Luke 6.20-36
 

I only returned home last night from being in Orange where I assisted a really helpful and sincere Catholic priest conduct the funeral of a very close long-time Vietnam veteran pilot friend of mine. As with all funerals, this event achieved the aim of making it quite clear that, in this life, I won’t see my good mate Ken again. The funeral of Judy Scotcher was held in this building last Monday and it’s not long since our Parish celebrated the life of Sylvia Hannah. Funerals are reminders for us of the reality that life in this world ends. Funerals raise our hope for the life to come.

Today we are pretending that it is 1st November. We are celebrating the feast of All Saints and we remember the song “O, when the Saints go marching in … I want to be in that number”. 

At All Saints we give thanks and praise to God for giving the world the lives of the Saints that we remember. All the outstanding saints of history. But that’s not all; we praise God for the lives of the Saints around us right now and we praise God for Saints yet to come. We ask God for continued strength and focus that we too will really be in that number when the Saints go marching in.

There’s a part of this festival of All Saints that has us looking back and celebrating the remarkable things we know about God’s Saints; the blessings brought about by their lives. Unfortunately, we have let commercialisation cloud our thankfulness for saintly lives. There is smart advertising in our big chain stores and Halloween things being sold in most smaller shops. We have let our indifference to rejoicing in the Saints reduce this great celebration into kids dress ups and extorting big bags of lollies from anyone nice enough to open up their front door.

Well, this festival of All Saints isn’t just a smart marketing event by the Church. Saints are a reality! Not just the “big” saints we associate with the Roman Catholics such as St Francis and St Augustine. There hasn’t always been an emphasis on these big Saints with huge amounts of energy and time going into the process of declaring that someone such as Mary McKillop is our own special Australian official or canonised Saint.

The first Canonised saint was declared only just a little over a thousand years ago in AD  993. There are about 800 canonised Saints but also about 10,000 others; many who have died for their faith. There are 110 “martyred Saints” of China, 103 of Korea and 117 of Vietnam. Hundreds of Japanese Saints are remembered in Nagasaki who were persecuted and killed well before the atomic bomb. There are Mexican, Spanish, and French Revolutionary Saints and Saints who were missionaries in New Guinea.

For the Protestant Church, Saints are all those in heaven; anyone who is a Christian. Protestants generally think that Saints are everyone who belongs to the church (and other people too if they show an exceptional degree of holiness or likeness to God). Put simply, Saints are Holy people who are living now or have died but are remembered.

So, All Saints is a special celebration day for all Christians. This day reminds us that, when we come to a service at St Barts, our worship includes more than the people that we can physically see around us here. We are connected with people all over the world who are saying or singing “Holy, Holy, Holy, God of power and might, heaven and earth are full of your glory”. 

It’s not just us here in Alstonville praising God. We are joined in spirit with people in millions of communities all around the country. All over the world!   

In the same way that some families are very close, even though they live in different towns and different countries, in our worship the Saints help us to feel close to the wider church. We celebrate that there are Saints in Lismore Parish and Murwillumbah Parish and in New Zealand, and in Switzerland. There are Saints right now trying to keep safe in Ukraine and Afghanistan and Lebanon and other dangerous places all around the world.

We celebrate this morning with the saints in the Baptist Church and the Uniting Church and Hillsong Church and the Roman Catholic church; Saints all around the world and even Saints above the earth. While Neil Armstrong took man’s first step on the Moon, ‘Buzz’ Aldrin (who was the pilot of the Lunar Module) took communion before he went down the ladder to be the second man to step foot on the Moon. The Presbyterian church that Buzz Aldrin attends still celebrates his communion service on the Moon every July. They still have the chalice that Buzz used on the moon. More recently, in 2017, a relic of St Serafim of Sarnov (a Russian Orthodox saint) was taken aboard the International Space Station by Russian cosmonaut Sergei Ryzhikov.

Not only are there “present-day” Saints in all Parishes and Denominations, but also in the Church throughout all time; the white robed army we remember. There is a multitude of Saints; “the communion of Saints” They are not just the ones we know and remember, but all the faithful departed. And we celebrate with all the Saints still to come.

Faith in Jesus draws us all together: “with all the company of heaven we praise your name!”

So why does our Lectionary ask us to hear this long reading from Luke (should I say Saint Luke) chapter 6 this morning? This message, that we know as the sermon on the plain, from Luke isn’t an easy lesson to take in.

Jesus says the poor and the hungry and people who weep are blessed (that is happy or joyful). And we are blessed if people hate you and exclude you and revile you because you follow Jesus. Jesus says we should leap for joy about that because our reward is great in heaven. What Jesus is saying is that you don’t have a truly blessed life from getting things or owning things or doing things. We will have a blessed life from being a person with a godlike character (a Saint).

This teaching from Jesus wasn’t just for the people he was talking to back then. This is very applicable to our lives today. It’s describing the kind of Godly character we should have as believers in this world. To be gentle, to mourn, to be merciful, to thirst for what is right, to be a peacemaker is a sign of the presence of God in our lives.

What Jesus did was to focus on attitudes. Our attitude toward circumstances, people, ourselves and God. Jesus wants us to see that we have a choice. We can choose either present gratification or future blessings. It’s our decision! Either short term satisfaction or long term blessing.

In this teaching, Jesus describes four “woes”. These woes all share a common truth. You take what you want from life and you pay for it. If you want wealth, fullness, laughter and popularity, you can have it but there is a price to pay: that is all you will get! Jesus didn’t say that these things were wrong. He said that being satisfied with them is its own judgement.

This lesson isn’t for us as individuals. All the “yous” here are plural. In Aussie language it is “youse”. Jesus is speaking to the disciples as an assembly, a group. Jesus teaches all his people as a church.

As you enter Winchester cathedral in England, a sign says “you are entering a conversation that began long before you were born and will continue long after you’re dead.” To be a Christian partly means that we don’t have to reinvent the wheel. We don’t have to make up this faith as we go along in our lives. The saints will teach us, if we will listen.

This brings us back to the very point of why we are asked to celebrate All Saints today. We see the love of God in all God’s Saints and we are given hope because of the lives that they have lived. We see the wonder of God in all God’s Saints and we are able to learn because of them. We see the beauty of God in all God’s Saints and we are able to be better Christians as we follow their examples.

As we get ready “to join that number as we all go marching in”!

Luke 18.9-14

Why are we so busy? Why are we working so hard? Are we working so hard because we want to be “successful”? What is a successful life? Some say we work so hard to get ahead, or get on top, but get ahead of what? What are we trying to get on top of? At 2am when you are suddenly more awake than you will ever be for the rest of the day, what questions churn across your mind? What fears and anxieties tumble and turn across your dark imagination? Many listening are retired yet are busier now than they ever were when they had careers. Why the busyness? What is it we are hiding from?

Questions regarding our busyness, our hard work, our over stimulated minds are essential for our humanity, let alone our Christian discipleship. Jesus is riding the escalator down while we are riding the escalator up. As Brian McLaren puts it, “The Kingdom of God is about God’s Kingdom being done on Earth. It’s not a plan of upward mobility and how we get to Heaven but about how God’s Kingdom comes down to Earth … it’s a downward movement.”

There are many examples of success, people who are riding the escalator up. Warren Buffet and his success with money is an example of success, as is Bill Gates and Jeff Bizos.  Two weeks ago Liz Truss may have been an example of political success. In the age of social media Instagram celebrities are an example of success.

Essena O’Neil, a young adult, born 1996, is from Coolum on the Sunshine Coast. In 2015 she was a successful model and social media star with more than 600, 000 followers on YouTube and peaking at around 1 million followers on Instagram before she deleted all social media accounts. "I've spent the majority of my teenage life being addicted to social media, social approval, social status, and my physical appearance, " O'Neill writes in her last Instagram post on October 27, "[Social media] is contrived images and edited clips ranked against each other. It's a system based on social approval, likes, validation, in views, success in followers. It's perfectly orchestrated self-absorbed judgement."

https://www.elle.com/culture/news/a31635/essena-oneill-instagram-social-media-is-not-real-life/. Essena left social media because it was toxic for her. Thousands of followers wanted to be just like her. Success, when it is based on how many likes and followers you have, and how, after 100 selfies you have achieved the perfect picture, is not enough. 

Essena, Bill Gates, Jeff Bizos and Warren Buffet all have had success. Now imagine that they have received enlightenment, they have read the Gospel, had an encounter with the risen Christ, and now base their lives totally on God. They live their lives totally for the kingdom of God. They sell all their wealth, give it to the poor and begin a life dedicated to prayer, mediation and serving the poorest of the poor. Would a life of total self-sacrifice be following the path of Christ downwards? Would that be real success? Would that be true humanity, living authentic discipleship? Let us turn to the parable and wrestle some more.

Jesus says, "Two men went up to the temple to pray. One of them was a Pharisee. The other was a tax collector." The tax collector is the most hated person in all Jerusalem. He is like the Mafia. He is a sell out and a Crook. He is very wealthy and not a cent he owns is earned honestly. The Roman Government tells him what he must accumulate by way of tax. The rest of the “tax” he collects is his fee and he determines the price. He is so hated that he probably rarely leaves home without a bodyguard.         

The Pharisee on the other hand is the most loved person in all Jerusalem. He is a success. The pharisee is an amazing father, a brilliant husband, a religious man loved and respected by the poor and community. The Pharisee stands by himself, and he prays, and he says, "God, I thank you that I am not like other people. I am not a thief. I am not a rogue. I am not an adulterer. I am certainly not like this tax collector over here. I fast twice a week. I give away a tenth of my income." That is his speech.

Then the tax collector says (he won't look up to the heaven; he looks at his shoe tips), "God be merciful to me a sinner." Then Jesus says, "I tell you this man (the tax collector) went to his house justified rather than the other.

Jesus says, "Two men went up to the temple to pray. One of them was a Pharisee. The other was a tax collector”: Jesus has set you up. The examples of the pharisee and the tax collector are hyperbolic, comedy satire and extreme caricatures. Parables such as the tax collector and pharisee are like fried eggs. Over easy parables, like over easy eggs, leave you with egg on your face. The parable could simply be an example of the virtue of humility. But is humility the point of the parable?

The mention of the pharisee is the first warning that we are walking into an interpretation trap. Although in a Biblical context a pharisee may be a loved and respected person, we have been conditioned to be suspicious of the pharisees. We have been taught to be wary of their hypocrisy, their religiosity, the way they place the needs of the Bible over the needs of people, their tendency to oversimplify the world into good and bad, right and wrong, black and white, with little possibility for grey. Thus as we hear or read the parable of the pharisee and the tax collector we may subconsciously be praying: “dear God thank you that I am not like this pharisee, thank you that I am not so self-righteous, thank you that I do not boast about my piety like he does, thank you that I am humble like this tax collector…thank you that I am a sheep, and you are my shepherd.” Luke 18.9-14 is an incredibly difficult parable to preach, least of all because it so well worn and familiar. The second we divide any aspect of creation into any kind of groups: goodies and baddies, insiders and outsiders, progressives and conservatives, helpful plants and insects vs less helpful plants and annoying flies, midges and mosquitos, native species vs alien invaders and noxious weeds, native marsupials vs feral dogs, rabbits, rats and pigs … we are standing boots and all in the camp of the pharisees (see I have already made my own mistake…sigh). Every time we hear a story of suffering and think “there but for the grace of God go I” we are standing alongside the pharisee. We hear and see stories of destruction and recovery from the flood survivors, and we think “there but for the grace of God go I”… we have somehow stepped into the shoes of the pharisees because we have divided the world into those who need help and those who don’t.  

By the way – the point of the parable is not about humility. Nor is Jesus reprimanding the Pharisee for showing off. At no point does Jesus disagree with the pharisee. The pharisee is 100 percent correct. He is righteous. Righteous means successful. The pharisee is a successful man. He has understood the law and lived it. The pharisee is living a good life, an authentic life, he is exercising his gratitude for all the goodness he enjoys. The problem is, as Jesus sees it, is that the Pharisee thinks his good deeds, his success at living, can give him meaning, can give him purpose, and can heal the world. The problem is not the pharisee or the tax collector, but religion.

The essential message is this: Jesus comes to end religion. And as long as we remain religious we will never inherit the kingdom of God, which is always at hand, always present, always within, always abundantly available, all the time, in all places to all people.  The kingdom of God is like air, it is always there, always, and everywhere available but difficult to contain, to catch and to possess.

Humankind is desperately religious. What is religion? Religion means that we believe that there is something we can do from our side that can fix our relationship with Jesus or fill the emptiness we feel or force meaning into our lives. God is not going to risk mending the entire universe on the merits of good behaviour, on successful programs and successful people. Religion is the best thing in the world and the worst thing. That which makes you holy also makes you evil. For example Paul writes in his letter to the Romans how Israel is looking for a righteousness derived from the law. It failed. Why? Because they relied on being good rather than trust. Success, law, or religion has no power to transform the world. Law, religion, success in whatever form is not going to change the world. Lastness, leastness, lostness, littleness: being a loser, being dead to self, are what open us to the possibility of peace, transformation, and well-being. For this reason, Jesus is not upset with sinners, religion is upset with sinners. Jesus is only upset with those that think they are not sinners – mostly the religious. Doing it wrong and mercy is what takes us to God.

The story is a parable about the futility of religion, the futility of success as we define it: that there isn’t anything at all that we can do to put ourselves right with God, there is little we can do to heal the emptiness or anxiety or fear or a lack of meaning and purpose.

Why is the tax collector justified?  What is it about him that opens him to justification? I think it has something to do with emptiness, something to do with reaching the end of your own resources, knowing that you have tried everything and knowing you need help. The biblical word for this is death. The only way that we can be reconciled to God, the only way we can live a full and meaningful life, is through death. How will we be saved by being dead? Being dead – dead to self, dead to religion, dead to thinking that our good deeds will help, dead to any ideas of success, finally makes us empty enough to be filled with the presence of God.

That is the message of the parable – when we are empty enough for God, God’s Grace transforms. God’s grace rushes in and changes us from the inside out. God’s grace changes the world. Grace is God’s acceptance of us. What does a prayer of an empty one look like? Perhaps we can pray with Merton:

My Lord God,
I have no idea where I am going.
I do not see the road ahead of me.
I cannot know for certain where it will end.
nor do I really know myself,
and the fact that I think I am following your will
does not mean that I am actually doing so.
But I believe that the desire to please you
does in fact please you.
And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing.
I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire.

And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road,

though I may know nothing about it.
Therefore will I trust you always though
I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death.

I will not fear, for you are ever with me,
and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.

“The Merton Prayer” from Thoughts in Solitude Copyright © 1956, 1958 by The Abbey of Our Lady of Gethsemani. Used by permission of Farrar Straus Giroux.

Today’s gospel reading, the so-called parable of the Persistent Widow, occurs near the end of Jesus’ journey to Jerusalem and immediately follows his teaching about the coming of God’s kingdom. Despite the shift to the topic of prayer, the eschatological thread of the previous passage is sustained. In brief, it offers the imperative of persistently and actively relying on God, even in the face of insufferable injustice.

