Ezekiel 17:22-24

22 Thus says the Lord God: I myself will take a sprig from the lofty top of a cedar; I will set it out. I will break off a tender one from the topmost of its young twigs; I myself will plant it on a high and lofty mountain. 23On the mountain height of Israel I will plant it, in order that it may produce boughs and bear fruit and become a noble cedar. Under it every kind of bird will live; in the shade of its branches will nest winged creatures of every kind. 24All the trees of the field shall know that I am the Lord. I bring low the high tree, I make high the low tree; I dry up the green tree and make the dry tree flourish. I the Lord have spoken; I will accomplish it.

Mark 4:26-34

26 He also said, “The kingdom of God is as if someone would scatter seed on the ground, 27and would sleep and rise night and day, and the seed would sprout and grow, he does not know how. 28The earth produces of itself, first the stalk, then the head, then the full grain in the head. 29But when the grain is ripe, at once he goes in with his sickle, because the harvest has come.”

30 He also said, “With what can we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable will we use for it? 31It is like a mustard seed, which, when sown upon the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on earth; 32yet when it is sown it grows up and becomes the greatest of all shrubs, and puts forth large branches, so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade.”

33 With many such parables he spoke the word to them, as they were able to hear it; 34he did not speak to them except in parables, but he explained everything in private to his disciples. 

Introduction

New immigrants to Australia surely provide hours of entertainment to true blue, dinky die, fair dinkum, yocal local Aussies. For example:

·      An immigrant’s terror at all the different things that kill you in country Australia.

·      Bringing a plate to a bring-and-share function because you were asked to “bring a plate” and feeling silly because your plate is empty.  

·      Scratching your head and trying to translate the untranslatable such as this: “pass my sunnies would ya. I gotta make tracks cos I’m meeting the rellos for brekkie at the maccas near the servo”. Even writing this down has caused by spell check to melt down in a hissy fit.

When my family and I first arrived in Australia, it was our gardening habits that amused the locals. We had created a garden bed around what we thought were the most beautiful ferns. The Aussies were in hysterics. Turns out our “ferns” were hated bracken that farmers spent hours trying to be rid of. Besides nurturing the bracken, we were delighted with the arum lilies that we tended with much care. In South Africa these arum lilies are sought after expensive plants. In Australia they are such a dangerous, noxious weed, they are illegal to grow. Even having them on your property could cop you an outrageously expensive fine.

In reflecting on these early experiences, the number one lesson to learn is the importance of understanding context. Context determines meaning. In one context, a flower is highly treasured, in another context that same flower is so noxiously dangerous it can totally destroy one of the world’s most unique biodiversity hotspots.  We can apply this lesson to reading scripture – context determines meaning.

Context of Mark 4: 26 -35

Besides the narrative context of a Biblical passage, we also pay attention to the geographical, economic, historical and political contexts.

Narrative and geo-politcal context

Jesus precedes the parable about the seed growing by itself with the parable of a crop that produces an overabundance (Mark 4.1-9). The crop is out of control.  The story is dangerously and politically subversive. With such a bumper crop, any tenant farmer can pay off the entirety of his debt and have wealth left over. Jesus is threatening the basis of the serf economy of this time. Through this parable Jesus is announcing the good news of the kingdom – the cancellation of debt and the freedom of people – the day of jubilee.

For first century middle eastern Galilean subsistence farmers, mustard is noxious plant (Mark 4.30-32).  Mustard seed is so invasive it is banned from gardens by rabbis because it would take over. Why on earth would anyone plant a mustard seed? It would be the equivalent of a Northern Rivers macadamia farmer planting lantana or alligator weed.  

The flavour of these stories is anarchy. Jesus is comparing the kingdom of God to wild, untamed, out of control growth of both good and bad seed – all of which are embraced. The grain harvest is as feral as the mustard seed harvest, and neither can be controlled, and both are abundant.

Biblical context

The parable of the seed that grows all by itself and no one knows how, and the mustard seed evoke memory from different aspects of the biblical context including Ezekiel, Moses, Exodus and Abraham and Sarah our spiritual ancestors.

Mark uses the parable from Ezekiel in telling the story of the mustard seed. The small sprig planted by Yahweh will bear fruit and the branches will shelter birds in Ezekiel 17.22 as they do in Mark 4.30-32.

In Ezekiel the tree metaphor is two edged: while it refers to the shelter offered by trees (as in Ezekiel 17.22). The tree image also criticises political empires. In Ezekiel 30 God will cause the imperial trees to be cut down, “and upon its ruin will dwell the birds of the air” (Ezekiel 31.4). In Ezekiel 30 and 31 the empire of Egypt will fall. In Mark 4 the empire of Rome and temple religion will fall.

Mark also evokes memories of the Exodus people, runaway slaves, feasting on Manna as it rained down from heaven. The lavishness of the crops described in the parables of Mark 4 point to the abundant provision of God for God’s people in the wilderness of the desert after fleeing Pharoah’s Egypt.

Mark’s Gospel is a manual on political resistance, a “how to” guide for resisting empire. In today’s terms Mark’s manual on effective far-reaching discipleship translates well for those critiquing colonial exploitation, capitalism, racism and oppressive economies that privilege the wealthy by stealing from the poor. In times of fatigue, when hopeful optimism turns to depressing cynicism, Mark’s parables advocate patience, and instil courage and hope. When faced with the powers of oppression Mark’s Gospel inspires faith over anxiety and the keen reminder that the small acts of resistance yield abundant dividends.

Mark’s parables in the context of 21st century Alstonville Anglicans

In our context we may not be faced with the oppressive onslaught of a Roman empire and a corrupt religious institution exploiting the vulnerable. However, Mark’s message of hope against darkness and that the small acts of light are stronger than any darkness, does sustain us. Current struggles that we may be concerned about include the looming climate catastrophe and the struggle for women’s dignity, safety and full personhood in a time when domestic violence against women has never been higher. This week a report was released that indicates that domestic abuse is higher in the Anglican church than the national average. Clearly there is something about the culture, patriarchy and explicit and implicit messages of our Anglican churches that breed a violent environment. It is normal when working for positive transformation to feel despondent. At these low times Mark’s message about the effectiveness of the mustard seed inspires our faith, our imagination, our patience and our endurance as we partner with God for a world of mercy and justice.

On a personal level some may be weighed down by illness, mental health issues like depression or anxiety, grief or loneliness. The journey to full flourishing health and healing takes courage and energy. There may be times when we feel that the struggle to be whole is too overwhelming for us. We may be tempted to give up and give in. Again, Mark’s parables reach into us, reminding us that it is more common than we realise to feel despondent. In moments when we feel our efforts are too small we remember the power of the mustard seed that yields an abundance and kind shelter to others despite its small beginning. Our small efforts work in the long run. We can choose faith over anxiety, creativity and imagination over negativity and patience over apathy.

