Rev Doug Bannerman

Sermon Preached at St Bartholomew’s Anglican Church

Sunday 28 June 2020

Introduction
Magnified, sanctified be thy holy name
Vilified, crucified in the
human frame
A million candles burning
for a help that never came
You want it darker,
we kill the flame
"Hineni, hineni;
I'm ready, my lord."

Hine"

Matthew reports Jesus
comparing “this generation” with children in the market place complaining,

“We played the flute for you, and you did not dance;
we wailed, and you did not mourn

At first sight, this is a simple story about “flute playing
children and the arrogance of not dancing”.

In Matthew, messengers have arrived from an imprisoned John the Baptist asking if Jesus is “the one who is to come.” Jesus’ response is to enquire what did they expect, “a reed shaken by the wind? Someone dressed in soft robes?” The reed was a Herodian symbol; the text a clear reference to Herod
Antipas, then the ruler (Tetrarch) of Galilee and Perea.
 
Mark places a dance within Herod’s palace, when his step daughter danced at his birthday bash. In the Greek text, the daughter is called korasion, a term usually used for a young girl not yet a woman, or a little girl. The girl remained unnamed until the 1st century historian Josephus recorded her name as Salome, a name that evokes a sense of sensuality. Unfortunately this name has stuck, even in academic
literature.

The context of both accounts is the beheading of John the
Baptist. This is, as Jean Psichari eloquently states, “the fatal turning point in salvation history – the death of the prophet and the completion of the Old
Covenant.”

Mark’s account ends in tragic sadness. Herod actually enjoyed listening to John, and was
mortified when he was trapped into beheading him. And an
innocent girl becomes a vehicle for her mother’s evil desire. Is there a touch of misogyny here? Stepmothers carry a heavy
burden.

Matthew’s account ends in grace.

“Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

Doug Bannerman

Leonard Cohen gives a poetic rendition of the Genesis reading in his song “Song of Isaac:”

“The door it opens slowly,
My father he came in,
I was nine years old.
And he stood so tall above me,
His blue eyes they were shining
And his voice was very cold.
He said, “I’ve had a vision
And you know I’m strong and holy,
I must do what I’ve been told.”
So he started up the mountain,
I was running, he was walking,
And his axe was made of gold.

Cohen then brings the ancient Hebrew text of Genesis into the current age. In the mouth of Isaac Cohen begs us:

You who build these altars now
To sacrifice these children,
You must not do it anymore.
A scheme is not a vision
And you never have been tempted
By a demon or a god.
You who stand above them now,
Your hatchets blunt and bloody,
You were not there before,
When I lay upon a mountain
And my father’s hand was
trembling
With the beauty of the word.

In what ways has modern civilization continued to sacrifice children?

Sermon Preached at St Bartholomew’s Anglican Church

Sunday 14 June 2020

2nd Sunday After Pentecost

A critical look at the gospels, and the rest of the bible for that matter, informs us that we cannot take everything literally. There are too many internal inconsistencies to allow that with any degree of rigour.

Rather we need to listen with the ear of the heart, tease out the broader concepts and intentions, so that the spirit of the gospel, the deep wisdom, will penetrate the soul, thence the mind. In my experience, that only comes in the fathomless spaces of deep silence, in which only pure things can gather and coalesce.

Easier said than done. Now for me, the heart of today’s gospel reading is this.

As you enter the house, greet it. 13If the house is worthy, let your peace come upon it; but if it is not worthy, let your peace return to you.

The greeting, of course, is the greeting of peace, the common greeting of the Semitic world. The Greek word for peace is eirēnē (εἰρήνη), which gives rise to the English name Irene. It is also the name of one of the Greek goddesses of the seasons.

In 379 BCE the citizens of Athens erected a votive statue in her honour. The original bronze is lost, but the Romans carved marble copies, perhaps the best of which[1] depicts the goddess Peace cradling her child Plutus in her left arm – Plutus, the god of Plenty. The statue was, in fact, an allegory for Plenty prospering under the protection of Peace; and it represented a public appeal for good sense.

That is the appeal when you enter another’s space. The words “Peace be with you” are an appeal for good sense and all that goes with that. So, to stretch a point somewhat, “Peace be with you” can also mean “Have some sense”.

And, to stretch it even furthur, “Have some sense”, as a protest in another context, has the connotation of “I can’t breathe”; words uttered by more than one indigenous person in the world, as they lay dying under the crushing weight of several hefty law enforcement officers; in Australia, David Dungay Jr; in the United States, George Floyd.

