Over the Holy Week period, Desiree has guided us through an illuminating comparison of the structure of The Genesis account of Creation and that of St Johns Gospel, in which the “eighth day” of both narratives describe pivotal moments of the creation process, when something relational, wonderful and new is revealed.

Today’s gospel passage describes events that happen on the same day as the breath-taking account of Mary embracing the risen Christ; a new creation emerging from the resurrection, the two in eternal embrace representing the new humanity. Into this mix, the Holy Spirit breathes upon the disciples in earnest of their full participation in the new relationships of human existence.

All this a parallel with the Genesis story of an earth creature (Hebrew ‘adam אָדָם) made of clay (Hebrew ‘adamah אֲדָמָה) into which the Spirit of God breathed life, the creative act that gave way to a new creation when Woman (Hebrew ‘ishshah אִשָּׁה) and Man (Hebrew ‘ish אִישׁ), both of whom are fashioned out of the earth creature, are declared to have become one flesh, a new creation, humanity.

So, here we are. All is done, seemingly, and we are all breathing, imbued by the same breath of life that vivified the clay form that God moulded on the eighth day of creation, that the risen Christ breathed upon the disciples on the eighth day of the second creation. Or are the two creations both the same? Time is an equally tricky concept.

But where are we really? For almost a lifetime, I have been pleased to know about Thomas because of his nickname, Doubting Thomas. However, it has finally dawned upon me (pun intended) that Thomas simply wanted to see what the others had already seen, the disfigured flesh of his one-time friend and mentor, the man Jesus. Jesus graciously allows his request.

The risen Jesus, unimpeded by locked doors, appears, nail scars and all. With no condemnation of Thomas, he bestows his blessing of peace together with a simple invitation to see, to touch. His subsequent question to Thomas “Have you believed because you have seen me?” is devoid of accusation or condemnation, for it is the precursor to his declaration “blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”

In this enquiry and promised blessing, Jesus assigns the same task to his followers that the Father sent him to do, to bring the same blessing to whoever will listen, to spread the Word, to scatter seeds of love in a world of doubters, to lay the ground for a continued declaration throughout the ages to come.  Even so, as Joy Moore observed,

Today’s listeners bring their own turned over worlds. Some by their own doing: a community scattered, distraught, by … vehement denial of what was once confidently promised, and compromised by a price unequal to the betrayal of a loved one. Some by what has been done to them: disenfranchised by wavering public opinion, persecuted and tormented by the very systems that should sustain them, demoralized by the loss of hope for a future.

None of this, then, is really about a phantom appearance or even a doubting disciple, although there are plenty of the latter. Again, to quote Joy Moore,

It is how to tell of a world when the divine shows up in disaster. It is how to tell of a world when forgiveness is forever … It is how to tell of a world when a woman’s witness welcomes wonder. It is how to tell of a world when life is to know the God whose mission is to forgive … and reconcile communities scattered by oppression.

It is this message that gives rise to John’s vision: a myriad surrounding the throne singing, “worthy is the Lamb … to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honour and glory and blessing!” (Revelation 5:12)

That vision continues with a significant inclusion: “Then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the sea, and all that is in them, singing, “To the one seated on the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and honour and glory and might forever and ever!” (Revelation5.13)

Let me repeat this vitally significant phrase - “Every creature in heaven and on earth and under the sea, and all that is in them.” Not just people; the whole of creation. The original blessing of creation is not confined to a bunch of human animals.

Yet, many Christians have a habit of thinking they are very special, set apart, different from the rest of the bunch. The paradox herein is that this is both true and not true. To tease this out, let us start with one particularly special human being.

The classical Eastern Orthodox icon of the baptism of Jesus shows him naked and often up to his neck in water. John the Baptist stands on one bank of the river and three angels on the other holding Jesus’ clothing. The hand of God descends from above, whilst below the surface of the water, a curious little figure of the river god is often depicted.

In the Orthodox interpretation of this image, the baptism of Jesus represents a descent into unregulated, chaotic reality prior to the coming of the Holy Spirit, akin to the waste and void that covers the face of creation at the beginning of Genesis. This tradition views Jesus’ baptism as a recapitulation of Genesis. The Word descends into chaos and, under the supervision of the Holy Spirit in her role as midwife, something is brought to birth, that something being the vocation of Jesus to live out his innermost identity.  

Likewise, the Christian vocation includes not only to live out one’s innermost identity, but to live in the neighbourhood of chaos, the unregulated mess in which the world finds itself.

The chaos of other people’s lives, the chaos of suffering, the chaos of doubt, the chaos of a real world in which people are ground down and oppressed and denied by others who don’t understand what it is to face their nothingness.

If, as we claim, baptism is an entry into the identity of Jesus Christ, it is also, as Rowan Williams put it, an entry into the most profound solidarity with human experience that we could imagine.

But, in the light of the Revelation to St John, we must perforce extend that solidarity to all that is, seen and unseen; that is to say with the whole of creation.

Richard Rohr has reminded me that Julian of Norwich, one of my favourite medieval divines, wrote

All those who are on the spiritual path contain the whole of creation, and the Creator. That is because God is inside us, and inside God is everything. And so whoever loves God loves all that is.

As Mary Earle eloquently remarked,

God is within us, at home, patiently and kindly awaiting our recognition. As Maker of all, God is in everything, present in all places and all times.

Amen.

Doug Bannerman 2021

The Gospel reading for the fifth week of Lent, John 12.20-36, is equal parts frustrating and puzzling.

A retired doctor in our parish shared with a group of us how frustrated he was by the health care system’s introduction of an admissions clerk. In the past he would be able to contact specialist physicians directly to ensure that his patients received the care they needed immediately. In the bureaucratic system an admissions clerk would inform a general practitioner that their patient could see the required specialist in three months’ time. 

Similarly, we empathise with the Greeks who have travelled to Jerusalem for a Jewish festival with the hope of seeing Jesus. In all likelihood they have travelled a fair distance to see Jesus in Jerusalem.

As Greeks it is also likely that the festival, they are attending is unfamiliar and out of their comfort zone. We all know what that is like. Although I was brought up Methodist I was sent to an Anglican school. During school chapel one morning we were treated to a musical presentation. I started clapping to show my appreciation, only to be told by the Hindu boy sitting next to me that one does not clap in an Anglican Church. 

Instead of a direct line to the Lord, the Greeks seeking Jesus are referred first to one disciple and then another and when these disciples finally catch up with the Lord they are put on hold while Jesus offers a strange and puzzling sermon.

Why is there this convoluted path to Jesus for the poor Greeks who want Jesus? Why not just arrange a time to meet? In the Anglican Tradition, our understanding of membership is extremely wide. You merely need to walk past an Anglican church to be considered a member. In contrast, what is modelled here in John 12.20 is the early Johannine community where two witnesses recommended you for “church membership.” We still maintain overtones of this practice of two witnesses in our liturgies of confirmation, ordination and even in the reception of a new priest: two members are required to “present” a candidate for confirmation or ordination.

When the Greeks request Jesus, Jesus is looking beyond their request to the deeper need for all creation, for all people, to have close access to the Divine. The deeper need is for the distance between God and humans to not only be reduced, but to be entirely obliterated altogether. The deeper need is for the distance between God and humans to be so close that we find the best expression of our humanity in the womb of our divinity.

Remember that John’s Gospel is divided into two books. The first book from John 2-12 is the book of signs. The “signs” have been leading us to this point of unity between God and creation – the hour when God is glorified. The first sign, when Jesus’ hour had not yet come, was transforming water into wine at the wedding in Cana. The wedding was a “sign” of the marriage between heaven and earth, between the infinite divine and finite creation. The wine was a foretaste of the Eucharist where wine and God is blessed: Blessed are you Lord God king of the universe. Through your goodness we have this wine to offer. Fruit of the vine and the work of human hands, for us it will become the cup of salvation. The wine is an interweaving of a divine and human partnership. The final “sign” is raising Lazarus from the dead; we are being prepared for the way in which God’s glory will be revealed for all the cosmos to see, the Greeks who seek Jesus included.

God’s glory is so unexpected that we may miss its brilliance. God’s glory will not be a throne of power, but a cross of crucifixion: (verse 32) “And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” God’s victory over “the powers” that make us less than human will not be through triumphant victory in battle, but through love, self-sacrificing love. God’s glory is love.

The ultimate portrayal of God’s glory will be revealed in the beginning pages of the second part of John’s Gospel. In chapter 13, Jesus will take off his outer garment and kneel and wash the feet of his disciples. He will explain the significance of the foot washing: “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.”

This is precisely how the glory of God continues to be revealed to the world. In every moment of loving each other, in every moment of being the love of God in the places of the world’s pain, we are at that moment being the glory of God.

This is the revolution that love brings about. In the power of the Holy Spirit, the bond of love, we are the Easter people, the new creation people, who flood the world with God’s glory as “the waters cover the sea”.

Thank you for being the glory of God. Thank you for being the love of God in the places of the world’s pain.

Sources: Wright, NT. 2017. The Royal Revolution: Fresh Perspectives on the Cross. University of St Andrews: Calvin College January Series.

Today, John tells us more about Jesus’ conversation with Nicodemus; the church leader who came to Jesus in the dark.

 The story includes the well-known verse 3:16 - “for God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life”. This encouragement follows Nicodemus asking “how can a fully grown person be born again?”

The part of the story we heard today begins “And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.”   This is one of the places where John makes really clever use of word play. There’s a double meaning to “the Son of Man must be lifted up”. One meaning is “lifted up on the cross” and the other meaning is “lifted up in praise - exalted -glorified”.

Nicodemus would have recognized the connection here to our First Testament reading, Numbers 21. The plague of snakes in the wilderness came when people once more rebelled against God and Moses in yet another time of grumbling and murmuring. However, the people had a change of heart and came to Moses asking for forgiveness and confessing that they were wrong. Moses forgives and prays for the people who had cursed him. Moses who had been the person who told the people of Israel about God’s prohibition on making images, was now given instructions to make a graven image of a snake. A big ask!!!

