I will confess I am not much of a fisherman! I will leave that joy to other members of my family who love to fish. In fact, if I went fishing today the outcome would be the same as the disciples’ overnight attempts in our Gospel reading, I would come home empty handed! I do however remember, as a kid going fishing with my dad and one of his mates on several occasions. These occasions were mostly successful. I caught one or two fish. On one occasion I even managed to catch a large boat being repaired at the old Ballina Slipway site while casting out my fishing line! With any great fishing adventure, I learnt the art of exaggerating a good fishing story to make the occasion all that more worthwhile.

It is said that John chapter 21 as a chapter is a strange one. The gospel account comes to an end at John 20 but begins again with John 21. Unless there is special meaning there is argument that the writer of John 21 may never have needed to include this chapter as part of the gospel. William Barclay speaks of within John’s gospel there are often two meanings, a meaning that sits on the surface, and a deeper meaning that lies beneath[1]. Friends, our gospel reading today is divided into two parts. First, the fishing scene that incorporates Jesus appearing to his disciples for a third time following His resurrection. And secondly the interaction between Jesus and Simon Peter. Both scenes have important meanings for us. I want to explore these meanings further with you this morning. In the sense I will be focusing on the reality of the resurrection, the universality of the Church and the shepherd of Christ’s sheep.

The Reality of the Resurrection

I mentioned just now that John chapter 21 as a chapter is a strange one, especially when it was added to an already completed gospel. It was added to demonstrate and reinforce the meaning behind the reality of the resurrection. Across history many have said that the appearances of the Risen Christ, were nothing more than visions which the disciples had. Some would even argue that the disciples were hallucinating at the events being experienced.

Friends, we know that the Bible as a text is God's Word, that God breathed life into his Word in the form of a real person, Jesus! It speaks of the truth. We know from the resurrection account that the tomb was found to be empty, and the Risen Christ had a real body which bore the marks of nails and the sword thrust into his side. No vision, no spirit could direct the disciples where the fish were to be caught. No vision, no spirit could kindle a charcoal fire on the seashore. No vision, no spirit could cook a meal and share it with others. But, in our gospel account today we learn of Jesus commanding his disciples to cast their nets again after an unsuccessful attempt during the previous night. It was Jesus who had kindled the charcoal fire on the seashore, he prepared breakfast and invited the disciples to join Him. The Risen Jesus was present in this scene and those present with him knew who he was. It was Jesus who conquered death and who had come back to make it real for the disciples.

The Universality of the Church

When considering the universality of the Church, I would like us to focus in on the casting of nets. Again, there are many meanings behind what this means in the gospel text. The meaning that encouraged me and I hope it encourages you is that when casting out of the nets Jesus is asking the disciples to build the church.[1] When I refer to the word church here it is with a capital C. The disciples, including us, are tasked with growing the Church in number, that the Church is open to all, not just a select few. It is not an exclusive club. The very foundation of the Church is one built on love. God’s love! God loves all and welcomes each and every one of us into a special relationship with Him. God is not an exclusive God, choosing who He wants to love but rather he is an inclusive God who loves all!

For Alstonville Anglicans we have beautiful examples of how we cast our nets and make connections with our wider community – PlayPlace, Messy Church, the Op Shop, the Community on the Verge – the garden outside the church here, our varying and different worship services that occur each week and of course next Saturday we will all come together as God’s team for our annual Mother’s Day Fete. Each of the ministries or events have their own uniqueness and creative style. Underlying each is love and a desire to make that love known and experienced as we encourage and connect with each other and with those who come within our midst. We are actively casting our nets and as we do so the nets are filled, and the church grows.

 The Shepherd of Christ’s Sheep

Throughout John 21 verses 1 to 19 we see Simon Peter playing a pivotal role in the unfolding scenes. It was Simon Peter who wanted to go fishing. It was Simon Peter who the disciples accompanied that night. It was Simon Peter who leaped from the boat when he was told that his Lord was on the shoreline. It was Simon Peter who went back to the boat and brought the full net in so there was more fish to share at the breakfast meal. It was Simon Peter who interacted with Jesus. Simon Peter has been described as a great leader and given the responsibility of being the shepherd of Christ’s sheep.

Our passage tells us that Jesus asked Simon Peter three questions all centred on love. Each of these questions have meaning. The first question …do you love me more than these? This question suggests that Jesus is asking Simon Peter is he prepared to walk away from his life as a fisherman, give up what he has been doing and be a person who loves and cares for others - God’s people.[1] The second question …do you love me? We see Jesus graciously forgiving Simon Peter for his denials and allowing him the opportunity to declare his love for Jesus.[2] The third question …do you love me? Simon Peter recognises that while he may have done his own thing deep down, he has always loved Jesus.[3]

Friends, love is the greatest privilege a person can give to another. But with this privilege also comes great responsibility. To put others needs first before our very own. Jesus calls Simon Peter to feed the lambs, tend the sheep, and feed the sheep. Jesus calls us, you and I to do the same. Out of love and care for others we feed the lambs, we tend the sheep and we feed the sheep of God’s pasture. For Loretta and I recently we were able to show love and hospitality

to an elderly couple and their son during the first big flood. Yes, Loretta and I were impacted by the floods and still are, but this elderly couple’s circumstances are far more significant than ours. They lost far greater than what we did! With the rising flood waters coming into our house and property we had lost power, running water, tank water and our onsite sewerage had failed. This elderly couple came to us with significant health issues and a small number of their possessions for an unknown stay. Despite this, Loretta and I welcomed them into our home and showed them love and hospitality under very trying circumstances. To them and their family, they are very thankful for our Christian charity. We feel blessed that they stayed with us and that we could assist them in their time of need as a love offering.

The reality of the resurrection, the universality of the Church and the shepherding of Christ’s sheep can be woven together to give us meaning and a deep sense of purpose. I don’t believe John chapter 21 is a strange chapter as some commentators have described it, but rather one that reinforces the message of good news for the world - that God loves each one of us!

As we journey through this season of Easter can I encourage each one of you here this morning and watching online to continue to meditate on Jesus’ death and resurrection in our daily lives as we love and care for others.

Mark Stuckey, LLM

[1] Barclay, W. 1960 p 331

[2] Barclay, W. 1960 p 331

[3] Barclay, W. 1960 p. 325

[1] Barclay, W. 1960 p.329

[1] Barclay, W.  The Gospel of John – Volume 2 – The Daily Study Bible, 1960 p.325 Saint Andrew Press

John 20:19-31

There are three stories of Jesus resurrection at the end of John’s Gospel. We heard the first one last Sunday as we celebrated Easter and the reading today tells us about the second and third resurrection appearances.

Thomas is not present the first time Jesus appeared. Thomas in Aramaic means “twin”. The Greek name for twin is Didymus. Thomas doubted what the others told him about seeing Jesus when he wasn’t there.  We are told how Thomas reacted when Jesus appeared again in the house where the disciples were meeting and said to him “put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side.” Thomas knelt and acknowledged Jesus as Lord.

But we aren’t told anything about Thomas’ twin. Who is he? Or maybe she!  Those who seriously study the Bible often think that there are significant hints to deep and meaningful things in the way numbers and events and people are described and named. Could there be a suggestion or hint here that we, each individual one of us might be Thomas’s twin? How often, just like Thomas, does our faith depend on what we “see”?  Do we sometimes have exactly the same attitude as Thomas when we have a firm mindset based on “unless I see”? How often have we refused to believe until God does something to show us that we really should believe?

Today, our Gospel reading began with the disciples hiding behind locked doors. John tells us that they are locked into this room because of “fear.” We are not told of the reason for their gathering, except “fear of the Jews.” This is curious. Could they be hiding from embarrassment? Perhaps the Jews that the disciples feared were their friends and relatives who were now mocking them because their messiah had died such a humiliating death. In verse 18 (the verse just before our reading this morning), Mary Magdalene had told these men that Jesus has been raised. Was it this announcement of the crucified Jesus being seen by Mary that had made them fearful?

According to John, only the beloved disciple and Mary Magdalene have seen and believed up to this point.  

In the Parish of Surfers Paradise, many parishioners were “fearful” and were secured by gates and codes to keep intruders out. Our securely locked doors are not a problem for Jesus. That is the good news of Easter. Just as death could not hold him in the tomb, so our various locks and security codes can’t keep Jesus from getting to us.

Jesus comes through the locked doors. He shows his wounds and scars from the cross to them. He not only comes to them, but he reassures them.  He could have rebuked them for deserting him, but he didn’t. The disciples were probably expecting that Jesus would give them a huge dressing down for the way that they had avoided standing up for him. Yet, not just once, three times Jesus said “peace be with you.” He actually said “Shalom” which means significant peace and total wellbeing. The gift of peace is the constant link that connects those days with our time now. The peace of God beyond our understanding has been there for our parents and grandparents and all our ancestors. To know Jesus is to love him and to love him is to know that we are loved.

And here is the irony; the doors have not only been locked against the possibility of intrusions by robbers or government authorities, they have not only been locked against the unwanted knocking of family and friends, the doors have also been locked against the intrusions of the risen Christ. However, the risen Christ will not be locked out by death in the tomb, nor will he be locked away from his people, the church.  Our Easter message and our Easter joy is that crucifixion did not stop Jesus being present with us.  He is risen!!  

There is only one Christ, there is only one divine presence, whether it is in heaven, in the Eucharist, in the community dodging Russian bombs in Ukraine and the community rebuilding after floods along our rivers, there’s only one divine presence in the sick and poor, in our own being.

It is Jesus that we honour or dishonour in our attitude to any of these. It is contradictory to honour the presence of Jesus in our sharing of Holy Communion and to dishonour him in his people. The Christian’s respect, worship, love and service are directed to God, through Jesus, in the Spirit. It just doesn’t make sense to be selective in the way we acknowledge and serve God, as though God’s presence matters in one form or place but not in another.

Well, the Good News story we have heard today is that the ones who are locked inside in fear become the ones locked in the loving embrace of Jesus. Jesus “coming to them” transformed their fear to courage.

I don’t think that most people really intend to lock Jesus out and to stop him coming into our lives. We didn’t know that we were locking him out when we stayed away from church, when we avoided signing up for some study group. We weren’t deliberately trying to lock Jesus out when we found other things to do rather than read Bible and to pray. But, in reality, we were locking Him out.

We didn’t know that we were locking him out when we kept our faith safely tucked away within ourselves, when our religion became something that we practise only in the safe confines behind the closed doors of the church on Sundays, rather than showing that we are people of faith out in the world where we work and spend so much of our lives. But we did lock him out.

Now, I don’t want to end by haranguing you and pleading “please unlock your door! please let Jesus into your life!” I would like to end by being a little more upbeat. John didn’t want to end his writing in a negative way either. He didn’t want to end without bringing the resurrection miracle to those who read this good news.

In verse 31, the last verse Sherry Ann read to us today, John says “these things are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name”. “Life” is one of John’s key words.  (In writing his Gospel, he uses it 36 times). Jesus offers those who have faith in him abundant life and eternal life (Eternal is not measured in time but in value)

I would like to be really positive and I’ll end with a promise. Here is the good news! Just as the risen Christ was not defeated by the locked doors behind which the disciples cowered, so I promise you that the risen Christ will not be deterred by any locks that you have put on your doors. Our God is wonderfully resourceful, imaginative, persistent and determined to have us. Even in our lostness, even when we desert God, the first thing he does at Easter is to come out to get us.

I believe even that now, even in this service, here at this church, as you go about your daily life, God is coming out to get you. There is no guaranteed defence against Jesus. There is no way to prevent God from invading our lives.

He is coming! Jesus Christ is risen! Alleluia! Jesus Christ is coming for you! Jesus Christ is coming to you!

Hallelujah!

The journey of the Gospel of John is towards a New Creation, a new and transformed Genesis. The structure of John’s Gospel is along the seven days of creation described in Genesis 1 and 2. Here are brief points of connection: 

   In Genesis 1, on the sixth day of creation, God creates humankind in God’s image. In John’s Gospel on the sixth day, Pilate says pointedly, “look here is The Man”. In the New Creation of John’s Gospel humankind is again created in God’s image; the image is of a broken, crucified Christ.

   On the seventh day in Genesis 2, God rested. On the Seventh day in John’s Gospel Jesus breathed his last declaring “it is finished” and he rested in the tomb. The earth was so quiet one could hear the stillness breathe.

The Eighth Day

Now, on the first day of the new week, the Eighth Day, Mary embraces Jesus in the Garden of the New Eden in the New Creation. Jesus and Mary represent for us the wholeness of humanity, transformed by love, through the Resurrection. There are echoes here of Song of Songs. In both John 20 and Song of Songs the backdrop of the story is a garden. In both Songs of Songs 3.4 and John 20.17 the word cling is highlighted: “…when I found him whom my soul loves I held him" and would not let him go…” and “Jesus said to her, ‘Do not cling to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father.”

Mary leans into the tomb and sees two angels seated on either end of the place where Jesus lay. What John is alluding to is the Ark of the Covenant entombed in the holy of holies within the tabernacle, the place of God’s presence described in Exodus.  

The Ark of the Covenant, plated in gold, was a box containing the ten commandments, and according to some traditions, a pot of manna and Aron’s rod. The ark had an angel on either end. In between the two angels was the seat of mercy. It was said that God spoke to Moses from the seat of Mercy. Now in John 20 God speaks to Mary from the seat of mercy in the tomb within the Garden of Resurrection.

John’s Gospel is a New Genesis and a New Exodus too. The point of Exodus is that the people may be one with God. The unity between God and God’s people in Exodus is like a marriage. At Mt Sinai the Marriage between God and God’s people takes place and the covenant is given as a gift. Thereafter, the tabernacle and the ark of the covenant are created as a sign of God’s presence in the midst of God’s people. To come close to the ark of the covenant is akin to is God immersing Godself in the midst of us, BEING ONE WITH US – a union. The theme of God with us that began in John 1 reaches full maturity in John 20. Herein lies the Great Good News, that God in Christ is ALWAYS with us, closer to us that the breath we breathe. The Easter claim is that something new has happened in the world, that the Old Creation is utterly transformed into the New Creation. The new Creation is the union of the divine and human, a marriage of the infinite and the finite; we offer the holiness of our humanity and our finitude to God who at the very same moment offers the holiness of God’s divinity and infinity to us and a perfect union is formed.