There is a perception in Australia, Alison Whittaker wrote recently, that Indigenous deaths in custody are inevitable or natural. Despite 432 Indigenous deaths in custody since 1991, no one has ever been convicted.[2] All this a consequence of racist silence and complicity endemic in the legal system itself, together with the way such cases are portrayed in the media; together with a lack of political will; together with the frozen deafness of our leaders. Justice is extremely difficult to obtain in this circumstance.

In fact, we only hear about the indigenous lives lost in custody “because of the persistence, expertise and courage of their families and communities who mourn them. But it is not enough to hear about justice, justice must be done."[3]

There is no good sense and certainly no peace is this sector of our national life. Marcus Borg has cogently argued that liberation from bondage is one of the central meanings of salvation;[4] but here there is no liberation, and the bondage is palpable.

It goes without saying, surely, that Jesus’ teachings and behaviour “reflect an alternative social vision” [5] that operates on the basis of good sense, liberation and peace.

The heart of the matter, in Borg’s words, is that,

God wills, comprehensively, our well-being – not just my well-being as an individual but the well-being of all of us and of the whole of creation.[6]

Our task is to give wings to this and make it real. “How?” is my prevailing question. Each of us have skills in different areas. None of us are perfect in the exercise of those skills. But all of us can try as best we can to use the gifts we have in the service of liberation and justice. That is Gospel.

As one of our latter-day prophets, Leonard Cohen, said/sang,[7]

The birds they sang

At the break of day

Start again

I heard them say

Don't dwell on what

Has passed away

Or what is yet to be

Yeah the wars they will

Be fought again

The holy dove

She will be caught again

Bought and sold

And bought again

The dove is never free

Ring the bells (ring the bells) that still can ring

Forget your perfect offering

There is a crack in everything (there is a crack in everything)

That's how the light gets in

So be it.

Doug Bannerman Ó 2020

[1] Now in the Munich Glyptothek

[2] See The Conversation, June 3, 2020

[3] ibid

[4] See http://jeankimhome.com/Documents/Resources-Commentaries/BORG-SALVATION.pdf

[5] See https://marcusjborg.org/quotes/

[6] ibid

[7] Anthem, by Leonard Cohen. His 2008 performance in London is stunning.

It is exceedingly difficult to sanitise the story of Hagar to fit our religious expectations. Like all human relationships, the dynamics between Sarah, Abraham and Hagar are messy.  Hagar is a slave. Sarah gives Hagar to Abraham as a wife to bear Abraham a son. 

According to Tikva Frymer-Kensky the custom of giving a wife to one’s husband was common: 

“...cuneiform texts of the
second and first
millennia B.C.E. attest to this custom in ancient
Mesopotamia. The first such text, from the Old
Assyrian colony in
Anatolia, dates from around 1900 B.C.E. A marriage contract, it
stipulates that if the wife does not give birth in two years, she will purchase a slave woman for the
husband. In the world of the ancient Near East, a slave woman could be seen as an incubator, a kind of womb-with-legs. Sarai and Abram see
Hagar in this role and never call her by name.”

Hagar does not see herself as a slave. She values herself as a person, not as property, and later feels superior to Sarah “she looked with contempt on her mistress” (Gen 16:4). In response Sarah and Abraham degrade and abuse her. Hagar runs away. In the wilderness she meets God’s messenger who asks her to return to the abusive situation for then she will bear a son who will be a “wild ass of a man” (Gen 16:12). A wild ass is undomesticated, likewise Ishmael is undomesticated and will not be oppressed and live “with his hand against everyone” and “in everyone’s face” (Gen 16:12).

In a male centred society what is astonishing is that Hagar is Abram’s counterpart. God speaks directly to her and Abraham. Hagar and Ishmael are freed by Sarah (Gen 21:9–14). Later, Israel will be freed from slavery and like Hagar will end up in the desert and struggle with thirst.

Hagar is a powerful symbol for anyone who has felt that they do not belong, for anyone who is excluded or rejected by “mainstream” religion.
Hagar is a heroine for all who support “Black Lives Matter”.

The Scriptures this week are dense with themes of discipleship, evangelism and the zeal of sharing the Good Life. But what is the first step of being a follower of God? I suggest that it begins with experience, the experience of being utterly loved and accepted by God. With this in mind I invite you to read through this quote by Thomas Merton. Read it a few times. What sings to you? Allow your reading to be a prayer.