The parable itself focuses on a widow dealing with a judge in a corrupt judicial system. The widow repeatedly approaches the judge in pursuit of justice to no avail, and, the judge, equally persistently, ignores her pleas. The judge ignores the law and the prophets, which unambiguously include provisions to ensure that widows, orphans, the poor, and resident aliens do not become victims of exploitation.[i]

Jesus’ audience, would have found the judge’s lack of action particularly scandalous. Notably, however, this widow strongly resists such exploitation.

Like other widows before her, such as Tamar, Ruth and Naomi (not to mention other heroines throughout history), Luke’s widow takes matters into her own hands. And her persistence in pressing for justice is such that the judge characterizes her actions as those of a boxer.[ii] In the original Greek, the judge comes to fear that the widow will give him a black eye (hypopiazo) [iii], a boxing metaphor. And let us note that Paul uses exactly the same word when he writes, “so I do not run aimlessly, nor do I box as though beating air.[iv]

English translations quench the humour Luke has infused into this scene; a humour which pokes fun at the powers that be, “lampooning and upending the unjust system stacked against widows, orphans, immigrants.”[v] The equivalent of modern-day political cartoons, which use humour and satire to make their point.

The conclusion of the parable touches on the character of God and the nature of faith. “God is … not like this reluctantly responsive judge. If anything, God is more like the widow in her own relentless commitment to justice.”[vi]

OK. That was the nuts-and-bolts bit; but there are many rabbit holes to explore.

Last week, Desiree reminded us that in-between-spaces are spaces of transformation. And if you have ever been down a rabbit hole, you would know that it is chock full of them. More like the mythical labyrinth built for King Minos of Crete by Daedalus, the mythical Greek inventor, architect, and sculptor. Daedalus became a symbol of wisdom, knowledge and power.

Behold the inner life of an introvert. The rabbit hole I happened upon started with the term “persistent prayer”, thence to meander through Thessalonians, Isaiah, Kings, a Psalm,  and finally the Book of Wisdom. Thus: (Paul)[vii] Pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances. … Do not quench the Spirit– (Isaiah) [viii]  A bruised reed he will not break, and a dimly burning wick he will not quench; he will faithfully bring forth justice – (1 Kings)[ix] But the Lord was not in the fire; and after the fire a sound of sheer silence – (Psalm 46) [x] Be still and know that I am God.

The thread I followed started with prayer without ceasing and arrived at stillness and silence, with justice neatly book ended in between.

Of course, we encounter silence in everyday life, say, in response to unwelcome news of one sort or another. News of the death of a loved one always renders me silent, as do the associated memories; the silence at the end of a really good concert or play speaks volumes about our collective awe and appreciation; and sometimes we are silent simply because we do not know what to say or do.

The common factor in these kinds of silence is a loss of power. For example, how do I normalise the knowledge that I’m going to die, or that someone I love is going to die, or that a loved one has died? I cannot. The human trait is to try to “do the right thing” in response to critical moments in order to stop them being critical.

But such attempts to control or domesticate critical situations diminishes our humanity, reinforcing a false self, rather than accessing our true self and beyond. As Rowan Williams[xi] pointed out, if we wish to develop and grow as human beings, then we must accept moments when we are taken beyond the familiar and the controllable. True humanity welcomes silence as an in-between space, if you like; a space of learning, wisdom and growth.

I often find pearls of wisdom in unlikely places. My latest source is one of the Percy Jackson novels I am currently bingeing on. They were published around ten years ago, so if you have grandchildren, you may know them. In a modern world inhabited by the mythical Greek gods of yore, Hestia, the goddess of the hearth who is responsible for domesticity, the family, the home and the state, says to Percy, “Not all powers are spectacular. Sometimes the hardest power to master is the power of yielding.”[xii]

It is more than profitable then, to yield to the experience of silence that leaves you with nothing to say, “the experience of helplessness about who you are, the experience of death and suffering, or [the] experience of extraordinary depth and beauty,” being up against what cannot be mastered and managed. Ultimately, “everybody is silent in the face of the utterly unmanageable, which is God.” [xiii]

As with Jesus when he was silent before Pilate, our silence becomes a place in the world where the mystery of God is present. We literally become a place where the mystery of God happens.

“Good liturgy is about silence.”[xiv] Increasingly, the church at large has felt a kind of anxiety about silence; an urge to fill up the apparent void elicited by silence; to clutter up the beauty of liturgy with needless activity. You have only to listen to a monastic community singing the compline service to appreciate the value of silent spaces in liturgy. Like white spaces in the printed word, silent spaces in the liturgy reveal depths of meaning otherwise unremarked.

A lot of liturgical reform is a response to this discomfort with silence. Trim it; it’s too long. It’s difficult; so we must explain it. I don’t understand it; so we must simplify it. But in doing so much of our church has lost sight of the ways in which the slow pace and the carefully chosen word, however mysterious, have their own integrity and their own effect.

Again, to quote Williams, “Coming out of liturgy and saying, ‘Did I do that?’ is a perfectly proper experience. Something happens that nobody in particular has done.” And I am delighted to say that that is a frequent experience of mine in this place.

Somewhere, Thomas Berry remarked that our own interior life began when the universe began, that we are further elaborations of a spirituality that was there from the beginning. So, I conclude with the last place of my introverted rabbit hole meanderings – a little bit of Wisdom.

For while gentle silence enveloped all things,  and night in its swift course was now half gone, your all-powerful word leapt from heaven … [xv]

Doug Bannerman © 2022

[i] For example, Exodus 22:21-25; 23:6-9; Deuteronomy 24:14, 17-18; Isaiah 1:17

[ii] Brittany Wilson op cit

[iii] the verb hypopiazo (ὑπωπιάζω) literally means “to give a black eye”.

[iv] 1 Corinthians 9.26

[v] F. Scott Spencer Salty Wives, Spirited Mothers, and Savvy Widows: Capable Women of Purpose and Persistence in Luke’s Gospel (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2012), 292-93.

[vi] Op cit Brittany Wilson

[vii] 1 Thessalonians 5.17-19

[viii] Isaiah 42.3

[ix] 1 Kings 19.11-13 

[x] Psalm 46.10

[xi] Rowan Williams “Encounter in the Face of Mystery: God is the Encounter we cannot Control”, see https://www.christiancentury.org/article/critical-essay/silence-face-mystery

[xii] Rick Riordan Percy Jackson and the Last Olympian (Penguin Random House/ UK 2018) p92

[xiii] Op cit Rowan Williams

[xiv] Ibid

[xv] Wisdom 18.14,15a

Luke 17.11-19
The Nine Grateful Lepers

For as long as I can remember, the memory of the hymn, Now thank we all our God, has caused goosebumps down my spine. I don’t know why, perhaps it’s the words, perhaps it’s the feeling of singing it with others, belting out in competition with a good organist on an overpowering organ. Or maybe it is the sheer gratitude of being part of God’s love, gratitude for the extreme abundance I can share in, delight at being alive and joy at being in the energy of that love:

Now thank we all our God

with hearts and hands and voices…

who from our mothers' arms
has blessed us on our way
with countless gifts of love,
and still is ours today.

When I first discovered something of the background of Now thank we all our God, maybe it had something to do with the way it was told, it broke my heart, I can honestly say that the knowledge brought tears to my face.

The earliest projected date for the hymn is 1636 and the latest 1663 meaning that it was written in the context of the Thirty Years’ War (1618-1648). Martin Rinckart (1586-1649) was a musician, and a priest in the city of Eilenburg at the time of the Thirty-year war. As one of the last surviving priests, it was left to Martin to perform the multitude of funerals during the height of the plague and stretch his personal resources to provide for the orphaned children and refugees in his city. Martin wrote the hymn so his children would have something to sing at the dinner table. While providing shelter for other victims of war, famine, and the plague, with the Swedes besieging the city and demanding and insurmountable ransom, Martin and his family stare down at the scraps of dinner that will do very little to appease their hunger and sing together the hymn Now thank we all our God with hearts and hands and voices. The story behind the hymn breaks my heart, and the depth of Martin’s gratitude joins the goosebumps down my spine to tears down my face.

It is with the hymn Now thank we all our God humming in the background that I read Luke’s text in 17.11-19. At first, this text might lend itself to a simple message about gratitude. We can now update the ancient text on gratitude with 21st century research on the benefits of an attitude of gratitude and how gratitude can reconfigure the brain. Although the hymn Now thank we all our God is still humming like an ear wig, the invitation from the text niggles beyond gratitude. Luke’s Gospel has as a centrifugal force the experience of seeing the world differently. What exactly is it beyond gratitude that I am meant to be seeing?

Jesus is in an in-between place, he is on the way to Jerusalem, to where the climax of the gospel takes place, but he is in nowhere land between Samaria and Galilee. The in-between place is a textual clue for us, it is a space of transformation. You have heard the text preached enough times to know that lepers were more than physically unclean, they were socially and spiritually unclean too. There is no sadder oppression than when the oppressed accept the categories of their outsider status and perpetuate their own oppression. Here the lepers accept the status as total outsiders and participate in their own exclusion, shouting “unclean” in warning, ringing bells to warn people of their presence, and speaking to Jesus from a distance. The lepers call Jesus “Master” which is a term used by the disciples. Luke implies that the lepers are also disciples. As per the Torah, Jesus sends the ten to the priest, who not only confirm the physical healing but also institute the social and spiritual healing. By virtue of the priest’s declaration, the healed lepers could resume temple worship and participate in community life. The catharsis (katharizo in Greek to cleanse) happens on the way to the temple. It is here where the story is interesting and something more niggles at my attention, something I am supposed to see but do not yet see.

I have a hunch that all ten were utterly grateful for their experience of cleansing, healing, catharsis. Some Bibles add an unwelcome commentary to the translation and may demarcate this section of Luke’s Gospel 17.11-19 as “the Thankful leper”, which is why a sermon on gratitude while helpful may also be cliched because it stops the excavation into the text too soon. I have every confidence that all ten were thankful - the heading could be ten thankful lepers.

If I step into the story, I find myself running with the nine to the temple in gratitude, to sing Now thank we all our God louder than ever. I run with gratitude to the temple with the nine for very good reasons: Jesus said to go to the temple and meet with the priest. It would not occur to me to think differently or act beyond that. While the physical healing may be a welcome relief, it is the restoration to spiritual healing and joining in community that the temple and the priest offer. The priest and the temple offer the end of exclusion. I would also naturally run with gratitude to the priest and the temple for it represents a comfortable space for me, a familiar space. I have been part of the temple for so long, I can’t imagine not being part of it. In total gratitude, I would arrive at the priest in the temple and sing Now thank we all our God with my nine friends, and, if I am honest, it would take me a long while to notice that the Samaritan is missing. In truth, I might even be glad that he was left behind, his presence might be awkward, it might even spoil the celebration. It is at this point that I stop short, and the sword of the scripture begins its surgery, piercing my newly healed flesh right to the point where bone and marrow meet.

It would be guilt that would make me turn back to look for the lost leper. I would be irritated. As Luke describes, if I turned back to look for the lost leper and invite him into the temple secretly hoping he maybe had a wedding to go to, I could witness the wonder and worship of the Samaritan at the feet of Jesus. With a jolt, it may remind me of the other songs in Luke, the Gloria the angels sang at Jesus birth with the shepherds, the blessing Elizabeth sang when Jesus moved in utero. For the third time Jesus says, “your faith has saved you”. For the first time in Luke’s Gospel Jesus has said it to a man. In Luke 7.50 and 8.48 Jesus says “your faith has healed you” to a woman who anointed his feet and a woman saved from a twelve-year haemorrhage. In Luke 18.42 Jesus will say “Your faith has healed you” to a man born blind who calls him “Son of David”. Luke likes writing in doublets, two women, two men, Samaritan, and Jew. The doublets speak to the radical inclusivity of the Jesus mission.

Watching the scene unfolding with the Samaritan praising God and having the blessing announced your faith has made you well gives me pause to look and see, seeing is the goal of Luke’s Gospel. I would wonder about the Samaritan’s gift at seeing the world differently. What is it about him that he was caught up in awe and wonder and responded from the gut to turn around and go back to Jesus. Having encountered catharsis and the cosmic Christ in the in-between space beyond the confines of the church, how often do I return to the familiarity of predictable institutions, almost as a way to control the avalanche of the spiritual waters. In our spiritual journeys Jesus often asks us to step out of the boat and walk on water, an invitation to take an adventure on a path with no footprints beyond the confines of religion, what holds us back?

Perhaps it is no surprise that the Samaritan fell behind and didn’t make it to the temple. He is after all, a double loser. Even after being physically healed, he is still a Samaritan, a spiritual and social leper. I have forgotten to notice the ways that my temple, that my way of being might exclude others. I’m so used to the liturgical space and so familiar with the internal culture that my busyness can make me a bit lazy in noticing the discomfort of others. There are so many that pause at the doorway and want to come in but don’t. There are those who carry the hurt, those who don’t know the responses, those who don’t obey the rules that are so familiar to the rest of us we have forgotten to write them down, Church can be a scary place.

Today it is for the Samaritans that I sing Now thank we all our God. It is the Samaritans whose faith will save me. I need to find them, they are not in the temple, but is the Samaritans who have faith enough to heal me too. I am not alone in the search for the Samaritan who will save me, BBT searches with me too:

“ ‘Where are the nine’ Jesus asks, but I know where they are. ‘Where is the tenth leper?’ That is what I want to know. Where is the one who followed his heart instead of his instructions, who accepted his life as a gift and gave it back again, whose thanksgiving rose up from somewhere so deep inside him that it turned him around, changed his direction, led him to Jesus, made him well?’

“Where are the nine?? Where is the tenth?! Where is the disorderly one who failed to go along with the crowd, the impulsive one who fell on his face in the dirt, the fanatical one who loved God so much that obedience was beside the point? Where did that one go? Not that I am likely to go after him. It is safer here with the nine—we know the rules and who does what. We are the ones upon whom the institution depends. But the missing one, the one who turned back, or was turned away, or turned against—where did he go? Who is he, and whom is he with, and what does he know that we do not know? Where are the nine? We are here, right here. But where, for the love of God, is the tenth?”

Habakkuk 1.1-4, 2.1-4 and Luke 17.5-10
God is waiting for us.

Elton John wrote the following, about 40 years ago (listen here: https://youtu.be/WnoadNUs1gQ)

 

"If There's A God In Heaven (What's He Waiting For)"

Torn from their families
Mothers go hungry
To feed their children
But children go hungry
There's so many big men
They're out making millions
When poverty's profits
Just blame the children

If there's a God in heaven
What's he waiting for?
If He can't hear the children
Then he must see the war
But it seems to me
That he leads his lambs
To the slaughter house
And not the promised land

Dying for causes
They don't understand
We've been taking their futures
Right out of their hands
They need the handouts
To hold back the tears
There's so many crying
But so few that hear

If there's a God in heaven
What's he waiting for? …

Myanmar. Yemen. Ukraine. Nuclear threat. Syria. Kabul. Social media and the rampant increase of teenage suicide. The incarceration of children. The lack of rights for refugees. LGBTQIA+ discrimination. Race discrimination. The rape of children because of the myth that sex with a virgin cures HIV... With the prophet we might also say:

” 2 O Lord, how long shall I cry for help,
         and you will not listen?
Or cry to you ‘Violence!’
     and you will not save?”