Resurrection as a pattern in the universe

Resurrection implies a transformation so complete, that one form of life is utterly transformed into a new form of life altogether. But is the Resurrection possible? My own instinct is to look for repeatable patterns, if something is possible in one part of the universe surely it is possible in another. For example, bulbs die in the soil and daffodils rise. The caterpillar dies in the cocoon and from the chrysalis a butterfly emerges.  Our Grandmother star that went supernova and died gave birth to our Sun; the hydrogen from this grandmother star still exists in the water in our bodies and continues to give us life. When we look at the life cycle of biological, chemical, and planetary events, the repeatable pattern is that out of death comes life. Thus, not only is the Resurrection a possibility, but it is also the very blueprint of life and existence. I suggest that Resurrection is a universal pattern of the undoing of death.

The resurrection of Jesus Christ is a repeatable pattern that happens in the universe all the time. Every act of death is an act of new life in the universe. The incarnation, death, and resurrection of Jesus was a pattern of life in the universe long before it was seen in the life of Christ. The Paschal mystery, the mystery that out of death life emerges and that this life creates the universe, is the message of Christ’s resurrection. More than that, what took place in Christ is intended as a future glimpse of where the whole cosmos is headed: union and transformation in the Divine embrace of love. Love unites, and by uniting transforms that which it unites. The Resurrection is a repeatable pattern and also at the same time a foretaste of the next stage of cosmic evolution. The resurrection recapitulates the whole evolutionary emergent creation as a forward movement to become something new, a new heaven and a new earth.

The resurrection happens moment by moment, but this present moment is drenched in our future destiny of a new creation, a new union. As one writer said, the resurrection is “the invasion of the present by the power of what is yet to come.”

Resurrection is about the power of love to create life out of death, here and now, today, and tomorrow. Resurrection happens now, or it does not happen at all. It happens in us and around us, in persons and history, in nature and universe. Resurrection happens when we say “yes” to the dying and rising of Jesus Christ and when we say “yes” to our lives as the stuff out of which the New Creation dawns. Resurrection happens when we allow the small self, the ego to surrender and the true self, the Christ within us to emerge.

We are the continuation of Christ in evolution and the direction of evolution depends on our choices and actions.  We are to give ourselves to Christ and to his cause and values.

We are not God, but every single person is born out of the love of God, expresses this love in his/her unique personal form and has the capacity to be united with God.  Because Jesus is the Christ, every human is already reconciled with every other human in the mystery of the divine so that Christ is more than Jesus alone; Christ is the whole reality bound in a union of love.

Sources: The writings of

   Teilhard de Chardin, Ilia Delio, Beatrice Bruteau, Bede Griffiths, Cynthia Bourgealt

The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.         John 12.3

 The storm clouds are gathering in the distance. The met office, in this case the red sky in the morning, has forecast a category 5 hurricane assembling itself off the coast of Judea. Jerusalem itself is under threat, not to mention coastal trading towns like Tyre and Sidon to the north. The skies are starting to darken.

 Said Judas to Mary, "Now what will you do

with your ointment so rich and so rare?"

"I'll pour it all over the feet of the Lord

and I'll wipe it away with my hair," she said,

"I’ll wipe it away with my hair."

Some friends gather at the home of Lazarus and his two sisters, Mary and Martha. Contrary to popular tradition, this Mary was not a harlot. There was never any such person. Magdalene was not a prostitute either. Not, I hasten to add, that there is anything wrong with that!

 Mary does a strange and beautiful thing.

 In those times, standard foot wear was the sandal, and, not being British, they did not wear socks. Much travel was by shank’s pony; and so, when a weary traveller arrived, someone would bring water to wash sore and dusty feet. What bliss! … Inevitably, this being a menial task, the lot fell to women to do the washing bit. I expect the men loved it; or maybe they did not even notice.

Mary, the sister of Lazarus, anoints Jesus’ feet with nard, a very costly perfumed ointment, and carefully wipes it away with her hair. This is almost like anointing a King with oil, a kind of coronation. Judas is, at least, perplexed, if not outraged. In his role as keeper of the purse, he complains, “Why was this not sold for three hundred denarii and the money given to the poor?”

Be it known that the denarius was the equivalent of one day’s wages for a common labourer. So we are looking at roughly one year’s salary. Or if you are on a government pension, almost 3 year’s salary. I fancy the household of Lazarus was not that wealthy, and very unlikely to possess such a large sum of money. This extremely costly gift lends narrative emphasis to the significance and meaning of Mary’s action. Yet, Judas may well have spoken justly.

"Oh Mary, Oh Mary, oh think of the poor –

this ointment, it could have been sold,

and think of the blankets and think of the bread

you could buy with the silver and gold," he said,

"buy with the silver and gold."

Sydney Carter’s evocative words offer a subtext of this story. Mary is the carer, the intuitive one, the one who puts people before most other things, who would, if she had been asked, have given her life for her Lord.

"Tomorrow, tomorrow I'll think of the poor

Tomorrow," she said, "not today;

for dearer than all of the poor in the world

is my love who is going away," she said,

"my love who is going away."

You may remember another occasion when Mary sits at Jesus’ feet, while her long-suffering sister, Martha, goes about the tasks of home making. Martha quite naturally complains about this. I have always thought Jesus’ response to be pretty unfair. “Mary has chosen the better part.”

Had I been Martha, I would have been crushed by that remark. Domestic chores were her way of loving. But then, Jesus was a man, if you will pardon the irony. St James had it right when he remarked that the balanced life of doing and praying is the better way.

Still, in today’s story, kindly as ever to Mary, Jesus takes Judas down a peg or two. “Leave her alone. She bought it so she might keep it for my burial. You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me.”

Again, Sydney Carter’s poetic license fills in the very busy silence of the unconscious landscape.

Said Jesus to Mary, "Your love is so deep

today you may do as you will.

Tomorrow you say I am going away,

but my body I leave with you still," he said,

"my body I leave with you still."

Jesus’ thoughts are turning inwards. He was not clairvoyant, but he could obviously read the signs, and he knew what he was doing. He was committed in his own mind to a mission whose conclusion was becoming clearer by the day. Mary the sister of Lazarus was possibly the only person to discern this mission, and this dreadful end.

Indeed, Jesus is moving to a state of mind when he uses more and more plain-speak. No more parables to tease and cajole his followers into some deeper thinking and spirituality; but plain, downright goodness. No more metaphor; simple, plain, down to earth Aramaic.

"The poor of the world are my body,” he said,

"to the end of the world they shall be,

the bread and the blankets you give to the poor

you'll know you have given to me," he said,

"you'll know you have given to me."

It’s a plaintive song, is it not? But it does, I think, reflect the pensive mood into which Jesus is descending. As St Mark so compellingly describes, very few if any of his followers have truly grasped what he was on about. His disciples, the very men he chose to be with him on a journey of discovery have not managed to liberate themselves from the coils of mortality to freedom of spirit.

And so, we follow a profoundly misunderstood man as he makes his way to the end of the world. The Hero Journey, as Joseph Campbell was wont to say, is one that we take alone, through a dense part of the thicket, on a path that no one else has trod. This is the ultimate struggle of being human, to enter the thicket knowing that we are, indeed, on our own.

Ah! But the other side! The other side! The pearl of great price!

"My body will hang on the cross of the world

tomorrow," he said, "not today,

and Martha and Mary will find me again

and wash all the sorrow away," he said,

"and wash all the sorrow away."

Next week, we begin, through the action of our formal liturgies, the journey through the thicket. Palm Sunday, Holy Week, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Holy Saturday and, finally on to Easter Day, the prize. I invite you to take part in this pilgrimage in any way that you can, even if it is to spare five minutes in your busy days to reflect on this keystone of our Christian life.

In the name of God.

Amen

Doug Bannerman © 2022

Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32 4th SUNDAY in LENT

The Parable of the Prodigal Son, or of the Lost Son, is one of the best known and most accessible of Jesus’ parables. Personally, I think that it’s a precious gift to us and I always see it as a privilege to preach a sermon on it when it appears in the lectionary.

Whenever I think about lost things, I remember when my son was at school in Brisbane. Over the six years he was there he lost an incredible amount of things. I can feel my anxiety levels increase just thinking about it. School hat, several jumpers, cricket helmet, sports gear, mobile phone. He wasn’t the only one of course. In the winter months so many boys lost their jumpers that lost property department wiped their hands of the situation and just put a big wheelie bin outside for jumpers. He even lost his whole school bag once.  I think I clocked up a record as the father or parent who visited the school’s lost property most often.

 Lost. We can all relate to the sense of frustration, anxiety, incompleteness and even panic when something or someone is lost.

The Lost Son parable is set in the context of a normal family with normal problems.

As always, context is important. The Parable of the Lost or Prodigal Son is one of three Gospel Parables in Chapter 15 - the others are the Lost Coin and the Lost Sheep. Together, they challenge us to try to understand the reasons for these emotions and what lies behind them. Why has Jesus told these stories and what can we learn from them?

Coming as they do in response to verses 1 and 2 indicates that it is basically teaching about how God acts towards sinners. His mercy is as reckless as a shepherd who abandons ninety-nine sheep to recover one lost one.

 I always find it fascinating the different names that exist for this Parable. The Parable of the Lost Son, Lost Sons (plural) or of the Prodigal Son. But it’s also known as the Parable of the Forgiving Father – hence emphasising the Father’s key role. We see a wayward and greedy young man abandon his father, family and community for the ‘high life’. When this doesn’t live up to expectations, he finds himself broken physically, emotionally and spiritually. It was his choice to leave so he has no one to blame but himself. Every time I read the parable I’m amazed by the father’s loving reception of him on his eventual return. The welcome he receives speaks of God’s boundless mercy and unconditional love. It’s debatable how genuine his repentance is at verse 18. Many commentators write that his return home is more out of self-preservation than true repentance. This makes the welcome he receives even more surprising.

 This parable speaks of the great depth of God’s welcome and mercy. Even if we return only because our desires have failed to bring the wealth and happiness we expected, or because our sins didn’t offer as much satisfaction as we had hoped, or simply because we just couldn’t make it on our own, God welcomes us back! In writing about this parable the early Church Fathers said it was a parable about you and me.

Do you relate to the father, unconditionally loving and receiving back the lost child, or do you relate to the son, returning home after a period of selfishness?

I’m sure we can all relate to the lady who searched the whole house for one particular item!

Even if we don’t have a farming background, I’m sure we can relate to the shepherd who searched for a valuable, vulnerable sheep!

Losing something or someone means separation. The lost person or object is somehow outside our care and protection. The parables of the lost sheep and the lost son in particular illustrate that the lost one is somehow assumed to be in the darkness, to be vulnerable.

Also, without the lost one, the whole flock or family is somehow lesser, weaker, incomplete.  When something or someone is lost, something in us is lost as well and there’s a real grief there.

By way of possessions my mind of course goes to all the things that have been lost by so many in the recent floods. While we say that material things are not as important, many of those things were associated with precious memories and are not replaceable – there is a real grief there.

While the three parables have many unique features that I have not mentioned, one of the main features that unites them is that there is rejoicing when what was lost, is found.

The shepherd finding the lost sheep: 5 When he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders and rejoices. 6 And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbours, saying to them, “Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.” 7 

The woman finding the lost coin: 9 When she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbours, saying, “Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost.”

The father on the lost son’s return: 22 But the father said to his slaves, “Quickly, bring out a robe—the best one—and put it on him; put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. 23 And get the fatted calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate; 24 for this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found!” And they began to celebrate.

African Biblical scholar Paul Isaak says that the older brother, by refusing to join the father’s joyous celebration, has himself become ‘lost’. (Hence he says it should be called the parable of the Lost Sons).

Archbishop Justin Welby points out that the parable of the Lost Sons doesn’t claim to be the end of the story. Does the older brother eventually join the feast? Can the younger brother settle back into home and family life?

Yet the rejoicing in each parable illustrates that because we have such a merciful and forgiving God, despite the unexpected turns that life takes, the uncertainty of our lives, we can embark trustingly and rejoicingly on the journey with him. The Good News today from this parable is that forgiveness and mercy and unconditional love are our resources for the journey.

Today’s parables call us to be a community that shares God’s joy in dispensing mercy, forgiveness and welcome. How do we express that joy in our own lives, in parish life and in the wider community?

A prayer: O God who seeks and saves the lost, make us open to your call in our lives now and in the future, that we may know the joy of our homecoming and the welcome of your embrace. Amen.

Some Resources

Regarding the community rejoicing together when ones that are lost are welcomed, www.loveyourneighbour.org has some excellent tips and ideas to help us break down barriers in our communities, as does the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre:

https://www.asrc.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/ASRC-Words-that-Work-4pp.pdf

Daniel Eng, The Widening Circle: Honour, Shame, and Collectivism in the Parable of the Prodigal Son, Expository Times 2019, Vol. 130 (5), 193-201. 

Justin Welby, Family – Caring for the Core, Chapter 2 in Reimagining Britain: Foundations for Hope. Bloomsbury, 2018.

I want to talk about suffering today. I want to be clear that the suffering caused by the abuse of people, domestic abuse of women, the horrific abuse of children, is totally unacceptable and the injustice of that is to be challenged in every way possible by every means possible and with every breath that we have. Suffering caused by abuse is unacceptable and we are all responsible to do everything we can to stop it. When I talk of suffering today I refer to what we do with the mysterious suffering that can’t be explained.  

Many faithful Christ followers remember the day God failed.  

2 Corinthians 7.14 states: If my people who are called by my name humble themselves, pray, seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.” 

Except, for some, God was deaf. Earnest, humble prayers were cried. The face of God was sought. Yet God did not answer. God did not hear from heaven. There was no healing in the land. Forgiveness from sin seemed far away.  