God would keep alive those who were prepared to do as he demanded. God’s message was that, if bitten, the people should look at the serpent on the pole and be well. Obedience and trust were required.

So, in Numbers 21, we have a story of sin; this impatient nation again rebelled against God and had to be punished. The people wanted God to take away the serpents but God chose not to. A lesson that God’s way is not our way. It is also a story of grace; Moses interceded and God provided the remedy. The serpents were not removed. They were left as a means to chastise and to test the faith and obedience of the people.

The big picture is that this is a story of faith. When the people looked by faith they were saved. It was not the sight of the serpent that saved them; but in looking up to the snake on the pole, they looked to God.

Adherents of the Cao Dai religion in Vietnam have a snake on a pole at their Holy See in Tay Ninh. The image of a snake or serpent curling around a staff has been a symbol of healing since before Jesus.

Well, what is the connection between Moses who lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, and the lifting up of the Son of Man? The ancient Israelites were guilty of disobedience and had a grumbling and unthankful spirit. They were unable to rescue themselves from the deadly poison. They were urged to look at the serpent on a pole in order to receive life. Salvation is a gift received only by believing God for it.

Is the connection that, just as a plague of snakes is remedied by one snake on a pole, the plague of human beings on earth is remedied by one man on a pole?

Jesus became the “uplifted serpent”. The serpent in Moses’ day brought physical life to dying Israelites. Jesus Christ gives eternal life to anyone who trusts (looks at) him. The whole world is bitten by sin. How is a person born from above? How is he or she saved from eternal perishing? The Gospel says by believing on Jesus and by looking to him in faith.

Is the connection the lifting up; the looking in obedience and trust? Is there a connection between the wilderness which the people of God past and the people of God present are journeying through? Where do we fit into the story?

These are important questions. Eternal life is at stake – John says “everyone who believes in him may not perish but have eternal life”.

It seems that the good news of God’s love offers only two options. Believe or perish! Encouragement comes in John 3:17 - “Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him”.

The eternal life granted to believers refers not only to duration of existence but to quality of life contrasted with futility. Eternal life is a deepening and growing experience which doesn’t have an end. Eternal life is not restricted to the future; it’s very much related to current living.

The eternal life accepted by believing is a gift of God and brings with it the fullest blessings that God can give. Perish doesn’t mean to cease to exist; it means to experience utter failure, futility and loss of all that makes existence worthwhile.

All this leads to the most important question of all. How should we believe in the Son of Man? Belief isn’t stagnant. Belief is not something you can reach or grasp; it’s something you work at and you find has always more to achieve.

Now, what about our Lenten Study - the “Way of Love”?

On Ash Wednesday the first message was TURN. Then in the last three Sundays the focus was on REST, LEARN and WORSHIP. Today, the subject is PRAY. Prayer is a difficult topic which most people acknowledge is a concern for them.  Methods of prayer are very different and very personal. In the Gospels, we often read that Jesus went to a quiet place to pray. I like to think that Jesus did not have a list of requests and questions when he went to pray. Perhaps for Jesus alone in a quiet place, prayer was not words but being intentionally in the presence of God.

The section in our “Way of Life” notes seems to agree as it has the heading “PRAY: Dwell intentionally with God daily”.  These notes go on to say “Jesus teaches us to come before God with humble hearts, boldly offering our thanksgivings and concerns to God or simply listening for God’s voice in our lives and in the world. Whether in thought, word or deed, individually or corporately, when we pray, we invite and dwell in God’s loving presence”.

Here is a link with our Bible lessons today. How do we know we are dwelling in God’s presence?  Perhaps the answer is to be looking for God. As the people who were bothered by the snakes in the wilderness chose to look at the bronze serpent on the pole, so we choose to focus our minds.

We LOOK to Jesus “lifted up”. We look in faith and trust. Looking to Jesus is lifegiving…and looking to Jesus is a prayer.

When we read the Gospel of John it is helpful to remember that the book is essentially divided into two parts. The first 12 chapters focus on Christ’s ministry to the world. From chapter 13 to the end his focus is teaching and ministry to his disciples.

Our reading in John 12:13-22, Jesus is approaching the end of his ministry and the end of his life. We are given insight into his own experience of saying goodbye, of letting go and learning to die creatively. His pain and anguish are described in verse 28 where he speaks of his soul being troubled.  Notice also how he makes an active decision to not bypass the pain of goodbye but to live through it. Life is about dying small deaths and dying big deaths. Small goodbyes or little deaths are situations where we experience a sense of loss or incompleteness. We experience these in our daily lives when we change jobs, when our children go to the school for the first time, when we move homes, or churches, when we grieve friendships that have died and when we move through the normal stages of life.

There are also big goodbyes and big deaths or surrenders. The death of a loved one, divorce and loss of independence are some of the big deaths that people face.

Our gospel reading teaches us that dying is essential for our growth. This is what Jesus meant when he explained to the people around him that a grain of wheat must fall to the ground and die to produce fruit. Jesus was trying to teach us that the nature of spiritual maturity is learning to die creatively. Therefore the image of the cross is offered. In learning to die creatively we bring life.

The way of love is a set of spiritual practices that one undertakes for a Jesus centred life. The point of these spiritual practices is to de-centre the self, so that God continues as the central aspect of our lives. Through lent, we have explored the practices of turn, rest and learn. Using John 2, the cleansing of the temple, as our key text, we explore authentic worship as a practical discipline in walking the way of love.

There are a number of layers to the cleansing of the temple in John 2, we explore 2. The literary meaning of the cleansing of the temple as a parabolic action and empathy for the poor who are exploited in the cult of temple sacrifice.  

To appreciate John 2:13-22 one must quite obviously read the text within the broader Gospel of John. 

In John 1 the prologue offers a New Genesis, a New creation. The words “In the beginning…” (John 1.1) so clearly echo Genesis 1.1 that we know that the books of Genesis and perhaps Exodus have something to do with the Gospel of John. 

(About Genesis 1)

For the Ancient Near Eastern listener, Genesis 1 is the story of creation, but the creation in seven days matches the construction of a temple in seven stages. The perfect creation where heaven and earth indwell each other is symbolised by a temple. In accordance with ancient near eastern thought, the image of the deity is made second to last. On the sixth day God creates an image of Godself. On the seventh day the presence of God rushes into the temple to dwell in unity with humankind. The seventh day of rest in Genesis is the day in which deity rules in the temple. In the Psalms, the hymns describe God saying, “here is Zion my resting place” (psalm 132). Genesis offers an account of creation that describes a marriage between heaven and earth as the ideal creation. The ideal creation is the ultimate temple where God dwells with God’s people. 

(About John 1)

In the New Creation in John 1, the climax of the story is the Word of God made flesh who “tabernacles” among us. In John’s Gospel, the ideal creation where heaven and earth are united is Jesus. The development John offers in his Gospel is that Jesus himself is the temple of the new heaven and new earth.  

(About John 2)

If we can embrace the overarching theme of John’s Gospel as the New Creation with Jesus as the temple, the ultimate symbol of unity between heaven and earth, we can step into a different understanding of John 2.

John 2 begins with the wedding at Cana where Jesus performs the first of his signs. (Remember that John 1-12 is called the book of signs). The first sign is at a wedding. Jesus turn water into wine. As a dramatic precursor for what is to happen afterwards, it is the water for the rites of purification that Jesus turns into wine. Cheeky. 

The image of marriage is what is so very important. On offer is the marriage between heaven and earth made visible in Jesus. The ideal creation is one where earth and heaven wed. The temple is the sign that points to this ideal creation. In Jesus we have the meeting of heaven and earth. Later Jesus will teach us that this too is our identity, our destiny. Later Jesus will breathe out onto his disciples the Holy Spirit with the mandate, as the Father has sent me, so I send you. Through Jesus, we too will all be places where the world can see the marriage between the divine and human taking place.

(About John 2:13-22)

In cleansing the temple Jesus is relocating the vision of a heaven and earth unity in himself and not the Jerusalem Temple. It’s a parable in action. 

Notice that what Jesus attacks is the source of Temple sacrifice. The temple treasury where Roman coins are exchanged for temple coins is overturned. The sacrificial animals themselves, the cattle, the sheep and of course the doves, are set loose. Jesus is subverting the temple cult of sacrifice. Over and over again Jesus in John’s Gospel is preparing us for the end of sacrificial religion. The temple is a place of sacrifice and God in Jesus puts an end to any kind of sacrificial approach to God. Jesus will not be a sacrifice for our sins – his action in John 2.13-22 indicates a break with sacrificial systems. Later in John 4 the Samaritan woman will ask about the nature of true worship. Jesus will answer that true worship is not about temple sacrifice either in the Jewish temple or the Samaritan temple but true worshippers worship in spirit and truth.

The Jerusalem temple at its best was meant to be a sign of the marriage of heaven and earth as the ideal creation. Clearly it is not working that way. This temple must go. It is not about reform, as in “let’s make the temple great again”. The temple must totally be destroyed and raised in a new way in Jesus - Resurrection. 

(About empathy for the poor)

Of particular concern in John 2.13-22 is the way in which sacrificial religion exploits the poor. Notice the attention paid to freeing the doves. In temple worship the ideal sacrifice is a sheep. The Leviticus code made allowances for the poor who could sacrifice two doves or pigeons if they could not afford a sheep. The anger Jesus expresses is how the poor are exploited to pay for the lifestyles of the rich. Already burdened by tax the poor are further exploited in exchanging Roman coin for temple coin and then paying exorbitant prices for doves and pigeons authorised by the temple elite.