Alternatively, we might say with a prophet from 40 years ago, Elton John:

“If there's a God in heaven
What's he waiting for?
If He can't hear the children
Then he must see the war
But it seems to me
That he leads his lambs
To the slaughterhouse
And not the promised land”

Think about the ways we continue to safeguard polluters in an age of unprecedented fires and floods where governments have either ignored or at worst buried warnings on impending natural disasters. According to the Australia Institute, gas companies paid us about 2 billion for our gas in royalties but then sold it back to us for 68 billion, excellent profit. Add to that 2/3 of the taxes were not paid on the gas exported from WA. In other words, they were getting the gas for free AND not paying income tax or resource rent tax. Those of us who paid income tax last year, paid more than Shell, Chevron, Santos, Exxon, Inpex and APLNG paid on a combined 50 billion income. Last year the government spent more money subsidising fossil fuels that it spent on the public school system. With the prophet we might also say: 

3 Why do you make me see wrongdoing
           and look at trouble?
Destruction and violence are before me;
     strife and contention arise.
4 So the law becomes slack
     and justice never prevails.
The wicked surround the righteous—
     therefore judgement comes forth perverted.

Alternatively, with Elton John we might lament,

“We've been taking their futures
Right out of their hands
They need the handouts
To hold back the tears
There's so many crying
But so few that hear”

Have you ever asked Elton John’s question? Where is God when it hurts? Where is God? Why doesn’t God show up? While Habakkuk is an obscure prophet writing in a time when Israel was about to be conquered by the Babylonians in the war of 585, there are echoes for us in 21st century Australia, not least because of the war in Ukraine with the worry that it will either turn nuclear or spill over into a world war with the West supporting Ukraine and China and North Korea supporting Putin.

According to the prophets, faith is what sustains us amidst the trials and tribulations of the dark side of history… “but the righteous live by their faith.” But what is faith? And how do we speak of faith and love and mercy without making a mockery of those who have suffered unimaginable cruelty?

At some point in the evolution of Christianity faith took a wrong turn and hit a dead end. Some might blame St Paul, or Augustine, or Thomas Aquinas or the Councils of Chalcedon and Nicaea, but we reached a point where faith changed. Instead of faith being a living breathing connection, a resting in the oneness of the divine, faith became an ascent to a set of beliefs. As Anglicans, those belief statements are summarised in the creed. As a Methodist, belief is that we are justified by grace through faith not works, that all people can be justified by grace through faith and that people can be sanctified to the uttermost – what Wesley called Christian perfection. But is belief enough for faith? If belief = faith, I’m in big trouble. Although I have a thick lever arch file on sermons describing being saved by grace through faith I’m not sure what that means any more. As for the creed, well, I had to agree with it at the time of my ordination, but really, Christianity flourished for 400 hundred years without the Nicene Creed and in our post, post-modern era I’m wondering if it isn’t time to rethink the whole thing? Whatever faith is it has to be more than ascent to a set of beliefs.

"Increase our faith," say the apostles.  What does that mean? And how do you measure an increase in faith? Might one pray: “Lord I have only three kilograms of faith please can you increase my faith, and can I have four kilograms more?” Or is faith measured in litres ? in which case one might pray: “My faith is just 300 ml Lord please can I have a litre more?” How do you increase faith anyway?

In Luke 15 and 16 Jesus has been addressing the pharisees and challenging their acquisition of wealth that leads to them dehumanising others. In Luke 17 Jesus addresses the disciples, who listened to Jesus’ teaching in Luke 15 and 16. While the disciples may not be piling up money, they are still in a reward and punishment mindset. The disciples clearly don’t get it, and their plea disguises their unease at the thought of being gracious, merciful, and forgiving 7 times 77 times. The kingdom of God is not about acquisition and attaining more of anything – quite the opposite – it is about surrender, letting go and allowing the self to die. The disciples may have listened to the teaching Jesus offered the pharisees and learnt the lessons and given up on mammon, greed, and accumulation of wealth. To replace the accumulation of wealth with the accumulation of faith still misses the point as it is still part of a mindset that expects a reward for work. This is what Jesus means when he says if you had the faith of a mustard seed you could do many things. In other words, you don’t need “more” faith, you have what you need, the tiniest amount is enough. In fact, I would go so far as to say less will do – less trying, less piety, less moral judgement, less intensity, less belief, less faith even so that there is more space, more nothing, more surrender, more forgiveness. The example Jesus gives of not rewarding slaves for what they were already doing is a further challenge to meritocracy. The system of reward and punishment is what Jesus wants to abolish for grace to flourish. 

I stated earlier that for me faith is not an assent to belief. I hinted at my own experience of faith as being connection with God, resting in God, surrender in God, an ultimate meaning that is beyond the relative circumstances of history. I compare this experience of faith as connection, resting and surrender to floating in water – one of the most relaxing and energising experiences I enjoy. One of the hardest aspects of teaching someone to swim is encouraging them to trust the buoyancy of the water enough to float. The irony with learning to float is that the harder you try the worse it against, the harder you want to float the less able you are. Floating happens through non-effort and surrender. Here then is my experience of faith. In order to float in the arms of faith, I have to let go a little, give up on certainty, give up on doubt even, give up on understanding everything and just put my arms out and float. What do I mean by this? You may have heard me describe before the difference between faith and belief with reference to the tight rope walker Charles Blondin. Charles crossed the Niagara Falls between Canada and the USA on a tight rope several times, including backwards and returning with a wheelbarrow. When he asked the audience if they believed he could carry a person in the wheelbarrow across the tightrope of course the crowd shouted yes. When he asked for a volunteer, no one trusted enough. While the crowds had belief in Charles ability, none had faith enough to sit in the wheelbarrow while being pushed across. Denise Levertov paints in poetry the faith I sometimes struggle to articulate:

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

(This poem is from Oblique Prayers, copyright ©1984 by Denise Levertov, and also appears in Levertov’s The Stream and the Sapphire: Selected Poems on Religious Themes.)

P.S:

1. For research on the link between social media and increased teenage suicide read:

-      Social media and the rampant increase of teenage suicide (see Memon AM, Sharma SG, Mohite SS, Jain S. The role of online social networking on deliberate self-harm and suicidality in adolescents: A systematized review of literature. Indian J Psychiatry. 2018 Oct-Dec;60(4):384-392. doi: 10.4103/psychiatry.IndianJPsychiatry_414_17. PMID: 30581202; PMCID: PMC6278213.).

-      Sedgwick, Rosemarya,b; Epstein, Sophiea,b; Dutta, Rinab,c; Ougrin, Dennisa,b. Social media, internet use and suicide attempts in adolescents. Current Opinion in Psychiatry: November 2019 - Volume 32 - Issue 6 - p 534-541. doi: 10.1097/YCO.0000000000000547

2. Information on how the government were briefed about impending flood disasters can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PvFy2TuPDaw

3. For action on the incarceration of children sign a petition here: https://action.amnesty.org.au/act-now/raise-the-age

4. A summary on research analysis by the Australia Institute indicating the exploitation of Gas companies can be watched here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RCFMy7rXlgw.

5. Podcasts by Juice Media at https://www.thejuicemedia.com/, The Australia Institute Website at https://australiainstitute.org.au, and their Spinbin YouTube videos are also useful avenues of information.

Luke 16.19-31

In the Season of Creation 2022 we listen to the voice of creation. The burning bush (see Exodus 3.1-12) is the symbol for listening to the voice of creation. The unprecedented unnatural fires that effected our region in the northern rivers in 2019 and 2020 are a sign of how climate change effects the most vulnerable. The forests crackle, animals flee, and people lose their homes as creation roars at us from the fires. In contrast the holy fire in Exodus 3 did not consume but affirmed that God hears the cries of those who suffer. The global family is called to heal our relationships with creation and each other. We consider the voice of creation and the voices of those who are silenced, the vulnerable who bear the consequences of our ill-treatment of the environment. The parable in Luke 16.9-13 echoes the call of the season of creation, calling us to heal our relationship with each other and the earth, and to consider the voices of those who are often silenced: the poor, the marginalised and the oppressed.

Background

By way of background, it is helpful to know that Luke 16 is a continuation of Luke 15. Luke 15 and 16 are read together and are Jesus’ reply to the pharisees. The pharisees are irritated that Jesus spends too much time with sinners. In response to the pharisees’ criticism Jesus tells five parables:

1.   the lost sheep,

2.   the lost coin,

3.   the lost sons,

4.   there was a rich man…

5.   there was a rich man…

To my mind the five parables are comparable to the Torah, the first five books of our Old Testament or the Tanach of the Hebrew Scriptures. In the same way that the pharisees conform to the Torah as their standard for morality, so Jesus uses these five parables as his Torah, his gold standard of God’s rather upside morality.

By way of background, it is also helpful to know a little of the historical, socio-economic, and geo-political situation of the first century Palestine in which our parable is written. As you know the Romans colonised the area east of the Mediterranean, a region that includes Samaria, Judea, Galilee, and Nazareth in the north. The northern part, formerly called Israel, already experienced tension with the southern part, formerly called Judah. Jerusalem was in the south. All the wealth was concentrated in the south. The north was populated by farmers who struggled financially. The Romans imposed taxes that disproportionately affected farmers in the north. When the farmers in the north could not pay their taxes, their countrymen in the south, the wealthy Jewish elite, paid the taxes for them. In exchange for paying the taxes, the farmers in the north gave up the title deeds of their farms. These farmers continued to live on the farms that they once owned, but now as tenant farmers who “paid” a percentage of their crop to the wealthy Jewish elite in the south. When the two parables in Luke 16 state “there was once a rich man …” it refers to the wealthy Jewish elite in the south that the pharisees side with. Like the pharisees, the wealthy Jewish elite do not value human beings because they improperly value wealth. Remembering that parables are earthy stories with heavy meanings, designed to help us see systems of oppression, let us meander inside the parable and see what it wants us to notice.

Heavy meanings in an earthy story

As Luke 16 is a parable we do not read it literally but dig deeper for its meaning. In other words, the abode of the dead is not ‘hell’ as we have come to understand it in 21st western Christianity. The imagery is designed to shock us into taking a decision and is not meant to be an explanation of the mechanics of the afterlife. If I had to offer a modern equivalent, the parable in Luke 16.19-31 is rather like the classic “The Christmas Carol” where Scrooge is forced to examine the hold that money has in his life and how he has sacrificed relationships at the altar of money.

As we meander in the parable, alert to any eye-opening encounters, we may notice a reversal where the rich man is nameless, but the poor man is Lazarus, from the Hebrew Eleazar meaning “God helps”. The naming of the poor man dignifies him and graces him with worth as a human being. This is in contrast to the rich man who even in the afterlife continues to see Lazarus as a thing, as a slave who is there to service the rich man’s needs. Notice how the rich man commands Abraham to send Lazarus to bring him some water. Abraham’s reply to the rich man’s dehumanising attitude echoes the songs of the kingdom of God sung throughout Luke. For example, Mary’s Magnificat where the rich are sent away empty and the hungry are filled with good things, and the beatitudes which bless the poor but announce “woe to you who are rich, for you have already received your comfort” (Luke 6.24).

Also notice the chasm that exists between the rich and the poor. The parable invites us to consider the unjust systems humanity has created that widen the gap between the rich and the poor. We know from research that the wider the gap between rich and poor the more unstable and violent a country is. According to the world bank, South Africa is the world’s most unequal society. In Australia the gap between rich and poor is widening as cost-of-living pressures and unequal access to housing effect the most vulnerable.

I noted in the beginning that the five parables are Jesus’ reply to the pharisees who think Jesus spends too much time with sinners. The point Jesus makes in the parables is that the pharisees, like the rich man in the parables, value money too highly and therefore value people improperly. For the rich man and the pharisees alike, the sinners and the poor are “things”, unvalued and not worthy of Jesus attention. The parables offer an alternative economic policy.

An alternative economy

Through the five parables in Luke 15 and 16 we are invited to adopt the Gospel’s economic policy. Instead of putting money at the centre of an economic policy, we are to put love at the centre: love of God and love of neighbour. Instead of using relationships in service of money we are to use money in service of relationships. In this way we are free from money’s hold over us. We are free to see all people as having intrinsic worth, regardless of their place in an economic pyramid. One aspect of our culture is that we look at the oceans, the soil, and the landscape and fail to see that creation shimmers with the divine. Instead, our culture wants to utilise creation as a commodity for short term profits for those at the top of the economic pyramid.

The parable of the rich man and Lazarus (Luke 16.1-18), together with the parable of the manager (Luke 16.19-31) invite us to lose faith in our current economic system where the rich get richer and the poor poorer. The parable invites us to open our eyes to see the lies that we are told, the lie of the trickle-down economy where in fact it is the poor who pay for the rich in a trickle up economy. One example of the trickle up economy is research commissioned by Anglicare who were able to show that $68 billion is spent keeping the wealthiest households wealthy. That is greater than the cost of Newstart, disability support, the age pension, or any other single welfare group. The Cost of Privilege report, prepared by Per Capita, shows us the chasm between the rich and poor depicted in this parable, and the how expensive it is to be poor. Read “The cost of privilege” https://percapita.org.au/our_work/the-cost-of-privilege/

The parable invites us to see how eternally death dealing our current system is, to listen to the voice of the vulnerable and creation and adopt the profits another way.

How to opt out

During the month of September faith traditions around the world consider the environment. The Season of Creation aims to:

1.   Renew our prophetic voices to action for creation.

2.   Gather all religious and non-religious communities to share a common voice for our creation and act.

3.   To reflect on the importance of ecological conservation and its integrity by remembering that the voices of creation are the reflection of the voice of its creator.

4.   To call out the damaging impact of our earthly development on God’s creation and voice our cry for change as humans living together under one home.

Our 2022 theme in the Season of Creation is listening to the voice of creation. What is the voice of creation saying to you in the parable?

To decode what is a perplexing parable I offer the following two bookmarks:

Bookmark 1: Parables are earthy stories with heavy meanings

In Sunday School we may have been taught that parables are earthly stories with heavenly meanings. We must outgrow this “pie in the sky” approach to studying scripture. Instead, I agree with William Herzog III who says that …the parables were not earthly stories with heavenly meanings but earthy stories with heavy meanings, weighted down by an awareness of the workings of exploitations in the world of their hearers. The focus of the parables was not on a vision of the glory of the reign of God, but on the gory details of how oppression served the interests of a ruling class. Instead of reiterating the promise of God’s intervention in human affairs, they explored how human beings could respond to break the spiral of violence and cycle of poverty created by exploitation and oppression. The parable was a form of social analysis every bit as much as it was a form of theological reflection.

Bookmark 2: Death and Resurrection

To decode the parable, we must appreciate that death and resurrection (aka the paschal mystery) are a constant theme in the gospels and the many parables. Jesus constantly preaches death and resurrection.

1.  For example, Jesus says a seed must die to bear fruit (John 12).

2.  Jesus also says that those who gain their lives will lose it. For example, in Luke 17.33 Jesus says: “Whoever tries to keep their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life will preserve it”. In Luke 9.24 Jesus also says that: “If anyone wants to come after Me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow Me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will save it. What does it profit a person to gain the whole world, yet lose or forfeit their very self?”