I remember the day God failed me. I was 30. In our church and school community was a stunning family with a 6-year-old child that radiated goodness. He became sick very mysteriously, very suddenly and very quickly. He was in a coma for weeks. We prayed for his healing. We fasted. We prayed and we prayed, and we prayed. And he died. If ever there was a prayer worth answering, this was certainly it. Yet God seemed silent. The day the young boy died faith died too. The day he died the idea of a safe universe died too; all were vulnerable to tragedy. Suffering, unbearable to witness, dissolved the parents, his sister, the school community, and the church. Why? Why did an innocent boy suffer and die? Why did the parents have to go through such unimaginable grief? Why did God not answer prayer? Why did God fail us? 

The question put to Jesus in Luke 13.1-9 is universal and timeless: How do we make sense of the intense suffering in our world? In Luke 13 people approach Jesus about the brutality and injustice of Pilate that led to horrific deaths of Galilean Jews. Jesus adds his own example of Jerusalemite Jews who died in a random construction accident when a tower fell. Why did these people have to suffer and die?  

The question about suffering in Luke 13.1 is poignant as we hear these Scriptures in the context of Russia’s death dealing invasion of Ukraine. The collapse of the tower of Siloam is not far removed from the landslides and floods that killed innocent people. Like the questioners we too want assurance. We want meaning. We want an explanation. We want the reason for suffering.  

There are no easy answers to life’s tough questions. And Jesus does not explain away the suffering. Two things are made absolutely clear:

1.    God does not cause suffering,

2.    Suffering can be transformed.  

God does not send or cause suffering. Nor is suffering a result of sin. Both the Jews and the Greek speakers held the view that suffering is the fruit of sin. Some people today still live with a cause-and-effect thinking. Jesus wants to break the equation: sin=suffering. The mindset Jesus wants to interrogate is the belief that if there is suffering there must be sin; and if there is great suffering there must be great sin. Note Jesus’ emphatic and repeated “No!” to his own questions. Jesus absolutely insists that the people who died, whether Galilean or Jerusalemite, were not more deserving of death than others. In other parts of Scripture such as John 9:2-3, Jesus rejects the idea that a man was born blind because of his or his parents’ sin.  

Jesus then invites repentance. As I have explained before, repentance here does not mean asking forgiveness for sin. Instead, repentance from the Greek metanoia means

·         to go beyond the mind you have;

·         or to change your thinking;

·         or rearrange the furniture of your mind;

·         or in the words of Paul in Romans, “be transformed through the renewing of your mind”(12.2). 

The metanoia Jesus invites is downright scary. If God does not cause suffering, if God does not send suffering as punishment for sin, then suffering just is. We have to give up our illusions of safety. We have to give up the idea that if I am good and do the right things suffering will pass me by. There is no insurance policy against suffering. Much suffering is unintentional and unavoidable. In some ways, some suffering is inevitable simply because we are living in an evolving world. If we can open ourselves to the mystery of suffering it is possible to use the energy of suffering to transform the world.  

God does not cause suffering. God does not send suffering as punishment, but the energy of suffering can be harnessed to transform the world.  Christ is our model for using the energy of suffering to transform the world. Some suffering is unavoidable. Instead of wasting that energy we can use it to make a positive difference in the world. Think of the energy of the sun or the wind. Human evolution has found ways of harnessing the power of the sun and the wind to use as fuel. Our suffering energy is potential energy. We can use it in productive ways or waste it. We can make it productive by channelling it. We direct it by our choice. How do we do this? By our loving intention. We can give it to Christ to use it for God’s project of loving union, of bringing about the kingdom of God on earth. The suffering servant songs in Isaiah taught Jesus that suffering can be redemptive for others if it is directed by love. For the pain in suffering, Moltmann writes, “is the lack of love, and the wounds in wounds are the abandonment [of love].”  

This is my interpretation of the parable of the fig tree. Suffering is a reality of being human. The suffering we undergo does produce energy. If we waste the energy of suffering, we are like the fig tree that is green all over but does not bear fruit. Deep prayer or contemplation which is total surrender to God can awaken us to the hidden presence of God in the midst of suffering and our suffering can be fruitful. Deep prayer which is total surrender to God is to give up control over pain and suffering.  

I said earlier that when that young boy died, faith died too. And it was the best thing that could ever happen. The faith that died was the faith in an all-powerful God. The God revealed in Jesus is an all-loving God that gives up power for love. The only power God has is the power of love, and love offers no controlling coercive power over. Bonhoeffer writes that “God lets himself be pushed out of the world on to the cross. He is weak and powerless in the world, and that is precisely the way, the only way, in which he is with us and helps us. The Bible directs man to God’s powerlessness and suffering; only the suffering God can help. (Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison, ed. Eberhard Bethge (New York:  Macmillan, 1972), 360.) There is no God in heaven that has power or control over earth. God entered earth, God emptied Godself and took the form of a servant (Phil 2:6) and he was led to a cross. Barbara Brown Taylor in “God in Pain” writes that “Christianity is the only world religion that confesses a God who suffers. It is not all that popular an idea, even among Christians. We prefer a God who prevents suffering, only that is not the God we have got. What the cross teaches us is that God’s power is not the power to force human choices and end human pain. It is, instead, the power to pick up the shattered pieces and make something holy out of them— not from a distance but right close up.” 

The transformative energy of suffering can happen when we live contemplatively, that is to really know that we are in Christ and Christ is in us in this world. We know then that love is strong as death, and that love is the future fulness of our lives.

In Coles a week ago when the shelves were nearly empty, there was a young mum with two small kids. One of them, a toddler was screaming out “I WANT!!!!!”. Mum finally gave in and quiet was restored. 

In the Gospel reading today we are presented with a whole series of wants.  

What do the Pharisees really want when they warn Jesus? These Pharisees here seem to be genuine when want Jesus to “get away from here” and be safe. There were “good” Pharisees.  The Pharisee Nicodemus in John’s Gospel, and the Pharisee Paul who would eventually become an important follower of Jesus. 

The Pharisees say that Herod wants to kill Jesus. Herod is curious about Jesus, especially the suggestion that Jesus is John the Baptist raised from the dead, since he himself had John beheaded.  Interestingly, when Herod has the chance to kill Jesus in Jerusalem, he doesn’t do it, because he wants to get a sign out of him. He wants Jesus to perform a miracle as a great party trick. Jesus refers to Herod as “that fox”. Today foxes are generally thought to connote cleverness or cunning, in Jesus day they were also considered “insignificant”. 

Jesus wants to continue on his way to death in Jerusalem. His sense of purpose is strong! Jesus also wants to gather Jerusalem as a hen gathers her brood; but Israel does not want to be gathered in.  

The very word, want, can be used as a lens through which to view the whole story of the Bible; the big picture of the Bible is that God wants to gather God’s people. Yet God’s people want no part of it. So, God wants to work to win the people’s want back. 

There are so many wants! We all have things we want. Perhaps, we would be more polite and we would say something like “that would be really nice”; but, the fact is we want.  

With floods all along the coast from Gympie to the back of Sydney, there has been much more thinking about climate change. We want governments to sort out greenhouse gasses and rising sea levels. We want better coordination of emergency services. We want more low-cost and emergency housing to be available. 

And we continue to be distressed about the war in Ukraine. With threats of nuclear bombs being used and with hospitals and houses being shelled and with it seeming impossible to set up evacuation corridors for civilians, we want assurances of peace and nuclear disarmament. 

All this leads people to wonder what sort of world their grandchildren and great-grandchildren will grow up in. We hope for peace and stability in the world. We hope for good and compassionate governments. We hope for sensible management of our ecology. 

And what hopes do we have for our families? A good education. A fine career. A loving spouse. Well behaved children. A big house. These are all very understandable human hopes to have. Sometimes, because of our faith, we might hope and pray that those we love would be regularly involved in church, or even be occasional attenders. We would love for our families to have joy in knowing Jesus; for them to have the wonderful peace of living, even now, the quality of life described as Eternal Life. 

But it’s not easy to hold firm and clear spiritual hopes for those we love. We just seem to accept the fact that not many of our family are living the lives promised for them at their Baptism. 

In a hotel somewhere I found a soggy drinks coaster on the bar advertising Becks Beer. On the coaster was printed “LIFE BECKONS …. CHOOSE WISELY”. That’s a great Christian message. What a fantastic short sermon; “Life Beckons .. choose wisely!”. But, if we really want this to happen for someone we love (or for ourselves), it’s really hard to see God making it happen if we don’t consistently pray for it. 

Yet, most of us find it difficult to pray. How do we pray?   I think we can be helped by the words of the hymns we remember. The old hymns such as “Guide me O Thou great Redeemer”, “O Lord my God when I in awesome wonder”, “What a friend we have in Jesus”, “When we walk with the Lord in the light of His word…. Trust and obey for there’s no other way to be happy in Jesus”, all give us wonderful words for our prayers. There’s also some very helpful new songs such as “Christ be our light, shine in our hearts, shine through the darkness”. 

Yes, in guiding our prayers for a wise choice of life, songs can be most helpful; but only if we actively try to make them helpful. They won’t be beneficial if we don’t make an effort to learn from them. Our great hymns don’t achieve very much if they are only sung because we enjoy singing. 

Sometimes sermons can be helpful too. If only we could remember what was said. In Sydney, at St Andrew’s Cathedral recently, the printed service sheet had a blank page for notes and people around us were jotting down points to remember. I had a parishioner in Surfers Paradise who always took notes in the sermon.  

It’s not really a surprise that there is always helpful guidance in God’s word. There’s not any better value than in regular Bible reading. Sadly, we now live in the most Bible illiterate time for centuries. Our parents and grandparents were much more capable than us in quoting many Bible verses. Our Anglican services were intended to give great emphasis to the reading of Scripture. Being the Bible reader in our services is a most significant role. There is also an important role for Study Groups. Rev Greg is very excited that around 50 people in the Parish are attending our Lenten studies. Not everyone can get to, or cope with, Bible study groups. However, we are all able to learn new things at our own pace and time with our own choice of book. But why not read the Bible regularly? 

Today, in the Gospel, there is again really Good News. Jesus stresses that time is short. He says “I’ll be casting out demons and performing cures today and tomorrow”. Action should not be put off; there is only today and tomorrow.  After this warning to act now, Jesus once more shows his love and amazing forgiveness. In great encouragement to us, despite all the rejection that he has experienced, Jesus says he constantly desires to gather his people together as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings. Reading this carefully, we hear Jesus say “How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings and you were not willing!” 

May our Lenten focus be for us to strive to be willing to have Jesus gather us in. A few Sundays ago we sang “gather us in, the lost and forsaken, gather us in the blind and the lame; call to us now and we shall awaken, we shall arise at the sound of our name” 

Our best want is to rejoice in being promised acceptance and forgiveness. To want to enjoy Jesus’ loving protection as we gather under his wings. May we, once again, make the decision to follow him wherever that leads. 

For at the least the last 6 months, a Bible Verse that has become a mantra for me is “Comfort my People”. The mantra summarises my intention to show up in the world with kindness, patience, presence, and comfort. 

We are only beginning to understand the long-term effects of COVID and lock down.  We have hardly recovered from the intensity of the bushfires. Now we are witnessing and experiencing trauma related to unimaginable flooding. Intercalating the flood updates are images of misery and stress from the Ukraine as they stand up to Russia. I feel such compassion for our people in this region and beyond. I worry about how much more people can take. Comfort my people says the Lord. 

In our meditation on Wednesday, we drew together as one collective self and poured out an energy of comfort, compassion, and peace. Whatever it is you are facing, please know that compassion, comfort, peace, and hope are so much stronger than despair, hopelessness, and suffering. Amidst immense distress the nobility of the human spirit shines so brightly. Within each of us is an Infinite source of peace and care that far out floods any disaster. I see this Divine Spirit at work in each of you and the members of our community. It is this presence of Love, Concern, or God that is in the eyes and hearts of all whom I meet that is the source of my hope. 

I am grateful:

·         for the outpouring of support to those in distress,

·         for those using their skills set to rebuild lives,

·         for every thought, feeling and act of love and compassion, for this energy overcomes any fear and destruction.

Thank you for your presence to others, and thank you also for nourishing yourselves with self-care, self-love and self -compassion.      Desiree

Clouds and Glory: Sermon on Luke 9.28-36

Now about eight days after these sayings Jesus took with him Peter and John and James, and went up on the mountain to pray. And while he was praying, the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became dazzling white. Suddenly they saw two men, Moses and Elijah, talking to him. They appeared in glory and were speaking of his departure, which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem. Now Peter and his companions were weighed down with sleep; but since they had stayed awake, they saw his glory and the two men who stood with him. Just as they were leaving him, Peter said to Jesus, ‘Master, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah’—not knowing what he said. While he was saying this, a cloud came and overshadowed them; and they were terrified as they entered the cloud.Then from the cloud came a voice that said, ‘This is my Son, my Chosen;listen to him!’ When the voice had spoken, Jesus was found alone. And they kept silent and in those days told no one any of the things they had seen

Transfiguration

We glance at the story of the Transfiguration as the final chapter in the season of Epiphany. As you know epiphany means the manifestation of God. Throughout the weeks of epiphany, we are gradually transformed until we reach our full illumination with Christ in the Transfiguration. Imagine that the season of Epiphany is like a dimmer switch which gradually increases the light in a room from a dim ambiance to full wattage brightness. For Eastern Christians, the feast day of the Transfiguration, is significant. The emphasis on Christian practice in the Eastern Orthodox tradition culminates in the idea of theopoiesis, which means made into God, or divinised or transfigured. The story of Christ’s transfiguration is for all of us, we are also changed into dazzling light. The usual date for Feast of Transfiguration is the 6th of August. The 6th of August is significant for another reason too, it was the day the Americans chose to drop the nuclear bomb on Hiroshima. Today’s reading of the Transfiguration coincides with another moment in history, Russia’s invasion of the Ukraine. Putin issued many threats in his declaration of war, the most unsettling was for the west. Putin said: “Anyone who tries to get in our way, let alone tries to threaten us and our people, should know that Russia’s answer will be immediate, and it will lead to consequences of the sort that you have not faced ever in your history.”  (Time magazine, 24 February 2022, https://time.com/6150787/putin-us-risk-ukraine-war/). I felt fearful when I heard Putin’s threat and wonder if you did too. I highlight here how history’s timeline records that humanity’s deadliest decisions occur in a liturgical time that honours human potential to be totally transformed by love and light.  Humankind makes decisions for death and destruction on a feast day that celebrates light, transcendence and transformation. How on earth do we hold these two opposites together?