In following the tradition of the prophets Jesus enacts Micah 6.8. Micah criticises worship that focuses on temple to the neglect of the poor. He asks with what shall we become before the Lord our God? Shall we offer the fruit of our loins for the sin of the soul? No. You have heard o Mortal one what the Lord requires. To love mercy, to love justice and to walk humbly with our God.

As we focus on authentic worship as a practice on the way of love we remember that the true worship God requires is not perfection in temple worship but the love of Justice and Mercy and care for the poor. 

I have often said that there should be a warning on the cover of every Bible: Danger – read with care. The Bible, some have said, is like a two-edged sword; in the right community it is the skilled surgeon’s knife that brings healing. In the wrong community, the Bible is a blunt axe that wounds relentlessly. When Moses raised the bronze serpent in the wilderness, the people were offered a mirror to see themselves as they truly were (see John 3.14). The Bible is a hall of mirrors, reflecting back your true motives and shining a light into the further reaches of your soul. If you come at the Bible with hate and division in your heart, the bible as a hall of mirrors reflects this back and the distortion can destroy you. If you come to Scripture through the character of the Christ, healing unity is possible. Nowhere is this more apparent that what is done with John ‘s Gospel in chapter 3. Some would use John 3.16 to condemn the world who do not believe (as they do): Any who do not accept Jesus as saviour and Lord are condemned to hell. Others hold that being on the way of love with the Christ has little to do with belief, that God did not send Jesus to condemn the world (John .17). For this reason, they celebrate the democracy of God’s love that embraces all. It is into the bliss of this unconditional love that we are invited to surrender, as Denise Levertov’s poem seduces:

As swimmers dare

to lie face to the sky

and water bears them,

as hawks rest upon air

and air sustains them,

so would I learn to attain

freefall, and float

into Creator Spirit’s deep embrace,

knowing no effort earns

that all-surrounding grace.

(The Avowal 1983 –The Stream and the Sapphire)

Sermon notes

28th February (Mark 8)

 Learn: a practice on a way of love

 Introduction 

A miracle has happened in our time.  On Thursday January 15, 2009, Flight 1549 took off from LaGuardia airport New York City bound for North Carolina. The plane was heading North over the Bronx.  Two minutes after take-off the plane had a double strike: a flock of geese took out first one and then the other engine. They lost power.  

Faced with disaster Chesley Sullenberger had to make some critical decisions – they had about two or three minutes to do so. The nearby airports were too far. The only option was to land on the Hudson River. It is not easy to land on water. Land too soon or too late you miss the water. Land too hard and the plane breaks into pieces.  

 A number of important actions had to be taken in those crucial two or three minutes. Amazingly, the Pilot makes a decision informs air traffic control and then ends communication so that there is no debate. How decisive! What leadership! The pilots had to turn off the engines. They had to set the right speed so that the plane could glide as long as possible. They had to get the nose of the plane down to keep speed, but then lift it up again before hitting the water.  They had to disconnect the auto pilot. They had to glide the plane in a sharp left-hand turn. They then had to straighten the plane up so that it would be exactly level with the river.  

All 155 people on board the plane were safe. Many describe this as a miracle.  

The power of acquired habits 

While the safe landing of Flight 1549 is brilliant it is moreover a spectacular demonstration of the power of acquired habits.  On closer examination the landing of flight 1549 on the Hudson River is the result of a number of factors: 

·  The intensive training of the pilots 

·  Years of experience: Chesley Scullenberger was near retirement  

·  Confidence in the training and experience that has taken a      life-time to achieve.  

·  Courage 

·  Restraint 

·  Cool judgement 

·  Being calm and centred 

·  and concern to do the right thing for others.  

 None of these factors come naturally. The miracle happens when a person makes a thousand small decisions which may in the early years have required effort and concentration. When the crunch comes these decisions have become second nature. It was second nature to the pilots to take the steps they took in order to land the plane safely. Many years of practice, study, training and experience were built to these “second nature” decisions.  It is precisely this aspect of what becomes “second nature” that best describes the way of love.  

 What is a way of love?

Our theme this year is the way of love. A way of love is a way of life centred on Jesus and the regular disciplines or practices that make such a life possible. A way of love is a way of de-centring the self to make God the centre of our lives. The way of love becomes the way of our lives. In a way of love, we live from the True Self, the inner self. Living a life of love is a life worth living.

 In the words of Michael Curry, a way of love is “not microwave religion.” It takes time. It takes the consistent practice of disciplines such as turn, learn, worship, pray, rest, go, bless. Last week Doug reflected on the discipline of rest as a practice in the way of love. We reflect on the practice of Learn through the lens of Matthew 8.

 Why adopt “learn” as a discipline in a way of love?

Learn means to study Jesus and the resources that help us to study Jesus include the Bible and sacred texts that describe what following Jesus looks like. Why adopt learn as a habit? We are bombarded by information all the time. Gradually repeated patterns of information form and shape us. But what is the ultimate source of information for you and how you can live the best possible life? Clearly the pattern of Jesus as it is revealed to be in the Bible.

 This is precisely what Paul meant in Romans 12. Listen to how two different translations depict the necessity of Learn as a spiritual discipline in a way of Love.

 New International Version: Do not conform to the pattern of this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is - his good, pleasing and perfect will.

New Living Translation: Don’t copy the behaviour and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.

 We practice Learn in a way of love so that the pattern of Jesus can become my pattern. Michael Curry again: “We want to engage in the world on the Word’s terms not the world’s terms.” Without learn we unconsciously respond to events according to the patterns of the world which are “the survival of the fittest” or “me first” or “God helps those who helps themselves”. According to Jesus, God helps those who cannot help themselves. We adopt learn as a powerful habit because we want the Word to master us. We read the Bible, but the Bible reads us too.

‘Learn’ and Mark 8

In Mark 8 we have a clear demonstration of what happens when we allow the pattern of the world to shape us, and not the pattern of Jesus. This is what Jesus means when he rebukes Peter: “your mind is on human things not divine things.” What is going on in Peter’s mind?

Imagine this: Peter is a Hebrew growing up under the oppression of the Romans, the oppression is brutal. Peter is also deeply spiritual, and his culture and tradition promise him that a time will come when a Messiah will end the oppression and reinstate the kingdom of David. For about a year or more Peter has been following Jesus and has witnessed the miracles, the teaching and how people are following him. Not once but twice huge crowds have gathered around Jesus. In the immediate run-up to the confrontation between Peter and Jesus, Jesus creates a Eucharist feast in the wilderness and the scripture is telling, 4000 people were fed not counting women and children. This is not chauvinism. Why mention the men and not the women? Could it be that what the disciples are seeing is an army that can violently overthrow the Romans? Is this what is on Peter’s mind when he rebukes Jesus? Later Jesus organises a feast and this time there are 5000 people.  In 8v27-30 Jesus asks his friends who do you say that I am? Peter replies: “You are the Messiah.”

 Jesus describes himself not as the Messiah but as the human one. He then describes how he will suffer and die. Instead of leading a war alongside the traditional leaders to re-establish the reign of David against the Romans, the human one will instead be murdered by a coalition of the traditional leadership and the oppressive regime Rome working together.

The true humanity of Jesus, humanity defined by love is contrasted with the non-humane brutality of the Powers, the religious, economic and political powers. This is too much for Peter.

Without the discipline of learn on the way of love Peter has allowed the patterns of the world, the myth of religious violence, to become his pattern. In contrast the pattern of Jesus is to die to death itself, to die to the myth of redemptive violence, to die to violence itself, to love enemies and see enemies as a gift from God.

 The threat to put people to death is the ultimate power of the domination system and this is how the Powers remains in power. Die to that threat and the domination system loses its power. Resist this fear of death and pursue love regardless of the consequences and the domination system has no authority. This doesn’t come naturally, it is a habit that is built up over time through an intentional study of Jesus, through the discipline of learn.

 Will we learn from Jesus? Will we let his pattern of loving enemies, seeing enemies as gift, of resisting all violence be our pattern? Will we take up the cross?

 To take up the cross does not mean private suffering, it means to agree to receive the full punishment for treason. Nelson Mandela took up the cross when he agreed to treason. Whatever our thoughts about Julian Assange it is clear that there are political consequences for his truth telling and he has taken up the cross. To take up the cross is to take political action against the powers for the sake of love. It is not easy, but it can become second nature. I end with a quote from Walter Wink.

 “The slack decadence of culture-Christianity cannot produce athletes of the spirit. Those who are the bearers of tomorrow undergo what others might call disciplines ... to stay spiritually alive.”

Here is what the story in John 2, the cleansing of the temple, is not about: the cleansing of the temple is not a spiritual vs material battle where Jesus is offended that money is in a spiritual place. This is not about impure vs pure, impure money taken out of the temple and the temple being then restored to pure prayer. No, if this were the case why does the Scripture specifically mention challenging the dove sellers and not the lamb sellers?

The temple represented not only the spiritual centre of Jewish life, but especially the commercial and political power of the religious rulers. The Galileans suffered under a multiple tax burden including temple tax. The preferred temple sacrifice was a lamb, although a provision was made for the poor in Leviticus 5.7: “Anyone who cannot afford a lamb is to bring two young pigeons/doves to the Lord…”

Jesus’ protest is ignited by the way the poor are treated and economically exploited by being forced to buy expensive sacrifices. Jesus shuts down the financial system of the city temple during the annual peak of its commercial activity. Was it violent? No, the whipping cords were used to move the animals.  If you want to define violence to include disorderly conduct, system disruption, vandalizing property, or blocking the flow of traffic, then sure, I suppose this was violent. The true violence however is the exploitation of the poor who finance the lifestyles of the rich.