At the centre of our being is a point of nothingness which is untouched by sin and by illusion, ... a spark which belongs entirely to God. This little point of nothingness and of absolute poverty is the pure glory of God in us. It is God's name written in us...It is like a pure diamond, blazing with the invisible light of heaven. It is in everybody, if we could see it we would see these billions of points of light coming together in the face and blaze of the sun that would make all the darkness and cruelty of life vanish completely ... I have no program for this seeing. It is only given. But the gate of heaven is everywhere. (Conjectures of a guilty bystander (1966:142) New York:Doubleday).

Thought for the week
Does the Trinity mean anything for us today? I think it does. Here are some ideas.

Trinity and intimate relationships and family life
Since God is Love and God’s very being is relationship, the Love relationships we see in the Trinity are precisely the sort of relationships that we are to experience with each other. The Trinity is The Model of how we are to conduct are partnerships, our sexuality, our marriages and our families. What does it mean in practical terms? It means we love each other with self emptying love.

Church
Trinity says that God is community—three ‘Persons’ loving each other so much that they are one. God is community. But humankind is also community. God’s desire is that these two communities should be one. In other words God’s inner life is a model for our human life.

The church is meant to be the place where we see the unity between God and humans taking shape, where we see the process of self emptying love. People are supposed to see what it means to live in the Trinity by looking at us.

Society
Society too should be structured along the lines of self-emptying love. Society should mirror this inner life of God called the Trinity. In Australia we see some of this taking shape in our care for the vulnerable in the policies that are in place to include differently-abled children at school and in our protection of the welfare of the elderly. At the same time we realise how we fail in our residual racism that we prefer to deny and not own up to. If we take Trinity seriously this will be the basis on which we reflect on our policies as a nation: the deportation of refugees, the protection of the environment through carbon pricing and our care of animals who with the cosmos are invited to share in the divine life of God.

In other words we are to oppose that which works again sharing, mutuality, belonging and service which we see modelled in God.

Picturing God
Because God is Relationship – Trinity – we never, never picture God as Powerful, Violent, Angry, Almighty. Almightiness and Violence doesn’t seem to cope with relationship or with love. Someone once said that Jesus was God’s answer to a bad reputation. Of course God the Creator is not violent. It is we who are violent and the violence we have repressed in ourselves we have projected onto our images of God. For much of human history our images of God were toxic. Since Jesus is all that can be known of God the Creator in a human life, Jesus helps us understand the gentleness and compassion of God in how he described God, in how he welcomed people and in the stories he told.

Our view of salvation

A damaging effect of
individualism in the west is its impact on our view of salvation. Salvation is NOT about an individual having their sins forgiven and then going to heaven as if heaven were a destination and a reward. No. To be saved means to be part of a community – a community of Source, Jesus and Spirit and neighbours.

When we reach out to the poor the lonely and the oppressed we are enabling them to experience something of God’s own love, something of God’s own inner life. The love that we offer each other is no different from the love that God offers God in the Trinity.

John 7 are the words Jesus spoke at the Feast of Tabernacles. Tabernacles remembered the time the Hebrews lived in tents as they travelled in the wilderness for 40 years. You may remember the
story recording in Exodus: the people of God, oppressed by Egypt’s Pharaoh, escape through the desert following their leaders Miriam and Moses.  During that time, they enjoyed Manna (bread) and water from a rock.
At the Feast of Tabernacles, according to the Mishnah (Sukkah), water rituals were part of the
celebration.  A priest would draw water from the pool of Siloam with a golden pitcher, then taking it back to the temple  he would pour it into a bowl next to the altar. In some rabbinic traditions, the water-drawing of Tabernacles is interpreted as the drawing of the Holy Spirit.

In John 7 Jesus is reinterpreting the Feast of Tabernacles promising a greater experience of thirst quenching water – the Holy Spirit.  

What are the dry and empty areas in your life right now?

The rivers of living water are flowing out from Christ to you! Come to Jesus and drink.

“To love another person is to see the face of God”

John’s Gospel was written in about 90 AD by a community
established by John, some 60 years after the death and
Resurrection of Jesus.  In John 17 the writers of John’s Gospel, who continue the influence of the
disciple John, show Jesus in a
personal and private moment of prayer. Having finished his public work, and having finished
teaching and being with his
disciples, Jesus steps into a prayer. We eavesdrop on his words.