Clouds and glory

It seems that the Scriptures may be ahead of me on this one, the glory and transfiguration of Christ is intricately linked with death, crucifixion, and the mechanics of empire. Cloud and glory go together. The heights of human transformation in the transfiguration are closely associated with the clouds of utter human failure. That clouds and glory go together is evident in three ways. First, failure follows the mountain top experience of transfiguration. We would have thought that having seen the goal of human evolution the disciples might have been better equipped to respond to the world. No, they fail in faith, fail in prayer, and fail in healing. Second, the story of transfiguration is utterly linked not only to the baptism but also to crucifixion of Jesus. The words “This is my Beloved Son” connect the baptism, transfiguration, and transfiguration of Jesus. These three stories are three pivots around which the gospel moves. Third, it turns out that God dwells not in the dazzling clouds of light but in the clouds of darkness. 

Perhaps if we step vividly into the story, it’s resonance may also vibrate within us. 

28 About eight days after Jesus said this, 

The 8 days may refer to the Feast of Booths which celebrates how God looked after the Hebrew people in the wilderness when they escaped Pharoah’s Egypt. The Feast of Booths is a joyful celebration where families live in tents and lean-tos made of palm branches. 

he took Peter, John, and James with him and went up onto a mountain to pray Finding peace on the Mountain to pray makes sense to us. There is a primal instinct in us humans about mountains being sacred. Spiritual leaders ascend a mountain to commune with the Divine; Moses ascended Mt Sinai and Elijah nestled in Mt Horeb. Jesus is about to non-violently challenge the mechanics of empire and so withdraws to the mountain to gain strength. The mountain top is an obvious illusion to Exodus and Mt Sinai when God married the Hebrew people in a covenant (see Exodus 19.16). “I am going to come to you in a dense cloud,” God says to Moses, “in order that the people may hear when I speak with you and so trust you ever after” (19:9). As the Hebrew slaves people gathered at the foot of Mt Sinai God enclosed them in a thick cloud, with the sound of trumpets, thunder, and lightening. 

As he was praying, the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became as bright as a flash of lightning. 

Like Moses on Mt Sinai, and like the burning bush Moses encountered while caring for sheep in the desert, it is as if Jesus becomes all flame.  Peter, James, and John witness something other worldly; not only is Jesus all flame but he is joined in the light by Moses and Elijah. In case we missed that this transfiguration is a new Exodus, Luke makes it plain: “They spoke about his Exodus which he was about to bring to fulfilment at Jerusalem.”

32 Peter and his companions were very sleepy, but when they became fully awake, they saw his glory and the two men standing with him

On the night of Jesus’ arrest Jesus will ask Peter, James, and John to pray with him, they will fall asleep. Similarly, at this key moment in the life of Jesus the three disciples are sleepy too. Just as Peter attempts to grasp the moment a dark cloud descends and covers them. They can see nothing but hear the words that are said also at Jesus’ baptism and the crucifixion: this is my beloved, my son, listen. One moment there was dazzling light that blinds and the next moment there was dazzling darkness that blinds even more.

A dazzling dark cloud of unknowing

It is this dark cloud of unknowing that blinds you, terrifies you and leaves you speechless that is the important symbol for us. Notice that the three disciples worked out for themselves that they had to shut up, previously Jesus had to keep saying, “Be quiet; tell no one.” It is from this cloud of unknowing that God speaks. God is encountered in the dazzling darkness of the cloud that swallows them up. The Gospel is that God Dwells in the Darkness. 

The cloud of dazzling darkness reminds me of a time when I walked Table Mountain. Table Mountain is an iconic feature of South Africa, as is the Tablecloth of cloud that covers it in Spring. When that tablecloth cloud descends, you can see nothing. The signposts are hidden, and other senses are heightened as you walk slower, much slower, for who knows where the edge is. The tourist map you were given is useless and you are left to find your own way when you can hardly see your hand in front of you. Walking within that cloud of unknowing is invigorating though; probably because your senses are so focused on your breathing and taking one slow step after another. You are too caught up in the moment to worry about distractions such as taking selfies and landscape photos. It is this experience that I think of when disciples, saints, mystics, and ordinary people who love Jesus find themselves in the dark cloud of unknowing. The dark cloud is an inevitable event if you follow Christ. 

According to those who have devoted their entire lives to prayer, the dark cloud is where God takes us a part and remakes us, where we die and are resurrected in love. Holy Darkness, Blessed Night is what St John of the Cross will teach us from his dark cloud. Within this dark cloud of unknowing, everything is swallowed up.  All the second-hand faith that has lovingly been given to us by parents, preachers and Sunday School teachers fails us, they are like the useless tourist maps when walking on Table Mountain when the cloud has descended. The usual rules of religion do not work. The means of grace that once sustained us, leave us empty. 

Here is the thing, while I might be surprised at human destruction on the feast day of human transfiguration, the Scriptures anticipate this. The words said at the transfiguration are the same words said at the crucifixion, forever binding the two into a sacred dance. According to our scriptures, cloud and glory go together. 

The dark cloud of unknowing is not a test or something we have to get through. No. In the Hebrew Scriptures and in the Gospel, the dark cloud is where God dwells. To be invited into the cloud is a privilege. Those who come out may not have many words, we may even doubt their sanity, and they may be forever changed. Their message is similar – they would never choose the experience, but now that it has happened, they would never give it back. 

“Today you have heard a story you can take with you when you go. It tells you that no one has to go up the mountain alone. It tells you that sometimes things get scary before they get holy. Above all, it tells you that there is someone standing in the centre of the cloud with you, shining so brightly that you may never be able to wrap your mind around him, but who is worth listening to all the same--because he is God's beloved, and you are his, and whatever comes next, you are up to it.” Barbara Brown Taylor. March 02, 2014. Day One

Lent is the period of 40 days in which we ready ourselves for the mystery of Easter. Ash Wednesday marks the beginning of Lent. Symbolically, we journey with Jesus in the wilderness. Lent begins on Ash Wednesday. Ashes are crossed onto the forehead with the words “remember you are dust and to dust you shall return” or “Repent and believe the Good News”. As we journey into lent with prayer, fasting, alms giving and other disciplines, we take with us a word and a song. The word is Teshuvah. The song is “Anthem” by Leonard Cohen.        

Teshuvah, a word often translated as "repentance," is more accurately understood as turning back (shuv) to God. Teshuvah  means return, repair and renewal. Teshuvah means to [Re]turn to the self you have always been meant to become. A good explanation of teshuvah is from Kalonymous Kalmah Shapira the grand rabbi of Piaseczno, Poland, written while he was imprisoned in the Warsaw Ghetto in 1941:

Teshuvah is a creative act,
not a simple return
We return to who we were meant to be
but have not yet become
Growth and possibility
Dormant, a sculpture lies hidden
in a brute block of stone
That is why the process of teshusvah,
as painful and
even as humiliating
as it can be
is in fact
a very joyous,
hopeful act.

 Psalm 51 is sometimes called "Perek Teshuvah" – the great Chapter of Repentance. After King David was confronted with the truth of his crimes and the prospect of judgment, he returned to God for cleansing and forgiveness. David's teshuvah reveals that we also can return to God on the basis of His abundant compassion – God’s rachamim. Rachamim means compassion but a better translation says that it is the wombishness of God. From the very core of creation flows compassion, reminding us that we are loved. Rachamim and Teshuvah, go together. Here is a teshuvah from Cohen: The birds they sang at the break of day. Start again, I heard them say. Start again.

 Anthem By Leonard Cohen

I can't run no more
With that lawless crowd
While the killers in high places
Say their prayers out loud
But they've summoned, they've summoned up
A thundercloud
They're going to hear from me

Ring the bells that still can ring…Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in

You can add up the parts
But you won't have the sum
You can strike up the march
There is no drum
Every heart, every heart
To love will come
But like a refugee

 Ring the bells that still can ring…Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in

As we begin lent, we may ask:

   Where am I in this moment? 

   Whom have I become? 

   What has been my impact on others, on the earth? 

   What changes do I need to make?

Luke 6:27-38

In today’s gospel, Jesus teaches about love, peace, generosity, hospitality, mercy and forgiveness. Luke’s Jesus makes heavy demands on one’s capacity to love unreservedly. Expect nothing in return, he says. Now along with love, I think that the concept of forgiveness is one of the most difficult and misunderstood ideas of the gospel, indeed in the world.

So, I am going to talk about forgiveness, which, as I shall attempt explain, has a multitude of meanings.

The Greek word translated as forgive in our Gospel passage is apoluó (ἀπολύω), meaning to release, to let go, to send away, to divorce. Elsewhere in the NT, the word is used for release of captives and prisoners, remission of debt, the liberation of someone acquitted of a crime in a court of law.

The Old English forgiefan means give, grant, allow; remit (a debt), pardon (an offense); and also give up and give in marriage.[1] It is a compound word comprising for-meaning "completely", and giefan meaning "to give". Furthermore, in late Old English, forgiefan acquired a sense of to give up desire or power to punish, which arose from a Germanic loan-translation of the Vulgar Latin perdonare, which means to give completely, without reservation. All food for thought.

That said, we need to talk about feelings. We often employ anger, say, as a secondary emotion to cover up what we are really feeling. The late Yvonne Agazarian, called such secondary emotions barrier defences – shame, guilt, humiliation, and shyness – which

… guard the threshold of the core of the self … on the other side of which are the forbidden experiences of love and hate, rage and fear, and grief and joy. [2]

In essence, the psyche is afraid of raw, primary emotions like love, hate, rage, fear, grief or joy. Many of us were brought up to not feel all or some of these things. We were not allowed to. I did not find out about anger until I was about fifty years old! Ouch. Barrier defences like shame, which actually feel much worse, are like a wall around the true feeling. Thus, the wounded soul.

Primary emotions are pure, and always legitimate. You know, pure rage is a joy to experience; it is purifying; pure hate has an ineffable integrity; pure grief is painful but growthful. If I hate, I am closer to forgiveness than if I feel humiliated. The problem is that secondary emotions like shame, humiliation or shyness are amorphous, dimensionless spaces devoid of reference points – very difficult to come to grips with; and so, forgiveness becomes problematic when these barrier defences intervene.

Grace Tame recently criticised media outlets that "sought to discredit" her by publishing an old photo of her sitting next to what appeared to be a bong.[3] In an open letter published on Twitter, the former Australian of the Year said the incident let her down as an advocate of the survivor community. She went on to say the country needed to have an "open and honest discussion about trauma and what that can look like".

"It can be ugly. It can look like drugs. Like self-harm, skipping school, getting impulsive tattoos and all kinds of other unconscious, self-destructive, maladaptive coping mechanisms," Ms Tame wrote. "Whilst I do not seek to glorify, sanitise or normalise any of these things, I also do not seek to shame or judge survivors for ANY of their choices.

"For anyone who needs to hear this: it is NOT YOUR FAULT."

When I am beset by humiliation, shame, guilt or shyness, I become paralysed, imprisoned in a space wherein forgiveness is a passing dream. In my efforts to not feel these oppressive things, I blame, I find a way to shift the burden on to someone or something else. My impulse is for vengeance, which, if carried out, is self-destructive, because an untended wound is driven even deeper.

On the other hand, if, somehow, I am able to acknowledge and experience my woundedness, my pain, then I am on the road to healing. And with healing a synthesis occurs; forgiveness simply happens, because it does not affect me any more.

So, I argue that forgiveness is not something you actually do; but rather that it is the fruit of a healing process. That makes it a grace. Forgiveness, if you like, is co-terminus with healing. They belong together, like a horse and carriage. Graceful.

We might recall David’s encounter with Saul, when Saul has resolved to hunt him down. Listen to David as he calls with desperation across the valley …

Why does my lord pursue his servant? For what have I done? What guilt is on my hands? Now therefore let my lord the king hear the words of his servant. If it is the Lord who has stirred you up against me, may he accept an offering; but if it is mortals, may they be cursed before the Lord, for they have driven me out today from my share in the heritage of the Lord, saying, 'Go, serve other gods.' Now therefore, do not let my blood fall to the ground, away from the presence of the Lord; for the king of Israel has come out to seek a single flea, like one who hunts a partridge in the mountains.[4]

There is huge pain in that statement, the anguish of one who has been cruelly disconnected from his family, his heritage and his God. David is saying how it is for him, is confronting Saul with his pain, and thereby gains release to forgive. Rage gives way to sorrow, and with sorrow comes mourning, and when the mourning is successfully completed, life is enriched. This can be for some a hard, hard road.

So, my friends, I am not convinced about the “forgive and forget” mantra, because I will guess that the injury has not been dealt with. Forgiveness must include remembering, but without the rancour of no resolution and without the resignation of no relationship, but rather with careful knowledge. So, in the end, forgiveness is, if you like, an emergent property, as it were, of the healing with which it is co-terminus.

If you think about it, that is what the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil is about. When you know fully, and are living with it openly, then life abounds. As St Paul reminded us in his letter to the Corinthians,

For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. (1 Corinthians 3.12)

 “Forgiveness requires more than just an apology. It requires action”.[5] Thus James Blackwell’s article in The Conversation last Monday. Blackwell refers to PM Kevin Rudd’s apology to the Stolen Generations, pointing out that the effects of the policies that gave rise to the wrongs of the past are ongoing.

“The trauma and pain of these policies, and of being disconnected from country, culture, and community, extends down to their children, and their children’s children”.

All of these problems are fixable by the government, Blackwell notes; but presuming forgiveness on the part of those you have wronged “will not solve any of these issues. Indeed, they are likely to have the opposite effect …”, reducing the ability of the government to engage with these communities, and impacting upon the mental and physical health of Stolen Generations survivors and their families.