The touchstones of John 2 and our current epoch are similar enough for me to wonder if like Jesus I too should be blocking traffic, disrupting systems as etc as part of protests such as the extinction rebellion, black lives matter, protesting aboriginal deaths in custody…

Rest

Sunday 21st February 

When despair for the world grows in me
And I wake in the night at the least sound

In fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake

Rests in his beauty on the water,
and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things

Who do not tax their lives with forethought

Of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
Waiting with their light. For a time I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.1

Wendell Berry’s evocative poem makes resting in “the grace of the world” an enticing prospect. So why is it that I so rarely seek that place of rest. I have plenty of excuses – busy mind, busy heart, too much to do. An ego trip really, and it is a kind of slavery.

The Israelites in Moses’ time escaped the slavery they had endured in Egypt and, a generation later, Sinai appeared in the distance; the Holy Mountain, an “awesome, dread-filled place that signalled divine presence that was in no sense user friendly.”  2In Brueggmann’s description it “surged and shrieked with divine presence”; upon which dwelt the “hidden, inscrutable savage God” who, “like a fairy tale ogre, threatens all who approach”.

Speaking for the God of the Mountain, Moses told them that this mountain was, in fact, the offer of a new identity, a life in covenant with God. That is all he said – no detail. Israel, without reservation, and one might say a little too readily, answered as one: “Everything the Lord has spoken we will do.” (Exodus 19.8)

Low and behold, this new God turns out to be the one who “outmatched and outmuscled Pharaoh, terminated the brick quota, and ended the hot demanding brickyards” 3 of slavery. This new God offers a charter for an alternative existence outside the categories of Pharaoh, a charter for freedom. And strikingly, this new God actually speaks directly to them.

As you no doubt know, the mountain God of freedom speaks at Sinai but ten times, after which God communicates only through Moses. Of the ten utterances, the first group of three concerns love of God, love in this context being a covenant word for honouring treaty commitments. Another group of six concerns parents – killing, adultery, stealing, false witness and lying. The first three, then, concern love of God and the latter six concern love of neighbour. Sandwiched in between is the sabbath command, which links the first three and the God of restfulness with the last six concerning the neighbour who needs restfulness.4

 So, in between these two groups of commands, the great God of freedom places the central provision of a charter for freedom that prevails to this day.

Remember the sabbath day and keep it holy. Six days you shall labour and do all your work. But the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God: you shall not do any work – you, your son, or your daughter, your male or female slave, your livestock, or the alien resident in your towns. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but rested on the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day and consecrated it. (Exodus 20.8-11)

 Patrick Miller Jr commented that this striking command not only stands at the centre of the decalogue but “dominates the horizon of commands at Sinai.”5 It is pivotal to the covenant of freedom. And it remains pivotal to our way of life.

Further to this, the end of this exciting meeting at Sinai, culminates in a repetition of the earlier oath of allegiance and obedience.

All that the Lord has spoken we will do, and we will be obedient. (Exodus 24.7)

Israel signs on gladly and without reservation to God’s proposition, but this time it is informed consent. The commands of YHWH were infinitely kinder than Pharaoh’s, and even included a day of rest!

 It is also clear that the sabbath command at Sinai (in Exodus 20.8-11) refers to the litany of creation at the beginning of Genesis. (1 – 2.4a) This litany attests that the Creator God is a God of blessing, capable of assigning life and well- being to every aspect of creation. Firstly, God blesses sea monsters and winged creatures, bringing order from chaos; secondly God blesses humans as God’s regents in maintaining an order of abundance; and thirdly God blesses the seventh day, which God made holy as a day of rest intrinsic to the structure of the created order of fruitfulness. 6

So God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it because on it God rested from all the work that God had done in creation. (Genesis 2.3)

 The day of rest is, I repeat, intrinsic to the structure of the created order of fruitfulness – Brueggemann’s words. But we rarely take in the idea that God rested on the seventh day. Is it too difficult to imagine that after six days of extraordinary labour, God might have been tired?

We are used to a different God, the God of the catechism, the God of classical theology, in both of which God never rests; that God is omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, without whose constant activity creation would vanish. But our God rests! Walter Brueggemann is pretty blunt about this:

God rests because the world will work, because the tasks of creation have been delegated, and because creation, blessed as it is, knows the will and energy of the creator … God rests because God engages in self-care … 7

Furthermore, the human creature, in the God-like responsibility of regent, is in the image of God. “It belongs to the image to reflect the sabbath of the creator, and where it is not so reflected, the image is violated and distorted.”8

 The final iteration of the sabbath command in Exodus has a fortissimo coda to the music of creation. Following the Sinai adventure, God addresses Moses about the priesthood and the construction of a tabernacle, a holy place for the indwelling of God. The tabernacle, says God

 … is a sign forever between me and the people of Israel that in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he rested and was refreshed. (Exodus 31.17)

 “And was refreshed.”9 That tabernacle is both a reminder and a sacrament of a holy reality, as is our church building, as is our sanctuary, as are the wide-open spaces of our beautiful world. They are keys that open the door of the cathedral of the heart, the personal holy space in which the indwelling God resides, where sabbath rest and refreshment are ours to keep forever, and by which grace the music of creation is preserved.

As Wendell Berry wrote, “I come into the peace of wild things … I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.”

Amen.              Doug Bannerman © 2021

Mark 8.31

Of all the gospels, Mark’s is the most radical, and the most demanding, it’s a manual for revolution. In Mark 8 we are now forced to choose sides, we are either for Jesus or a
sell-out. We cannot be fence sitters with splinters in our buttocks. Notice the pattern in the reading as ABCBA, kind of like a ham in a sandwich.

Peter: Jesus is Messiah

Jesus silences Peter

Jesus: Jesus is the Human One who must suffer.

Peter silences Jesus.

Jesus: Peter is Satan.

Jesus says who do you say that I am? Peter says you are the Messiah. Jesus swears him to silence. Jesus then says that he is the Son of Man, the supremely human one, and that for his vision of humanity shaped by love he will suffer and die. The religious people will not respond to the love Jesus has unveiled but will rather be disgusted at it. Jesus’s inclusive welcome is a threat to their position, prestige, and power. This is the opposite of what everyone expects, so Peter takes Jesus aside and rebukes him. Jesus then rebukes Peter. Verse 33: “You are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.” The centre of the conflict is not outside of us, it is within, it is about the strength of our choice and commitment. Will we go the way of Jesus or will we sell out?

Isaiah 40.21-31, Mark 1.29-39

And down, a long way down, below the frost
must be soft embers sending up the light
from fires the night-fog has muffled but not kill

 The response to the question “Why do you climb a mountain?” is often “Because it’s there!” What does that really mean? As a youth, I climbed the hillsides in the Scottish Highlands; yes, because they were there, but when I reached a summit, I breathlessly paused and looked around. The landscape set before me always elicited wonder, awe, peace, silence, a sense of the infinite depth of creation, and a desire to stay there for the rest of my life. It seemed as if there was some indefinable presence, powerful, benign, beckoning.

I must offset that with the fact that I have also, to borrow Richard Holloway’s words, stood on the edge of the abyss at 2 o’clock in the morning drinking a cup of hot strong coffee.

The spectrum of human experience is vast, and impossible to convey in a few words.

Why did Jesus go out on a mountain? To pray says Mark’s gospel. But there must be more to it than that. I say that because I cannot define prayer in so many words any more than you can. Holy things cannot be pinned down to simple statements. Myths, legends and faerie stories, all of which are laden with metaphor, are better vehicles for such things.

Metaphors shape the mind

A growing body of literature suggests that metaphors shape the mind, structure our experiences, and influence behaviour. Metaphors are the language of mythology. The canon of our scripture is constructed as myth, rich in metaphor, poetry and story. It is our mythology and it is the primary source of our theology. Without that acknowledgement, we are likely to miss the light of Epiphany, what Rowan Williams called the “secret fire at the heart of earthly reality”.

 However, it seems to me that we can broaden our understanding of sacred literature to include the writings of people like J.R.R. Tolkien, whose Lord of the Rings is as profoundly theological as anything I know. Fr. Guglielmo Spirito OFM of the Theological Institute of Assisi remarked that

In the life of any individual, a book that is reread several times is one that both establishes itself as an intimate and familiar conversational partner, but which at every reading also conceals and reveals different things, opens different doors.

As one may ask of scripture, one may ask of Tolkien, “What is the underlying reality or truth that these would have us see?” Listen to this.

They stood on a wet floor of polished stone, the doorstep as it were, of a rough-hewn gate of rock opening dark behind them. But in front a thin veil of water was hung, so near that Frodo could have put an outstretched arm into it. It faced westward. The level shafts of the setting sun behind beat upon it, and the red light was broken into many flickering beams of ever-changing colour. It was as if they stood at the window of some elven-tower, curtained with threaded jewels of silver and gold, and ruby, sapphire and amethyst, all kindled with an unconsuming fire.  

This was the ‘Window of the Sunset‘, fairest of all the waterfalls of Ithilien, the land of many fountains, the inspiration for Williams’ secret fire, the light kindled at the very foundations of creation. 

Tolkien, said Fr Guglielmo was an artist who created a world that has “the inner consistency of reality …” But he was also a devout Catholic, and his Christianity gave him the joy and vision that characterises his work.

 With the foregoing in mind, let us revisit the prophet Isaiah.

The period within which today’s reading was composed began with the defeat of Judah by the Babylonians under Nebuchadnezzar in 587 BC. Jerusalem was utterly destroyed and the kingdom of Judah reduced to a Babylonian province. Several thousand inhabitants, the cream of society, were exiled to Babylon, there to be added to another exiled group that had been taken there ten years earlier. Most of the fortified cities of Judah were left in ruins. Some cities were abandoned for generations after this war, and a few permanently.

Fifty years later, after Babylon was, in turn, defeated by the Persian King Cyrus, the exiles were allowed to return to Judah, there to rebuild both the city of Jerusalem and the great temple.