I conclude with three sentences written on the wall of a Jewish concentration camp in Cologne during World War 2.

I believe in the sun when there is no sunshine.

I believe in love even when there is no one around.

I believe in God even when God is silent. 

Psalm 130 by Sinead O’Connor

Out of the depths I cry to you, oh Lord
Don't let my cries for mercy be ignored
If you keep a count of sins oh who would stand?
But you have forgiveness in your hands

And I've heard religion say you're to be feared
But I don't buy into everything I hear
And it seems to me you're hostage to those rules
That were made by religion and not by you

And I'm wondering will you ever get yourself free
Is it bad to think you might need help from me?
Is there anything my little heart can do
To help religion share us with you?

For oh your like a ghost in your own home
Nobody hears you crying all alone
Oh you are the one truly voiceless one
They have their back turned toward you
For worship of gold and stone.

And to see you prisoner oh makes me weep
Nobody hears you screaming in the streets
And it's sad but true how the old saying goes
If God lived on earth people would
Break his windows.

I long for you as a watchman longs
For the end of night...

Reflections on Mark 3:20-35
Introduction

Two Welshman are stranded on an island. Left to fend for themselves they build homes for themselves, even churches and pubs. Years later they are rescued. Puzzled, the captain of the ship rescuing them asks: “I understand that you have two pubs, and two houses. But why do you have three churches?” The Welshman explained: that is the church that I go to. This is the church that he goes to. And that over there is the church that neither of us go to.

The joke was told to me by Welsh priest who chose to be self-deprecating about her own culture. Yet the story of who is in and who is out seems universal across the cultures. Moreover, it is often the case that what does in fact unite us is our joint animosity to a third party.  One published study found that people are more likely to bond over a shared dislike rather than a shared fondness of a third party (“that is the church that neither of us go to”).

I doubt very much that excluding others based on tribe, race or any other dimension of humanity is our natural state. For example, many observe that young children are content to play with any child regardless of the various aspects of their humanity. We are taught prejudice in discerning who is in and who is out through our culture. We are socialised with boundaries that can store up privilege of the strong against the weak.

Inside and outside

The theme of insiders and outsiders is a continual theme through the Gospel, but there is a difference. A central message of Mark is that those who are insiders are actually outsiders. And those who think they do not belong or are the outsiders are in fact the insiders. Throughout the Gospel of Mark, the disciples and members of his family rarely understand Jesus’ vision. Yet the anavim, the ha amaretz, those excluded by the rules of religion, have a clear grasp on the Good News Jesus offers. The anawim were the poor: the vulnerable, the marginalized, and socio-economically oppressed, those of low status without power.

Mark has a strategy to highlight division and inclusion, insiders and outsiders. A sandwich technique begins one story, interrupts with another and then returns to the first story. In Mark 3:20-35 the sandwich is clan – conflict – clan. The effect of the sandwich technique highlights the widening rift between Jesus and the traditional structures of belonging, both clan and state.

Why are the family upset with Jesus?

Jesus has engaged in a full-frontal attack on the Pharisees and the Scribes by healing a man with a withered hand on the Sabbath day in a synagogue. Not very subtle – usually if people break the rules, they at least have the decency to try not to be caught. Instead of laying low it seems that Jesus is taunting the religious powers.

Jesus is the thief in the night, he compares himself to a criminal, who will come and bind the strongman. Who is the strongman? In this dialogue it appears to be the Pharisees who have power. Jesus as a stronger man, a surprise criminal, will bind the religious rulers. The reason Jesus is stronger is because he in fact is not the ha satan, the pharisees are. The divided house of Israel will fall. The stronger man, the criminal, Jesus, will be victorious and take the spoils of the divided house of Israel by rescuing the anavim.

Why is Jesus upset with his family?

Jesus challenged the narrow confines of family and clan loyalty, believing that God does have favourites, the trinity: the foreigner, the widow and the orphan.

The journey Jesus offers is simple to explain and hard to achieve. Here is how I understand the workings of the passage Mark 3. Think about a close family member or friend that you love dearly. Think about what you want for this person, your deepest hopes and dreams for your beloved. Concretise your loving hopes for your beloved with two or three phrases. Now consciously want what you want for your nearest and dearest for the strangest stranger, a socially oppressed person who stands outside your circle of privilege.

In sympathy with Mark’s theme, we are to see the outsiders as our insiders. This will not be easy, in caring for the outsider, your insiders may make you an outsider too. It can be done, and it can be done well. I think of Beyers Naude as an example. Beyers Naude was an Afrikaner who reached the highest echelons of white Afrikaans achievement. However, he wanted for black people what white people took for granted. In working towards freedom and flourishing for black people, Naude’s own white tribe disowned him. The apartheid struggle was very lonely for him, he was shunned by church and state.

Mark 3 and Reconciliation

According to Mark 3, if we are to follow Jesus, we are to outgrow our family loyalties and cultural boundaries. The same care and effort we want for our loved ones we consciously offer and work towards for the strangest stranger, the one who is most different from you.

To state the obvious, Reconciliation week invites this spiritual practice of forsaking clan and kin in favour of the outsider for our First Nations people who have been made outsiders in the land of their belonging. What we most desire for our loved ones we must want and work towards for First Nations people. In this task we have been given a wonderful gift, a Statement from the Heart.

On May 27, 1967, Australians voted to remove part of the Australian Constitution that treated Indigenous Australians as inferior to non-Indigenous Australians: “In reckoning the numbers of the people of the Commonwealth, or of a State or other part of the Commonwealth, aboriginal natives should not be counted.”

The Statement of the Heart asks each of us for deep listening: “In 1967 we were counted, in 2017 we seek to be heard.”

Binding the strongman today

Who is the strongman today? White fellas. We white people continue to be the ones with power. The devil is not a creature with cartoon horns and a forked tail but a demonic force that stands against the compassion and reconciling love that works through Christ. It is my belief that that unless we willingly and lovingly surrender our power and privilege we too will be bound and plundered.

How do we lay down power? Through accepting the invitation to listen deeply to truth telling. The Statement of the Heart can be received as the powerful gift it is. It represents the heights of spiritual, emotional, communal and psychological maturity that other humans are yet to achieve.

Conclusion

Today is the first Sunday in ordinary time. Let us not forget the power of the Pentecost Spirit from the last two weeks: When the Spirit comes, it binds up those with power, giving them ears to hear. The Spirit unbinds the tongues of those with little power to give them speech for truth telling. May such a Spirit move in Australia so that we who speak in different tongues may nevertheless fully understand each other.

JENNIFER K. BOSSON, AMBER B. JOHNSON, KATE NIEDERHOFFER, WILLIAM B. SWANN Jr. First published: 09 May 2006. “Interpersonal chemistry through negativity: Bonding by sharing negative attitudes about others”. In Personal Relationships: Volume 13, Issue 2. p. 135-150.

