Burying the Alleluia

2 Kings 2:1-12                   Psalm 50:1-6         2 Corinthians 4:3-12      Mark 9:2-9

Have you noticed how many alleluias we have said and sung already today? And how much glory there is in our bible readings…

There was a chariot of fire, a bodily ascension, a whirlwind, glory shining, tempests whirling, booming voices from heaven. And then Jesus, standing face to face with the long dead patriarchs of the church. Knowing and touching and being entirely consumed by the glory of God. It’s quite something, isn’t it.

But life isn’t always like that, is it? For most of us, life is probably never like that.  If we are honest, life as a follower of Jesus is much plainer, much more normal, sometimes much more painful and lonely than these readings express today. And for some people, even in our church and in our town, it is never like that.   And the church year recognises that and provides ways to remind us to think and pray and lament and celebrate, with our brothers and sisters worldwide. 

So today we are on the Sunday before Lent – our Lenten observances begin this Wednesday when we recall our own humanity, in sorrowfulness and repentance, and are marked with the sign of the cross in Ash.

But today, before then, we take part in this ancient practice where we bury, or lock, the Alleluia.  It dates way back, to before the 10th Century and is a practice where we symbolically bury, or plant, or hide the word ‘alleluia’ in the ground – and stop singing or saying it in our worship – as a conscious prayer and in the hope of it returning with the dawn of Easter day.

We first did this together 2 years ago and it was intensely significant. Do you remember, we buried the alleluia in Aref’s lunchbox that he had been given in detention. And, we used that as a reminder of our brothers in detention, and what life was like for them, and how glory couldn’t be further from their experiences. 

That year we buried our alleluia, as a prayer for those who have lost their alleluia. And then, on easter Sunday, we dug it up and brought it back into church. Except by then, Aref was here with us, and it became the day of his baptism. I can’t put into words what happened in those 40 days, nor the symbolism and significance of that buried alleluia in Aref’s box but, somehow we were witnesses of something close to resurrection.

So last year, it was with some trepidation that we buried, or planted the alleluia. What would God do with it? And I feel the same today, because the world is in a different place to where it was 2 years ago. And we are not the same people who sat here last year, or even last week. Time moves on, situations change, life deals us new things – some better, some worse.

So, our burying of the alleluia, our prayer for what might grow or blossom, our hopes for this lent are different. What will we bury? What will we pray for each time we notice the alleluia is missing from our praise?  What people and places and situations will we carry with us this lent?

We bury our alleluia as a lovely reminder of a 10th century tradition. But it is so much more than that. It is in solidarity with those who cannot lift their heads to proclaim alleluia, those for whom Alleluia is the furthest word from their lips because of their own situation. These are our friends, our brothers and sisters, our family members, this is us.  And by acknowledging that praise is sometimes impossible, or paralysing is, in itself, a simple but powerful prayer for those who are suffering.

At the end of your pew you will see paper and pens. Would you pass those along so that everyone has one. And then we will take a few moments to hold that paper and to consider for whom and for what situation we are ceasing our alleluia this lent. You might want to write a list or some names or you might want to simply sum it all up by writing alleluia on your piece of paper. And then we will collect them and place them in this box and bury them as our prayer and in hope that new life might grow and that we might even witness it when easter dawns.

So let us pray.

Gaza Ceasefire Rally – Feb 2024

I was asked to speak at the Gaza Ceasefire Rally, in Fremantle last Saturday. I knew I wanted to stand up for peace, I knew I wanted to call out the actions that damage and destroy humanity, but I really battled with what to say, how to say it, how brave to be, and my nerves were really alert. Really alert! I wrote 4 full, different, scripts. But this is what I stood and shared. I hope it landed as a call for peace, as an end to violence, as a cry for a ceasefire and as care for humanity – especially those who are most marginalised and oppressed. I hope that is what was communicated, because that is my heart…

I’m Revd. Gemma – I’m an Anglican priest – and I am unashamedly in love with a Palestinian Jew who, 2000+ years ago, lived a radical message of love and peace for all people. ‘Love your enemies’, he said. And always, always, he focussed first and foremost on the marginalised, oppressed, displaced, and forgotten. And he went and stood overlooking Jerusalem, in the West Bank, and he wept – actually, the scriptures say he sobbed uncontrollably. And I think he is still doing that, especially now, especially today.