…. I am asking on their
behalf; I am not asking on behalf of the world, but on behalf of those whom you gave me, because they are yours.
All mine are yours, and yours are mine; and I have been glorified in them.
And now I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father,
protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one…

To my mind John 17 seems very much like the final scene in Les Miserables in that they both
depict a prayer at the end of one’s life:

God on high …
hear my prayer.
Take me now …
to thy care.
Where you are …
let me be.
Take me now …
take me there.
Bring me home.
Bring me home.
On this page,
I write my last confession.
Read it well,
when I am last am sleeping.
It’s the story,
of those who always loved you.
Your mother gave your life for you and gave you to my keeping.
Take my hand
and lead me to salvation.
Take my love,
 for love is everlasting.
And remember the truth that once was spoken
to love another person is to see the face of God.

In John 17 we eavesdrop on Jesus’ final prayer. In the epilogue of Les Miserables we eavesdrop on the final prayer experience of Jean Valjean. The prayer of Jean Valjean at the end of Les Miserables and the prayer of Jesus at the end of John’s Gospel seem remarkably similar. Both Jesus and Jean Valjean pray for the people that they have loved that will continue to feel loved and protected by God’s grace. Both Jean Valjean and Jesus look forward to homecoming, Jean Valjean prays “bring me home” and Jesus prays “you and I are one.” Ultimately both Jesus and Jean Valjean portray the message that the love of God and the love of each is one: to love another person is to see the face of God thus in every moment of authentic self emptying love we are one with God and Jesus and the Creator are one.

Dear Friends
I’d like to tell you a story

Once a great order, a decaying monastery had only five monks left. The order was dying. In the surrounding deep woods, there was a little hut that a Rabbi from a nearby town used from time to time. The monks always knew the Rabbi was home when they saw the smoke from his fire rise above the treetops. As the Abbot agonised over the imminent death of his order, it occurred to him to ask the Rabbi if he could offer any advice that might save the monastery.
The Rabbi welcomed the Abbot at his hut. When the Abbot explained the reason for his visit, the Rabbi could only commiserate with him. “I know how it is,” he exclaimed. “The spirit has gone out of the people. It is the same in my town. Almost no one comes to the synagogue anymore.” So the Abbot and the Rabbi sat together discussing the Bible and their faiths.
The time came when the Abbot had to leave. “It has been a wonderful visit,” said the Abbot, “but I have failed in my purpose. Is there nothing you can tell me to help save my dying order?”

“The only thing I can tell you,” said the Rabbi, “is that the Messiah is among you.”

When the Abbot returned to the monastery, his fellow monks gathered around him and asked, “What did the Rabbi say?” “He couldn’t help,” the Abbot answered. “The only thing he did say, as I was leaving was that the Messiah is among us. Though I do not know what these words mean.”

In the months that followed, the monks pondered this and wondered whether there was any possible significance to the Rabbi’s words: The Messiah is among us? Could he possibly have meant that the Messiah is one of us monks here at the monastery? If that’s the case, which one of us is the Messiah? Do you suppose he meant the Abbot? Yes, if he meant anyone, he probably meant Father Abbot. Certainly he could not have meant Brother Elred! Elred gets crotchety at times. But come to think of it, even so, Elred is virtually always right. Maybe the rabbi did mean Brother Elred. Of course the Rabbi didn’t mean me.

He couldn’t possibly have meant me. I’m just an ordinary person. Yet supposing he did? Suppose I am the Messiah?

As they contemplated in this manner, the monks began to treat each other with extraordinary respect on the off chance that one among them might be the Messiah and in turn, each monk began to treat himself with extraordinary respect.

It so happened that people still occasionally came to visit the beautiful forest and monastery. Without even being conscious of it, visitors began to sense a powerful spiritual aura. They were sensing the extraordinary respect that now filled the monastery.

Hardly knowing why, people began to come to the monastery frequently to picnic, to play, and to pray. They began to bring their friends, and their friends brought their friends. Then it happened that some of the younger men who came to visit the monastery started to talk more and more with the older monks. After a while, one asked if he could join them. Then, another and another asked if they too could join the abbot and older monks. Within a few years, the monastery once again became a thriving order, a vibrant centre of light and spirituality in the realm.

(Adapted from The Different Drum: Community Making and Peace by Dr. M. Scott Peck)

“12‘This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.”

The story above is about community and love; this community is not created through slavish obedience to rules or commandments. The experience of community that the monks had was generated through the way that each monk treated the other. Because each monk assumed the specialness of the other, they treated each other with respect and curiosity and value.  The community the monks created was a type of covenant where they were each Messiah for the other.