My purpose today is

(1) to explain the doctrine of the Trinity in a (hopefully!) clear way and

(2) to suggest how the Trinity shapes our lives as people.

What is the church’s understanding of Trinity?

5 statements are offered.

 1)    Three Hypostasis in one undivided Ousia or Three “persons” in one undivided God

One of the difficulties in understanding the Trinity is that people start with the one God and try to say how there are then three persons. They offer analogies such as the egg with a shell, yolk and protein, or water that is steam, liquid and solid. I do not think, however, that these images are either accurate or helpful.

I suggest we start where Scriptures starts, with the three “persons” (Father, Son and Spirit or Creator Word and Spirit) and suggest how they are One. For example, reflect on the readings today that speak about God in precisely these terms.

The classic formula of the doctrine of the Trinity is that there are three “persons” in one undivided God. Each “person” is fully divine; one is not more God than another. Used here the term persons does not mean what it means today in that each person has a separate mind, nature and will. Rather the three persons share one undivided will, mind and nature. The Greek terms are more helpful in this regard. There are three Hypostasis in one Ousia. Ousia is the divine substance. See before you a dance. While there are three dancers, there is only one dance.

In simple language our belief is that God is beyond us, God is in us and God is with us, at the very same time. Said another way, God is three “persons” who love each other so much that they are one. Said yet another way, God is community.

2)    Persons as relation

It is precisely relationship that defines the Trinity, not the “nodes of being”. In the other words the Creator is the Creator because S/he is the Source of the Word. The Word is the Divine nature existing as flowing from the Creator. (Or the Son is the Son precisely because he is the son of the Father). The Spirit is the Divine nature existing as the love bond flowing from Creator and Word.

3)    Divine processions

Here the word procession is a Scriptural word that describes how the Word comes forth from the Creator and how the Spirit comes forth from the Word and the Creator. As we heard last week, the Spirit proceeds or comes forth as the bond of Love uniting Creator and Word.

4)    Perichoresis

Reflect on John 10.38: “The Father is in me and I am in the Father.” Or John 17.21: “May they be one as you are in me and I am in you may they be in us.” The word for this is perichoresis which simply means that the Divine persons are in each other or flow into each other.

5)    The unity of the Divine Persons “ad extra”

All that distinguishes the Divine persons or hypostases from each other is their relationships, and because everything that God does is done by all three “persons” in unison.

So much for an outline of what the church understands by Trinity, what does it actually mean for each of us today? Here are several suggestions:

What does it mean for me today?

1)    Praying

Reflect on our prayers. We can pray to God, Jesus and Spirit and direct our prayers to each of the three hypostases or persons of the trinity. Many of us pray to God without reflecting to whom we are talking. We can have different relationships with each person of the Trinity.

2)    Trinity shows that to be a person means to be in relationship.

We can understand that we indwell each other. Other humans are our brothers and sisters.

To indwell each other means to live inside the other. This can become the basis for conflict management and discussion; we are invited at times to give up our point of reference and really see it from within the other person’s skin – to walk a mile in another’s shoes as the adage goes.

3)    Revisit our understanding of difference.

Unity is not the negation of difference or the reduction of difference into one. That is uniformity and in the history of the world it is associated with great evil; think for example of the rise to power of Hitler, or the disastrous effects of communism. Unity and uniformity are two very different things; while unity is of God uniformity is not. In the Trinity there is a unity in diversity. There are not three “fathers” or three “sons”. This bears remembering when we discuss ecumenism or different ways of being church or different ways of worshipping. The desire is not for us all to look the same or worship in the same way, or for us to amalgamate into one worshipping community, that is uniformity. The pastors in the three different churches fully understand that there is one church in Alstonville worshipping in three or four different ways. We have unity but no desire for uniformity. 

4)    The church and society

God is community. But humankind is also community. God’s desire is that these two communities should be one. In other words, God’s inner life is a model for our human life.

Trinity teaches us that God is structured along the lines of
self-emptying love. The Creator shares everything with the Word and the Son (Word) gives her/himself totally to the Father-Mother. The spirit is the love that flows from Creator to Word. Our church must be structured along the lines of this
self-emptying love.

 The church is meant to be the place where we see the unity between God and humans taking shape, where we see the process of self-emptying love. People are supposed to see what it means to live in the Trinity by looking at us. Church structures have been revisited in the light of this. Some ways in which we see this happening is in worship, in liturgy and in communion because in communion we are one with God and one with each other. In worship and liturgy, we are many and one at the very same time and so live our Trinitarian life.

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

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

5)    Experiencing God

The psalmist says:

As the sparrow finds a home

And the swallow a nest for herself

Happy are those who find their home in you.

God invites us to make our home in God. We are invited to become part of the divine love affair. The love that flows between Creator and Word flows in us through us and with us. We are baptised into this love affair. We are meant to dwell in this safe place now and forever.

We are accustomed to celebrating Pentecost as a “red day” wearing red clothes and sometimes having red balloons and banners and cardboard doves in the church building. This is not a “modern” development. In 13 century, Bishop Durandus wrote of Pentecost celebration with masses of red rose leaves, actual doves, and sparks of fire blown over the congregation. There was no risk assessment requirement back then.

Also, Pentecost has been celebrated as Whitsunday (white Sunday) with white robes acknowledging the Baptisms which took place that day and the connection of Pentecost with Easter. 

Often, at Pentecost, we have the reading from Acts Ch 2 which tells of the Holy Spirit coming to the Apostles in tongues of fire. There’s rushing wind and speaking in foreign languages. The crowd says these followers of the crucified Jesus are drunk with new wine.  They seem to be so affected by this Holy Spirit that they are babbling like drunks about having the resurrected Lord Jesus in their lives.

Today the lectionary gave us another well-known reading from Ezekiel Chapter 37. The prophet Ezekiel tells the story of the valley of dry bones. This gives us a clear example of why we need to keep Bible passages in context. Four chapters earlier in Ezekiel Ch 33v10, God’s disheartened people in exile in Babylon ask God “How then can we live?” The story of the dry bones is an important part of God’s answer to that question. The answer is that the exiles cannot live without God.

Life requires the Spirit of God. The Spirit of the Lord is a central motif in the dry bones story. Spirit or Breath occurs 10 times in the 14 verses. God makes it clear to the prophet that it is the Spirit that gives life. The Spirit of God can give people life even in the wilderness, even in exile. There is hope for people who say, “Our bones are dried up and our hope is lost; we are cut off completely”. God is perfectly capable of reversing a situation of being dry and completely cut off.

So, with this sense that somehow God’s Spirit brings life even if we are disheartened and feel cut off, we celebrate Pentecost.  As God’s people, we try to understand what the Holy Spirit means to us.