3.  The parables often comment that the last shall be first and the first shall be last, this continues the theme of death and resurrection.

Parables are earthy stories with heavy meanings and are undergirded by the theme of death and resurrection. With these two bookmarks I offer the following suggestions as you develop your own interpretations, listening to the voice of creation in Luke 16.

·In uke 16, a rich ruler, an absentee landlord, owns so much wealth he requires managers to look after it for him. How did he become so wealthy? In Luke 20.47 Jesus condemns those who devour widows’ houses, who, in the words of Isaiah 5.8 “add house to house and join field to field till no space is left and you live alone in the land.” In other words, the rich ruler has become wealthy in a predatory way. Although God created an abundant world with enough for everyone (provided that human communities constrain their appetites and live within limits), disparities in wealth resulted because of human sin in structuring society such that the rich benefit. At this period of the Roman Empire, a growing concentration of land and wealth is in fewer hands resulting in landlessness peasant classes. According to Jesus sermon in Luke 4, the disparity between rich and poor is not “natural” and must be mitigated through the regular practice of wealth redistribution or jubilee politics. Jesus’ prophetic message calls people to the practice of the redistribution of wealth and in Luke’s Gospel this is “good news” to the poor.

·Without proof, a charge is laid against the manager that he is squandering his master’s wealth; a phrase that is exactly the same as the prodigal son who squandered his father’s inheritance in loose living.

·The manager is about to be fired. The manager is now in a crisis: he has no skills for hard work and no desire to beg. This is a crisis moment for the steward and decisive action is a must. In this crises moment the manager “dies” to money. Money often takes on divine status in the lives of people. The manager is now dead to the importance of money. Money is no longer the goal and purpose of his life. Money can no longer offer our manager security.

The manager must improvise. He builds connections with debtors to ensure his survival in the future, it is a case of I scratch your back please scratch my back in future. Set free from slavery to money, money is now used as a resource for relationship. The landlord should have been angry yet praises the steward for his shrewdness.

Luke 16 offers a highly relevant parable for the many who argue that our dominant economic system is failing. Like the manager in the parable, we too are in a crisis, an ecological crisis that is a result of our consumer capitalist industrial military complex. Capitalism does not know the word enough. In order to survive capitalism requires continual growth. Without an ever-increasing profit, capitalism collapses. Capitalism is not a stable system. The ecological crisis is because of cancerous economic growth. The parable encourages us to sabotage our dominant system in an attempt to restore justice, to “build a new world within the shell of the old,” as Dorothy Day did. As Wendell Berry say: “If we do not serve what coheres and endures, we serve what disintegrates and destroys.” The parable also helps us face the truth that like the manager we are enmeshed in a capitalist culture – we are stuck in a system that is death. Yet we still have to act. Like the manager we improvise. By being creative we can change the system that is killing us. There are positive examples of people who offer an alternative capitalism; that sabotage the system from within.

A contemporary example of Luke 16 is Yvon Chouinard, the owner of Patagonia, a company that makes outdoor clothes, who has given the company away. Like the manager in Luke 16, Yvon is caught in a death dealing system. Like the manager Yvon sabotages the systems from within. Patagonia has not been sold or made public but instead transferred to a trust; all of its $100 million a year profits are used to combat climate change and protect undeveloped land around the globe.

“Hopefully this will influence a new form of capitalism that doesn’t end up with a few rich people and a bunch of poor people,” Chouinard, 83, said. “We are going to give away the maximum amount of money to people who are actively working on saving this planet.”

Picture sourced from: https://uk.anygator.com/article/who-is-yvon-chouinard-patagonia-founder-giving-up-company-to-fight-climate-change__16801371

Where to from here for us? How can we listen to the voice of creation and participate in an alternative economy? We need to work that out together. As we work out our alternative economy, the sacred spiritual disciplines of simplicity, solidarity, silence and study will continue to inspire, transform and sustain us in our vision and work for a new heaven and new earth.

1)        Simplicity – get rid of your excess. The excess is a trap, and it takes away your freedom. Simplicity does not mean simplistic as in the opposite of complex. It means having things based on need and not want. It means breaking free from a consumer culture. 

2)        Solidarity with the poor moves you from “aid” to understanding and from sympathy to compassion

3)        Silence: the furnace of transformation where we can finally die to the tyranny of money and what it symbolises. Silence is God’s first language.

4)        Study Scripture: the Scriptures deserve study as they offer a healthy alternative to communism and capitalism. 

Desiree Snyman

The experience of being lost and the experience of losing something or someone precious is different. We all have our own stories to tell of the experience of being lost; be it in the middle of an Australian forest or lost in an unfamiliar city with unforgiving traffic blaring out its impatience. It is an awful feeling being lost. Worse than being lost is the experience of losing a precious something or someone. Even as you remember the moment of loss the gut contracts and breathless anxiety may take over the breathing and the thinking.

Why is it that losing something or someone precious has us on our knees? The experience of loss evokes a sensation of helplessness and vulnerability. We push away shadow experiences of helplessness and vulnerability, yet this is where our growth lies. In her book, An Altar in the World, Barbara Brown Taylor makes a strong case for these virtues of helplessness and vulnerability.  She argues that lostness makes us “stronger at the edges and softer at the centre.”  Lostness teaches us about vulnerability. About empathy. About humility. About patience. Lostness shows us who we really are, and who God really is.   

The three stories of being lost and found are unique to the Gospel of Luke but utterly precious in our Christian proclamation on the nature of God’s grace. What I notice about the three lost and found parables within the one chapter of Luke is that they seem to offer three different responses to the experience of losing what is precious. The first two stories show people actively in search of what was lost. The shepherd searches for the sheep in a wide arc. The householder pays close attention to detail in her search. The third parable, the story of the prodigal son, there is no searching at all. Instead, the father “holds space” in a constant attitude of welcome embrace in the hope that his son returns.

We may misread the parables. We may be tempted to think of the lost lamb and the lost coin as representing “sinners” “out there” or those that do not belong. This is not how the parable reads. The lost lamb in the first parable belonged to the shepherd’s flock. The coin in the second parable belongs to the woman before she lost it.  Both the lamb and the coin belonged from the very beginning of the story; thus, these parables are not about welcoming the lost and least who are beyond us. These parables are not about evangelical zeal or winning converts. Instead, these are parables about lostness and leastness on the inside. God is not found in the fold with the 99 sheep. God is not in the house comfortably polishing the 9 coins. God is where the lost are.   

The season of creation 2022 is about listening to the voice of creation. As I listen to the voice of creation singing within this parable creation asks: What creatures and elements of Creation have we ignored and need to restore to the circle of our concern? What parts of creation were part of us that we have pushed away?

At the level of the individual self, we have overemphasised rationality and intellectual output, pushing away signals from our body to rest and recover. Like the lost sheep sidelined from the flock, the needs of our body have been sidelined.

At the level of community, we value that which can be monetised. Nature, trees, insects, streams and rivers, and other parts of creation that do not make a profit are abused not protected. We are reminded in Laudato Si that Creation has “an intrinsic value” which is “independent of [its] usefulness. Each organism, as a creature of God, is good and admirable in itself.” (#140). When we abuse God’s wonderful creation, we hurt ourselves. In Laudato si,  Pope Francis says “The human environment and the natural environment deteriorate together; we cannot adequately combat environmental degradation unless we attend to causes related to human and social degradation. In fact, the deterioration of the environment and of society affects the most vulnerable people on the planet… The impact of present imbalances is also seen in the premature death of many of the poor.” (#48)

In Laudato Si’ (220), Pope Francis shares the attitudes and changes within us that can result from undergoing an ecological conversion during this season of creation: 

·      gratitude and gratuitousness (recognition that the world is God’s loving gift)

·      generosity in self-sacrifice and good works

·      a loving awareness of a universal communion with the rest of creation

·      greater creativity and enthusiasm in resolving the world’s problems

·      a feeling of responsibility based on faith

Jesus invited people to imagine a world where God reigns, and then to act accordingly. He lived the message that he proclaimed. If we imagine a world where God reigns and live into that future, it might sound something like the letter to the future written by Gamilaraay astronomer Karlie Noon and Kamilaroi astrophysicist Krystal de Napoli in their book Astronomy: Sky Country: “The year is 2044 and Country has never been healthier. There is more fish than plastic in the ocean, bushfires have been mitigated by right burns, and the skies are dark because of smart lights, helping people rest and nocturnal animals go about their business and the birds return. ‘Earth is now a place where knowledge is respected regardless of the race or qualifications’ of the knowledge holders. Everyone has become a custodian of Country, working alongside the Creator. There is new life to come.” May it come true.

Desiree Snyman

What are your immovable commitments? (Luke 14:25-35)

Now large crowds were travelling with him; and he turned and said to them, ‘Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple. For which of you, intending to build a tower, does not first sit down and estimate the cost, to see whether he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it will begin to ridicule him, saying, “This fellow began to build and was not able to finish.” Or what king, going out to wage war against another king, will not sit down first and consider whether he is able with ten thousand to oppose the one who comes against him with twenty thousand? If he cannot, then, while the other is still far away, he sends a delegation and asks for the terms of peace. So therefore, none of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions.

On a dark, foggy night, a ship came upon the light of another vessel. The captain radioed his counterpart: “Please divert your course 15 degrees to the North to avoid a collision.”

Through the crackly radio came the reply:

“Recommend you divert YOUR course 15 degrees to the South to avoid a collision"

The captain stood his ground. He radioed: “This is the captain of a US Navy ship. I say again, divert YOUR course.”

And again, came the reply: “No, I say again, you divert YOUR course.”

Outraged, the captain spoke loudly into the radio: “THIS IS THE AIRCRAFT CARRIER USS ABRAHAM LINCOLN, THE SECOND LARGEST SHIP IN THE UNITED STATES’ ATLANTIC FLEET. WE ARE ACCOMPANIED BY THREE DESTROYERS, THREE CRUISERS AND NUMEROUS SUPPORT VESSELS. I DEMAND THAT YOU CHANGE YOUR COURSE 15 DEGREES NORTH. THAT’S ONE-FIVE DEGREES NORTH.”

And came the reply: “This is a lighthouse. Your call.”  (From Stephen Covey)

The lesson I wish to draw from this modern-day parable is to ask: What are the lighthouse principles in our lives? In other words what are the things that cannot be moved?

‘Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple. 

Jesus’ challenge to the crowds is harsh and his questions may not be watered down. For Jesus, the kingdom of God, consenting to God’s presence within, is the unmoveable lighthouse principle in our lives. Either discipleship in the kingdom of God comes first or not at all. The word hate is deliberate: radical discipleship requires that nothing distracts us from the central goal of God: not ego, not pride, not family and not possessions.

To suggest that Jesus is asking for a literal hatred of one’s family is to blindly miss the point and mishear his use of speech. Hatred for one’s family is exaggerated speech; its purpose is to shock us out of domesticating the journey of discipleship. Domestication confines religion to the home and family, how ironic it is that fundamentalist Christianity often associates  Christianity with family values. In contrast, the journey with Jesus often requires giving up so called family values. The shock that Jesus delivers reminds followers that families can often restrict our full growth to become who we are in Christ. For some, families can bring death rather than life. Some families are like oppressive demons that suck the life out of its members. Mark’s Gospel shows how Jesus’ own family thought he was insane and wanted to rescue him by force.  (3:20-21, 31-35). Ultimately the call to let go of one’s loyalty to family is how our journey with Jesus frees us from cultural conditioning insofar as it hinders us from responding to the gospel and the invitation into perfect freedom. Perhaps the best example for us is that we have inherited a culture that institutionalises racism and patriarchy; a culture that we reject because in Christ all are equal, all are created in the image of God and all our temples of the holy spirit.

“So therefore, none of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions.”

Jesus regularly associates family power with possession power because both belonged together. It is as much about letting go of possessions as letting go of being possessed by them. One of the reasons for family power was protection of possessions. Letting go of being possessed does often mean letting go of possessing others. The best example of this is St Francis. In order to say yes to Jesus and surrender to radical discipleship, St Francis had to let go of his family power and their wealth. St Francis’ family were wealthy cloth merchants and Francis was expected to follow in his father’s footsteps. Instead, Francis opted for radical discipleship stripped himself of all his family’s wealth.

We soften the call to follow Jesus because we do not like where Jesus is going. Radical discipleship is a path of subversive politics, of revolution, of denouncing the economic powers through non participation, of embracing the poor, not because Jesus himself was poor, but because he embraced the poor. Few people have followed this call to radical discipleship. Yet at some point we must feel bored of deadly mediocrity and conformity. And there is no greater response to the corruption of our age than radical discipleship. There is no greater response to the materialism of this age than radical discipleship.

Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.

"Hating" family and "denying" self by “carrying the cross” are closely related. The kingdom of God is about living in Oneness with God. Loving God with heart, mind, body and soul requires giving up the self even to death. Anything held back is self and anything given is God’s. God increases in us as our ego decreases.

Let’s be utterly pragmatic about how we answer the call to radical discipleship, how we give ourselves to God: if spiritual teachers are to be believed we are to be in silence for 20 minutes twice a day. Why silence? As soon as we give ourselves to silence, a crack occurs in our consciousness. The purpose of silence is to allow the longing for God to break through the layers of our false selves, our defence mechanisms, and our false pursuits for happiness. From the perspective of silence negotiating the spiritual journey is easy; all we do is accept the kingdom of God as already given to us, it is already put into our hands, it is already poured into our hearts – it already is.

Consent

Nature or Purpose

Age

1.  LIFE

To accept and affirm the basic goodness of our being and that of life.

1 – 11 yrs

2.  CREATIVITY/
RELATIONSHIPS

To allow the full development of our being

11 – 22 yrs

3.  NON-BEING

To let go and release our humanhood, viz: 
physical aging, illnesses, death.

Middle Age

4.  TRANSFORMATION

To welcome and allow the demise of the false self system.

50 onward

Summary of “The Four Consents”

The four consents (based on the work of theologian John S. Dunne) correspond to the passage of human life. "In childhood, God asks us to consent to the basic goodness of our nature with all its parts." This basic goodness is not what we do but what we are, as God made us. The difficulties we experience in childhood may prevent us from fully consenting emotionally to the goodness of life.

The second consent, corresponding to adolescence, is to "accept the full development of our being by activating our talents and creative energies,"

The third consent (early adulthood) calls on us "to let go, to surrender ourselves.  Dying is the ultimate letting go of everything to which we are attached in this world. Making this consent is more difficult if we have not made the previous ones.

The fourth consent is to be transformed. "The transforming union requires consent to the death of the false self, and the false self is the only self we know. Whatever its inconveniences, it is at least familiar. Some of us are more afraid of the death of the false self than of physical death."

Luke tells us that this is more than just helpful social commentary that Jesus is giving the guests at the dinner party; a few helpful tips on better party etiquette. In the competitive “you scratch my back I’ll scratch yours”, world of honour and status in ancient cultures, start low, advises Jesus. You might then get the surprise of your life when the host invites you higher up the honour chain. At your first Hollywood dinner party, don’t brag about how many Home and Away episodes you starred in, seeking to mix it with the other hot-shot celebrities, only to see Tom Hanks walk in! Jesus isn’t just saying that a little bit of humility and generosity go a long way to prevent total loss of face in a shame and honour culture. Luke tells us this is a parable. There is always something familiar and something that is jarring in a parable.