Desiree

What do you think of when you hear the word ‘home’? What does the phrase ‘to feel at home’ mean to you? As you reflect on home consider stepping into the deepest home within …

“There is a secret place. A radiant sanctuary. As real as your own kitchen. More real than that. Constructed of the purest elements. Overflowing with the ten thousand beautiful things. Worlds within worlds. Forests, rivers. Velvet coverlets thrown over feather beds, fountains bubbling beneath a canopy of stars. Bountiful forests, universal libraries. A wine cellar offering an intoxication so sweet you will never be sober again. A clarity so complete you will never again forget.
This magnificent refuge is inside you. Enter. … Ask no permission from the authorities. Slip away. Close your eyes and follow your breath to the still place that leads to the invisible path that leads you home.
-Mirabai Starr
“The Calling” from the Introduction to her translation of Teresa of Avila's The Interior Castle

Enjoy your time at home this week.
Desiree

One of my favourite Godly Play stories relates the mystery of Easter powerfully.

The final plaque of “The Faces of Easter” by Jerome Berryman is as follows:

“that afternoon Jesus died. The sky grew dark. Jesus was taken down from the cross and buried in a cave a great stone was rolled over the opening of the cave to close it like a door.

Saturday was so quiet you could almost hear the whole earth breathing.

On Sunday, it was the women who had the courage to go on to the tomb just to be close to Jesus.

They wanted to remember even if it was sad.

When they came to the tomb they found that the stone had been rolled back and that the tomb was empty.

Jesus had died on the cross, but somehow, he was still present with them as he is with us, especially in the bread and the wine.

When you look at this side – crucifixion – you know that the other side is Easter.

When you look at this side – Easter- you know that this side – crucifixion – is still there – and you cannot pull them apart. This is the mystery of Easter and that make all the difference.”

In many ways, the Godly Play children come closer to the mystery of Easter than we do. Through Godly Play children understand that Crucifixion and its associated terrors of death, violence and evil are an intimate part of Easter with its message of true joy, a new world and a new creation. As adults we have a habit of glossing over “the bad stuff” too quickly and rapidly changing a conversation to the weather when talk becomes too serious and morbid.

Although today’s story is a powerful experience of Resurrection, it is only an Easter story in so far as real space is given for darkness, doubt, and the absence of life.

Tucked away in the encounter of the Easter Christ is the translation of one unusual Greek word “we had hoped.” Four words, yet they are utterly heartbreaking and surely a summary of what it means to gain maturity.

But. We. Had. Hoped.

But we had hoped – these words ring true for so many people that we have each walked alongside on the road to Emmaus.

But we had hoped. (But.we.had.hoped. That: the marriage would be forever…the sick friend would recover…the child would come home…)

The road to Emmaus is the place where we walk when we are tired of it all, when the false optimism of others in all its over sweet saccharine syrup drips like poison on an already darkened mood.

When I hear myself say “I think I need a drink” or when I am in a better place “I think I need a run” then I know I am on the Emmaus path again.

Frederick Buechner writes that Emmaus is:

The place we go to in order to escape – a bar, a movie, wherever it is we throw up our hands and say, “Let the whole damned thing go hang. It makes no difference anyway.” . . . Emmaus is whatever we do or wherever we go to make ourselves forget that the world holds nothing sacred: that even the wisest and bravest and loveliest decay and die; that even the noblest ideas that men have had – ideas about love and freedom and justice – have always in time been twisted out of shape by selfish men for selfish ends

The whole Gospel of Luke is structured like a labyrinth. The Gospel edges forward all the time to Jerusalem where the climax of the story happens. However, the story moves towards Jerusalem in circles, not a straight line. This is symbolic of our pathway to God – who among us has arrived at a deeper faith via a straight path? Our own stories are about The story takes two steps forward towards Jerusalem and them loops out and circles around way then back to the path. It seems to be in these circles of walking away from the path that God rocks up.

The image of Emmaus since early childhood has been burnt into my consciousness as a symbol of what it means to be a friend, a human, a partner, a parent, and church to each other. The walk to Emmaus is this:  we walk alongside each other, listening in conversation. As we walk Jesus is present within us and among us and nourishes us food that is not just food, but everything is sacramental and a path to tasting God.