There are some serious misconceptions of Pentecost. Sometimes there is the thought that Pentecost is the “birthday” of the Holy Spirit. However, the Holy Spirit was there at creation “sweeping over the face of the waters” (Genesis 1:2) 

Another misconception is the thought that Pentecost is the “birthday” of the Church. Yet God’s people have always been God’s people. Pentecost is a significant milestone or marker in the life of God’s people, but not the beginning of the Church.

All that can be a bit confusing. Yet thankfully we have the Bible to help explain Holy Spirit to us.

The Ezekiel reading helped and so does the passage from the Gospel according to John we have heard today. John reports Jesus’ farewell speech to his friends which begins with Jesus saying he will send the Advocate from the Father. This isn’t a consolation prize because we have suffered the loss of Jesus. This is simply Jesus promising to give us something really good; to send us the Advocate, the Spirit of Truth, who will testify on Jesus’ behalf.

Our understanding is that an advocate is a supporter of people up on charges in a courtroom. An advocate is a mediator, counsellor, comforter; one who advises, assists, and makes representations on behalf of someone else.

The image of the Spirit as Comforter has been misunderstood throughout history. The comfort provided by an advocate is the comfort of sound advice and direction. Not mere condolence. Therefore, we are to see that this comfort provided by the Holy Spirit is not merely emotional; it’s actual, factual and practical support.

Jesus says he will send to us from the Father, the “Spirit of Truth”. This Spirit of Truth gives us confidence to share honestly with other people; to speak and hear and understand each other.

And the Spirit of Truth opens us up to the Bible’s story about who we are and what we are doing here.

We are God’s people. It is through the Holy Spirit that God reveals himself to us. It is through the Holy Spirit that we can hear God speak. And it’s also through the Holy Spirit that we are able to speak to God.

The Holy Spirit is that power, that gift of God, that enables us to see that God wants to have a relationship of close connection with us. There is something about our God that loves to talk to us. God yearns for us to speak up and answer.

This is an amazing reality. Our God communicates! Isn’t that what we expect when we come to worship? In the readings, the preaching, the silence, the prayers and the singing, aren’t we expecting to hear God and to have God listen to us? We have to be careful not to put God aside in our services; to shut God out.  Boldness and confidence to respond to God is needed. We are encouraged to be absolutely certain that God is listening to each of us as we struggle to express something to God.

So, Pentecost is the time that we celebrate the relationship with God made possible by the Holy Spirit. Time to give thanks to God for being so communicative, so talkative, so lovingly self-revealing. The Holy Spirit helps us to find the words to praise God as we should, to speak to God in words and music that are more beautiful that we ourselves could devise so that God might speak to us words more wonderful than we could ever anticipate by ourselves.

How does this work?   Paul says (in Rom 8:26), the Holy Spirit enables godly, truthful speech because the Holy Spirit is interceding and pleading with God for us. By ourselves, we are not very capable in our ability to speak to God. “We do not know how to pray as we ought.” Fortunately, the Spirit “intercedes with sighs too deep for words”. The Holy Spirit steps in for us, finding the words for us that we want to speak to God.  Isn’t that amazing? Wonderful? The Holy Spirit is not only the way that God speaks to us, reveals God to us, but is also the way that we are enabled to speak to God. The Holy Spirit is that power, that gift of God that enables us to be in loving conversational relationship with God. The great Wesley hymn, “O for a thousand tongues to sing, our loosened tongues employ” is answered. The Holy Spirit will make our tongues work brilliantly.

However, knowing all this doesn’t make it happen easily. There’s no doubt that often we find it really difficult to hear God and even more difficult to speak to God. This is the main reason people give for why they do not pray. They say, “I can’t really hear God and I didn’t know what to say, or which words to use”.

But the Holy Spirit does step in to make it happen! If I ever find the right words to say something that touches your heart in a sermon, it’s not because I am a brilliant preacher; it’s because God gave me the words. Likewise, if you ever consciously hear anything in a sermon, despite all of the perfectly good reasons why you might not, it’s because the Holy Spirit has enabled you to hear.

Have you ever had the experience when reading the Bible or listening to a Bible reading, when you come to a familiar passage and think “O really!  Here we go again. I know this passage so well” But then, some word or some phrase jumps out at you, really claims your attention and gives you an unexpected new insight.  That’s the Holy Spirit at work.

Christianity is a “revealed religion” which is a fancy way of saying that you don’t “get it,” it “gets you.” You can’t just think to make Jesus present, he has to be given to you. It must come from “on high.” The best Bible study, the best listening to sermons, is a form of prayer; that humble listening, that waiting on the gift of God.

We need this gift of the Holy Spirit, this Spirit of Jesus, this Spirit of Truth, to help us bring out the power we have within us; the power we have to make the world a better place. We need the Holy Spirit, and we have the Holy Spirit so that we too, connected to God, can become fearless witnesses of Jesus Christ. Each of us has been called by Christ and sent out in the Spirit to continue the message of Christ.

 Let us have the courage of our convictions to go out in faith and be Christ's presence in our hurting world.

Last Thursday, we, the Church at large that is, celebrated the Ascension of Our Lord; and in 11 days’ time, we will commence the Week of Prayer for Reconciliation,[1] which is book ended by 2 significant national dates, the anniversary of the 1967 Referendum and the 29th anniversary of the Mabo judgment.

I am provoked to wonder how the ascension of Christ might have a bearing on how we think about justice and peace in Australia, and the gulf that lies between white and black people. This is by way of a thought experiment)

Firstly, let me say that the biblical representation of Jesus taken up into a cloud[2] does not have to be taken literally, although I have no objection if you do. The Ascension as described in the Acts of the Apostles is a symbolic way of saying something that cannot be put into words.

In the narrative process we have followed during Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent and Easter, we have journeyed alongside folk who forged an intimate and significant relationship with a man called Jesus. The quality of that relationship is such that when he was killed, their sense of loss was overwhelming. They were paralysed, benumbed, a perfectly normal human reaction to loss or change.

How do you convey such paralysis of feeling to someone else? It is impossible, unless your respondent has also suffered that paralysis. And even then, you cannot be entirely sure that your message will get across. So, you tell a story; you employ powerful symbols of your culture in order to express the intensity of what you are feeling. You exaggerate and go into great detail in order to make sure you are heard and understood.

The archetypal fishing story arises from the immense excitement of the catch, the proverbial sea monster that no one hitherto has caught. A moment of self-transcendence can only be captured by telling a story, and exaggerating like crazy. This is not telling lies; it is the compulsion for intimacy that wants to share this moment of excitement. It is one of the most intimate things a fisherman can offer you. The Fish Story. And some of the apostles were Fisher Folk.

So, the paralysed friends, lovers, of Jesus, cannot express their loss, and cannot initially let go of all that their relationship has meant to them. Some of us know how difficult it is to dismantle the room of a family member who has died. We keep the symbols of that presence intact until we are ready to let go. Even so, the dismantling involves feeling the pain; but that is alright, because weeping and tears are pain on the way out. And some symbols remain, a photograph, a keepsake, a small gift, to keep a memory alive, to maintain the structure of a closeness that once was incarnate.