The familiar. In our contemporary world of professional expectations and media scrutiny, we too know the delicate cocktail that is ego and self-preservation, as we balance the reality of moral scrutiny and approval from one’s peers. The same existed for the public officials of Jesus’ day - the Pharisees with their followers, the various Rabbinic schools, the Governing class of Sadducees; all had prestige, reputations, intellectual credibility, righteousness and moral honour to maintain. They knew how to maintain “purity” ritualistically, culturally, and personally. And, as Luke says, they were “watching” Jesus. He too was under scrutiny. He was invited to the party, which was a vote of minimal respect. The Pharisees saw him as a genuine intellectual and teacher, but was he “one of them?” Could he be admitted to the golf club? (It had a 2-year waiting list). Did he quote the right texts, the right thinkers, the acknowledged authoritative interpretations? Did he understand the Torah, the Messianic hopes, the resurrection, the requirements of purity and salvation, correctly? They were the official gatekeepers of God’s system, of the truth about God. So, they were watching him.

The jarring. Jesus places a grenade on the table! He does this at the end of the parable, after the social etiquette part (don’t be too cocky about where you sit, for the host might “demote” you - “OMG I could have died of embarrassment!”), He proceeds to blow the whole thing sky high. For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted. When this grammatical structure is used, known as the passive voice, the subject of the sentence is acted upon by another agent. But who is this other agent who does the ultimate demoting or advancing? Who ultimately decides who or what is truly honourable? It’s not the ones handing out ribbons to each other based on their own code of honour. The ultimate host, when the passive voice is used, means God. God finally arbitrates where truth and value, worth and honour, is truly evident in the history of our behaviours and choices. This is clarified when Jesus mentions his alternative value system. Why not invite to a dinner party those who cannot repay you, or who are outside your value system? The righteous are the ones who do that, and according to Jesus’ system, will be acknowledged on the day of resurrection (Judgement day) by none other than God. You see, it actually doesn’t depend on you Pharisees at all. This system you prize and preserve at all costs means absolutely nothing to God! I simply don’t recognise your system, says Jesus. That’s the grenade!

What if the person who is at the top in your system, is relegated to least worthy of honour in God’s system? And what if an absolute non-contender in your system, is welcomed home in God’s system? What if God’s view of righteousness and what deserves respect and praise and exalting clashes with your system? This is not a polite thing to say to your host who kindly invited you along to the dinner party, albeit to check you out, but also, potentially, to secure you a spot in the gold club. Jesus isn’t simply breaking a few rules of social etiquette. He rejects the game outright. (Later in Luke, Jesus tells us to take up his cross and follow him. We are to place no value in these games either).

The entire dinner party show is based on misplaced Pharisaic confidence that they know who the righteous and pure are, and what is required to be part of the elect or chosen ones of God. (And don’t all our systems, Presbyterian, Evangelical, Progressive, Liberal, tend to make similar claims with confidence). Jesus asserts that God is not a slave to our systems but is competent to judge who is truly pure of heart, and possesses a spirit worthy of honour, and is thus of his Kingdom. Anything else is a vain usurping of God’s domain despite using a lot of “God” language to defend it. God’s love and grace always empowers and transforms lives. What if our systems are actually thwarting God’s system? Otherwise, you wouldn’t even be hosting these self-interested dinner parties. You are all in an echo-chamber of mutual applause where you all know the rules, who is in or out, and you keep it that way. But what if God has a different set of rules? What if love is abundant and the invitations are endless, and the potentially included are millions of impure, immoral, lost, and ignorant Jews and Gentiles? How dare you decide for God. Whatever system we subscribe to, our job is simply to love the unloved, notice the un-noticed and invite the uninvited.

We best serve God by making our dinner parties generous. So go, Share your mercy. Share your forgiveness. Share your material resources. Share these things with those you see in need of them. Do it deliberately, sacrificially, generously…until that day…when the host will take care of the minor details about seating.

Bruce Fleming

On Wednesday (24 August) our liturgical calendar that we follow is set to recognise St Bartholomew, Apostle and Martyr. I want to begin by briefly profiling who St Bartholomew was, given that this beautiful sandstone church that we gather in for worship was named after him.

Bartholomew

So, who was Bartholomew? And why is he relevant? Bartholomew was one of the twelve apostles of Jesus and early sources say he was also referred to as Nathaniel. Bartholomew hailed from Cana in Galilee and was martyred in Armenia for converting Polymius, King of Armenia, to Christianity. The name Bartholomew means Bar Talmai or the son of Talmai. We find Bartholomew mentioned in the three Synoptic Gospels – Matthew, Mark and Luke. In the Gospel of John, Bartholomew is identified as Nathaniel, a friend of Philip as we just heard of in the gospel account for today. A further mention of Bartholomew is made in the Acts of the Apostles.[1]

Biblical commentators have described Bartholomew as having a low profile. While not the only one of the twelve to live in relative obscurity, Bartholomew represents a quiet alternative to the more visible and vocal public witnesses frequently associated with the apostles. With such a low profile the commentators have implied that Bartholomew’s contributions may have been lost in archival care or scattered in upheavals that existed at the time. Were there deliberate acts to destroy his contributions because of jealousy or rival factions. Was Bartholomew someone who in fact did very little? Or was Bartholomew, the thoughtful one, prone to process his faith internally and intellectually, without a big fuss?[2] As I read and reflected about Bartholomew’s life over the last few weeks, I sense that he lived his life simply, meditatively and his call was to serve others.

Our Gospel Reading – John 1: 45-51

The essence of our Gospel reading is that of being called. Essentially, our Gospel reading focuses on the call of Nathaniel, shown in the interactions Nathaniel has with his friend, Philip and of course Jesus. I would like us this morning to consider our calling…

What is the call upon your life?

What is our calling to ministry, here at Alstonville Anglicans?

Or, more broadly speaking, as a Christian how do we exercise our call, use our gifts in the wider community?

My hope is as we explore this passage together, we will see that the individual circumstances we experience as part of our human nature, our humanity, that is, how we are made in the image of God can contribute to our calling when going about our lives.

Our opening verses show the interaction between Philip and Nathaniel. This interaction comes after Philip has been himself called by Jesus in Verses 43 and 44. Jesus’ invitation to Philip is to follow me! I get the sense that Philip is excited about his invitation, his call to follow Jesus. He wants to share this news. Philip has been described like Andrew as someone who cannot keep good news to himself, he needs to share it with others![3] So, we see Philip went and found his friend Nathaniel. Noting what Moses wrote in the law we see Phillip sharing with Nathaniel that we have found the One about whom the prophets spoke - Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.

What is Nathaniel’s response to all this?

“Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Not the most positive statement that can be made! Can anything good come out of Nazareth?

Why would he ask this?

Now for us, we know what the good is coming out of Nazareth because we live on this side of the resurrection. However, back in the time of this interaction between Philip and Nathaniel things were different. Nathaniel was contemptuous, he was well educated - there was nothing in the Old Testament which foretold that God's Chosen One should come from Nazareth. Nazareth was a quite undistinguished place back then. Nathaniel himself came from Cana, a Galilaean town, and in the country places, jealousy between town and town and rivalry between village and village, was notorious. Nathaniel's reaction was to declare that Nazareth was not the kind of place that anything good was likely to come out of. It was Nathaniel’s experience. It was Nathaniel’s knowledge of Nazareth. However, Philip was wise. He did not argue with his friend. He just simply said: “Come and see!”[4]

Come and see! Words used by Jesus in the previous chapter. Come and see! Another invitation… Philip wanted to show Nathaniel that things were different and would be different. Philip had come to know Jesus.

Nathaniel Meets Jesus

And so, Nathaniel came, and upon meeting Jesus, Jesus could see into Nathaniel's heart. Jesus says, “Here is truly an Israelite in whom there is no deceit!”[5] Nathaniel seems surprised by this, that upon meeting Jesus he would make such a statement. How do you know me? Jesus’ response was that he had already seen him under the fig tree.

Why a fig tree? In Jewish thought the fig tree always stood for peace. The Jewish idea of peace was a man could sit undisturbed under his own vine and fig tree. It was a place that was leafy and shady, and it was custom to sit and meditate. This is what Nathaniel had been doing! Nathaniel would sit and meditate, think through, and pray for the day when God’s Chosen One should come. Nathaniel would meditate on the promises of God. Upon meeting Jesus, Nathaniel now felt very strongly that Jesus had seen into the very depths of his heart. Nathaniel thought - Jesus knows me and acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God and King of Israel.[6]

It is Nathaniel’s human nature, the practises that he applied in his everyday life that attracted Jesus’ attention. Yes, Nathaniel may have been initially critical about the good coming out of Nazareth, but Jesus still liked what he saw and called him. God wants Nathaniel to keep his humanness because he is made in the image of God. Nathaniel's heart was transformed.

People from the Bible

In the Bible we see other people who God has said keep your humanness. In all you do keep your humanity.

Think about Adam and Eve. God created them to till the garden. They chose to turn their back on God. God banished them from Eden – God did not stop them from tilling the garden, Instead God said it would be harder, God asked them to care for His creation. Keep your humanity.

Think about Abraham - Abram as he was. God went to him with a specific reason. God wanted to make Abram a great nation. He was a great man – a wealthy man. God wanted him to lead many people and do so by keeping his humanity!

Think about Sarah, who was eaves dropping near the tent when Abraham is told by three angels that Sarah would bear a child. Sarah laughs! God said you laughed! Sarah said I didn’t laugh. There is back and forth argument. God says call the child Isaac – which means laughter in Hebrew. Don’t lose your humanity!

Moses. Moses is out in the fields and is a stuttering shepherd. God says to him I will give you the words, but I need you to shepherd my people. Don’t lose your humanity!

Mary. Mary is a young teenager. God says to her I need you to be the mother of my Son. Mary is a faithful young woman who is curious and who says how can this be? God wants that curiosity in her so that she can raise Jesus to become the Son of God.

Jesus calls his disciples and tells the fisherman to become fishers of people, but don’t lose who you are as humans, become something more… Be disciples!

We are all humans! Therefore, we are all created in the image of God.

But God wants us to do something more… God wants us to become disciples. To become a disciple, we need to use Philip’s words, Jesus’s words, “Come and see!”

“Come and see!” How do we do that?

Application for us

For me, my knowledge of God grows as I am fed by his Word. Each day I am in the practice of reflecting on the verse of the day and going through a daily devotional. I experience God as I come forward to receive Communion at the Lord’s table. I also experience God as I interact with the people around me each day – family, friends, colleagues, students, strangers. Through these interactions love and care can be exercised, and the image of God is shown.

For us as Alstonville Anglicans, we say… Come as you! We welcome and invite humanity in all its forms and collectively minister love and care as we serve sharing the good life as disciples and followers of Jesus through corporate worship, the Op Shop, Play Place, Messy Church, the Community on the Verge (garden), Pastorally caring for others. Our humanity, our humanness, the ministry we do can then be extended into a community context as we connect with others in our midst.

Can I encourage each one of us not to lose our humanity, our humanness when carrying out the ministry we are called to do. They are important qualities that make us who we are and are part of our calling. God looks into the depths of our heart and uses these qualities just like He did with Nathaniel. God does not discriminate, but rather loves us. God knows our heart and guides us. God invites us to come and see! Out of this love we are made in the image of God to be His disciples to exercise ministry boldly, to exercise ministry quietly and without a big fuss in the world in which we live.

Amen.

Mark Stuckey LLM

[1] www.catholicreadings.org

[2] Portaro, S. (1998, p. 145) “Brightest and Best – A companion to the Lesser Feasts and Fasts” Cowley Publications

[3] Barclay, W. (1956, p.76) “The Gospel of John – Volume 1” The Daily Study Bible St Andrew’s Press, Edinburgh

[4] Barclay, W. (1956, p.76)

[5] John 1: 47 (NRSV)

[6] Barclay, W. (1956, p.77)

Today we celebrate Mary the Mother of the Lord.

We know very little about Mary's family background; nor do we know much about her life. The gospels are strangely silent about her. We are not certain if she belonged to the Davidic line, as the angel Gabriel's annunciation implies, or to the Aaronic line, as her kinship to Elizabeth would imply.

According to the 2nd century document variously named the Infancy Gospel of James or the Protevangelium of St James, Mary was born of a rich but childless couple, Joachim and Anna, as a result of fervent prayer. Her grateful parents dedicated her to a life of service in the temple, where, from three years of age, she lived ‘as a dove that is nurtured: and she received food from the hand of an angel.'[i]

At the age of twelve she was taken from the temple by Joseph, a widower, as a result of a sign marking Joseph as her divinely ordained protector. Later she was appointed among seven virgins to the task of weaving a new curtain for the temple, the same one that was rent in two at the time of Jesus’ death.

It was during this work that the angel of the Annunciation appeared to her. When she at length was found to be pregnant, both she and Joseph were forced to undergo the water test for adultery[ii] which they successfully passed.

Near the end of their journey to Bethlehem, Joseph searched for a mid-wife while Mary rested in a cave. A cloud overshadowed the cave, a great light appeared, and the child was born and began to nurse. The mid-wife was astonished at these miraculous signs accrediting the Virgin Birth. The narrative proceeds to describe the visit of the Magi, the slaughter of the children at Bethlehem, and other happenings. Such was a 2nd century legend about Mary.

Later on, other legends concerning Mary's death and assumption began to appear. One of them, with a touch of anti-Semitic malice, has it that during the funeral procession for Mary, a Jewish priest laid hands on the bier intending to overturn it, failed, and was then unable to free his hands until he had confessed faith in Mary's divine son. The body of Mary was placed in a new sepulchre and raised by the command of Jesus, who appeared before the tomb with a band of angels. And the angels bore her to paradise.

By the time Dante appeared on the scene, the adoration of Mary was quite something. Dante eulogised Mary in a celebrated prayer (St Bernard’s) that marks the culmination of his spiritual adventure through hell, purgatory, and the Spheres of Paradise, to the beatific vision of the Trinity in the midst of the celestial rose. His prayer reads in part:

Virgin mother, daughter of your Son,

more humble and sublime than any creature,

fixed goal decreed from all eternity,

you are the one who gave to human nature

so much nobility that its Creator

did not disdain His being made its creature.

That love whose warmth allowed this flower[iii] to bloom

within the everlasting peace—was love

rekindled in your womb; for us above,

you are the noonday torch of charity,

and there below, on earth, among the mortals,

you are a living spring of hope.

Lady, you are so high, you can so intercede,

that he who would have grace but does not seek

your aid, may long to fly but has no wings.

Your loving-kindness does not only answer

the one who asks, but it is often ready

to answer freely long before the asking.