“What is needed”, wrote Blackwell “is a national approach to healing …”

To which I would add, “What is needed is a personal approach to self-forgiveness.” That is so difficult. The two go hand in hand.

Vicki Zin’s poem Self Forgiveness[6] begins, “How do I truly learn to forgive myself?”

And ends with: 

The only way to do this

is to try to forgive myself,

while realizing,

that those who also recognize

my true beauty are the ones

that deserve to be part of my life. 

As the haze lifts more and more each day,

I do believe I will find my way again.

Just some more bumps along this

road that they call life.

 Amen.

 Doug Bannerman © 2022

[1] See https://www.etymonline.com/word/forgive

[2] Agazarian Y (1981) In Living Groups: Group Psychotherapy and General Systems Theory. Ed. J E Durkin. New York: Brunner/Mazel

[3] See https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-02-19/grace-tame-responds-to-bong-photo-on-twitter/100845436

[4]1 Samuel 26:20

[5] James Blackwell February 14, 2022 5.05pm AEDT

[6] https://hellopoetry.com/poem/380668/self-forgiveness/

Here’s to the crazy ones

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tjgtLSHhTPg 

Apple’s “Think Different” advert in the 1990’s launched its brand into success. It showed rule breakers such as Albert Einstein, John Lennon, Martin Luther King, Mahatma Gandhi, Pablo Picasso, and others. “Here’s to the crazy ones,” voiced by actor Richard Dreyfus, resonated with many: Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify, or vilify them. About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.

In a world that still seems to reward success, wealth and popularity and power,  “Here’s to the crazy ones” promotes an unusual logic of success.  The unexpected qualities of not fitting in, of being an outsider, of being a little weird or downright strange are highlighted as world changing characteristics. Jesus’ sermon, often called the beatitudes, seems similar to the counterculture logic of “here’s to the crazy ones." We agree it’s true. Crazy changes the world. Who are our outlandish today? Where are the crazy ones hiding? One of the wild ones was Jesus. Today’s Gospel is pure craziness:  Blessed are the poor, the starving, the depressed, and the disposable. You who are rich, full, happy, and well-liked – you’re in big trouble. Here’s to the crazy ones, an upside-down world, a system of blessing that has no respect for the status quo and that middle-class Christianity will find rude. The upside-down view of the world Jesus offers is not new in the beatitudes, it has been developing in Luke from the very beginning:

a)   In Luke 1.56, Mary sings the Magnificat which celebrates what God is doing in the world: looking with favour on the lowly (the poor), sending the rich away empty, filling the hungry with good things (the starving), casting down the might from their thrones and lifting up the lowly (the sad or depressed) and has come to the help of society’s disposable ones. To remind you, Mary sings: “ My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord, my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour; for he has looked with favour on his lowly servant. From this day all generations will call me blessed: the Almighty has done great things for me, and holy is God’s name.  God has mercy on those who fear God in every generation. God has shown the strength of God’s arm, God has scattered the proud in their conceit. God has cast down the mighty from their thrones and has lifted up the lowly.  God has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich God has sent away empty.  God has come to the help of Israel.” Notice that Mary is so confident of God’s promised future that she sings of it in the past tense.

b) John the Baptist continues where Mary leaves off:

‘Prepare the way of the Lord,
    make his paths straight.
Every valley shall be filled,
    and every mountain and hill shall be made low,
and the crooked shall be made straight,
    and the rough ways made smooth;
and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.

The levelling of hills and the straightening of paths John sings about is the flattening of society brought about through jubilee politics, when debt is cancelled, and economic sharing takes place such that the lowly are raised up and the mighty are cast down.

c) It’s like a Bollywood musical really, Luke’s Gospel. The salvation promised by Mary and John the Baptist comes true in Jesus first sermon (Lk 4), hear it as a song: 

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me

to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives

and recovery of sight to the blind,

to let the oppressed, go free, 

to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.”

The work of Jesus, the vision statement of his work, is a variation of Isaiah. Jesus’ purpose is to be good news to the poor, relief for those imprisoned by utter sadness and freedom from the oppression of being disposable.

d) Jesus’ song comes true in another sermon, the beatitudes (Lk 6): “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God…” New Testament scholars explain that there are several words to describe the poor, the usual word being tapeinoi, which describes the peasant classes (Richard Rohr and John Feister 1996:130). The word used by both Matthew and Luke in the beatitudes, is ptochoi, which means the empty ones, describing those who are unclean and expendable (Richard Rohr and John Feister 1996:130). In Jesus’ time the poor were those who lived as outcasts: beggars, widows, orphans, the sick, the disabled, the blind and the dumb. Those referred to by the Pharisees as sinners, were the poor that Jesus came to reach (Albert Nolan 2001:27,28). Sinners were the am–ha arez who were peasants unfamiliar with the law and included prostitutes, shepherds, tax collectors and social outcasts (Albert Nolan 2001:29)

In Luke 6.17 Jesus speaks (“sings”) to the crowd he is on a level place: “Jesus came down with them and stood on a level place, with a great crowd of his disciples and a great multitude of people from all Judea, Jerusalem, and the coast of Tyre and Sidon.”  Why a “level place”? Because John the Baptist’s understanding of salvation is taking shape in the work of Jesus. The place is levelled because the valleys are filled, and the mountains made low, the lowly are lifted and blessed, the mighty are brought low, the hungry are filled and blessed and the rich are empty.  

Luke 6.17-26 is a freedom song understood best in the light of other songs: Mary’s song “My soul magnifies the Lord”, John’s song “make straight in the desert a highway” and Jesus opening song “The spirit of the Lord is upon me to bring good news.” These are all songs of nonviolent resistance.  John Dear in Mary of Nazareth, Prophet of Peace, describes Mary’s song as a “manifesto of revolutionary nonviolence and a call, not to arms, but to disarmament and justice….Mary's Magnificat was banned in Argentina in the mid-1970’s, because the Mothers of the Disappeared published it as a call for nonviolent resistance to the military junta. The words are so powerful, they are considered by some to be dangerous.” The same is true for the other songs described above that build into the climax of the beatitudes. The beatitudes are thus not meant to be understood as a new list of Ten Commandments, nor as helpful advice or as a new list of requirements to get into heaven. No. These beatitudes require no work, no achievement, no striving. There is no creed to sign up to, there is no moral code to be judged by. No. We are given a blessing of what heaven on earth looks like when Jesus is central to our reality. Whole groups of people, simply by being who they are, are blessed.

“Blessed be” or “Woe to you”

Before we breathe a sigh of relief, we ask ourselves where we are in the text. There are two sides of the same coin; are we on the side of “woe” or the “blessed” ? As one of the wealthiest nations in the world obviously we are in the second half of the text.

 How then are we crazy ones when we squirm as the woes are handed out? We are rich, mostly happy or drugged to be happy, well-liked, and necessary to our economy. Do we give all this away to “inherit” the blessing Jesus offers? I suggest not. Poverty, illness, and pain are not holy, helpful, nor redemptive in themselves. In fact, Jesus’ healing and love is about Good News, joy, and freedom from suffering. Instead of defaulting into doing, we can sit – sit either with poverty, sadness and emptiness or sit with the woes. We sit in solidarity with God, in solidarity with poverty or woe and we learn the meaning of blessing.    

In response to the beatitudes and in learning the meaning of blessing,  wealthy Christians have stepped out into solidarity with the poor, not to help the poor but so that the poor can help them. It is us the rich that need the help, not the poor who are already blessed by God. Authentic friendship with the poor that offers twice as much listening and humble learning rather than speaking or helping is solidarity with the poor. It comes from the knowledge that at some point, all experience poverty. It is also a recognition that the poor are poor because of how society is structured. Theodore Jennings (1990:183) laments: “Each year there is a new holocaust, a new sacrifice to the Moloch of greed and indifference … The slaughter of the innocents is no fortuitous calamity, but the direct result of economic arrangements that blind us to reality by making us complicitous in calamity. Mortal poverty is not due, as some blasphemously maintain, to an act of God. It is the work of economic idolatry”.

One of the values we celebrate as Alstonville Anglicans is “Blessing.” We believe that we burst into the world as original blessings, that blessing lies at the very heart of our identity. When we insist that we are blessed to be a blessing to others, who we are creates the conditions for others to flourish, so that God is not a noun but a verb, an energy of love moving in us and though us and with us until all woes are healed and all come home to their true identity – blessing.

Books:

1.    Richard Rohr and John Feister 1996. Jesus' Plan For A New World. Cincinnati, OH : St. Anthony Messenger Press.

2.    John Dear. 2003. Mary of Nazareth, Prophet of Peace. Ave Maria Press. Michigan

3.    Theodore Jennings. 1990.  Good News To The Poor: John Wesley's Evangelical Economics.  Abingdon Press, Nashville

Where is our church? What is our church address? Who are the ministers of our church? Would the ministers of the church be willing to stand up? We shall return to these questions again. For now, let us step into the Gospel reading, Luke 5.1-11.

Introductory comments

My husband and I are very proud of our sons. They are chefs. They work extremely hard. They came home late from their shift on a particular day, frustrated, tired and demoralised. It had been a particularly slow day with few orders. The kitchen closes at 2 p.m. They had started to clean and pack up the kitchen early as there were no customers. By 2.10 p.m., the kitchen was spotless, the grill had been cleaned, the floors washed, all the appliances were off and sanitised. It was at this moment that a rather large order came in for a big table. Everyone knew the restaurant policy, that the kitchen closed at 2 p.m. At 2.10 pm, everything was shutdown. Nevertheless, the chefs were forced to start everything up again and prepare meals for a large table. A similar thing is happening for the fishermen in Luke 5.1-11.

Into the Gospel text: Luke 5.1-11

Peter and his colleagues are in their boats, in the shallows. They have finished cleaning and repairing their nets and preparing the boat for the next day’s work. Sure, they have had a poor catch, but tomorrow is another day, right? It is at this point, at the end of the day when everything is cleaned and packed up, that Jesus, a carpenter who probably knows little about fishing, suggests that go out deep again and let down their nets for a catch. Remembering how despondent our sons were in a similar situation, I am amazed at Peter’s willingness to go fishing again.

Jesus says, "Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch." Simon answers, "Master, we have worked all night long but have caught nothing. Yet if you say so, I will let down the nets." An abundant catch of fish follows, Simon is literally overcome. There is a self-effacing pattern of model of leadership in the kingdom of God at play here. In the same way that Mary was humbled at the call of God on her life so too is Peter: “But when Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, ‘Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man” Peter’s response is an allusion to the response of someone else, who while daydreaming in church one day, was confronted with the Holy.

Into the Hebrew Text: Isaiah 6.1-13

While going about his routine religious duties in the Temple, Isaiah sees a vision of God's glory and experiences a call to serve as a prophet to his people. The out-of-this-world vision makes sense in the context of Scripture. Thseraphs are fiery creatures. They cover their faces reminding people that both Moses and Elijah believed that one could not see the face of God and live. In Exodus 3:6, “Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God”. In 1 Kings 19:13, “When Elijah heard it [the heavenly voice], he wrapped his face in his mantle”

“Isaiah’s” call to ministry would become one of the most quoted Old Testament books in the NT. The vision of Isaiah provided key ideas that helped the early Christians make sense of their experience of Jesus. Jesus is the answer to Isaiah’s vision. Jesus becomes the place where heaven and earth embrace in marriage, and God’s love heals, enlightens and liberates. In Luke 5 Jesus shares his calling first with Peter, then with all the disciples and then with us.

Jesus’ call and our call

Jesus starts expanding the circle of blessing by asking Simon to join him inside it. He wants to use the boat as a kind of pulpit to speak to the crowd on the shore. We too are drawn into this sacred circle of blessing. We too become the place where heaven meets earth and the love of God is poured out to us and through us to heal, enlighten, and liberate… We become the place where all God’s promises come true. We become the place where poverty and hunger disappear, and the forces of destruction are muted once and for all.  It is our glory to collaborate with Jesus together with Peter, James, John and Andrew and all the disciples down the ages and across the globe. The guidelines are simple. Everything begins with a sincere response to God as made visible in Christ; it continues with humble repentance, and it ends with the promise, "Do not be afraid; from now on you [singular] will be catching people."

The sermon by rights ends here.

However.

Many will hear this as an invitation to ministry, to do more. To do particularly churchy things. Many will hear this invitation as an expectation, to sign up for parish council, to do more Bible Studies, to join more community organisations, to teach Sunday School, to prepare food for the homeless. Please continue to do these things, as they are a blessing to us; however the call is deeper than that… read on.

Others will hear the invitation to ministry as an invitation to be more — to be kinder, more generous, more loving, more religious…more.

The call is more powerful than that.

Ministry involves being just who you already are and doing just what you already do…with one difference…you understand yourself as God’s person in God’s world and for God’s world.

 The point of our sacred space and our sacred actions is to consecrate the way we see our ourselves and consecrate how we see what we do.

 As we consecrate bread and wine, the ordinary things of this world to be an extraordinary channel of God’s grace, so our eyes are consecrated to see the munificent mundane in everything we do as Eucharist action. If we limit our sacred work to our prayer time and our worship time only, friends, we are in big trouble. The point of the Eucharist is that we learn to see everything we do as eucharist action. The holiness with which we receive the body and blood of Christ is no different to the holiness with which we prepare meals, clean the kitchen, make our beds, mow the lawn. The respect and reverence we learn to adopt in receiving Holy Communion is pointless unless we learn to see that all we touch is holy too. Imagine the transformation that is possible if we treat the average broom and the average task of sweeping with the same sense of prayer we have for Holy Communion? These ideas are inspired by two sources, Brother Lawrence who taught the practice of the presence of God and the Rule of Benedict which has had a significant influence on Anglican Spirituality.

Brother Lawrence writes: When we walk in the presence of God, the busiest moment of the day is no

different from the quiet of a prayer altar. Even in the midst of noise and clutter, while people’s voices are coming at you from all directions, asking for your help with many different things, you can possess God with the same serenity as if you were on your knees in church.