The apostles cannot let go at first. Their distress is so intense that they will not even let Jesus be in a tomb. He simply disappears; he is not in the tomb, nowhere to be found, perhaps in the hope that he is still around - somewhere. Their narrative goes something like this.

We cannot yet dismantle the constructs of our relationship with this remarkable man. We even see him in our everyday life situations. He joins us for breakfast on the beach; he walks along the way to Emmaus; he pokes his fingers into his side to show that it is indeed himself.

 Again, it is a common experience of grief to be aware of someone’s presence, to see them clearly in the room, or out of the corner of the eye. And there is a story to be told.

But once we are able to tell the story, we are starting to let go. The difference between having and being is clarified. If I am a relationship, I cannot talk about it; but if I have a relationship, I can talk about it, put a distance between me and it, objectify it, and so put it in its proper place when I am ready. This is no dishonour to the relationship. Rather it gives it an honoured place in my heart along with the other treasures I carry and cherish; and so, I can tell a story about it.

To be able to tell the story is a sign of healing.

A time comes when I can say goodbye in a way that leaves me free, individual, standing alone, but not isolated. And, again, I have a story to tell about my goodbyes. I no longer dwell on the minute details of my process of loss, but offer memories to share. This is, paradoxically, a moment of reconciliation, with self, and with the object of my loss.

How many goodbyes do you have in your life? The pundits tell us that from birth we are engaged in a cycle of attachment and loss. It does not matter whether you are at the beginning of life or approaching the end of it. You have many, many goodbyes already tucked into your shirt. Have you shared them with a significant other? If not, you have something to which you can look forward.

The Ascension is the story of a goodbye offered to us by twelve or more men and women. It is a statement that they have let go. Their fish story is of the Ascension, when they were released from the paralysing grip of grief to grasp their selfhood in a new and wonderful way. The keepsake they retain is not a photo; it is not a pebble off the beach; and it is not something that Jesus might perhaps have made for them. The paradoxical reconciliation with the object of their loss, Jesus Christ, is symbolised in their final offering to us, their touchstone, the Holy Spirit of God, Sophia, Wisdom, whose presence we shall celebrate next week.

Well, you may by now be wondering what the blazes this has to do with the Week of Prayer for Reconciliation. Harken to the voice of the Dreamtime for a moment.

My brother-in-law, the late Father Don Moffat, spent several years on Flinders Island. He had a huge concern for the First Nation peoples of Australia. Here is one bit of his writing:

During the year we hope to be able to bring a small group of Aborigines and clergy together just to sit in a circle together to share stories, and from this we hope to be able to develop a program of Aboriginal story telling for our next clergy conference. We also hope to get the clergy into small groups to think over some simple statements concerning Aborigines without forcing them to come to a conclusion [as might be expected from, say, focus groups][3]. In a circle there is no first and no last. In a circle we can dance together and we can sing together; we can talk and listen to each other; we can quietly ponder together on the deep things of life; we can laugh together and we can cry together.

I quote this to underline the kind of listening that we as a dominant white culture must offer to our black siblings. Reconciliation comes at the end of a process of loss, grieving, painful
re-collection, re-integration of self, and the telling of a number of stories. If a story is to be told properly, it must be heard properly – not something that our Government is good at. If I speak of my pain and you do not hear, truly hear,  then you treat me and my story like the Pharisee and the Scribe who left a mortally wounded man by the roadside; but if you do truly hear my story, and tell it back to me so that I know that you know, then you have been to me the Samaritan who took the wounded man to a place of shelter and healed his wounds.

Your story is symbol and sacrament of your life; my story is symbol and sacrament of my life. Whatever the colour of our skin (I like to think of rainbows in this context; I am blue), may we sit together in a circle where there is no first and no last, except perhaps for the greatest storyteller of them all, and share our lives. And let us respectfully grieve with each other, for our losses are great. And new life will abound. That is Ascension, and my hope for our nation.

Amen.

Doug Bannerman.

Copyright © 2021

[1] 27 May is the anniversary of the 1967 Referendum, 3 June the Mabo Decision

[2] Acts 1.9

[3] My own comment. DDB.

Today I want to focus on the great love that Jesus has provided for us by dying on the cross and rising to new life.

The Gospel reading (John 15: 9-17) has a theme of being connected to one another and centres itself around relationships. It is a relationship passage with an emphasis on love. The passage speaks of the relationship that exists between Jesus and his Father, the relationship that exists between Jesus and his disciples, and the relationship that exists between Jesus and us, living right here in Alstonville.

Three points worth considering today are:

1.   Abiding in Jesus’ love (verses 9-11)

2.   The commandment that Jesus gives (verses 12-13)

3.   Going out and bearing fruit (verses 16-17)

Abiding in Jesus’ Love

The beginning of John’s Gospel emphasises unity between the Father and Jesus. In verse 9 Jesus is speaking of the love his Father shows him and then encourages his disciples to abide in the love that he will provide them.

What does it mean then to abide in Jesus’ love? It means dwelling in a particular place – abiding there – remaining there. The definition further refers to the kind of peace and stability that we can associate with being at home – or at the home of a hospitable friend. The home of Loretta and I is a place of shelter, comfort, peace, stability, places where nurturing takes place and where love exists, grows, and continues to grow. You want to abide there with the people you love the most.

Jesus wants to abide with us. He loves us. Out of this love; Jesus calls us to abide in his love. When we are in relationship with Jesus we can be immersed in his love, surrounded by his love, comforted by his love, and empowered by his love. Love can be the glue that holds everything together.

Think about abiding in love in these terms. A child’s love verses a parent’s love verses God’s love for us. As children the love we display can be self-seeking, self-centred, selfish. “I love you but give me what I want!” This selfishness can also occur towards God – asking Him to give us what we want and then blame Him when we do not get what we want or that our plans do not turn out the way we want them to. We make our plans and tell God to bless them instead of relying on God to direct our paths. While this is a negative view of love a child’s love for their parent is also genuine. In most cases a child will defend their Mum when their Mum is being criticised by others. Parents in most cases display unconditional love toward their children. Sadly, however this unconditional love is not always shown in all relationships that parents have with their children. God’s love for us is unending. God loves us in the happy times. God loves us in the not so happy times, God loves us in times of challenge and great difficulty or when we fall short and make mistakes, he still loves us.

Obedience is needed. Obedience is always part of one’s relationship with God. Love is attractive! Everybody likes to talk about love. Everyone wants to claim their interest in love and celebrate it. We speak passionately and lovingly about the things we love. However, when it comes to obedience not as much emphasis is given to obedience, and the very real character development that results from obedience to the Lord. But with Jesus – love and obedience were always connected; there was never - in the teaching of Christ – any distance between the two.