Now, in the minds of the exiles, the power of their captors demonstrated the power of their captors’ Gods. So, it was inevitable that the exiles absorbed some of the religious leanings of their captors.

Isaiah was not pleased about this, and we find the prophet appealing against this assumed power on two fronts. Firstly, referring to the great public processions in which effigies of the Babylonian Gods were carried with great ceremony, Isaiah pours scorn upon these obviously human creations.

 To whom then will you liken God,
or what likeness compare with him?

An idol? - A workman casts it,
 and a goldsmith overlays it with gold,
and casts for it silver chains.

 Then comes the opening verse of today’s reading in which an incredulous prophet chastises the people.

 Have you not known? Have you not heard?
Has it not be told you from the beginning?
Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth?

It is he who sits above the circle of the earth,
and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers;

The prophet explains that the one true God is the creator of the universe, of the waters, the heavens, the earth, the air; not some tin pot little statuette of an idol sitting on the mantelpiece. Speaking with the authority of the one true God, Isaiah declaims,

To whom will you compare me,
or who is my equal? Says the Holy One.

So, the exiles, now restored to Jerusalem are presented with a striking article of faith that still stands. In the contemplation of creation and our place in it, the vastness and the power of our God are perceived, if but dimly comprehended. We can note that in this literature, the idea of a creator God appears for the very first time in the history of the Hebrew nation.

I wonder, then, if a few modern-day prophets are pointing to that same article of faith, which has been somewhat distorted over the centuries. Although we have always had appeals to creation, they have been appeals that assume that we humans have a mandate to subdue, dominate, and exploit the natural world. That has led in short order to ecocide.

 A very careful reading of the first few chapters of Genesis informs us that the call is to cooperate with creation as stewards of a sacred trust. That is what the Australian Earth Laws Alliance (AELA) is on about; developing earth centred laws that respect the rights of nature, challenging the idea that that nature is ‘property’.

What is Vocation?

The word vocation means calling. There is a commonly held conviction that calling applies to pastors only. I would like to break that definition. The truth of the matter is quite different: every human being has a vocation, has a calling. By baptism you have already accepted the invitation to carry out your vocation, to carry out your calling. Every Christ follower is a called person. Listen to the words of God speaking through the prophet Jeremiah, they apply to each of you: “before I formed you in the womb, I knew you and before you were born, I called you.” One of the chief tasks of an ordained person is to help people uncover and develop their calling. One of the best theologians I have ever heard describe the nature of calling is Jamie Oliver.

 In the latest series on SBS, Jamie Oliver is touring Italy. He begins his journey cooking with a group of monks in a monastery that has one of the oldest herb gardens. While in the kitchen he says something along the lines of “the dinner table is my altar”. Wow! That is exactly right. Hospitality is his priestly calling. 

In the Scripture today James and John leave Zebedee to follow Jesus. I find myself getting in the boat with Zebedee and explaining to him that it is all very well for John and James to follow Jesus into the sunset, at some point they still must eat. In my imagination, I observe James and John following Jesus through an itinerant ministry, healing and preaching. I imagine the disciples returning at the end of the day to Galilee, hungry and exhausted from the day’s work. I notice the thoughtful Zebedee knocking on the door in the place they are staying and bringing in a feast of barbequed fish, caught on his repaired nets. John and James were called to a ministry of preaching and healing. Zebedee’s calling is to be the net holder.

 What is a calling?

Calling is a Biblical word to describe how each person has something beautiful to do for God. The Spirit calls us to fulfil a particular task as our unique way of celebrating the Spirits presence in the world. Our calling is our unique way to give glory to God. Each of us has an assignment to do that has our name written on the tag. Each of us has a song to sing, a message to deliver, a special gift of love to offer that no one else can offer.

Whispers of resistance

The experience of calling is never a smooth path. A calling unfolds slowly and changes shape as it grows and develops. The process involves a bit of searching and testing. Often there are whispers of resistance, of negativity of self-doubt. Thoughts like: “Someone else can do it better” “I do not know enough about God.” “What happens if I fail?” Take heart, the Bible is full of good examples of whispers of resistance: Jeremiah says he is too young, Moses complains that he stutters, Isaiah says that he is a man of unclean lips.

A calling brings nourishment

We answer a call because a calling is something that brings nourishment to our lives and the lives of those around us. Jesus himself said: it is my meat and drink to do my Fathers will. What does he mean? To carry out our calling offers us deep satisfaction, a deep sense of joy and fulfilment. Not only does it nourish our souls, but it nourishes the souls of those around us. When we carry out our calling there is a deep and profound sense that our souls are fulfilled.

Some hints at discovering God’s calling for your life

I would like to offer some signposts at discovering your call. The first suggestion is this: what human cry in the community disturbs you the most? What are the needs in the community around you that worry you that you notice? A previous senior minister would often say at leaders meeting when somebody had a suggestion as to what we should be doing: “He who gets the vision gets the mission.” What he was suggesting is that the needs and gaps that you notice are often your calling. The very fact that you notice certain needs may arise from your calling. There are plenty examples of this. One that I could offer is a story of Moira Simpson who lives in Benoni South Africa who was bothered by the number of street children in Benoni, she responded by starting a home for them, this was her calling.

A second suggestion relates to finding out what nourishes our soul. Let me explain, sometimes people come to me burdened with the question: “What is God’s will for my life?” I usually respond by asking them: “What is it that you have to do, that you cannot do without? Or what are your deepest desires? What makes you happy? They may respond by saying things like art, music or children make me happy, they are some things that I cannot do without. Bingo! You have found your calling; this is because the deepest desires of our hearts coincide with God’s deepest longing for us.

 Conclusion

The Spirit calls us to fulfil a particular task as our unique way of celebrating the Spirits presence in the world. It will be different for each of us. Some of us our called to be mothers and fathers, some of us are called to teaching, or music or art. We give glory to God and live life at its fullest when we lean into our calling.

I mentioned Jamie Oliver’s travels through Italy beginning at an Italian monastery. Jamie offers to say grace at an evening meal but makes a faux pas. He prays: “For what we are about to receive may God be truly thankful". I think that is exactly right. When we recognise that the tools of our trade, be they computers, machinery or cooking utensils are sacred vessels and our place of activity, be it a bus, a classroom or a factory is a sanctuary, and we are all priests, God is truly thankful.  

Mark 9:2-9

The season of Epiphany is when Christ is presented to the entire world, all the nations, as the light of the world, for the World. The season of epiphany closes with a meditation on a vision of Jesus transfigured by light. The authors of Mark’s Gospel want us to read the story of the transfiguration together with the story of baptism and the story of the Crucifixion. Indeed, the transfiguration is given here to strengthen the disciples to face the crucifixion. In the context of the pure glory of Jesus as shimmering light, the path to the cross is defined. The way forward is the way of the cross. Without the cross and the willingness to sacrifice the self in the service of love, we remain caught in the web of competition and selfishness that tears us apart. The cross is about how the self is second place to love. Even God's Messiah has to go the way of love, the way of the cross – the alternative is just another imperial venture with the one at the top using everybody and everything for their own pleasure and profit. The transfiguration is a foretaste of the bliss that awaits us beyond the cross, in the land of Resurrection.

Mark 1:29-39

“Jesus took her hand and raised her, and she served them”.

Notice how themes are linked.  In Mark 1:29-39 healing is linked with service: “Jesus took her hand and raised her, and she served them”. The private and the public spaces are linked. Jesus is in the synagogue then he is a private house. He is in a house and then he is in a wilderness space.

 The word that describes healing is “raised up” or resurrection. This word is repeated several times throughout the Gospel of Mark: for example, the paralytic in chapter two will also be “raised up” from his stretcher bed. The widow of Nain’s son will be raised as will Jairus’ daughter in 5.41. The theme of Resurrection is of obvious importance to the community that follows Jesus. Healing and Resurrection are linked. To be healed is to live the Resurrected life. What is the resurrected life? A life lived in Christ, with Christ, for Christ following the pattern of Christ. The pattern of Christ is death and resurrection, the baptismal pattern of dying with Christ and rising with Christ.

 Peter’s mother-in-law is raised and then serves. The word diaskow is used here. Here is what is important: the word diaskow is used of her and of Jesus. It is never used of any of the male disciples who are nearly always cast in a negative light in Mark’s Gospel as people who misunderstand Jesus and the kingdom of God. The image of her serving is not to be understood in a menial sort of way. Instead, she is one who is empowered, to exercise the ministry of Jesus, to share the ministry of Jesus and to own the ministry of Jesus. She is one of the disciples of Jesus, someone who “gets it”.

Mark 1:29-39

“Jesus took her hand and raised her, and she served them”.

Notice how themes are linked.  In Mark 1:29-39 healing is linked with service: “Jesus took her hand and raised her, and she served them”. The private and the public spaces are linked. Jesus is in the synagogue then he is a private house. He is in a house and then he is in a wilderness space.

The word that describes healing is “raised up” or resurrection. This word is repeated several times throughout the Gospel of Mark: for example, the paralytic in chapter two will also be “raised up” from his stretcher bed. The widow of Nain’s son will be raised as will Jairus’ daughter in 5.41. The theme of Resurrection is of obvious importance to the community that follows Jesus. Healing and Resurrection are linked. To be healed is to live the Resurrected life. What is the resurrected life? A life lived in Christ, with Christ, for Christ following the pattern of Christ. The pattern of Christ is death and resurrection, the baptismal pattern of dying with Christ and rising with Christ.

Peter’s mother-in-law is raised and then serves. The word diaskow is used here. Here is what is important: the word diaskow is used of her and of Jesus. It is never used of any of the male disciples who are nearly always cast in a negative light in Mark’s Gospel as people who misunderstand Jesus and the kingdom of God. The image of her serving is not to be understood in a menial sort of way. Instead, she is one who is empowered, to exercise the ministry of Jesus, to share the ministry of Jesus and to own the ministry of Jesus. She is one of the disciples of Jesus, someone who “gets it”.