The Rule of St Benedict describes what is expected of the cellarer, who is in charge of groceries and other food stores: Chapter 31:10. Qualifications of the Monastery Cellarer “ He will regard all utensils and goods of the monastery as sacred vessels of the altar, 11 aware that nothing is to be neglected.”

Concluding comments

Jesus expands the circle of blessing and shares his ministry with Peter and then with us.  We are called to minister. Our baptismal vows are our ordination – we shine as a light for Christ in the world. Where is the Church? Wherever God has placed us. Who are the ministers…the bishops? All of us. This is not a text about doing… it is a text about seeing, about how you see your identity. You are already doing God’s work, being God’s person – do not be afraid.

Welcome Announcement

Let’s begin by reflecting. Reflect on the last time you received some really good news. What was it about this bit of news that made it so good? Was it a long-awaited answer to prayer? A baptism – the welcoming of a person into God’s family and the Christian faith. News from a friend or family member. News that COVID restrictions have eased allowing us to return to some sort of normal life if there is such a thing as “normal”, the realisation that an adversity we are facing was not as bad as first intended or perhaps something else entirely.

Today’s Gospel reading is about the bringing of good news. In fact, our Gospel reading today is Luke’s illustration of an opening scene in the ministry of Jesus. It is Jesus’ manifesto for the work that lies ahead of him. It describes what Jesus came to do and is still doing in lives today.

Over recent weeks we have celebrated the birth of Jesus, learned of his baptism in the river Jordan by John the Baptist, his cousin, and now we see Jesus in the synagogue reading from a scroll by the Prophet Isaiah. When reading the whole of Luke Chapter 4, we first see Jesus deprived and tempted in the wilderness. He leaves the wilderness and returns to Galilee with the power of the Spirit. News is beginning to spread about him, there is amazement, and a high reputation is being built. Later there is rejection and the chapter concludes with Jesus providing healing.

It has been described that Jesus is on a preaching tour. He has been in Galilee and now moved to a synagogue in Nazareth, the town in which he was brought up. Unlike the temple where sacrifices occur, a synagogue was an important institution among the Jews of the day. Originating during the exile, it provided a place where the Jews could study the scriptures and worship God. The synagogue in essence has three main functions – prayer, reading of scripture and teaching.[1] Jesus went to the synagogue as was his custom. It was the Sabbath day, the seventh day of the week – the day of rest, the day to worship God. Jesus was there to worship God, to pray, to read, to understand the scriptures and indicate how he would be applying them.

So, there are two questions. Why is this good news and what makes it good news?

News comes in many different forms and describes what has happened or what is going to happen! We, as a human society live in the events that have happened or will happen. A news item can paint a picture that makes us view the world differently from that point on. When it comes to good news, Theologian NT Wright describes the good news as a welcome announcement.[2]

The welcome announcement is that Jesus has come into the world to bring good news and by Jesus’ interactions the scripture which he proclaimed has been fulfilled. This is evident when we read of Jesus standing in the synagogue and reading the words from the Prophet Isaiah, words which glow with the message of God’s pity and compassion. So, we see Jesus finding the place where it is written:

18 “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, 19 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.”[3]

As I have prepared for this message today, I have reflected on verse 18 and three points resonate with me.

The first is the Spirit of the Lord is upon me. The ‘is’ is very important. It shows God’s presence is at work in all situations. God has poured out Himself through spirit and entered life, God enters Jesus’ life, and enters our lives too!

Secondly, Jesus recognising that he is the anointed one – the chosen one - the one that has been spoken of by the prophets. Filled with the power of the Spirit, Jesus is the anointed one. Anointed to go about and bring hope and healing to a fallen world.

Thirdly, to bring good news to the poor. Whether we like or not our lives are far from prefect. We live in a broken world. There was brokenness in Jesus’ time on earth and there remains brokenness in our world today. Jesus saw himself as coming with good news for the world’s troubled people; for the poor, the captives, the blind and the oppressed. Jesus would be there for each one and that includes you and me. With the power of the Spirit upon Him, Jesus meets every need with love and compassion.

Our God is a God of love, and He cares for His people and the world He created deeply. God wants to redeem His people, you, and me. God sent Jesus as the anointed one through the power of the Spirit to show how to love and care for each other. Jesus is a game changer . An agent for change. His mission is to come alongside the poor, the captives, the blind and the oppressed to bring hope and bring healing. Jesus asks us to do the same and through the power of the Spirit we are equipped for good works as his followers.

Earlier in the service as the Baptism was being introduced, we heard that Baptism is about Blessing. Each person comes into the world as an Original Blessing. Shortly, Desiree will Baptise Elyse and as part of the Baptism Desiree will use oil to sign a cross on Elyse to show that she is marked as Christ’s own for ever. The oil signifies the Spirit of God and the anointing by the Holy Spirit. Each of us who have been baptised have been anointed with the Holy Spirit and have the Spirit of God working in us around us. As followers of Jesus, we are empowered by the Holy Spirit to continue the work that Jesus started; to show love, to show compassion. Our words and actions are a welcomed announcement, and a troubled world can be viewed differently.

My prayer and encouragement for each of us is that we have the welcome announcement in our lives too! That we allow the Holy Spirit to work in us and fill us with power as we go about our daily tasks. That showing love, care and compassion is evident with those we interact with allowing the world to be viewed differently. Amen.

Mark Stuckey, LLM

[1][1] Barclay, W. 1967 The Gospel of Luke – The Daily Study Bible, The Saint Andrew Press

[2] NT Wright -Simply Good News: The Welcome Announcement of Jesus the King (Devotional) https//ntwrightonline.org/youversion

[3] Luke 4: 18-19 (NRSV)

Marriage: The first of seven signs

John’s Gospel uses seven signs as a literary structure to shape the first half of his Gospel. The first of the signs that Jesus offers is at a wedding. The literary message is about the marriage of heaven and earth, the marriage of divine and human so that all may be Christ and Christ may be in all. As St Paul put it in Ephesians 1, God’s plan from the beginning was to unite, in Christ, all things, things in heaven and things on earth.

The wedding at Cana is dramatization if you like, a parable drama, describing God’s ultimate plan of marrying humanity. Jesus is God’s design for the whole world. Jesus the Christ is a person from the future not the past. Jesus the Christ is the ultimate vision of our future reality, of who we are already becoming – a unity of Divine and Human.

A wedding invitation

Usually if there is a wedding there is also a wedding invitation. The wedding invitation for the marriage of heaven and earth dramatized at the wedding in Cana John 2.1-11 appears in John 1.14-17. Hidden in the glorious cosmic hymn of our Christmas reading is the heart centre:

And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth. … From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace…The law indeed was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. 

The wedding invitation is John 1.14-17, the Word that lived among us. The English translation “lived among us” fails to capture the power of the original Greek that describes the Word that became flesh and “pitched his tent among us” or “tabernacled” among us. The significance of “tabernacled among us” is two-fold and relies on the fact it vivifies two memories: the Genesis-Exodus epoch and the Exile-Restoration era.

John’s Gospel and the Genesis-Exodus memory

While some are reluctant to engage the Scriptures of the Old Testament, without the background of the Hebrew Scriptures we cannot discern the meaning of the Gospels that introduce us to Jesus. John’s Gospel is a New Genesis and a New Exodus.

If John’s Gospel is a New Exodus a short summation of the Exodus account is necessary to appreciate its relevance to John’s Gospel. The plot of the Exodus story is the group of refugees who escape oppression in Pharoah’s Egypt through a wilderness into a Promised Land flowing with Milk and Honey. The climax of the Exodus saga is pre-empted by the introduction to the story. Moses and Aaron, who with Miriam are the leaders of the refugees, pronounce to pharaoh: “‘Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, “Let my people go, so that they may celebrate a festival to me in the wilderness.”’ (Exodus 5.1). The Exodus story races fast to the climax where it plateaus and overstates in detail the construction of a tabernacle. The tabernacle, a symbol of God’s presence among the people, is at the centre of the group of refugees who traverse a wilderness in search of a Promised Land. Herewith the point of the story, that the refugees are freed from slavery in order to celebrate a festival to God in the wilderness, with the Tabernacle the heart centre of how God comes close to them and how they come close to God. Now it is evident what Exodus means for John’s Gospel; Jesus the Christ is the New Tabernacle who “pitches his tent among us.” Jesus’ incarnation, the Word made flesh among us, is the way in which we now see God with us and among us. What is the significance of God in Christ tabernacling among us (John 1.14)? The significance of Jesus pitching his tent among is that the destiny of cosmos and human beings as kings and queens of the New Creation is made clear; the unity of the Divine and Human, the enspiriting of flesh or the enfleshing of spirit. As Teilhard puts it, God is always in the business of enfleshing spirit or enspiriting flesh. This marriage of heaven and earth or spirit and flesh dramatized in Cana in John 2.1-11 is already hinted at in John 1.14-17: “…, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth… The law indeed was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. 

John’s Gospel and the Exile-Restoration memory

“Full of grace and truth” evokes the recitation of Psalm 85:

Grace and truth have met together;
justice and peace have kissed each other.
Truth springs up from the earth,
and justice looks down from heaven.
Adonai will also grant prosperity;
our land will yield its harvest.
Justice will walk before him
and make his footsteps a path.

 (From the complete Jewish Bible translation. Copyright © 1998 by David H. Stern.
All rights reserved).

 Psalm 85 is a restoration psalm. A restoration psalm sings of the Hebrew’s best hope after being in exile, in Babylon, away from their temple and home. The restoration hoped for in exile now takes place in the person of Jesus. In Jesus Grace and truth meet, justice and peace kiss, and the human and divine marry, to offer a new and bright future. Grace represents the refreshing love of God that comes from beyond our world, a compassion that is transcendent. Truth is the love of God from within our world, the holiness of our humanity now embraces the holiness of God’s divinity.

Join the wedding

What does all this mean for us? As for Jesus, so too for us. Through the gift of the Spirit of Love, like Jesus, we too are the place where the unity of heaven and earth takes place. We no longer need look for God in the wrong places: out there, up there. God is within, as the truest part of ourselves. The feast and celebration dramatized at the wedding in Cana is that the marriage of grace and truth, begun in John 1.14-17, brought to fruition in John 2.1-11 will go on and on and on in us and through us until it is complete. Welcome to the wedding.

We are in the season of epiphany. As you know, Epiphany means the manifestation of God to the world. There are three aspects of epiphany that are real for us.

First, Christ is shown as the visibility of the invisible God. As Marcus Borg puts it, Jesus is the human face of God. Second, God in Christ is revealed as one of us; epiphany is about God’s solidarity with us. No longer do we look for God “out there” or “up there”. Instead, God is with us and among us. Third, epiphany is about the compassion of God.

We are invited to join Christ in becoming an Epiphany for our generation, so that what was offered to us in Christ back then, can be offered by him, through us, to the world right now.

The question today is how exactly do we become an Epiphany for our generation? How do we embody the spirit of Epiphany, making God manifest in the world around us?

John preached a message of eschatological destruction, that the world was so filled with corruption that the only option was for God on high to descend in judgement and wipe the slate clean. Listen to John’s sermon: “His winnowing-fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing-floor and to gather the wheat into his granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.’ In summary, the message is turn or burn or in Afrikaans, “draai of braai”. You may recognise the word braai as the equivalent of BBQ, change your ways or end up on the barbeque.

The question is, is this how we are to be an Epiphany of God’s kindness, God’s presence in the world? Does Jesus endorse the message of John? I suggest not.

The biblical record as I read it, suggests that Jesus turns John’s preaching on its head. The reading from Luke depicts what happens after the baptism. Jesus, it seems, is the Christ of Epiphany in that he stands in solidarity with humanity and the world’s brokenness by agreeing to be baptised. When Jesus is baptised, it would seem that he is an anonymous member of a great crowd of people who were being baptised. However, the prayer experience that happens to Jesus after the baptism turns John’s message inside out: “and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, ‘You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.’ What is significant about this statement is that this message – with you I am well pleased – implies that Jesus is guiltless before God. Whatever sin John the Baptist is concerned about, has already been forgiven. Luke tells us Jesus was about thirty years old when he began his work. This seemingly irrelevant detail implies that Jesus’ work is priestly work, because it was only when a man reached the age of thirty that he could begin to function as a priest.

While John’s message is turn or burn the experience of Jesus communicates to us that being the Christ is bound up in the experience of being loved as a beloved, with whom the Divine is well pleased.

Obviously, the presence of the Spirit in bodily form also recalls the presence of the Spirit at the dawn of creation. In Genesis 1, as creation is created, God pronounces at every moment, “Tov” or ”it is Good”. Likewise, to be an epiphany for our generation is to announce to people at the beginning of their journey, “tov,” very good, blessing, you are beloved, you are touched by Divine favour. I suggest to you that the way we are an Epiphany for our generation is to communicate to the world God loves the fundamental blessing that the world is; that at the beginning of anything, every member of the world is a beloved on whom divine favour rests. 

So where to from here? How do we graduate from John’s message of condemnation to Jesus’ message of grace, that at the beginning we are beloved, and the Divine favour rests on us?

Perhaps the journey to being an Epiphany that manifests divine blessing begins in our own souls as we learn first-hand that we are God’s beloved. Announcing that the world is caressed by divine favour often requires that we experience God’s confidence in us first. We live our own truth as touched by divine favour. The hope is that trusting in our own identity as beloved of God may automatically give confidence to others to trust in their identity as deeply loved.

The human condition is one where our core goodness is challenged by an inner voice of self-criticism, self-doubt, or a tireless, negative feedback loop. Many have found writing and meditating on a beloved charter a helpful spiritual discipline in healing the soul’s tendency to resist the grace of being loved. Below is an example.

 A Beloved Charter

NAME, you are my beloved in whom I delight. On you my favour rests. There is nothing that you can do to make me love you more and nothing that you can do to make me love you less. NAME you did not choose me, I chose you. You are my friend. I formed your inward parts and knitted you together in your mother's womb. NAME you are fearfully and wonderfully made, made a little lower than angels and crowned with glory and honour. You have been created in Christ Jesus for good works which I have already prepared to be your way of life. When you pass through the waters I will be there; and through the rivers, they will not overwhelm you, when you walk through the fire you will not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you. You are precious in my sight, and honoured, and I love you. I know all your longings; your sighing is not hidden from me. Nothing will ever be able to separate you from my love. Abide in My love.