In you compassion is, in you is pity,

in you is generosity, in you

is every goodness found in any creature.[iv]

In the light of the foregoing, one might ask how it was that Mary did not become a part of the Godhead. All other Godheads of which I know include a feminine principle of one sort or another. But, as Joseph Campbell pointed out, the Christian Doctrine of three divine persons in one divine substance is actually “a transposition of the Graces three and Hyperborean Apollo of Greek lore into a mythological order of exclusively masculine masks of God. All of which accords well enough with the patriarchal spirit of the Old Testament, but radically unbalances the symbolic, and therefore spiritual, connotations not only of sex and the sexes, but also of all nature. ”[v]

An almost ridiculous difficulty has followed this exclusion of the female principle from its normal cosmic role. The mythological females of the Christian myth have perforce been ‘interpreted historically: Mother Eve, before and after the Fall, as a prehistoric character in a garden that never was; and Mary, the "Mother of God", as a virgin who conceived miraculously and was physically assumed into a place called "Heaven Above" that does not actually exist.’[vi]

Throughout the history of Christianity, its symbols (and liturgies) have been prey to the danger of re-interpretation in some general mythological sense - as has been the case for other major religious groups. Buddhist, Hindu, Navaho and Aztec mythologies are equally susceptible to Christian readings, something that might be interpreted as a triumph for Christianity if the process were not reciprocal.

In point of fact, re-interpretation of Christian myth into an essentially patriarchal system took place very early in the history of the Christian Church, and in such a way that documentary evidence for that process is scant. Revisionism at its worst. And we must bear in mind that this reinterpretation has been sustained from generation to generation by the Church’s liturgies, something that many in this day and age wish to correct.

Carl Jung, I believe, was correct in looking for a feminine principle within the Christian Godhead. So, let us celebrate Mary, Mother of the Lord, with more conviction than some dewy-eyed appreciation of the Lady in Blue.

The cartoonist Leunig's offering of prayer is fitting.

God be with the mother.

As she carried her child may she carry her soul.

As her child was born, may she give birth and life and form

to her own, higher truth. As she nourished and protected her child, may she nourish and protect her inner life and her independence. For her soul shall be her most painful birth, her most difficult child and the dearest sister to her other children.

Our soul shall indeed be our most painful birth, and this life is its gestation. Let us then celebrate the holy mysteries in peace and with joy.

In the name of God.

Amen.

Doug Bannerman © 2022

[i] Book of James or Protoevangelium, From "The Apocryphal New Testament", M.R. James-Translation and Notes (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1924) VIII 1, see https://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/infancyjames-mrjames.html

[ii] Numbers 5:16ff

[iii] i.e. the Celestial Rose.

[iv] Dante, Divine Comedy, Paradiso 31-33. Translation by the late Allen Mandelbaum. See https://www.newliturgicalmovement.org/2021/03/the-annunciation-2021-dante-and-virgin.html#.YvW4hy8RoUQ

[v] Joseph Campbell The Masks of God: Creative Mythology (Arkana Books: New York 1991) p108

[vi] Ibid p109

In the reading from Luke today, we are warned to be ready!  Be Alert! When you drive the long straight stretches of the Bruce Highway in North Queensland, there are safety signs asking “Is your driver alert?”  I had a friend in the Navy who would say “Be a lert - the world needs more lerts!”

There’s a fairly straightforward illustration in the last two verses of the reading today; “if you knew a thief was coming you would do something to make sure that your house wasn’t broken into”. The same logic leads us to realize that we always need to be ready to meet God. Verse 40 says, “Be ready for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour”. There’s no point speculating on how the Son of Man will come. It doesn’t really matter how. In most services we say “Christ will come again” It will be up on the screen and we will all say it this morning.

If I asked you “Is today the day Christ will come again? Will we meet God today?” How would you answer?

If your answer is “yes”, we really need to be ready! The answer cannot be “no” as he is coming at an unexpected hour. And if your answer is “I don’t know”, again we must be constantly ready.

So, it’s a fact. The time for us to meet God is coming. However, this is not a threat; it is a promise and an assurance. Whenever it might be that God comes, those who are prepared will be blessed. It’s Good News! All the things that concern us now won’t matter anymore. There will be no need to worry about paying the electricity bill or the car registration or all the other things that concern us.

So, we are reminded to be ready: not for trouble or punishment. We are to be ready for great things. Wonderful blessings. We are to have the same joyful anticipation as a young child excitedly waiting for Christmas.

Generally, the idea that the boss (or the master) is watching, leads to feelings of guilt or terror. It causes people to be unsettled and nervous; afraid of what might happen. But our Gospel reading begins with Jesus saying, “do not be afraid little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the Kingdom”.

In the Lord’s prayer, we pray, “Your Kingdom come”. And, God’s Kingdom will be wonderful for us.

Last week, Doug shared those encouraging words from the musical West Side Story which say, “There’s a place for us”. That place sounds like the Kingdom to me.  Perhaps what Doug said gives us a little help in understanding what Jesus means when he says, “it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the Kingdom”.

When you think about it, the words of Lords prayer are the words of someone who wants exactly what God wants. Everything in this prayer that Jesus taught is something that God wants for his people. The best possible Kingdom. Bread. Forgiveness. Safety in the time of trial. Deliverance from evil. When we pray this prayer, we actually ask for all our true needs, and it’s great to know that giving us our real needs is what God wants. God really wants each one of us to be blessed.

And it’s the promise of blessing (enjoying the Kingdom and having everything we need) which provides us with the motivation for watchfulness. No matter when God acts, those who are prepared will be blessed.

Being prepared actually means doing something. It is being active – not passive. Watchfulness and readiness mean that we are trying to do the things we know God wants us to do. Actively doing God’s will. Not just waiting around trying not to do anything wrong.

And Jesus message is “be mindful that the time to please God in the world as we know it today might be very short”. As an illustration, Jesus tells a parable of the master who has gone away to have a great time at a wedding reception and doesn’t appear to be coming back to the servants he has left in charge. And Jesus says, “Blessed are those slaves whom the master finds alert when He comes"

I don’t want to make things too complicated, but it’s very interesting to think about this parable and try to work out “who are we?” in the story.  Are we managers or slaves, owners or workers? The amazing answer is both!  We are both managers and slaves. God has set us up as managers of his property. We have been given total freedom to manage it as we choose. That’s the reality of it. Everything we have is really owned by God and yet he has left us in total control of all of it.

Now, each of us has been in charge of what we have been trusted with for so long that we have developed delusions of grandeur. I imagine that I am not simply a tenant. I believe that the owner has been away so long that he might as well be gone forever. I have been controlling everything myself for so long that I really think that I am actually the owner. But Jesus says “Not so!” We are to be alert, because the master, the real owner, is returning.

It’s all hard to understand. Yes! I hear the words Jesus is saying about the master returning. But, at the same time, I genuinely have a good reason for thinking that I am much more than a slave. Occasionally I have glimpses of the amazing way in which the real owner treats me as a royal guest. He lets me know that the things I do really matter. He shows me that my work for him really makes a difference and he thinks that I am a really terrific worker.

This story in Luke describes a master who is truly amazing. He is not going to arrive home and expect us to rush around sitting him down in the armchair, getting him his slippers and a cuppa. This is one master whose good pleasure it is to serve his slaves. This master wants to give us the kingdom. This master wants to pamper us. He is worth waiting up for. When he returns and finds us alert, this tiny glimpse of grace will expand into a master who gives us a robe and a ring and who sits us down at the table so that he can serve us a roast dinner.

So, Jesus says “Do not be afraid little flock”. When we consider the way He loves us, we can be confident that there is no need to be afraid. The knock on the door isn’t a worry. We don't have to say “who's there” in a frightened voice. We can just eagerly open the door; even in the early hours of the morning.

So don't be afraid, little flock. But be alert!  Be alert to responsibility, and to your privileged position.

But most of all, be alert to the reality of the master who is coming.

Are we all alert? The church needs alert people who can handle the paradox of God's grace; that we are both managers and slaves.

And our loving God wants us to relate to him. God wants us to respond to his love and care and generosity in our attitudes to giving and our attitudes to regular, joyful worship. Jesus says “it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the Kingdom” and if God is pleased to grant the kingdom to Jesus followers, they are free to live as citizens of that kingdom.

God’s Kingdom is “the place for us” where God’s will is actively done. In God’s Kingdom all human needs are met, our shortcomings are forgiven, and people are transformed so that their lives model God’s love.

That’s worth watching out for.

In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and trust shall be your strength. Isaiah 30.16. Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; 42 there is need of only one thing. Luke 10.41-42.

We live in an era of stress and anxiety. The long-term consequences of continued stress and anxiety effect our mental health. The Australian Bureau of Statistics has released some recent census data and it shows that more than 8 million people have a long-term health condition, including about 2.2 million (roughly one in 12 people) with a mental illness.

Stress and anxiety levels increased during the COVID pandemic. Although lockdowns are leveling off, anxiety levels are still elevated because of stress:

·          The stress of climate catastrophes

·          financial stress

·          job stress

·          personal relationships

·          international instability

·          social unrest and polarization

I have entitled today’s sermon Why Zebras Don’t get Ulcers. It is adopted from the work of Robert Sapolsky who documents the detrimental physical and psychological effects of stress in a book of the same name. Robert explains that while the stress response is an effective tool to remedy immediate and short-term danger, for example a zebra being chased by a lion, the problem is that humans activate that same stress response for psychological reasons too often.  Prolonged activation of the stress response intensifies a range of illnesses including ulcers, colitis, heart disease, depression and more. In the Gospel text today, we can almost taste the stress emanating from Martha: “‘Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself?” Jesus detects her stress response clearly: “Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; 42 there is need of only one thing.”

There must be more to life than the continual stress that statistics and lived experience describe. There must be a better life available.  We too easily identify with Mary’s complaining: “Lord do you not care”. Many long for quietness and rest described by Isaiah 30.16: In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and trust shall be your strength. It would seem that the discovery of the one thing is the doorway to returning and rest, quietness and trust, but what is the one thing?

The one thing

What is the one thing? I suggest that the one thing is precisely that: One thing…or oneness. When Jesus talks about The One Thing or Oneness, what Jesus is describing is unitive consciousness, non-duality, or mutual indwelling: I am in God, God is in me, God is in you, you are in God, we are in each other. The most common biblical word for this oneness with God is “abide”. In John 15 Jesus uses the symbol of the vine and the branches to describe mutual indwelling and oneness: “I am the vine; you are the branches. Abide in me as I in you” (15:4-5). Jesus recognises that the core of his identity is oneness with the Divine: “the Father and I are one” (John 10:30) — the statement is as blasphemous today as it was then. However, Jesus does not see his abiding in God as his exclusive privilege but rather something that is shared with all humans. There is no separation between humans and God, there is also no separation between humans and humans: if you are one with God and I am one with God we are one with each other. No separation between human and human is a powerful notion. Jesus taught: Love your neighbour as yourself” (Mark 12:31, Matthew 22:39). We may think that we are to love our neighbour as much as yourself or that we need to learn self-love before being equipped to love others. this is not what Jesus is saying.  “Love your neighbour as yourself” implies a continuation of your very own being, that your neighbour is you, that you are cells of the one great Life, each precious and necessary.

The one thing or oneness means this: We flow into God and God flows into us because it is the nature of love to flow.

What the text does not say

Let us be clear about what the text is not saying. The text is not saying that in the church some of us are Marthas and some of us are Marys. The text is not a discussion about the tension between active, practical people and contemplative people. Nor is the text suggesting a tension between social justice on the one hand and a prayer practice on the other.

I suggest instead that Mary and Martha represent two types of consciousness: 

1.    A unitive consciousness where we are one with God which I have described as the one thing.

2.    A dualistic or egoic consciousness that continually separates the world into good and bad, inside and outside, right and wrong, up and down, good and evil, reward and punishment, subject and object.

In other words, it is not what we do that is important, but who is doing it. Martha could easily have been seated at the feet of Jesus, but the same attitude would have come through: “Could you hurry up Jesus, do you not care that I have things to do in the kitchen?” It is not what is done but the consciousness of the one doing it that matters. For example, imagine two nurses caring for patients in a hospital. One nurse, fixated in an egoic or dualistic consciousness cares for his patients is a busy fashion, and mechanically completes his tasks with little conversation with the patient and is not fully present. Another nurse, open to unitive consciousness, celebrating oneness with God and others, is fully present and available to the patient. His actions are more than loving, they are the act of love itself. He too completes his tasks, but he is an unhurried presence, and every task is itself a prayer. In both cases the tasks are completed professionally. The second example contributes to healing in the world and makes prayer and love more visible. 

Another way to describe the different types of consciousness in operation is to use the world of computers. A computer has an inbuilt operating system. It is this operating system that allows the programmes on your computer to function. From time to time you will need to upgrade your operating system so that the computer runs smoothly and has the most up to date security.  We are born with a dualistic operating system, but we can upgrade to a unitive consciousness operating system. These two different operating systems mean that we show up in the world in different ways. To return to my earlier remarks regarding stress, I suggest that stress emanates from the egoic, dualistic worldview. Any attempts to alleviate stress will not succeed long-term if one remains fixated in a dualistic consciousness. Conversion to a unitive consciousness of mutual indwelling however is our salvation, it is the one thing that obliterates stress forever: in returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and trust shall be your strength. Isaiah 30.16.

Sermon Notes on Luke 11. 1-13 for 24th July

Teach us to pray

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EBZuRUVIb9E.  In the movie Meet the Parents, Jewish nurse Greg Focker is desperate to impress his fiancé’s WASPY (White Anglo Saxon Protestants)  parents. The only thing more awkward than trying to impress her family is the moment when he is asked to say grace. He improvises by reciting part of the musical Godspell as a prayer (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ekoHxB4idmg). The cringe worthy scene highlights some difficulties in prayer.

In Luke 11.1-113, the disciples come to Jesus asking: “Teach us to pray”. There is such a hunger behind the four words “teach us to pray”. The thirst for prayer emerges out of a sense of emptiness or incompleteness we discern in ourselves. Our loneliness, our grasping for more, our addictions – these all emerge out of that divine spark within us that like a magnet draws us deeper and deeper into God. As Augustine put it “You have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless, until they can find rest in you.” The sense of incompleteness or emptiness or awareness that there the Sacred exists draws us into prayer, yet prayer can be so difficult, why? The Bible says, “ask and you will receive,” but this doesn’t always seem true. Some have prayed and asked and not received. Some have “knocked” but feel that the door has remained closed/ So, what do we do? How can we be encouraged in prayer? To encourage you I want to share what has encouraged me – the interior castle by St Theresa of Jesus.

An interior castle

St Teresa, a Spanish nun, lived in a time of castles in the 1500’s. She was a Carmelite nun and had a very honest relationship with God. E.g., once, she fell in the mud and told God off: “if this is how you treat your friends is it any wonder you have so few?” People asked Theresa what they once asked Jesus, to teach them to pray. Under obedience she wrote a spiritual classic called The interior castle.  Here are three important things she said about prayer that may help us.

 Your soul is like a beautiful diamond castle.

"We consider our very souls to be like a castle made out of diamond or of very clear-cut crystal, in which there are many dwelling places.” Your souls is a paradise where God finds delight, your souls is the heaven in which God dwells. This is perhaps the most important thing for all of us to hear clearly: that our souls are beautiful crystal castles and God lives there.