The Commandment given by Jesus

In verse 10: “If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love…” This is too clear to debate or be denied. If we want to abide in the love of Christ, we need to be engaged with His teaching, through obedience. It is about trust. It is about love. But choosing to abide in Jesus’ love and being obedient to his commandments is a challenge - it is not easy.

It is easy to hit pause in our busy lives and react to a post that a friend has posted online, share our lives on social media, but do we place the same emphasis and hit pause when it comes to Jesus’ role in our lives. What if Jesus placed a post on a social media site? Would we react in the same way we do our friends? The Bible teaches that love for Jesus is not just something you talk about – it is something you do. We need to put our love for Jesus into action. We need to spend time with Jesus, reading His Word and praying to Him. This shows our connection to Him, our relationship with Him and can positively propel us into the day ahead.

In verse 12 Jesus commands his disciples to love one another as he has loved us. The type of love Jesus is speaking about here is agape love. A love that is more about “doing” rather than “feeling”. When we do agape love we are putting others before ourselves. This type of love does not require that we approve of the actions of the other person whom we love – or even that we enjoy their company. It does however require that we act on behalf of that person – to demonstrate love in some practical fashion. A person who displays agape love will do whatever is possible to demonstrate their love for another. They will feed the hungry and give drink to the thirsty. They will welcome the stranger and clothe the naked. They will visit the sick and those in prison. Their thrust, their motivation is to give rather than receive.

Examples of agape love within the community and here at Alstonville Anglicans including keeping everyone safe during the COVID pandemic and ministries of the OP Shop, the Pink ladies of Play Place, MU, the Pastoral Care Team and the teamwork shown at the Mother’s Day Fete. Love is in action because we are in relationship with one another. These ministries make God known and present and show His love!

The love in action that Jesus did was to show us the perfect example of love whereby he laid down his life for us. There is no greater love than this. The image of the cross gives us a powerful illustration of this love… that ‘God so loved the world that he gave his only Son’[1] and we are reminded of this in this season of Easter.

Go out and bear fruit.

Jesus calls his disciples friends. They did not choose him, he chose them. Likewise, we did not choose Jesus, he chose us, so we too are his friends. Jesus taught his friends what he had learned from his Father. The disciples were just ordinary men, but Jesus believed that his friends could continue the work, the ministry that he had started. We too are charged with that same task. What does it mean then to go out and bear fruit? The bearing of fruit could take many shapes and forms, but ultimately it is bringing others that we would meet with, who we connect with, who we are in relationship with to know and love God. The way we can do this is to witness God’s love in our individual lives and illustrate that love as an action. Make “Love” the glue, the very centre of all things we do when we are in relationship with each other.

John 15:9 - 17 is a passage about relationship and at its very core is love. Love begins with the Father and flows through the Son to the disciples and ultimately onto us. Be comforted to know that Jesus loves each one of us if we abide with him. I encourage each of us to love one another as Jesus has loved you.

Amazing Grace written by John Newton is a famous church hymn. Newton spent part of this working life working a slave trader and ship captain transporting slaves. During one of his final voyages a large storm occurred at sea and this scared Newton so he cried out to the Lord for help and he was saved. The slave trade took its toll on Newton and impacted him. Newton became a follower of God, experiencing his love and felt called to serve God as an Anglican priest.[2] Amazing Grace was originally penned as a poem and used in one of Newton’s sermons, later the poem was put music.

Christian musician, Chris Tomlin has researched Newton’s work and made some adaptions to the famous hymn while keeping the essence Newton’s words in tacked. Tomlin discovered the original version had a final verse that is not widely known. He chose to include this verse in his reworking of the hymn. Amazing Grace (My Chains are gone) is a modern-day version and speaks of how the chains of life are now gone when we accept Jesus into our heart’s we can be set free. God is our Saviour and he has ransomed us. Like a flood, God’s mercy reigns – it is unending love amazing grace.[3] My prayer for each one of us is that we receive that same mercy and unending love from God as we abide in his love and bear fruit for His glory! Amen.

Mark Stuckey, Licenced Lay Minister

[1] John 3:16

[2] https://www.ocp.org/en-us/blog/entry/amazing-grace

[3][3] Worship Together Interview – Chris Tomlin

Get in the wheelbarrow

I begin with an illustration; it is a true story.  

Jean François Gravelet, “The Great Charles Blondin”, was a famous French tightrope walker and acrobat. 
Blondin’s greatest fame came in 1859 when he attempted to become the first person to cross the rushing and roaring waters of Niagara Falls on a tightrope. 

With a balancing pole, Charles Blondin walked across the 335m long tightrope in only five minutes. He went on to walk across the falls several times, each time with a different theatrical flair. Later crossings were made in a sack; on stilts; on a bicycle, in the dark with sparks flaring from his pole tips; with his hands and feet manacled; and sitting down halfway to cook an omelette! 

On one such occasion a large crowd gathered as word went out that Blondin was going to attempt yet another incredible feat. A buzz of excitement ran along both sides of the riverbank. The crowd “Oooohed!” and “Aaaaahed!” as Blondin carefully walked across one dangerous step after another — blindfolded and pushing a wheelbarrow. 

Upon reaching the other side, the crowd’s applause was louder than the roar of the falls! Blondin suddenly stopped and addressed his audience:  “Do you believe I can carry a person across in this wheelbarrow?” The crowd enthusiastically shouted, “Yes, yes, yes. You are the greatest tightrope walker in the world. You can do anything!” 

 “Okay,” said Blondin, “Get in the wheelbarrow….” 
No one did! 

Later, on Sept 15, 1860, the world was amazed as Blondin made a crossing carrying his manager, Harry Colcord on his back.

Faith as relationship – abiding in Love

I used to think that faith meant adherence to a set of beliefs. That faith is adherence to a set of (correct) beliefs is the unspoken message of our liturgy. Before Baptism, the Creed is affirmed. Confirmation is about delving into the deeper meanings of aspects of the Creed before one makes a statement of belief to a community of faith.

I now see faith more as a relationship of trusting rest in God’s Love. The word “abide” repeated through John 15.1-8 communicates this aspect of faith strongly. That is why I use the image of Charles Blondin safely transporting his friend in a wheelbarrow across a tightrope above the mighty Niagara Falls. Faith as belief is not enough to “abide” in the wheelbarrow. Abiding in the wheelbarrow implies faith is a resting in a relationship of trust and love. Faith is like floating, the harder you try the less you succeed. The moment you give up fighting the water and simply agree to rest in the water, the floating begins. Likewise when we give up trying so hard with what we believe and don’t belief and surrender to rest in God, faith has a chance.

Not only is faith resting in relationship with God it is also resting in relationship with one another. The community is an essential interconnected dimension of our resting in God’s love. Our very identity is shaped through abiding in God and each other.

Faith can be resting in God’s love and the love of others, and this is precisely where the suffering or pruning begins.