Acknowledgements:

Frederick Beuchner, The Magnificent Defeat (New York: Seabury, 1966), 85-86

© 2014 By Jerome Berryman. The Complete Guide to Godly Play, Volume 4.

Now, I've heard there was a secret chord
That David played, and it pleased the Lord
But you don't really care for music, do you?
It goes like this, the fourth, the fifth
The minor fall, the major lift
The baffled king composing Hallelujah

Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah

Your faith was strong but you needed proof
You saw her bathing on the roof
Her beauty and the moonlight overthrew ya
She tied you to a kitchen chair
She broke your throne, and she cut your hair
And from your lips she drew the Hallelujah

Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah

You say I took the name in vain
I don't even know the name
But if I did, well really, what's it to you?
There's a blaze of light in every word
It doesn't matter which you heard
The holy or the broken Hallelujah…

I want to understand the holiness and terror of Maundy Thursday through the love poems of Leonard Cohen. I invite you to listen deeply to Hallelujah. I am moved by this poem that is at the very same time utterly mystical, religious, romantic, platonic and sexual. This of course is the scandal of Leonard Cohen’s poetry; he weaves together a Hebrew faith story with the Christ Narrative and his experience of union with the Divine which you may call Nirvana, Enlightenment, Samadhi, Unity Consciousness or simply, Love.

Before Leonard Cohen, I would have told you that the word Hallelujah means praise God. I heard the word hallelujah only one way, Handel’s way: “Hallelujah!” What Leonard Cohen has achieved with his hallelujah, is something that no other artists has come close to. Leonard Cohen has made the word Hallelujah not only a verb of praise, but also a song of Lament, where failures, loss and life are mourned. He has made the word hallelujah a plea for help. Hallelujah is also a prayer of confession and at the same time the grace of total absolution.

This is why I offer the story of Maundy Thursday through the lens of Cohen’s hallelujah. The Maundy story is both joy and sorrow, loss and gain, betrayal and redemption, the end of the story and the beginning of a brand-new story. There is no better way to hold these opposites together, except through the hallelujah of Cohen’s chords that are both minor and major, nostalgic, and blissful. Cohen’s hallelujah enwombs us in a Maundy Thursday Meditation that entwines praise, lament, loss, joy, sorrow, and hope.

Cohen also doesn’t blur the boundary between sexual desire and spiritual longing – he obliterates it altogether. For Leonard Cohen there are no different strands of love. Cohen does not differentiate between our Love for God and our Love for each other – it is one and the same thing. In every moment of intimate love for our sexual partner, we are at that very same moment being desired by God and desiring God too. In every act of tenderness that we offer ourselves in self-compassion – we are loving and being loved by God.

In one word, hallelujah, Cohen combines both the holy and the profane, the sexual and the spiritual, the whole and the broken, the divine and the human. And that is what Jesus does in the foot washing. Jesus is ending separation, obliterating duality. Jesus is unifying the world as the great cosmic Christ that he is. The duality that is dissolved is the delusion that we are separate from God. The separation that is dissolved is the delusion that we are separate from each other. In Jesus’ world there  is no master and slave, god and non-god, teacher, and student. There is only the unity of One Love: the unity of friendship.

We are faced with choice: Are you willing to be part of a new world order, a new heaven and a new earth, where we are intimately related, where we are a part of each other, where I am who I am because you are who you are, where who I am is intimately related to who you are, where we understand that I am in you and you are in me, and that we are in Christ?  Or do you choose the “real” world of rulers and slaves, that includes being slaves to God, slaves to religion, slaves to the powers, slaves to empire and slaves to our own appetites?

Maundy Thursday is both the total failure of Jesus, and the utter success of his vision for a new world order. The crucifixion represents the victory of the Powers, of Empire. Yet in this failure Jesus still sings hallelujah: I will stand before the Lord of Song with nothing on my lips but hallelujah. This is so close to psalm 22 that we end a Maundy Thursday Liturgy with it is scary. The end of the psalm 22 that Jesus quotes concludes with a promise of God’s vindication – “all the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the Lord and all families of the nations shall bow before him.”

Jesus dies like a mangled scarecrow on a rubbish dump outside Jerusalem. Failure? No. The vulnerable God of Love reveals the true love story: that God is broken, but God is broken open to all. When Love breaks, love does not break down, love breaks open. In the words of Rowan Williams:  

“Here indeed is encouragement to persevere when everything seems to be falling apart, and we are few and up against great odds, and history appears to be going against us. (In A ray of Darkness).