Surrounded by castles in 16th century Spain, it is obvious that her surrounding environment inspired Theresa’s vision that the soul is a beautiful castle made of diamond. Theresa says further that in the crystal castle that is our soul are many rooms, or dwelling places. The interior castle describes the experience of prayer deepening as one “progresses” from the outer first room to the deeper and innermost seventh room.

In the “olden” days houses were designed differently. Houses were not as open plan as they are today. Alongside is our previous home in Albany WA. The house is designed with several rooms that are closed off to other rooms. The room on the right of the house is the office, it has its own entrance, and it is the place where “official” church business can be conducted. From the front door, one can enter the lounge, here friends are entertained. The upstairs rooms, including a private family room and of course the bedrooms are reserved for family and rarely do guests access these upstairs rooms. Similarly, in Theresa’s vision of the interior castle, the rooms or dwelling places represent a deepening relationship in prayer. Prayer is a journey from the outer mansions or rooms of the interior castle to the inner mansions or dwelling places  of the castle. The innermost mansion is where the Sun or God shines brightest. The outermost mansions may have difficulty seeing the sun because they are further away, but nevertheless the person in the first mansion is still in the castle.

 The first room

The entry into the interior castle is prayer and reflection, which takes you into the first room. In room one we have the beginnings of prayer. Any prayer will do. Perhaps we have prayed “help us God” or perhaps we have prayed “help this person God” or “bless this person”  -  this is the beginning of prayer. If all you have ever prayed is “thank you”, you have prayed enough, according to Meister Eckhardt. Theresa describes the first room as follows: “we are speaking to souls, that, in the end, enter the castle. Even though they are involved in the world, have good desires, and sometimes entrust themselves to the Lord and reflect on who they are, they hurry through it. During the period of a month they will sometimes pray, but their minds are filled with business matters that ordinarily occupy them” (Campbell 1985) . Theresa acknowledges the difficulties in prayer that I have previously noted, suggesting that the reason people in the first dwelling place or room cannot see the beauty of the castle is because of the distractions of busyness, ingrained habits and ways of thinking that have yet to be reprogrammed through prayer.

 The seventh room

Prayer in the first three rooms is challenging, but in the seventh room it is as if God does the praying for us. Prayer in the seventh room is effortless union with God. Theresa says: “In the seventh room the union comes about in a different way: Our good God now desires to remove the scales from the soul’s eye and let it see and understand something of the favour God grants it” (Campbell 1985). She says further “when God communicates here to the soul, in an instant, is a secret so great and a favour so sublime – and the delight the soul experiences so extreme, that I don’t know what to compare it to” (Campbell 1985). Prayer in the seventh room is like a spiritual marriage between the soul and God.

I have been deeply encouraged in prayer by Theresa’s Interior castle. First, being reminded of the beauty of the soul and that God is within is affirming. Second, noting the common human experience of praying reminds me that I am already in the diamond castle where God dwells. Third, the promise of utter union with God experienced in the seventh room energises the prayer journey. The words of St Augustine describe the joy of prayer in the Interior Castle: 

Too late have I loved you, O Beauty so ancient,
O Beauty so new.
Too late have I loved you!
You were within me but I was outside myself, and there I sought you!
In my weakness,

I ran after the beauty of the things you have made.
You were with me, and I was not with you.
The things you have made kept me from you – the things which would have no being unless they existed in you!
You have called, you have cried, and you have pierced my deafness.
You have radiated forth, you have shined out brightly,

and you have dispelled my blindness.
You have sent forth your fragrance, and I have breathed it in,

and I long for you.
I have tasted you, and I hunger and thirst for you.
You have touched me, and I ardently desire your peace.

Source: Campbell, Camille. 1985. Meditations with Teresa of Avila (Sate Fe: Bear and Company, Inc).

P.S. if you interested in having a regular prayer practice, many have found the following resources helpful:

1. https://pray-as-you-go.org/home (website and downloadable app).

2. https://cac.org/daily-meditations/

3. Turning to the mystics is a podcast that offers a discussion on St Theresa’s Interior Castle Season 2. https://cac.org/podcasts/teresa-of-avila-session-1/

“Love” from “Aspects of Love” by Andrew Lloyd Webber offers us a succinct and accurate theology of the Spirit.

Love, love changes everything,
hands and faces, earth, and sky
Love, love changes everything
How you live and how you die
Love, can make the summer fly
Or a night seem like a lifetime
Yes love, love changes everything
Now I tremble at your name
Nothing in the world will ever be the same

The Holy Spirit is God’s love within us. More accurately the Holy Spirit is the Love Bond uniting the Creator to the Christ, the Christ to the Creator, and giving us a share in that loving unity. The greatest love affair ever is the love affair of the Source-of-all-being pouring out love into the Christ, the Christ receiving that love fully and completely and pouring love into the Creator, the Source-of-all-that-is, the Creator. The Holy Spirit is this Love Bond and ushers us into the energy of loving and being loved that is God the Trinity. The Holy Spirit is the Love Bond uniting us to God and us to each other - if I am one with God and you are one with God, we are one with each other.

What does the Holy Spirit do?

The Holy Spirit is to be the Love that unites and by uniting transform all that it unites. So, the holy Spirit:

1)  Unites in Love

2)  Transforms through Love

Yes! Love, love changes everything
Days are longer, words mean more
Love, love changes everything
Pain is deeper than before

Love will turn your world around
And that world will last for ever

The Holy Spirit is the energy of Love uniting and transforming in love. There is something faceless and invisible about the Holy Spirit. Since the Holy Spirit is love, the only face it seeks and therefore has, is the face of the Beloved. Learning to notice the Spirit’s presence is like learning to be a good tracker. Just like a good tracker can “read” spoor and “read” animal scat and tell you where and when an animal went, so too can we learn to read the spoor of the Holy Spirit. The spoor of the Holy Spirit is a love that unites and transforms. In those moments that we witness loving unity taking place we witness people being spirit filled. In those moments when someone picks up the phone to talk to a family member or a friend that they have ignored for years, we witness people being spirit filled. When we are offered a new beginning, a second wind, a chance to begin again, we are being filled with the spirit. The way we love something is the way we love everything, so in every act of loving service to the environment or to another, we are being spirit filled.

What is being filled with the Holy Spirit?

The Holy Spirit is the Love that unites and by uniting transforms all that She unites. Thus, everywhere where we witness authentic love, we witness people being filled with the Holy Spirit, we witness the Gospel of the Holy Spirit. The Church is filled with the Spirit in that it is the Spirit that “animates” the Sacraments which are real symbols where God comes close to us, and we come close to God. The Holy Spirit fills us to do the work of God in the church and from the church. Thus, every act of service and love in and from this church is only possible because of the Holy Spirit. We thus see the Holy Spirit at work in the cleaning roster, in the flower roster, in the prayer team, in the welcomers, in the hospitality after the service, in every act of listening, in every experience of kindness, in those who prepare meals …. The list is endless! In every one of these gestures of love we read the Gospel of the Holy Spirit.

There is much to recognise this weekend on the feast of Pentecost:

·      World environment day

·      Reconciliation day

·      Mabo

·      The platinum jubilee of the queen.

In each of these moments we can witness people being spirit filled: in the forgiveness First Nations people offer us oppressors, in the opportunity for unity and recognition in reconciliation, in the consistency of service the queen has offered throughout her reign and the care invited for the environment. In each of these remembrances we read the Gospel of the holy Spirit: world environment day, reconciliation week, Mabo declaration, the queen’s jubilee

However, there are also real blockages to the Spirit’s work in the world. 5 June is the anniversary for other events too:

·      1945 The US, UK, France, and USSR set Germany’s borders at the end of WWII. 

·      1967 The Six Day war began between Israel, Egypt, Syria, and Jordan.

·      1968 US Senator Robert Kennedy was assassinated in Los Angeles.

How can we remove the blockages to the spirit flourishing in our lives and in the world so that love unites and transforms? What must we as individuals do?

The great democracy is that each of us is given the Holy Spirit. For the Holy Spirit to flourish in our lives, however, a training program is needed. This should not surprise us. Just as an athlete watches her diet, trains with a coach, and puts the hours into running practise or at the gym; so too do we as spiritual athletes need a training program. We all know what this training program is: reading Scripture, receiving communion, being part of a small group, serving others with practical love, having a spiritual mentor/coach/companion, prayer….

Jesus breathes on each of us just as he once did his disciples. Today we allow Jesus to breathe on us again, and to fill us afresh with his presence of love – the Holy Spirit. All we must do is ask … and breathe … together.

Three “prayer songs of blessing” based on John 17.20-26

Jean Valjean’s Death in Les Miserables musical adaptation of Victor Hugo's 1862 novel by Claude-Michel Schönberg (music), and Herbert Kretzmer (English lyrics).

God...

on...

high

hear my prayer
Take me now

to thy care
Where you are

let me be
Take me now,
take me there

Bring me home
Bring me home
Take my hand
And lead me to salvation
Take my love
For love is everlasting
And remember
The truth that once was spoken:
To love another person
is to see the face of God!

 Forever Young written by Bob Dylan

May God bless and keep you always
May your wishes all come true
May you always do for others
And let others do for you
May you build a ladder to the stars
And climb on every rung
May you stay forever young
Forever young, forever young
May you stay forever young.

May you grow up to be righteous
May you grow up to be true
May you always know the truth
And see the light surrounding you.

May you always be courageous
Stand upright and be strong
May you stay forever young
Forever young, forever young
May you stay forever young

 May your hands always be busy
May your feet always be swift
May you have a strong foundation
When the winds of changes shift
May your heart always be joyful
And may your song always be sung
May you stay forever young
Forever young, forever young
May you stay forever young

“Forever Young” is a prayer blessing song that Bob Dylan wrote in 1966 for his son Jesse. It is an outpouring of abundant grace and extravagant love expressing Bob Dylan’s intense hope that his son would have a good life. “God on high hear my prayer” is the final scene in the musical by Shonberg Les Misearbles. It is an utterly beautiful blessing that Jean Valjean prays at the end of his life. Valjean overflows with love for his adopted daughter and his son in law and wants them to know that love is the essence of life. In knowing love, they will see the face of God. In both these songs we are intruding on a very intimate, vulnerable scene when one human being is divinised in praying love into another human being. It is the very same with John 17, we are eavesdropping on a scene of great intimacy. John 17 is not a “to do list”, nor is an indictment on when the church has failed to be what it hopes it could be. Rather, John 17, like “Forever young” and “God on high” is a prayer blessing song one human being prays for people they deeply love.

John 17 shows Jesus in a personal and private moment of prayer. Having finished his public work, and having finished teaching and being with his disciples, Jesus steps into a prayer. We eavesdrop on his words. 

Bob Dylan, Jesus, and Jean Valjean pray for the people that they have loved that they will continue to feel loved and protected by God’s grace. Bob Dylan prays “May you know the truth and see the light surrounding you”. Jean Valjean prays “bring me home” and Jesus prays “you and I are one.” Ultimately both Jesus and Jean Valjean portray the message that the love of God and the love of others is one love: to love another person is to see the face of God. Thus, in every moment of authentic self-emptying love we are one with God and one with Christ, just as the Christ and the Creator are one. 

Jesus says that at the heart of the experience of eternal life is to know God. To know God is love God. To be very clear eternal life is something that is experienced right here, right now. It is not a future place or a future experience. Eternal life is to experience a living relationship with God in Jesus animated by the Holy Spirit. Eternal life is a love affair with God and it is experienced in everyday life moment by moment.   

 We know, taste, touch experience the love of God in every moment of being loved by another and in every moment of loving another. In every moment that we experience being loved and in every moment of loving another we are at that moment experiencing the unfolding of God’s love and God’s presence. The love that flows into us, that love that flows out of us is the Divine, the Sacred within us flourishing.  

The impulse to love is the seed of God’s very presence deep within in us. And this is precisely our struggle. God’s presence is in us as something quiet, hidden, often invisible. Jesus said God’s love and presence inside us like a bit of yeast in dough, it is hidden. Jesus said God’s presence in us is like an insignificant and almost invisible mustard seed that surprises us with its growth into a large tree. So too, God’s presence is inside us, vulnerable, hidden, gentle, not dramatic, not earthshattering and for this reason it is easily ignored, easily forgotten, easily overlooked, seldom overpowering.  

The only thing this hidden presence of God in us seems to have in its favour is its gentle, unending, unwavering, nagging persistence. Unendingly and persistently it entices love from us. Like that piece of yeast that cannot help itself but cause the dough to grow and like that seed that cannot help itself but grow and become a tree so too is it with God’s presence that is hidden in the depths of our lives. God’s presence in us cannot help itself – it reaches out and touches others in every expression of love, gentleness, caring and kindness we offer another creature. The trick is to allow this persistent nudging to move us out of apathy as more and more we allow God’s love in us to grow. What we experience then is the Holy Spirit, the presence of God within us and this Holy Spirit will energise us for more loving, it will give us every gift necessary to love well and it will fulfil us in ways beyond our imagining.  

A concluding (and totally made up) story

Two drops of rain were bobbing up and down, floating in the ocean: Big Drop and Small Drop.

Small Drop said to Big Drop: “I have heard that there is this thing called water” “Yes Little Drop of Rain,” Big Drop replied. “The water is all around us, in the ocean. You are in the water, and the water is in you, you are completely surrounded by water.”

Little Drop didn’t quite understand Big Drop, so she tried another question: “Big Drop, what is this water that is in me and all around me…what is water made from…What is its substance?

Big Drop looked thoughtful. “Water doesn’t really have substance as such. Sometimes when it’s very cold, water turns to ice. When it is very hot water becomes air; then it kind of floats…it dances between the sky and earth. Water is made from relationship, from connection, from “bonds of love” when oxygen atoms unite with hydrogen atoms. It’s the bond that is important – the oxygen and the hydrogen love each other so much that they become one. Without their bond they remain just hydrogen and oxygen. Us Drops of Rain unite with water, unite with the ocean– we are nondual – we are united – we are drops of rain flowing to the ocean.

Little Drop looked puzzled. “But Big Drop, why can’t I see the water if it is the ocean, if I am in it and it is in me?”

Big Drop pondered the question. “It’s true, you cannot always see water, but sometimes you can feel it, you just know it’s there.” Little Drop looked sceptical.  “That sounds like philosophical twaddle Big Drop. I’m sorry, but without proof, without actually being able to see it, I don’t think I believe in water.”

With that, Little Drop spun around and around and around. And as she spun she became hotter and hotter until she was air born and floated out of the ocean into the atmosphere. Big Drop wasn’t too worried. She knew that there was nowhere that Little Drop could go to escape Water. If Little Drop went to the highest reaches water would be in the atmosphere. And if Little Drop went into the deepest abyss water would be there too.

Home

We have survived another election. The housing crisis, a rise in interest rates for home loans, the bushfires and floods which  aggravated the housing shortage, those without homes, people seeking refuge and asylum, are some of the factors that dominated the election wars. Issues such as cost of living are closely related to being at home in the world. For many, but especially younger voters, our broader home, the environment is a key consideration.

 Home. What does the word home or housing mean to you? Safety, belonging, thriving, limitlessness, a space to be oneself, a refuge, a space to be rejuvenated are words that describe home for some. For others home is a place to escape from, a place of threat and the violence of abuse, addiction, and control. Home is either a space of expansion when home is safe and nourishing or contraction when home is violent. Between these two points of safety and violence is displacement; a lack of a home because of homelessness or forced migration or the ‘Stolen Generations’ being severed from their land, their home.