WHAT IS VOCATION?

The word vocation means calling. There is a commonly held conviction that calling applies to pastors only. I would like to break that definition. The truth of the matter is quite different: every human being has a vocation, has a calling. By baptism you have already accepted the invitation to carry out your vocation, to carry out your calling. Every Christ follower is a called person. Listen to the words of God speaking through the prophet Jeremiah, they apply to each of you: “before I formed you in the womb, I knew you and before you were born, I called you.” One of the chief tasks of an ordained person is to help people uncover and develop their calling. One of the best theologians I have ever heard describe the nature of calling is Jamie Oliver.

In the latest series on SBS, Jamie Oliver is touring Italy. He begins his journey cooking with a group of monks in a monastery that has one of the oldest herb gardens. While in the kitchen he says something along the lines of “the dinner table is my altar”. Wow! That is exactly right. Hospitality is his priestly calling. 

In the Scripture today James and John leave Zebedee to follow Jesus. I find myself getting in the boat with Zebedee and explaining to him that it is all very well for John and James to follow Jesus into the sunset, at some point they still must eat. In my imagination, I observe James and John following Jesus through an itinerant ministry, healing and preaching. I imagine the disciples returning at the end of the day to Galilee, hungry and exhausted from the day’s work. I notice the thoughtful Zebedee knocking on the door in the place they are staying and bringing in a feast of barbequed fish, caught on his repaired nets. John and James were called to a ministry of preaching and healing. Zebedee’s calling is to be the net holder.

WHAT IS A CALLING?

Calling is a Biblical word to describe how each person has something beautiful to do for God. The Spirit calls us to fulfil a particular task as our unique way of celebrating the Spirits presence in the world. Our calling is our unique way to give glory to God. Each of us has an assignment to do that has our name written on the tag. Each of us has a song to sing, a message to deliver, a special gift of love to offer that no one else can offer.

WHISPERS OF RESISTANCE

The experience of calling is never a smooth path. A calling unfolds slowly and changes shape as it grows and develops. The process involves a bit of searching and testing. Often there are whispers of resistance, of negativity of self-doubt. Thoughts like: “Someone else can do it better” “I do not know enough about God.” “What happens if I fail?” Take heart, the Bible is full of good examples of whispers of resistance: Jeremiah says he is too young, Moses complains that he stutters, Isaiah says that he is a man of unclean lips.

A CALLING BRINGS NOURISHMENT

We answer a call because a calling is something that brings nourishment to our lives and the lives of those around us. Jesus himself said: it is my meat and drink to do my Fathers will. What does he mean? To carry out our calling offers us deep satisfaction, a deep sense of joy and fulfilment. Not only does it nourish our souls, but it nourishes the souls of those around us. When we carry out our calling there is a deep and profound sense that our souls are fulfilled.

SOME HINTS AT DISCOVERING GOD’S CALL FOR YOUR LIFE

I would like to offer some signposts at discovering your call. The first suggestion is this: what human cry in the community disturbs you the most? What are the needs in the community around you that worry you that you notice? A previous senior minister would often say at leaders meeting when somebody had a suggestion as to what we should be doing: “He who gets the vision gets the mission.” What he was suggesting is that the needs and gaps that you notice are often your calling. The very fact that you notice certain needs may arise from your calling. There are plenty examples of this. One that I could offer is a story of Moira Simpson who lives in Benoni South Africa who was bothered by the number of street children in Benoni, she responded by starting a home for them, this was her calling.

A second suggestion relates to finding out what nourishes our soul. Let me explain, sometimes people come to me burdened with the question: “What is God’s will for my life?” I usually respond by asking them: “what is it that you have to do, that you cannot do without? Or what are your deepest desires? What makes you happy? They may respond by saying things like art, music or children make me happy, they are some things that I cannot do without. Bingo! You have found your calling; this is because the deepest desires of our hearts coincide with God’s deepest longing for us.

CONCLUSION

The Spirit calls us to fulfil a particular task as our unique way of celebrating the Spirits presence in the world. It will be different for each of us. Some of us our called to be mothers and fathers, some of us are called to teaching, or music or art. We give glory to God and live life at its fullest when we lean into our calling.

I mentioned Jamie Oliver’s travels through Italy beginning at an Italian monastery. Jamie offers to say grace at an evening meal but makes a faux pas. He prays: “For what we are about to receive may God be truly thankful". I think that is exactly right. When we recognise that the tools of our trade, be they computers, machinery or cooking utensils are sacred vessels and our place of activity, be it a bus, a classroom or a factory is a sanctuary, and we are all priests, God is truly thankful.

Good news

When I was a Methodist pastor, all preachers, lay and ordained, had a preaching assessment. Usually about three or four people were involved, including a senior ordained minister, a warden or a leader, and a member of the congregation. The assessment had a number of sections to be filled in. One section asked: did the preacher offer Good News? Award 1 if yes and continue marking. Award 0 if not and stop marking. Nerve racking. What is the Good News? In one sentence what would you say is the kingdom of God?

The Gospel of Mark is “punchy”, pithy, to the point with little unnecessary detail. The good news is clearly stated: The kingdom of God is near. Repent. Believe.

Some were so captivated by the Good News of the kingdom that they let everything to answer the call to follow Jesus. The Gospel unit ends in verse 21 with John and James leaving their fathers business to follow Jesus. I wonder how he must have felt. What is so compelling, so enticing, so attractive about the Good News of the kingdom of God that one literally abandons everything: business, family, home, relationships, money, to follow it?

We have noted before that the word evangelion is a term that Mark colonised from Rome. After a successful war, Caesar would send out coins, evangelions, announcing the good news of his latest victory in war. Mark brazenly uses this term ‘good news’ (evangelion) to describe the message of Jesus and calls Christ’s kingdom good news – something good something new.

Jesus could have used the word family or community or collective or life group to describe God’s activity in the world. Instead, Jesus uses the word kingdom – a political term. Jesus deliberately used the word kingdom in describing the realm of Gods influence so at the heart of call to follow Jesus is political resistance. Our baptism into the kingdom of God cannot be reduced to spiritual niceties devoid of activism.

The audience of Jesus knew about kingdoms, especially the kingdom of Rome. Living under Roman occupation with the terror that that entails, Jesus’ listeners at first thought he would re-establish an earthily kingdom by force. Perhaps Jesus was tempted by this; when tempted in the wilderness the tempter takes Jesus to a high mountain shows him all the kingdoms of the world and says, “all this I give you if you worship me” (Matthew 8.9). The sons of Zebedee want to sit at his right hand and left hand in his kingdom (Matthew 20.20). Jesus makes clear that his kingdom is not like that at all. When Jesus says that he will suffer and die for his kingdom, Peter says Lord this will never happen. Jesus says to him get behind we Satan your mind is not God’s wavelength (Mark 8.33).

Jesus is in direct disagreement of the kingdoms of his day and offers a different sort of kingdom, a unique way to structure human society. Jesus presents an alternative kingdom. Jesus offers an alternative social and political vision. In order for his kingdom to take shape, the other kingdoms have to be abandoned and dismantled. The way in which Jesus proposes to dismantle the kingdoms of the world is so threatening to those who benefit from exploitation that they put him to death.

Later we will learn about this kingdom of God, but it looks something like the traditions that informed Jesus. For example, his ancestor Moses describes how God’s people were fed with manna, bread from heaven, in the wilderness escape from Egypt. In Jesus alternative social vision, manna is shared with all, there is economic justice for all. Mercy is given to all, , there is no hierarchical system, no religious system of who is in and who is out – all are in – all are embraced, loved, and accepted. Jesus’ alternative kingdom would be a world of nonviolent peace.

The kingdom of God, Jesus says, is at hand. In other words, the kingdom is so close to you, you can reach out and touch it. The kingdom of God means God is everywhere. God is within us; God is among us. God is all around us. The kingdom of God is like breath, you breath it in and out, the breath is in you and outside you. It is around you; it is in every person you meet so that everyone who comes to you, is the face of God. You are a manifestation of God’s kingdom, as is the person you love the most and the person you like the least. This too is frightening, especially for the religious kingdoms of Jesus day. If the reality of God is accessible to all people, all the time, what then of religion? The kingdom of God challenges our security and the safety we have in our religious beliefs. The law and the temple are not absolute. All are invited into a higher relationship beyond law and temple, for those not open to growing in intimacy with God in this way, the kingdom is a threat and good news is bad news.

The Good news is the kingdom of God is at hand. How do you begin to see this way? The method is given – it is the word repent. Repent is not about confessing the manifold mistakes we all make. Repent is from metanoia. Metanoia does mean the radical change of mind, but its meaning lies deeper than that.

The Gospel is written in Greek and is deeply influences by Greek philosophy. According to Greek philosophy reality is seen on four levels.

·         The first is the body or matter.

·         The second is the individual soul.

·         The third is the nous  - the universal soul.

·         The fourth is The One Reality or God.

Meta noia means go beyond the nous. The word meta means go beyond. Metta narrative is the story beyond . Metaphysics means beyond physics. Meta noia means go beyond the level of nous. Repent means that we go beyond our identification with the body, beyond our identification with the individual soul, beyond our identification with the nous or the universal soul – the nous – to find God or experience God who is everywhere.

So how actually do you repent, go beyond the nous? It is not action so much as non-action. You cannot come to God because you are already in God . You cannot come to the kingdom of God because the kingdom is near, it is already in you and around you. Repent is about the surrender to the reality of what is, surrender to the experience of God who is everywhere. Religion and sacraments have deep value in as much as they support our repentance, our metanoia, our going beyond the mind or nous. Denise Levertov in her poem “The Avowal” is a brilliant example of repentance as going beyond the level of Mind to experience the Kingdom of God that is at hand.