(A reflection based on Luke 1:39–45, 46b-55)

In those days Mary set out and went with haste to a Judean town in the hill country, where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth.  When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the child leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit and exclaimed with a loud cry, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me? For as soon as I heard your greeting, the child in my womb leaped for joy. And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfilment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.”

And Mary said, “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour, and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour, for he has looked with favour on the lowliness of his servant. Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed; for the Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name.  His mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation.  He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.  He has brought down the powerful from their thrones and lifted up the lowly;  he has filled the hungry with good things and sent the rich away empty.  He has helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy, according to the promise he made to our ancestors, to Abraham and to his descendants forever.”

One point of view is to see the Incarnation as a once off event. What if there is another point of view, another way to see the Incarnation? What if the Incarnation could also be the fulfilment of human history and the final goal of evolution?

Here is an over brief history of evolution: 

1.    Some 13.7 billion years ago, our Universe emerges out of a Great Mystery. Existence gives rise to space and energy. Energy cools into matter, sub-atomic particles emerge as radical new beings with new powers. Drawn into relationship, subatomic particles transform into atoms of hydrogen. Intense pressures act on hydrogen to fuse helium, a heavier atom. Atoms are new beings with new powers. 

2.    Fast Forward to 3.7 billion years later (10 billion years ago), interstellar dust produces molecules, the basis for later life. 

3.    Let’s fast forward even further. About 4.6 billion years ago our ancestral star goes supernova and gives birth to the sun, the earth, and our solar system. The earth and moon dance around each other and together waltz around the sun gathering mass as they go. After planetary crashes and more dancing, the moon and earth cool down. 

4.    An atmosphere forms giving rise to first rains. Earth comes alive. The earth learns to eat the Sun through photosynthesis. Bacteria and complex cells develop, entering communion with other cells. 

5.    Let’s summarise faster. 460 million years ago, plants and animals move on land.

6.    4 million years ago humanoids leave the forest, stand up, and walk on two legs. The savannah offers the challenges and opportunities for these early creatures to evolve into humans.

7.    100 thousand years ago consciousness develops. Evolution becomes conscious of itself. Modern Humans emerge. Language, shamanic and goddess religions, and art become integral with human life.

8.    Two thousand and twenty-five years ago, in about 4BCE, Mary and Elizabeth meet and sing and dance and laugh and celebrate a new stage in evolution. The new stage in evolution is this: the advent of a human being so open to the divine, so open to Spirit, that his consciousness will become divine consciousness. 

The point being made is this: Life on earth developed over millions of years to produce matter, then, plants, animals and then humans. A point in evolution was reached where consciousness emerged when evolution became conscious of itself. We are thinking creatures, and we inherit every stage of evolution. Just as all humans inherit consciousness as benefactors of evolutionary history, so too do we inherit divine consciousness. Divine consciousness, the marriage of our divine and human selves, is the goal of the universe as reveal in the Incarnation and birth of Christ. 

In the incarnation which Mary and Elizabeth sing and dance around, much like the moon and earth danced around the sun in the beginning, a new destiny of the universe is revealed – the marriage of the divine and human. 

What does all of this mean for us? 

Like Mary we are all pregnant with divine possibility. Mary is theotokos the mother of God but in many ways, she is out mother too. Like Mary we are all birthing Christ into the world in the new era of evolution which is the unity between our divine and human selves. 

Our capacity for transcendence, for growth, for authenticity and our continual desire for justice, truth and beauty in the world are all sacred signs of the divine within us. We discover the spiritual truth that we are in God, that our deepest identity and joy lies in living the truth that we are in God. The universal meaning of the Incarnation is converse, God is in us. As advent people, we are pregnant with the full flowering of God’s love, and we birth this Christ love into the world, moment by moment. How do we know when the Christ is birthed into the world? Ironically, those moments when we are fully human, moments of kindness, gentleness, and presence, are those moments when we are fully divine too. 

Welcome to the Glory of God, the birth of the ones fully alive, human and fully divine. 

Sources and further reading: 

·       Sister Lucy Slinger. The Cosmic Walk. 

·       Bede Griffiths. 

·       Ilia Delio. 

·       Ken Wilbur. 

·       Beatrice Bruteau. 

Irenaeus said the Glory of God is humanity fully alive, fully human, fully God (From Adversus Haereses (Against Heresies), 4. 34. 5-7.

Reflection from 14 November 2021

MARK 13 

As Jesus was leaving the temple, one of his disciples said to him, “Look, Teacher! What massive stones! What magnificent buildings!”2 “Do you see all these great buildings?” replied Jesus. “Not one stone here will be left on another; every one will be thrown down.”3 As Jesus was sitting on the Mount of Olives opposite the temple, Peter, James, John, and Andrew asked him privately, 4 “tell us, when will these things happen? And what will be the sign that they are all about to be fulfilled?” 5 Jesus said to them: “Watch out that no one deceives you. 6 Many will come in my name, claiming, ‘I am he,’ and will deceive many. 7 When you hear of wars and rumours of wars, do not be alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. 8 Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be earthquakes in various places, and famines. These are the beginning of birth pains.

 PERCY SHELLEY'S "OZYMANDIAS"

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
My name is Ozymandias, king of kings;
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away."

The poem is the result of an informal competition where Shelley and his poet friends took as inspiration a phrase from Diodorus Siculus.Greek historian Diodorus Siculus wrote Bibliotheca historica, which summarises world history in 40 books. He lived first century BCE Sicily. In the books describing the history of Egypt, Diodorus portrays an Egyptian statue with the inscription: "King of Kings Ozymandias am I. If any want to know how great I am and where I lie, let him outdo me in my work." Ozymandias is the Greek word for King Rameses II. In Shelley's poem Diodorus becomes "a traveller from an antique land”.

Shelley’s poem Ozymandias is a modern summary of today’s text; that the greatest men, the greatest kingdoms, the greatest empires fade into oblivion. Nothing is permanent. Shall we have a play and see if Ozymandias is indeed a modern interpretation of a Biblical apocalyptic text in Mark 13? 

I met a traveller from an antique land as Jesus was leaving the temple. One of his disciples said to him: “Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone stand in the desert.” 

“Look, Teacher! What massive stones!” Near them, on the sand, half sunk, a shattered visage lies. “What magnificent buildings!” 

“Whose frown, and wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command do you see?” All these great buildings” replied Jesus, “tell that its sculptor well those passions read. Not one stone here will be left on another, which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things.” 

3 As Jesus was sitting on the Mount of Olives opposite the temple, the hand that mocked them and the heart that fed: Peter, James, John. And Andrew asked him privately: “tell us, when will these things happen? And on the pedestal these words appear, and what will be the sign that they are all about to be fulfilled?” 

“My name is Ozymandias.” 

Jesus said to them: “Watch out that no one deceives you, king of kings; many will come in my name, claiming, ‘I am he,’ and will deceive many. Look on my works. When you hear of wars and rumours of wars ye Mighty, and despair! Do not be alarmed. Nothing beside remains. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come.  Round the decay of that colossal wreck, nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. Boundless and bare, there will be earthquakes in various places, and famines, the lone and level sands stretch far away. These are the beginning of birth pains.

 APOCALYPTIC

Mark 13 is apocalyptic literature. Apocalyptic texts are a preacher’s worst nightmare because it is hard to explain and distorted in a quagmire of Hollywood horrors, b grade novels and fundamentalist interpretation. Apocalyptic means uncovering or revealing or making clear. The question is, what does Mark’s Jesus wantto make clear for us? What is Jesus uncovering for us? What is unveiled for you in this text? What do you see as if for the first time? The thing to remember about apocalyptic writing is that it is about the here and now – there is no future date to add to your google calendar.  Jesus moves us out of our comfort zones and confronts us with reality by ripping the cataracts out of eyes. Using apocalyptic language of destruction there are aspects of reality that Jesus wants to make clear for us. What Jesus wants to remind us of is that nothing is permanent. Nothing lasts forever. Only God is infinite. In a moment everything can change.  Like the disciples who were awed at stable eternity of the Temple, one of the great wonders of the ancient world, we too might be awed by the beauty, eternity, and stability of our temple churches, such as St Paul’s, Washington National Cathedral, the Vatican, Notre-Dame… Democracy, a capitalist-socialist economy, the use of coal as energy, private property, our memorials to war … Jesus says it will all be turned to rubble. Our empires will tumble. Institutions will crumble. That which we think will last forever is as fragile as a soap bubble. You think civilisation is making progress? Jesus says every single civilisation “will be thrown down”. Just ask England, Greece, Rome, Carthage, Persia. You think our research and technology will make the world a safer place? Jesus says, “that will be reduced to mere rubble?” Just ask the inventors of asbestos, cfc, and plastic. You think our creeds and faith will last infinitely? Jesus says that is man-made and not one stone of it will be left. Just ask the church in Ephesus, founded in 1 CE but destroyed in 262 CE by the Goths. To all the things we take for granted and assume will always be there, Jesus says they are coming to an end. Or in Shelley’s words to Ozymandias, “Nothing beside remains. Round the decay of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare, the lone and level sands stretch far away." In short, Jesus says, nothing around us is built to last. 

Many of us here are already aware that life is fragile and cataclysmic destruction in some way awaits us all. We can rightly block our ears and shout back at Jesus: “I know the reality of earthquakes and famine and that life erupts and is left in rubble.” Parents do not expect to bury their children. Yet the unexpected death of a much-loved child makes you feel like the walls of what you thought were your life tumble down, stone after stone, leaving you shattered. People expect their health to flourish but an unexpected illness comes like an earthquake that unsettles even the most stable of relationships. People expect to come home from a hard day of work and relax at home. Yet homes are destroyed by flood and fire leaving your sense of safety and belonging destroyed like the temple. People invest in growing their faith but learn the hard way that when something is gained something is also lost. Deeper faith, deeper prayer, growth in God does not come as cheerful progress but rather like walls coming down as what you believed in is ripped away by new experiences. Our inability to let go will cause misery.

 ETERNAL CHANGELESSNESS?

I love the poetry and effortless breeze of good liturgy. Thanks to my regular attendance at a high church cathedral, many of the ancient collect’s included in Cranmer’s prayerbook have been chanted into my permanent memory. The evening collect is a good example:

Be present, O merciful God, and protect us through the silent hours of this night,

so that we who are wearied

by the changes and chances of this fleeting world,

may rest upon your eternal changelessness.

through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. 

Beautiful words, yet my experience of Jesus is closer to that of Mark’s in chapter 13. Jesus doesn’t answer my restlessness with rest but stirs it up further with more unrest. Wearied by the changes of this fleeting world, Jesus’s answer to prayer is not with changelessness, but even more change. Jesus comes as a divine disrupter, not eternal changelessness. As Jesus once threw over the tables in the temple, he overthrows the neatness of our ordered lives and ushers in a holy chaos. Having Jesus in our life is downright inconvenient. 

 IN THE END IS THE BEGINNING

From our perspective the precariousness of life, the fragility of our institutions, the frangibility of relationships and all we rely on may seem like death. Yet with Jesus these can be the birth pangs of new life. When our world is totally torn apart, and it feels like the end, a new world is made available by God and the pain of death becomes the labour of a new world. In every ending is a new beginning. Jesus invites us to accept with detachment the impermanence of life. Some say accepting that nothing lasts forever gives us the urgency to embrace the present as the precious gift that it is. For others accepting with detachment the impermanence of life inspires patient endurance in any non-violent struggle against oppression. Both perspectives our summed up in Edward FitzGerald’s fable “Solomon’s Seal"

Solomon decided to humble Benaiah. He said to him, “Benaiah, there is a certain ring that I want you to bring to me. I wish to wear it for Sukkot which gives you six months to find it.”

“If it exists anywhere on earth, your majesty,” replied Benaiah,

“I will find it and bring it to you, but what makes the ring so special?”

“It has magic powers,” answered the king. “If a happy man looks at it, he becomes sad, and if a sad man looks at it, he becomes happy.” Solomon knew that no such ring existed in the world, but he wished to give his minister a little taste of humility.

 Benaiah had no idea where he could find the ring. On the night before Sukkot, he decided to take a walk in one of the poorest quarters of Jerusalem. He passed by a merchant who had begun to set out the day’s wares on a shabby carpet. “Have you by any chance heard of a magic ring that makes the happy wearer forget his joy and the broken-hearted wearer forget his sorrows?” asked Benaiah.

He watched the grandfather take a plain gold ring from his carpet and engrave something on it. When Benaiah read the words on the ring, his face broke out in a wide smile. That night the entire city welcomed in the holiday of Sukkot with great festivity.

“Well, my friend,” said Solomon, “have you found what I sent you after?” To everyone’s surprise, Benaiah held up a small gold ring and declared, “Here it is, your majesty!” As soon as Solomon read the inscription, the smile vanished from his face. The jeweller had written three Hebrew letters on the gold band: gimel, zayin, yud, which began the words “Gam zeh ya’avor” — “This too shall pass.” 

Mark 10:46-52

46Jesus and his disciples came to Jericho. As he and his disciples and a large crowd were leaving Jericho, Bartimaeus son of Timaeus, a blind beggar, was sitting by the roadside. 47When he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to shout out and say, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” 48Many sternly ordered him to be quiet, but he cried out even more loudly, “Son of David, have mercy on me!” 49Jesus stood still and said, “Call him here.” And they called the blind man, saying to him, “Take heart; get up, he is calling you.” 50 So throwing off his cloak, he sprang up and came to Jesus. 51Then Jesus said to him, “What do you want me to do for you?” The blind man said to him, “My teacher, let me see again.” 52Jesus said to him, “Go; your faith has made you well.” Immediately he regained his sight and followed him on the way. 