My friend and mentor Brother David tells a story of when he was teaching theology in Central Africa. He was at a loss when one of his students asked him why there were so few saints in the Church. David says: “I closed my eyes hoping for inspiration, and this saying of Jesus popped right up to rescue me. I told him, “God wants us all to grow from sinners into saints and gives us the means to do it. Sadly, we pick out the easy and pleasant parts of the program. Anything even a little unpleasant, we push away… and so we shrink from the pruning, the very thing intended to make us into saints... we need to accept and profit from all that God allows to come our way.”  

I notice that David’s insight explains what happens on the meditation journey. Some people really struggle to meditate and actually this struggle is a valuable grace in itself. Many others however, with some guidance, begin the journey of meditation with a sense of intoxication at the experience. Meditation offers a way to experience God firsthand, as the psalmist says, “to taste and see that the Lord is good.” The experience of love, peace, unity or bliss as dimensions of God, draws you into meditation in a regular and disciplined way. Soon however, God weans us off these experiences of God. Our meditation and prayer will seem drier than a drought ridden farm in central NSW. The earlier experiences of love are gone. This is where the rubber hits the road for if we continue a disciplined practice of meditation, the Spirit strips the ego of all that may block the full light of God’s love, we abide deeper in the vine.

 Abiding in love naturally requires pruning so that nothing but the pure fragrance of love may blossom and flower. Francis teaches us to embrace the necessary pruning that allows authentic love, devoid of all ego, to prosper.

Franciscan Joy
“During a winter journey with St. Francis, Brother Leo reflected on the wonderful work the Franciscans were doing and boasted: Is this not perfect joy?

 St. Francis responded: “Brother, if you were to please God by giving the world a great example of holiness and teaching. If you were to perform miracles, chase away demons, heal ills, and raise the dead, this would not be perfect joy.”

 And “Brother, if you knew all languages, were versed in all science, could
explain all Scripture, had the gift of prophecy and could read hearts, you
would not have perfect joy.”

Now after some silence, Brother Leo questioned the saint, he said,
“O.K. Francesco, what is perfect joy?”

Francis answered: “If, when we arrive at our destination, cold and wet, covered with mud and hungry; if, we knock and the porter is rude, asks us who we are even after we have told him, does not believe our story; If he refuses to open the door, leaves us in the cold and hungry, beats us and drives us away repeatedly, and, if we can accept such cruelty, trusting that it is God who causes the porter to speak and behave so, if we can shake the dust from our feet with patience and charity, note, O Brother, that we have found perfect joy.

Above all the graces and all the gifts of the Holy Spirit which Christ grants to his friends is the grace to overcome oneself; to accept willingly out of love, all trial, injury, discomfort and contempt. These and these alone, are gifts to celebrate. In most else, given that such things come from God and not from ourselves, we have no right to boast.”

The Christ Project

 As branches resting in the Vine, we are the Christ project – we are the body of Christ. We are committed to God’s success in us. We are the secret weapon that God has placed in the world. Through the success of God in us, God has created us to be the solution to poverty, world hunger and injustice. The fact that we truly desire a world that is designed where it is easier to be good, a world where all children play and all humans are nourished into the full potential is proof of God in us. Our conviction, our faith is that the world is waiting for us. The natural consequence of love is suffering. There is a straight line from love to suffering. But the point of this suffering is that it is the Grace to overcome ourselves, that our love way prosper even more.

Culturally there is much happening for us today the 25 April on the 4th Sunday in the Season of Easter – Good Shepherd Sunday. For cultural Christianity today is the feast day of St George. From a secular cultural perspective, for Australians it is also Anzac Day. For us as followers of the way of Christ it is an awkward fit. We may feel ambivalent about occupying this space where both feet are planted firmly in the time and place of the season of Easter but with the spirit of Anzac Day and the feast day of St George on the left and right of us.

Ambivalent means to blow two ways. Maybe this is how we feel. On the one we are impressed by the pageantry of Anzac Day rites, rituals, and observances. For an otherwise secular nation, there is a sense of religiousness about it. There is empathy for all who have lost so much in war, our own nation and our alleged “enemies”. War is a game that no one wins. On the other hand, following the pattern of Jesus, we know that deep down he repudiated violence in all forms. The Wisdom teacher Jesus called into question the myth of redemptive violence and chose to be a sacrifice rather than perpetuate the sacrifice of others.

On Good Shepherd Sunday our ambivalence is held safe within an alternative narrative – the story of the Good Shepherd who lays down his life for his sheep. The story is authentic in its honest admission of the reality of wolves who represent internal and external systems of violence. The question is what is our response to the wolves represented in the text? Do we run away as the hired hands did? Do we fight and destroy the wolves as David in the Old Testament did? Or is there a Third Way beyond Fight and Flight? The way of the Good Shepherd?

  The Third way of the Good Shepherd

 The myth of redemptive violence is the belief that violence ”saves”. Violence simply appears to be the nature of things. It’s what works. It seems inevitable, the last and, often, the first resort in conflicts.

 What is Jesus answer to redemptive violence – the myth of the domination system?

 Jesus rejected hierarchies, called for economic equity, rejected violence, broke customs that treated women as inferiors, broke purity regulations that separated people from each other, challenged the patriarchal vision of the family, and rejected the belief that God requires blood sacrifices.

Violent revolution fails because it is not revolutionary enough. It changes the rulers but not the rules, the end but not the means. What Jesus envisioned was a world transformed, where both people and the Powers of domination are in harmony with the Ultimate God of Love and committed to the general welfare of all people and creation, enemies and friends.

  There are at least three weapons that I notice Jesus promotes in the Third Way

 1.      Dying to self

2.     Prayer

3.     Loving and praying for enemies and seeing them as a gift

Die to self

When we make survival the highest goal and death the greatest evil, we hand ourselves over to the gods of the myth of redemptive violence. In contrast the Good Shepherd willingly lays down his life. We trust violence because we are afraid. And we will not relinquish our fears until we are able to imagine a better alternative. The vast majority of Christians reject nonviolence, not only because of confusion about its biblical foundations, but because there are too many situations where they cannot conceive of it working. ... Millions of years of conditioning in the fight or flight response have done nothing to prepare us for this "third way" of responding to evil.  [Walter Wink Engaging the Powers, pages 145-146].