The Avowal

As swimmers dare
to lie face to the sky
and water bears them,
as hawks rest upon air
and air sustains them,
so would I learn to attain
freefall, and float
into Creator Spirit’s deep embrace,
knowing no effort earns
that all-surrounding grace.

Sermon on John 1.43-51

In John 1.36, the disciples of John the Baptist hear John witness about Jesus, “Look there is the lamb of God”. These disciples then ask Jesus “where are you staying?” and Jesus answers “come and see”. Andrew and then Peter stay or “abide” with Jesus.

 “Abide” is dense with meaning; as the Word of God abides with humanity (John 1.14), as Jesus abides in the Father and the Father abides in him (John 14.11), so too do we “abide” in Jesus as “branches” in a vine (John 15.5). The next day, in Galilee, Phillip follows Jesus and then encourages his friend Nathanael to “come and see.”

There is some banter here between Nathanael and Jesus which we may miss if we disregard context. Nathanael asks, “Can anything good come from Nazareth?” Score 1 to Nathanael.

Phillip responds using Jesus language: “Come and See.”

When Jesus meets Nathanael, he says “Here is an Israelite in whom there is no deceit!” Possibly it is a genuine compliment, but equally possible is that it is a “return serve” on the part of Jesus. Before Israel was Israel, Israel was Jacob. Jacob was one in whom there was much deceit. Score 1 to Jesus. Deuce.  

Here is the background.

In Genesis 25.19-20 we read: “This is the account of Abraham's son Isaac. Abraham became the father of Isaac, and Isaac was forty years old when he married Rebekah daughter of Bethuel the Aramean from Paddan Aram and sister of Laban the Aramean."

Genesis 25.24-26: “When the time came for her to give birth, there were twin boys in her womb. The first to come out was red, and his whole body was like a hairy garment; so they named him Esau. 26 After this, his brother came out, with his hand grasping Esau's heel; so he was named Jacob. Isaac was sixty years old when Rebekah gave birth to them."

Jacob means heel grabber which is a metaphor meaning deceives.

Later the twins are adults, Isaac is about to die and wants to pass on his inheritance and blessing to the eldest son, Esau. However, Jacob the deceiver, deceives his father into thinking that he, Jacob, is Esau, and the inheritance passes to Jacob. Esau is furious. Genesis 27.35-36 “But Isaac said, 'Your brother came deceitfully and took your blessing.' Esau said, 'Isn't he rightly named Jacob (yaʿaqōb)? He has deceived(ʿāqab) me these two times: He took my birthright, and now he's taken my blessing!'"

As you can imagine, Esau and Jacob are now sworn enemies. Esau swears to kill Jacob. Jacob runs for his life. While sleeping in the wilderness he has a dream or vision which is described as a ladder or stairway connecting Heaven and Earth upon which angels are descending and ascending.

Genesis 28.11: “Jacob left Beersheba and set out for Harran. When he reached a certain place, he stopped for the night because the sun had set. Taking one of the stones there, he put it under his head and lay down to sleep.  He had a dream in which he saw a stairway resting on the earth, with its top reaching to heaven, and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it.”

Genesis 28.17: “When Jacob awoke from his sleep, he thought "Surely the Lord is in this place, and I was not aware of it."  He was afraid and said, "How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God; this is the gate of heaven."

Much later God changes Jacob’s name to Israel.

With a basic literacy in the stories of the Hebrew Bible, one can see that Jesus’ comment about Nathanael being an Israelite in whom there is no deceit relates to Jacob being one in whom there is much deceit.

Nathanael is suitably impressed by Jesus’ comment and recognises Jesus as the Messiah, the Christ, the Son of God, the King of Israel.

Jesus responds that he is the Son of Man, in other words the supremely human one, an example of the human life lived well.

What is significant here is that for the writers of John’s Gospel, Jesus is the New Israel. There is a direct parallel between Jacob, who became Israel, and Jesus who becomes the New Israel.

The significance of this is that all the hopes and dreams and promises of God for Israel are being fulfilled in the New Israel, Jesus. Jesus says: ‘Very truly, I tell you, you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.’ This is literature written so exquisitely because the comment acts as a bridge into the first part of John’s Gospel, the Book of Signs.

John’s Gospel is divided into two halves. The first half is called the book of signs and is structured around the seven signs or miracles that Jesus performs: water is turned into wine at Cana, the centurion’s son is healed, a paralysed man is healed, the hungry are fed in the wilderness, Jesus walks on water, a blind man’s sight is restored, Lazarus is raised from the dead. It is these seven signs that are being referred to in Jesus comment “you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.” Each of the seven signs offers a unique way in which heaven and earth touch. Clearly the comment “you will see heaven opened and angles of God descending and ascending” connects Jesus with Jacob’s dream. The point is that each of these seven signs are sacraments that awake our consciousness to stairways, moments when earth and heaven embrace and the divine and human touch.

The stairway is a symbol of heaven coming close to earth in Jesus. For some commentators, the comment “you will see heaven opened and angles of God descending and ascending”, is the equivalent of the Spirit like a Dove descending on Jesus in his baptism as recorded in the other Gospels. The point being made is that Jesus as the New Israel is a person in whom heaven and earth meet, the marriage between the divine and human, humanity and divinity abiding in each other, the embrace of Grace and truth, peace and justice, according to Psalm 85. Each of the seven sign or sacraments open us to the variety of ways in which the marriage between heaven and earth happens.

Jesus sees Nathanael under the fig tree. Here is the clue to the puzzling reference of the fig tree – it is a symbol of heaven on earth, of a salvation and liberation birthed by God, a symbol of the promises of God for the redemption of Israel coming true. For example: 1 Kings 4.25: “During Solomon's lifetime Judah and Israel lived in safety, from Dan even to Beer-sheba, all of them under their vines and fig trees.

Micah 4.4: “but they shall all sit under their own vines and under their own fig trees,
   and no one shall make them afraid; for the mouth of the Lord of hosts has spoken.”

It seems that the promise to sit under fig trees and vines is a promise of Shalom, peace built on justice and mercy and experiencing the closeness of God.

It is at this point that we may connect the Old Testament reading from 1 Samuel. It begins with a chilling indictment…”The word of the Lord was rare in those days; visions were not widespread.”

Perhaps that is how we feel about the 21st century – the word of the Lord is rare indeed and visions are less than widespread, they are not at all.

The emptiness and longing for more that characterises the human condition is precisely this question “where are the places and people where heaven and earth meet? Where are the people, places, and moments where we can taste God, and hear the word of the Lord? Why is God so silent and where might we hear God’s whisper? Where is the stairway to heaven?”

The Christian faith and hope is that as we abide in the Word, and the Word abides in us, we like Jesus are so filled with the presence of God that we are the stairways connecting heaven and earth. As the Word of God breathes in us and through us, we become words of God, vibrating self-emptying love and our very lives are the places and moments where the word of the Lord is seen, we are the visions of God. We can be encouraged by the words of Thomas Merton in Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander.

“At the centre of our being is a point of nothingness which is untouched by sin and by illusion, a point of pure truth, a point or spark which belongs entirely to God, which is never at our disposal, from which God disposes our lives, which is inaccessible to the fantasies of our own mind or the brutalities of our own will. This little point of nothingness and of absolute poverty is the pure glory of God in us… It is like a pure diamond, blazing with the invisible light of heaven. It is in everybody, and if we could see it we would see these billions of points of light coming together in the face and blaze of a 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.” 

 As we abide in Jesus each of us is the stairway to heaven. Each of us is the place in which heaven and earth meet. Each of us is living breathing word of the Lord and each of us a vision of God is made manifest.  

We celebrate the baptism of Jesus. I want to be clear that if this baptism is a spiritual act, then to be spiritual is decidedly political AND mystical and the two are connected. By “political” I do not mean party politics as in the Greens, Liberals or Labour. Political means a structural analysis of society and how it is constructed to favour the rich and institutionalise violence against First Nations and the poor. By mystical I mean the breakthrough in consciousness where people experiences God directly, knowing that God is everywhere and that they are in God.

Mark’s Gospel offers a fast-paced beginning: “The Beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ the Son of God.” It races through a hasty beginning to John preaching in the wilderness and the baptism of Jesus. Like John’s Gospel, Mark’s Gospel evokes Genesis. Mark is offering a New Creation of a New Heaven a New earth and a New Way of being human.

These opening verses of Mark’s Gospel are a declaration of war on Roman culture: Jesus is the New Beginning, not Caesar. Jesus is The Good News, not Caesar. Jesus is the Son of God, not Caesar.

To make clear that the New Creation takes place on the periphery and not in institutions, wilderness space is evoked. Wilderness evokes many images, tastes, sights, emotions. You can hear and feel the wind stinging your eyes, you can taste the grit in your parched mouth and your stomach can twist at the loneliness and danger imposed by the emptiness of a wilderness. Usually a desolate space, wilderness is a place where you flee too, especially from political opponents. David fled into the wilderness from Saul when Saul was trying to kill him. The Israelites fled into the desert away from the tyranny of Egypt. Elijah fled into the desert where he was given food of angels. The New Creation of a New heaven and a New Earth happens at the margins.

If Mark’s Gospel is a declaration of war on Roman Culture and Roman nationalism, it is also a declaration of war on Jewish Nationalism. In the poetic imagination of the prophets, Jerusalem would be the place where are the nations would come to learn the way of peace. Isaiah 1.2:

Many peoples shall come and say,

‘Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord,

to the house of the God of Jacob;

that he may teach us his ways

and that we may walk in his paths.’

For out of Zion shall go forth instruction,

and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.

He shall judge between the nations,

and shall arbitrate for many peoples;

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 anymore.

Mark 1.4-11 challenges the idea that all nations come to Jerusalem. Instead, it is Jerusalem and all of Judea that are leaving Jerusalem and going out into the wilderness. The writers of Mark’s Gospel are subverting tradition, its like driving against the traffic on a highway.