What has been seen cannot be unseen

I began full time ministry in South Africa in the early 2000’s. I was in my early twenties. It was an euphoric time to be South African. Desmond Tutu’s dream of a rainbow nation seemed to be coming true. As one of the youngest ministers at clergy meetings, I was among much older colleagues. Many ministers bore physical, spiritual, emotional, and psychological scars from the fight against apartheid. Some had been jailed. Some tortured. Some had been constantly watched and hassled by the security branch. Fearing for their children’s safety, some ministers had to farm their children out to friends. It is fair to say, that being a minister during Apartheid and standing against the injustices of the law came at great personal cost. I remember asking a senior priest how he managed to find the courage to take a stand against the status quo, against the state, against the police, and even against close family when it came at so great a cost. I shall not forget his reply. “My dear Desiree” he said. “What has been seen cannot be unseen.”  

What has been seen cannot be unseen. Seeing is precisely the crux of authentic discipleship. Following Jesus is not about understanding complex Christian doctrines originally espoused in Greek and Latin. Nor is following Jesus about doing churchy things, although coming to church will help, since none of us can thrive isolated. Following Jesus is not about knowing the liturgy off by heart or even being pious. To follow Jesus is about whether you want to see, or not. Six words summarise today’s message: to follow Jesus is to see. Our wealth as OED Christians cannot protect us from our spiritual poverty nor our spiritual blindness.

What is it that we must see, you ask? While there are many ways to answer this question, a one-word answer is injustice. To follow Jesus is to see the injustice that destroys creation and humanity. Ched Myers is more poetic:  

To see our weary world as it truly is, without denial and delusion: the inconvenient truths about economic disparity and racial oppression and ecological destruction and war without end...  Discipleship invites us to apprehend life in its deepest trauma and its greatest ecstasy, in order that we might live into God’s vision of the pain and the promise[1]. 

About some words in the text

As we look at the text, there are symbols that are worth noting:

“Jericho”

Jesus has been moving south from Galilee towards Jericho. Twice, mention is made of Jericho. Jericho is symbolic of “The Way”, remembering that the first Christians were called people of The Way. Mark is calling us to follow Jesus on the road, on the way to Jericho, on the way to full sight. 

I wonder what Jericho symbolised for the first audience. Does it remind readers of the time that the walls of Jericho came down when people shouted? There is an Old Testament story about a hero called Joshua who fought a battle at Jericho and the walls came tumbling down when people shouted. 

The shouting of Bartimaeus on the road to Jericho could prefigure the fact that at the shout of Jesus, Jerusalem and particularly the temple will be shouted down (Mark 13.2)?   

“Shout”

Bartimaeus cries out. The word is kratzo. It has been used several times in Mark: the demons cry out “What do you want with us Jesus of Nazareth when Jesus first begins his ministry. (3.11 Whenever the unclean spirits saw him, they fell down before him and shouted, "You are the Son of God!") 

Bartimaeus cries out in Mark 10. The crowds cry out at Jesus’ trial, and Jesus cries out when he dies on the cross. Indeed, at the final cry of the Gospel when Jesus gives up his spirit the temple tumbles.   

“Bartimaeus”

The healing story of Mark 10.46-52 in Jericho reminds us of the healing in Mark 8.31 near Bethsaida.  There are of course some differences. In the first healing story Jesus heals the man twice. In the second story, the blind man’s faith makes him well. In the first story the blind man is brought to Jesus. In the second story Bartimaeus asks Jesus for healing himself while others try to stop him.   

The name of the person Bartimaeus is mentioned and explained. This is one of the only times that the recipient is named. Bartimaeus means “son of a precious one.” The one whom society literally sidelines, is the precious one.  

The crowds at first rebuke Bartimaeus. Rebuke is a strong word. Is it not enough that he is blind, must he be mute as well? The crowds add to his disability by requiring muteness on top of blindness. 

“Jesus, Son of David,” is what Bartimaeus calls out.  The irony is that the blind man “sees” who Jesus is, better than James and John and the other disciples who are blind to the type of Messiah that Jesus wants to be.

There is further irony in Bartimaeus calling out “Jesus, Son of David,” in that David was said to have been prejudiced against the blind and the lame. There is a vague idea that King David “hated” the blind and the lame and forbade them from ever entering Jericho. 2 Samuel 5.8 explains the supposed origins of David’s prejudice against the blind and the lame: “David said on that day, "Whoever would strike the Jebusites, let him reach the lame and the blind, who are hated by David's soul, through the water tunnel." Therefore, they say, "The blind or the lame shall not come into the house."  

“Cloak”

Clothing is a powerful symbol in Mark’s Gospel. Usually, leaving a cloak behind symbolises a journey in transformation. Bartimaeus leaves his cloak, as does the unnamed man at the end of the Gospel after the Resurrection of Jesus. The cloak also reminds us of the woman with the issue of blood who hoped that merely touching the edge of Jesus’ cloak would heal her.  

Our new cloaks

What do we do in reaction to the story in Mark 10.46-52? How is our blindness healed?

On one level, the Scriptures may question how people are treated, particularly differently abled people. In the reading it is not enough that the man is blind, he is muted when the crowds rebuke him. The recent Para-Olympics were an astonishing celebration of the nobility of the human spirit in facing challenges of mobility and other issues. The cry of Bartimaeus is a continuous call for us to assess our own hospitality to difference and those with challenges.  I believe it is not the disabled who are disabled but society who is disabled. If we were to design buildings and processes properly with inclusion as a central value, then so-called disabilities cease to exist as a disability but become another incredible way of being human. For example, if a path is properly designed, two people journey in diverse ways, one on wheels and one in runners.  

On another level, the Scriptures are a reminder of the power of the prophetic voice. At the Crucifixion when Jesus cries out the second temple tumbles down. The prophetic cry is a sober reminder that institutions that are not life giving will eventually tumble.   

Some here today may be called to be on the road with Jesus and Bartimaeus. We may be called to leave behind the cloaks of old patterns, behaviours, and ways. Perhaps one message is that we are to follow Jesus the other half of the way. In the words of Meister Eckhart: “There are plenty that follow the Lord halfway, but not the other half. They will give up possessions, friends, and honours, but it touches them too deeply to disown themselves.”  The symbol of leaving one’s cloak behind is precisely the pleasure of disowning oneself, of self-renunciation, of setting aside the fragile false ego. Thomas Kelly explains that to follow Jesus all the way to Jerusalem from Jericho is “the astonishing life” where one intends complete obedience, without any reservations to commit our lives in obedience to Christ literally, utterly, and completely.  It is to this that we are all called when we throw of our cloaks and follow Jesus the other half of the way.    

I end with a prayer from Charles de Focauld who left his cloak behind and followed Jesus on the road from Jericho to Jerusalem. Brother Charles of Jesus not only gave up possession, friends and honours, he disowned himself too, willingly giving himself fully to God.

The Prayer of Abandonment of Brother Charles of Jesus

Father, I abandon myself into Your hands;  
do with me what You will.  
Whatever You do I thank You.  
I am ready for all, I accept all.  
Let only Your will be done in me,  
as in all Your creatures,  
I ask no more than this, my Lord.  

Into Your hands I commend my soul;  
I offer it to You, O Lord,  
with all the love of my heart,  
for I love You, my God, and so need to give myself--  
to surrender myself into Your hands,  
without reserve and with total confidence, 
for You are my Mother. Amen.

[1] https://chedmyers.org/2018/10/25/the-feast-of-bartimaeus-celebrating-an-old-tome-a-new-home-and-a-sacred-story-by-ched-myers/

Mark 10:35–45

35 James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came forward to Jesus and said to him, “Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.” 36 And he said to them, “What is it you want me to do for you?” 37 And they said to him, “Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory.” 38 But Jesus said to them, “You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink or be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?” 39 They replied, “We are able.” Then Jesus said to them, “The cup that I drink you will drink; and with the baptism with which I am baptized, you will be baptized; 40 but to sit at my right hand or at my left is not mine to grant, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared.” 41 When the ten heard this, they began to be angry with James and John. 42 So Jesus called them and said to them, “You know that among the Gentiles those whom they recognize as their rulers lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. 43 But it is not so among you; but whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, 44 and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all. 45 For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.”  

Think of a sunflower, they bow to the sun

Life Is Beautiful (La vita è bella) is an Italian film from 1997. It is astonishingly beautiful with many memorable teaching moments. In short, the film is a love story. A Jewish bookseller, Guido, marries the woman of his dreams, Dora, and together with their son they enjoy a fairy tale life. The beauty of their life is interrupted by the cruelty of the Holocaust and their internment as Jews in a concentration camp when Italy is occupied by the Germans in WWII. The love story is about how a father uses his sense of humour and imagination to save his son from the cruelties of life in a concentration camp. Guido convinces his son that the Nazi rules are part of an intricate game and that if he earns enough "points" he will win a tank.

In the film, the narrator, Guido's grown son, looks back and describes his dad's imaginative creation of that ploy as "his gift to me." 

At the start of the film, Life is beautiful, Guido is learning to be a waiter. His uncle, Elesio, has secured him a job in Northern Italy and is training him in the art of being a waiter at a fine dining restaurant. Guido says: “How far do I bow? I suppose I can even go 180 degrees.” Eliseo replies: “Think of a sunflower, they bow to the sun. But if you see some that are bowed too far down, it means they're dead. You're here serving, you're not a servant. Serving is the supreme art. God is the first of servants. God serves men, but he's not a servant to men.” 

“Think of a sunflower, they bow to the sun…Serving is the supreme art. God is the first of servants…”

The lesson from Elesio, that service is the supreme art, is precisely the truth that Jesus wants to impart to his disciples, and what Jesus wants to impart to us.

Mark 10.32-45

As you know, the Gospel of Mark is characterised by Jesus’ disciples, his closest friends, failing repeatedly to understand the purpose of his ministry and the dynamics of the kingdom of God. Three times Jesus has predicted his death and three times the disciples have failed to listen and understand him. Significantly, these episodes where the disciples totally fail to appreciate the ministry of Jesus, are framed by the healing of blind men.

Healing of a blind man 

Jesus predicts his death 

Peter’s failure to understand

Jesus predicts his death 

The disciples’ failure to understand  

Jesus predicts his death 

James and John fail to understand  

Healing of a blind man.   

Ironically the blind men “see” Jesus better than the disciples ever can. People often expect that the “leaders” of a movement are the heroes that have an inside intimacy, knowledge, and experience of the Christ figure at the heart of the Jesus way of life. Mark’s Gospel is a warning to us that “outsiders” often understand more than “insiders” about the type of faith Jesus calls forth. We would all do well to heed this warning and be openly curious and eager to hear what those outside of our faith tradition have to say about us and their understanding of the faith we practice.  

Each time the disciples misunderstand Jesus, he teaches them the fundamental point of the kingdom of God, that the last are first and the first are last. In other words, everything in God’s Kingdom on earth is structured or should be structured with the needs of the most vulnerable at the centre. The only way to operate is by ensuring that policies, procedures, laws, and processes secure the full flourishing of the least, the lost and the last.  

Jesus predicts that his love and service of humankind will lead to his death for a third time. In response James and John ask for positions of intimacy, privilege, and power. Service as the supreme art is Elesio’s message to Guido and Jesus’ message to James and John and the rest of the disciples. The disciples want to sit at the right and left of Jesus when he takes up his throne. What we know, and the disciples are yet to find out, is that the throne of Jesus is the cross. Those on Jesus’ left and right when he comes into his kingdom are two criminals crucified alongside him. The cup that Jesus our king drinks from is not from a jewel inlaid golden chalice usually associated with royalty, but vinegar on a sponge at the end of a stick, offered by a kind soldier. Jesus embodies what Elesio taught, that service is a supreme art.  

Visionary servant leadership

I was ordained in the Diocese of Johannesburg, (in the Church of the Province South Africa). Emerging out of the Apartheid era, the Diocese of Johannesburg totally restructured itself in response to the new situation it found itself in.  The whole concept of what it meant to be an Anglican church in the dawn of the new century was holistically redefined. One of the key aspects of this change in church structure is visionary servant leadership. The fundamental point being made was that leadership is a task not a position. Leaders are but trusted servants, and all Christ followers are fundamentally visionary servant leaders.  

In today’s text Jesus refers to two sacraments: baptism and the Eucharist: “The cup that I drink, you will drink; and with the baptism with which I am baptized, you will be baptized”. All of us who are baptised, all of us who share in the sacrament of the Eucharist, share in the visionary servant leadership of Jesus.  

The point about visionary servant leadership as opposed to servant leadership is that we are not meant to be slaves to the false idols of people’s egos, preferences, manipulations, wounds, tantrums, history, traditions, or pride. We serve not as dead sunflowers, bowed so low they touch the ground. We are set free to be visionary servant leaders, to bow as sunflowers who honour the sun. We honour the Christ within people and serve them in ways that allow their true selves, their Christ selves, to shine through. To be visionary servant leaders is to live lives that long for others to have joy.  To be visionary servant leaders is to partner with God in the mending of some part of creation. When we pray, when we love, when we fulfil our highest roles as partners, parents, grandparents, friends, when we authentically love humanity as sunflowers bowing to the sun, we are visionary servant leaders. Perhaps a final image will make this clear. 

Closing image

A story is told about a violinist Fritz Kreisler (February 2, 1875 – January 29, 1962). An Austrian-born American violinist and composer, he was considered one of the greatest violinists of all time because of his tonality and sensitive expression. Kreisler came across a beautiful violin, a Hart, but could not afford it. When he finally raised enough money for the violin, he returned to buy it and learned that it had already been sold to a collector.

Kreisler went to the new owner’s home to persuade him to sell the violin. The collector said that he could not let the violin go. The thwarted Kreisler asked a favour: “May I play the instrument once more before it is consigned to silence?” George Hart had sold the violin to John Adam who, having heard Kreisler play the Hart consented to sell it.

Our purpose as visionary servant leaders is to create the space that allows others to live the life they are meant to live, not as violins reduced to ornaments to gather dust on a collector’s shelf, but rather as violins singing to the world the beauty of their song.

https://tarisio.com/cozio-archive/cozio-carteggio/kreislers-violins/