 Prayer

Wink presents prayer as a spiritual discipline, similar to the disciplines of athletes. The slack decadence of culture-Christianity cannot produce athletes of the spirit. [page 180] Prayer is never a private inner act disconnected from day-to-day realities. It is, rather, the interior battlefield on where the decisive victory is won before any engagement in the outer world is even possible. ... Unprotected by prayer, our social activism runs the danger of becoming self-justifying good works. As our inner resources atrophy, the wells of love run dry, and we are slowly changed into the likeness of the beast. [page 181] When we pray, we are not sending a letter to a celestial White House, where it is sorted among piles of others. We are engaged, rather, in an act of co-creation, in which one little sector of the universe rises up and becomes translucent, incandescent, a vibratory centre of power that radiates the power of the universe. History belongs to the intercessors, who believe the future into being. If this is so, then intercession, far from being an escape from action, is a means of focusing for action and creating action. [pages 186-187]

The Gift of the Enemy

Our solidarity with our enemies lies not just in our common parentage under God, but also our common evil. ... We too, like them, betray what we know in our hearts God desires for the world. We would like to identify ourselves as just and good, but we are a mix of just and unjust, good and evil. If God were not compassionate toward us, we would be lost. And if God is compassionate toward us, with all our unredeemed evil, then God must treat our enemies the same way. ... If, however, we believe that the God who loves us hates those whom we hate, we insert an insidious doubt into our own selves. [page 165]

Loving our enemies may seem impossible, yet it can be done. At no point is the inrush of divine grace so immediately and concretely perceptible as in those moments when we let go of our hatred and relax into God's love. ... There is a subtle pride in clinging to our hatreds as justified, as if our enemies had passed beyond even God's capacity to love and forgive. ... If God can forgive, redeem, and transform me, I must also believe that God can work such wonders with anyone.

Concluding comments

Our western culture is presently in the first stages of a spiritual renaissance. And to the extent that this renaissance is Christian at all, it will be the human figure of Jesus that galvanizes hearts to belief and action, and not the Christ of the creeds or the Pauline doctrine of justification by grace through faith. And in the teaching of Jesus, the sayings on nonviolence and love of enemies will hold a central place.

 The Hebrew Scriptures recognise two names for God: YHVH and Elohim. Some Rabbinic teachers indicate that these names are thought to symbolise two aspects of God: justness and compassion. Recognizing that there is often a tension between the two, the Talmud (a type of commentary on the Hebrew Scriptures) describes God as having, as it were, a daily prayer:  "Let my quality of compassion overwhelm my quality of justice".  In the tension between the two, it is mercy and compassion that must gain the upper hand. As with God, so with us. Anzac Day must call forth compassion in each of us: for the survivors of war and the victims of war. But above all compassion must become a daily decision for each of us; compassion must define our morality, identity, and spirituality. Then the Resurrected Body will be seen in the church as compassion is offered through the church for creation, for children, for the vulnerable and for the enemy.

This prayer is for all those who reflect on Anzac Day in anyway, past and present:

Deep Peace of the running wave to you
Deep Peace of the flowing air to you
Deep Peace of the quiet earth to you
Deep Peace of the shining stars to you
Deep peace of the shades of night to you
Moon and stars always giving Light to you.

Our fairy tales begin with “Once upon a time” and end with “happily ever after.” Have you ever wondered what happens after the “happily ever after”?

Once upon a time Snow White meets her handsome prince who wakes her from a poisoned sleep, … and they live happily ever after. Really? What happens after the honeymoon when a sociopathic mother-in-law continues her attempted murder not only of his wife but also him?

Once upon a time Rapunzel lets down her golden hair and much later reunites with her prince and they live happily ever after. Surely, but there must have been consistent arguments about the shower being clogged with her hair.

Once upon a time Cinderella meets her prince charming and they live happily ever after. Until after several years of marriage his irritation at her leaving shoes lying around leads to sniping and bickering.

There may be a temptation to read the Easter stories of Resurrection in the same vein as our cultural fairy tales. It is sad that Jesus died on Good Friday, but he rose from the dead and is with us forever and now we can live happily ever after. The reality of post Easter Resurrection is more brutal and honest and no fairy tale ending. For me, the upfront way the Gospels depict the struggle with faith after the Resurrection lends authenticity to the Resurrection experience that distils that this is Good News, deeper than any happily ever after fairy tales offer.

After the Resurrection, there are the experiences of failed hopes and dreams in Luke 24 .13 as Cleopas and his friend leave Jerusalem for Emmaus.  There is the nauseating fear of the persecution by authorities and hiding behind locked doors in John 20v19. There is doubt all round but often projected onto Thomas in John 20v24.

Failed Hopes. Broken dreams. Debilitating fear. Depressing doubt. What does the Resurrected Christ do with these human realities that seem the opposite of faith? Like some magic godmother, will the Resurrected Christ wave a magic wand in answer to the right prayer and make all the pain disappear? No. The Christian Faith cannot take away suffering, oppression and general failure.

However, the presence of the Resurrected Christ in the midst of the confusion, doubt, hopelessness, fear and depression is what is real and authentic.

The Gospels narrate a number of different experiences that the early witnesses went through, but they all adopt a similar pattern. It’s as if there is a liturgy that takes us into the waters of doubt and confusion, through transforming sacraments of community learning together and eating together, into enlightenment and empowerment.

1.           The Experience of doubt and confusion

2.           The Explanation of Scriptures

3.           The Eating together in community.

4.           The Enlightenment

5.           The Exit of Christ as the community, empowered becomes the Christ presence in the doubt of the hurting world, yet to be touched by Resurrected presence.

In Luke 24v13-25, a previous experience recorded of the Resurrected Christ, two walkers share their EXPERIENCES of despair. Christ draws alongside them and EXPLAINS the Scriptures. They invite Christ to EAT with them.  ENLIGHTENMENT is when they recognise Christ in the breaking of bread. Christ EXITS and the two are EMPOWERED as missionaries of the Resurrection.

Now in Luke 24.36-48 the same “liturgy” is repeated. There is the EXPERIENCE of terror thinking they are seeing a ghost. Jesus EXPLAINS the Scriptures and EATS broiled fish. Their minds are opened or ENLIGHTENED. Jesus EXITS and they are EMPOWERED as witnesses to the Resurrection.

The point of the repeated pattern (experience, explanation, eat, enlightenment, exit, empowerment) is that we too can find ourselves in the story of Resurrected faith. That this is a possibility is utterly true. I end with one example of how the pattern I have described unfolds.

Perhaps you have heard of the story of Father James Benson. Born in Leeds England, he came to Australia in 1910 as a brother in the Brotherhood of the Good Shepherd in the Diocese of Bathurst. Later he was ordained as an Anglican Priest serving in the Dioceses of NSW and Canberra-Goulburn. While Rector of Bordalla, his family of four children drowned tragically with their mother, when their car plunged into the Clyde River as they were returning from their holidays.

Obviously devastated by the magnitude of such a tragedy, James then joined the Community of Ascension and returned to mission work. He was the priest in Gona, Papua New Guinea when the Japanese invaded in 1937. His fellow workers suffered brutal deaths. He was presumed dead. James managed to survive three concentration camps and once returned to health he worked for the ABM.

The Resurrection shines through this story. There is a mural of the Resurrection that James painted in the Community of the Ascension Church. The light, wholeness and joy of the mural testifies to his experience of the Resurrected Christ in the midst of Good Friday tragedy. 

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’.