John announces repentance for sin. Sin is not a popular word . In fact, even some of you here insist on its removal from our liturgies. If sin is defined as guilt and shame and feeling less than fully human, then yes, such “sin” has no place in our lexicon. Thomas Cranmer’s “we bewail our manifold sins and wickedness” is hyperbolic, overly pious, and perhaps not helpful, if sin is defined as crushing guilt and paralysing shame, which is self-centred, individualistic and a further demonstration of sin anyway. The repentance John calls for is an agreement to ere I think is and agreement to step out our solidarity with institutions of violence

For a Gospel of few words and quick fast paced sentences, it is surprising to be offered details about what John is wearing: a camel hair cloak and a leather belt. John’s attire is a direct reference to Elijah the prophet. This is important. The writing community of Mark’s Gospel are declaring that the moment of God’s judgment is upon us. Malachi 4.

See, the day is coming, burning like an oven, when all the arrogant and all evildoers will be stubble; the day that comes shall burn them up, says the Lord of hosts, so that it will leave them neither root nor branch… Lo, I will send you the prophet Elijah before the great and terrible day of the Lord comes…

John’s ministry in the wilderness represents Elijah being sent before the great and terrible day of the Lord. The day has come. Judgement is pronounced. Elijah had pronounced judgment on the Israel’s king Ahab and his son Azariah. Their house subsequently fell. John the Baptist, the new Elijah, pronounces judgment on Herod Agrippa. Then he tells us that one even stronger than he is coming.

Each of us today must hear in our hearts the word of the lord’s judgment. Are you ready to be judged? Here is your judgement. The heavens break open and God’s voice of judgement says….you are my beloved. That is the great and terrible day of the Lord. That is the burning judgement. God says, “You are my Beloved.” How great to be judged.

The mystical moment for Jesus is when the boundaries between heaven and earth dissolve; Jesus ascends from the waters of baptism at the moment the spirit descends from heaven and he becomes the place where heaven and earth meet, where grace and truth embrace and righteous justice and peace kiss (Psalm 85.10). Jesus experiences the universal and eternal truth that God is everywhere, that he is in God and that God is in him, , that we are already in God. This is a discovery of one’s true identity – God within. The same spirit that hovered over the chaos of creation in the beginning, in Genesis, now hovers over the New Creation of a New Heaven and a New Earth .

The Spirit is represented as a dove as a direct challenge to the Eagle that appeared on the Roman standards. In Ancient Rome, an aquila, an eagle was the important symbol that appeared on military banners or standards. Each legion had an aquila. To lose the military standard was serious. The Roman Military protected the aquila and sought to recover it if it was lost in battle. The Spirit represented as a dove is a direct challenge to Roman military insignia.

Here is the genius of the Gospel’s challenge to Roman and Jewish nationalism, we find our identity beyond any label that culture would bestow. Our identity is in God

Today the politics of identity cement our divisions and deepen our hatred. The politics of identity swell as the waters of democracy recede. Indian Hindu against Indian Muslim. Pro Trump vs Anti Trump. Greens vs Liberals. Regions vs cities.

The art of living spiritually that is both political and mystical heals these divisions by discovering a common union in the Divine: if God and I are one, you and I are one.

Ched Meyers in a 2015 blog challenges us to re-write Mark 1 within our own context (he used the word bio-region but I think it means context).

So the people gathered near the Uluru. They left the parliaments of Canberra and gathered near the way maker, Stanley Grant, who was there. People finally understood when he said that the colonisation of the First Peoples was a violent act of war, that the land they called terra nullis, was not a desolate wilderness, but alive with story and pulsating song and vibrating with wisdom.

All manner of Australians left the city and joined in the truth and reconciliation commission in the wilderness near Uluru. “The Great Australian Silence" and the “cult of forgetting on a national scale” came to and end. Truth was given space to be spoken and people really listened, and slowly the path of reconciliation began.

Notes:

Craig Evans, “Mark’s Incipit and the Priene Calendar Inscription: From Jewish Gospel to Greco-Roman Gospel,” Journal of Greco-Roman Christianity and Judaism, 1 (2000): 68–69, who footnotes his sources as: M. E. Boring, K. Berger, and C. Colpe, Hellenistic Commentary to the New Testament (Nashville: Abingdon, 1995).

Grant, Stanly. UNSW Wallace Wurth Lecture. Accessed from: https://newsroom.unsw.edu.au/news/social-affairs/unsw-wallace-wurth-lecture-%E2%80%93-excerpt-speech-stan-grant

The Greeks gave us democracy and learnt that one can have either democracy or empire, but never both at the same time for long. Rome had to learn a similar lesson. To prevent empire and royal tyranny that later plagued the British, the Romans elected two consuls that would govern together for a year. This worked really well, until it didn’t. One consul went west and conquered Gaul. The other went East and conquered Syria. Why then should the two consuls come together and cooperate? The ensuing civil war in Rome destroyed the Roman empire from within and much of the Mediterranean with it. The Roman Civil war reached its climax when Octavian supported by Italy and Mark Anthony supported by Egypt met in battle near the Ionian Sea (north western Greece). On 2 September 31 BCE, Mark Anthony’s troops were left to fend for themselves while Anthony and Cleopatra suicided in Alexandria. The civil war ended, as did the Roman republic. A deified imperial Roman monarchy was born under Octavian later called Augustus, the One who is Divine, the One who is Worshipped, the Autocrat Caesar.

How did Rome under Augustus maintain such power for so long? Their strength lay in combining military domination with economic control and maintaining political and ideological power.

The military strength of the Romans is well known. The reorganisation of the army into legions, as well as the engineering achievements that were necessary for military control are staggering. The Roman Legions built roads, bridges, aqueducts, and other infrastructure that are still in use today. In fact, some Roman Roads have lasted 2000 years yet the roads in Byron Bay hardly last 6 years! (tongue-in-cheek).

Military domination gave rise to economic control. The infrastructure built by the army allowed for greater commerce as the roads made trade easier. Moreover, as Roman soldiers retired, they settled in “new” areas along the frontier and their finances contributed to trade and industry.

The main strategy of the Romans political power was ideological power. They controlled meaning and interpretation. Caesar’s titles are telling: God from God, Redeemer, Liberator, Saviour of the World. Since Octavian (Caesar) had saved the world from years of unrest and war, he was considered saviour of the word and therefore the divine son of God. Augustus gave thanks to the gods Mars and Neptune for blessing him with victory in war and gifting peace to the world. Religion, war, victory, peace – in that order – are four words that summarise the imperial ideological and political power of Rome. Religion, war, victory, peace. It is important to understand that the perspective of the time was that peace is won through victory in war blessed by the gods.

All this long background is to give you leverage to understand the power of the Christmas story given in our Gospel reading, Matthew 2. Understand this final episode of our Christmas story and you understand the whole Gospel.

Christ’s birth and the magi’s visit

What is the meaning of Christ’s birth and the visit of the magi in the context of Rome’s Empire? Our Epiphany story is subversive, it turns the world upside down.

·         The presence of the magi from the East in the West, in Roman occupied land, is symbolic of the battles between the Romans in the West and Parthia and Persia in the East. Already there is political unrest in the story.

·         In Rome’s Kingdom, Herod is King of the Jews. In our story Jesus is born King of the Jews. More importantly the magi from the East name Jesus as King, bestowing him gifts worthy of a king.

·         In literary terms, the magi are reminders of the magi in the Old Testament especially in the book of Daniel. There is a twist. In the Old Testament, the magi are opponents of the Jews, as in Daniel 1.20, 2.2, 4.7 and 5.7. In Matthew 2 the magi are worshippers of Jesus while the Jewish Herod and his court are his opponents. The point being made by the writers of Matthews Gospel is that Jesus is the saviour of all, Jews, and Gentiles alike. In a world that takes as self-evident the total separation of Gentiles and Jews this is extremely subversive.

·         There are other reminders in Matthew’s Gospel of Old Testament texts. In Exodus Pharaoh slaughtered the innocents to stop the threat of Moses. In Matthew’s writing Herod slaughters the innocents to stop the threat of Jesus. There is of course a twist. While Moses flees FROM Egypt to safety, Jesus flees TO Egypt for safety.

I have made but brief references to the political geography of Matthew 2: the challenge to King Herod, the atmosphere of violence and ongoing war, and the threat to innocent life that power, violence, and war represent. The slaughter of the innocents at the hands of political rulers should be enough to shake us free from our pious pageants and see the season of epiphany as a season of activism, citizen rebellion and political resistance. This is uncomfortable because the true worship of Christmas through the season of Epiphany may demand of us that we participate thoughtfully and thoroughly in movements like “Black lives matter” and “the extinction rebellion.”

A fundamental option

The magi represent for us a fundamental option. Are we part of Herod’s court of fear where we worship Caesar as Saviour, Lord, Son of God, and God from God? Or do we leave Herod’s court and worship Jesus as King, Lord, God and Saviour?

It is not good enough to call the Roman kingdom “bad” and God’s kingdom “good”. Nor is it helpful to call the Roman kingdom “earthy” and God’s kingdom “heavenly”. Neither dichotomy leads a discussion forward, nor does it acknowledge the peaceful intentions of the Roman empire. Both kingdoms, claim divine titles. Both kingdoms offer a saviour. Both offer peace on earth. The Roman kingdom and God’s kingdom differ only in method, they insist on different “recipes” for peace.

For the Roman kingdom, peace is won through victory in war.

In God’s kingdom peace is through nonviolent justice.

By default, we are already in Herod’s Court. There is an opt out clause. We can allow our dreams of peace through justice to disturb us enough to “leave by another road”. In a world that offers peace through victory the Gospel offers an alternative road, peace through nonviolence.