 Home is closely linked to identity. Who I am and who you are is largely shaped by where home was and is. Identity is shaped by what home was and is. The close link between the place of home and identity is one of the reasons it is so stressful when we move home or when home is threatened. In 21 years of marriage, we have lived in seven homes, in 6 towns, in 3 provinces, 2 states and 2 countries. Moving home is as stressful as experiencing death, psychologists tell us. Maybe it is because home is closely linked to identity. In moving home, a person’s identity shifts too. Some parts of who we are die.

 The empty caves that line the streets of Woodburn, Broadwater and Lismore were once homes to families whose prized possessions now litter the once flooded streets. What trauma! Our compassion for their loss opens us to vicarious trauma when some of their pain stains our souls, but these are Christ’s wounds, and we carry them willingly hoping that it sucks out the poison of their suffering.

 Mutual indwelling

The over brief consideration on the word ‘home’ illustrates some ways that ‘home’ captures the whole range of human emotions from trauma to safety to flourishing. The point of the scriptures especially in John is how God’s plan is that God makes God’s home within us even as we find our home in God. God’s plan is a process of mutual indwelling – God making God’s home in us and us finding our home in God. To illustrate this process of mutual indwelling the book of Revelation uses the image of God as a city – to live in God is to live in a city where the city itself is God. If God were a city what would God look like? Since the whole city is God, there is no visible temple, because oneness with and in God is the reality of the God city.

 The book of Revelation describes us living in God. The Gospel of John describes how God dwells in us: John 14:23 ‘Jesus answered him, "Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them.”’ Here, the translation ‘word’ refers to Jesus’ new commandment to Love. When God makes God’s home in us, God doesn’t come as a guest but as a partner, a Beloved. There is no need to vacuum and tidy the house – there is no need to prepare a lavish meal. God makes God’s home within us regardless of the state of our home - whether our lives feel like the homes wrecked by floods, or if our lives are ordered and perfect enough to appear on “Better homes and Gardens.” “The word became flesh and blood and moved into the neighbourhood” according to Eugene Peterson’s translation of John 1:14. What does this tell us about God? It says that the Creator doesn’t just let God’s creation exist. God commits Godself to creation. God in Christ enters into it himself, so as to live in it; and that means to come to rest in it, and to remain there.

 Difficulties

There are at least three difficulties people may experience in accepting an invitation for mutual indwelling. The first difficulty relates to an inability to resonate with metaphor; a lack of imagination and an over literal interpretation of God as a substance, an object, a noun, as a Someone, usually an old man with a beard. If we insist that God is an object, a noun, a Someone, we will never grasp how God makes God’s home in us, and how we make our home in God.

 God is love and those who live in Love live in God (1 John). What makes God God then is not the nodes of identity – father son and holy spirit - but the energy of love that unites father to son and son to father. Teilhard believed that this love energy was at the heart of the Big Bang.  Love emerges in evolution and there is a rise in consciousness as creation becomes aware of itself. From the big band we emerge out of a long, cosmic process we call evolution. But evolution is about deep relationality, about the energy of love and it is this force of love that pulls us forward and onward in continued evolution.

 The second difficulty then in accepting mutual indwelling is that we have become closed systems, unnatural and detached. Our separation from God, from each other and from creation is overemphasised. God is “up there” and we are “down here” and there is a line of separation. We are separated from each other when we over invest in our descriptors – I am I and you are you and I am not you and you are not me. We are therefore not at home in this cosmos. We are not at home in nature, and we're not at home with one another. We are literally lost in space.

 Religion often perpetuates the disconnect between God and creation. Religion does not move people towards connection with God, each other and creation, a new level of consciousness, but rather, divisiveness. Religion should be making us conscious of how we are in God, how God is in us, how we are in creation and how creation is in us, and how we are in each other.

 A third difficulty in accepting mutual indwelling relates to not knowing how to receive it. Jesus says, “I will be IN you” (Jn 14:17, 20). The Apostle Paul says, “Christ lives IN me” (Gal 2:20). How can I experience God’s presence in my life in a meaningful way? How do I connect with God personally? We are created for union

with God. The mystery of the Divine Indwelling is the life of the Trinity living within us but how is this real for us?

Mutual indwelling, surrendering to God who makes God’s home within us, is consenting to God’s presence and action within. It is based on the format for prayer that Jesus suggests in Matthew 6:6. If you want to pray, enter your inner room, close the door, and pray to your Father in secret. Then your Father who sees in secret, will reward you. In other words, to live the reality of mutual indwelling is surrendering to silence, surrendering to the inner cave of the heart where God always is. A concluding quote from the mystic Elizabeth of the Trinity serves as an illustration

 If I look at things from an earthly standpoint [wrote Elizabeth] I see loneliness and even emptiness, for I cannot say that my heart has not suffered; but if I keep my eyes fixed upon Him, my shining Star, then all the rest vanishes and I lose myself as a drop of water in the ocean. All is calm, all is soothed and all is so good; it is the peace of God of which St Paul speaks, the peace that ‘surpasseth all understanding’ (Phil. 4:7). 

Let us live in close union with our Beloved and be wholly given to Him as He is given to us ... Let us commune with Him all the day long, since He is living in our soul ...

Fifth Sunday of Easter

1. New

The theme connecting the lectionary readings is the word “new”. Revelation 21 describes a new heaven and a new earth – a new Jerusalem. Acts describes a new ethic, a morality of inclusion. The Gospel of John highlights the new commandment to love one another. What exactly is “new” about the command to love? After all, the command to love is a golden thread running through the Hebrew Scriptures and the teaching of Jesus. For example, Leviticus and the ten commandments in Exodus instruct us to love the Lord our God and to love our neighbours as yourself. What then is new about the final teaching of Jesus? Love one another as I have loved you? Is it the example that Jesus offers that makes the new commandment new? Love one another, Jesus says, as I have loved you. To unravel the new commandment and live into the newness it offers, I invite us to consider the experience of living and loving in two different cities, countries, or cultures. 

2. Living in two different cities

Perhaps you have had the experience of living in two different cities and experienced being lost in translation when you have crashed headfirst into the solid but unwritten rules that govern a city or culture. For example, the Japanese culture is often reserved, demure and utterly respectful. In contrast, Australians have a reputation for being exuberant, loud, and even brash. In the Tokyo Olympics an amusing clash of cultures went viral at Australian swimming coach Dean Boxall’s wild celebration after Arianne Titmus won gold. Dean’s enthusiasm was a joy to behold, expect for the nervous Japanese official who tried to seat him. There is a way of being that is Australian and there is a way of being that is Japanese. Were Dean to live permanently in Tokyo, no doubt he would gradually shift “to fit in”. 

The ubiquitous cultural clashes new emigrants experience when adjusting to an Australian life are well documented. “Bring a plate” means bring a plate with food on it. The answer to “how are you going?” is not “by aeroplane”. I was rather shocked when the church administrator enjoyed an Australia day thong throwing competition; in South Africa, thongs are not shoes. “See you later” does not mean someone will see you later, it means goodbye. 

 A third example is how some cultures indicate respect by looking someone in the eye and other cultures indicate respect by dropping the gaze.  

 The above examples hope to illustrate that moving from one city or country or culture to another requires literacy in a different way of being. So too is Jesus “new” commandment an invitation to live in a new city or country with a new culture and a different set of rules. 

3. A new commandment

When Jesus gives us the new commandment, the parable of a new way of being has been dramatized. Jesus washes his disciples’ feet shattering a domination way of being where some are rulers and others are servants. In sharing a Passover meal, Jesus shares bread and wine with his friends saying that the sharing of bread and wine is a sharing in his very life. Jesus is inviting a new way of being a shift that can be understood as learning to live in a new country with a different culture. 

The country we are asked to leave behind is defined by domination, separation, and isolation. In the country we leave behind there are non-reciprocal relationships. Here, identity is defined by negation and separation: I am I in so far as I am not you.  A servant washes a master's feet never the other way around. Jesus overturns this domination paradigm of masters and servants when he washes the feet of his disciples.

The new culture or new city we are invited to make our home in is totally different. The New Country is a different way of defining the self, perceiving others and the world. Here God is not separate from us, but we live in God. We are not separate from each other, but our personhood is intricately woven together with each other. Inter-independence, complementarity, cooperation, friendship, and creative joy characterise the new culture and the new city. Jesus does not talk about the new culture new city, he lives it. He washes his disciples’ feet effectively saying that this is what love is in the new city. I give myself to you in love and service. And by allowing me your master to wash your feet you are receiving me fully and giving yourself to me. Identity in this new paradigm is that we find out who we are by being inside each other. I am who I am because I am in you, with you, not separate from you, not against you and not outside you. Jesus lives this new paradigm when he says when you eat this bread and drink this wine, I am literally in you.

In the domination city we are outside each other, we are objects to each other – separate. In the communion city we are inside each other. In the domination city God is outside us, above us even. In the communion city, we are in God, embedded in the very dynamism of God’s energy of Love. The model for the domination city is a pyramid. The model for the communion city is more than a circle, it is a network. Whatever we do this network, this web, we do to ourselves. 

4. Loving from a new place

In the domination city people still love. Servants love their masters (see Peter 2.18, Ephesians 6.5 “Slaves, obey your earthly masters with respect and fear, and with sincerity of heart, just as you would obey Christ”). Masters love their servants. However, this type of loving transforms nothing, it cements the status quo – the normalcy of civilisation. In Luke Jesus reminds a faithful God follower “to love your neighbour”. He does love his neighbour but defines who his neighbour is from a domination paradigm. He asks, “who is my neighbour?”. Loving from the communion city has a totally different energy. In the communion city all people and all creation are you neighbour, they are part of your identity in a subject-to-subject coinherence.   

Do you have a feel for the difference? In the communion paradigm the command is not “love your neighbour as you love yourself”. It is to love your neighbour as being yourself, it is part of your very act of existing. With every breath you breathe you are love. This is what I mean when I say that in the domination city, we say prayers. In the communion city we are prayer. The way we understand our identity has to change. In the domination city we have too many descriptors – I am this or I am that. We waste inordinate amounts of energy defending these descriptors.  In the communion city there is an inner core, a transcendent self, that says “I am who I am because you are who you are. I am. May you be.” Loving our neighbour from the communion paradigm is because we belong to each other. The culture of the communion city cannot be imposed – it emerges. What is new about this commandment is that it flows out from a completely different place, it is from a new paradigm, a communion city.

In WA we lived along the coast. Most mornings, my Bishon Frise Bella and I would run/jog/walk along the coastal promenade. Being well trained, Bella faithfully ran behind me without a lead. One morning our morning run/jog/walk was slightly later than usual and by this time several coffee shops along the promenade were serving breakfast. I had already reached the end of the boardwalk and was on my way home before I realised Bella was no longer behind me. Bella had become distracted with offers of food and affection from the morning coffee shop patrons. I whistled and she came bounding towards me straight away. There were so many smells, sights, and sounds, so many different people calling for Bella’s attention. Dogs’ sniffing powers far exceed that of humans. They can notice 1 particle in 1,000,000,000,000 other particles. One in a trillion parts is half a cube of sugar in an Olympic-sized swimming pool. Can you imagine the smells and sounds calling for Bella’s attention - the smells of bacon, food, other dogs, other humans?  Yet, amidst the chorus of noises and invitations it was only my voice she responded to.

I often reflect on the experience of Bella hurdling towards me in joyful obedience in response to my whistle. How was it that Bella could discern my off-tune whistle amidst the cacophony of smells and sounds that she could otherwise have responded to? Bella’s experience of hearing my voice amidst the calls of so many other distractions could be a metaphor or a reflection on our experience of being human. In the same way that a trillion scents and sounds pull Bella’s attention, so too is our attention as humans pulled in many different directions. How do we as humans know which whistle to respond to? How do we discern the safe and authoritative voice that will bring us safely home amidst all the other sounds and scents that demand our attention?

I suggest that there are inner and outer competing voices that demand our attention. There are inner sounds that may say things like: Be perfect. Hurry up. Please me. Be strong.

Other inner voices may be quite critical, judgemental, and harsh. They demand that we feel ashamed of ourselves or insist that nobody really cares about us. The day of judgement is something to look forward to for the gracious and generous God would never judge or criticise us the way we judge and criticise ourselves.

Outer voices that distract us may include the ubiquitous and insidious nature of how technology and media infiltrate us. More and more we are becoming aware of how the algorithms are designed to ensnare us and infect us in ways that are not helpful for our well-being. Like the advertising industry, social media hijacks our psychology and weaponizes it against us – for profit.

Other outer voices that call for our attention may also be the expectations that people place on us, wanting us to be a certain way or do certain things that we may not necessarily want to do. It is often hard to put boundaries in place to protect our own inner freedom.

Beneath all these voices that demand our attention like the trillion scents demanding a dog’s attention on a walk is the One Voice. The One Voice is the voice we most need to hear. This One Voice says “you are my beloved. On you my favour rests.” It is the voice of the Good Shepherd. To live in tune with this Voice is to live in the eternity of the now. It required effort for Bella to learn to trust my voice. Likewise, it may require special effort for us to tune into the One Voice of the Good Shepherd: a strong determination for deep listening, solitude and sometimes silence.

I suggest that Jesus himself may also have experienced what we experience, the challenge to discern the one true voice amidst the army of voices that demanded his attention.

Our John 10 reading is on the Feast Day of Hannukah. The Feast of Dedication commemorates the re-dedication of the Second Temple following the Maccabean Revolt. You may already know that the Maccabean Revolt was a guerrilla type rebellion of the Jewish people against the Seleucids. Antiochus Epiphanes had launched an aggressive attack on the Jewish people expecting them to worship an image of himself and other pagan idols that he had placed in the Jewish temple. Led by the Maccabean brothers, the Jews won their independence from the Seleucids in about 134 BCE.

The Feast of Dedication remembers the victory over Antiochus Epiphanes and the Seleucids. As the Jewish nation continued to celebrate the Feast of Dedication, they looked forward to a Messiah that would overthrow all their enemies and overcome the Roman rule. Against this backdrop Jesus is interrogated; are you the Messiah we long for? There is a sense of impatience and disappointment in the question. In other gospels the disciples of John the Baptist say to Jesus “are you the Messiah or should we expect someone else?”

Jesus was not the type of Messiah people expected him to be. What might it have been like for Jesus to live under the burden of the varying expectations people had of him?  I wonder what it may have been like for Jesus to listen to the voices of these competing demands. Some voices wanted him to initiate a violent overthrow of their oppressors. Others wanted Jesus to announce God’s anger. Amidst these competing demands and voices, Jesus tunes into the One Voice that reminds him that he and God are one. The non-duality of this unitive consciousness is the new life, the eternal life, that Jesus experienced and wants us to experience too. The spiritual genius of Jesus is the experiential knowledge of his utter unity with God. The Good Shepherd can lead us from a life of emptiness to a life of fullness. Following the example of Jesus, we too can tune into the One Voice that calls us home amidst the assault of other stimuli demanding our energy.