Since the events of 7th October there have been memes circulating on social media saying things like, ‘if you ever wondered what you would do in the face of human slavery, apartheid or the holocaust, you are doing it now’…and we are doing this now, to say ‘we don’t know what to do, but this is not ok’. To say a resounding no to genocide and the taking and holding of hostages, whatever their race or nationality. We are here to protest a world where humans can block or withhold life’s basic provisions; to stand up for those who need aid or shelter or water and to say it is not acceptable to force a whole community of people into the ‘safety’ of Rafah, just to chorale them there and turn on them. And we are here to decry the actions of Hamas.

Friends, there are no words. Standing and watching and weeping, sobbing uncontrollably, is a valid and understandable response. And showing up to do so together, in solidarity with those who are opposed to genocide and in favour of peace and justice, in solidarity with those whose lives depend on a ceasefire, who need aid and food and water, who need to be released from hostage situations, who need somewhere to live and a place to call home. That is valid and that is why people of all faiths, and none, can come together and hope – together – for that.

If you want to do more, you can walk the distance from Gaza City to Rafah – 36km – charting that distance on your body, here with those who walk and run and flee for safety in the holy land. If you want to walk part or all those steps, check out the Gaza Ceasefire Pilgrimage website. The walk is happening in 85 cities across the world. Here, it is 2 weeks today – 24th February – and is from Hillary’s to Bathers Beach. You can sign up online – Gaza ceasefire pilgrimage.

Friends, we don’t know what to do, we struggle to find the words to speak, but by showing up, together, for peace, we are doing all we can so that when history looks back and asks us, ‘what did you do?’ we can say we didn’t look the other way but we nailed our colours to the mast as people of peace and as activists towards a just and gentle future.  May our actions be significant, compassionate, liberating and healing for all people and may we be people of peace.

Is God far off?

Isaiah 40:21-31                Psalm 147:1-11                1 Cor 9:16-23                    Mark 1:29-39

In this past week we have been invited to take part in the Gaza Ceasefire Pilgrimage – a global movement of prayer and Solidarity for those suffering in the Holy Land, where people walk the length of the Gaza strip.

Their publicity says, ‘with our bodies we will prayerfully map Gaza onto our own cities…to allow the geography of the horror happening in Gaza to become real [to us]. To flee Gaza city [in hope of finding] refuge in Rafah in the south, that’s only the distance of Hillary’s Boat Harbour to Fremantle’.

This is a prayer walk, not a protest; each step is a prayer for every life taken since the occupation re-entered the news on October 7th last year. And we are invited, on 24th February, to walk for peace – for part, or all, of the 36 kilometres – walking in silent prayer, or in song and conversation.

I recognise our privilege in being able to do that.

I recognise it is a small contribution – a tiny whisper amidst a universal scream.

And this invitation came to at the time of Holocaust Memorial Day where we remember, arguably, the most horrific crime humanity has inflicted on itself and each other. I was holding that as I came to the scriptures, and I am grateful for the words of Rev. Dr. Alan Brehm that I draw on today.

Have you not known? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable. He gives power to the faint and strengthens the powerless. …those who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.

Such comfort. Such hope. Deep truth.

And a vast capacity to lose faith when it is not your experience.

Because, can this be true for those who survived the holocaust? How can it be true for those who didn’t? Or for the 2 million displaced people fleeing Gaza right now?

Where is the power for the powerless, the strength for the weak then?

Where is the comfort when it feels like God is so far off that he sits above the circle of the earth and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers (to quote another verse we heard)?

One experience can be found in the writings of Elie Wiesel. He had plans to become a Rabbi before his journey through the horrors of the Nazi concentration camps led him to question deeply his belief that God is all-powerful, and able to prevent injustice and violence.

In his book, Night, he recounts one particularly harrowing story of his nightmare in the camps. Three prisoners, two men and a boy, were hanged in front of the rest of the group. The men died instantly. But the boy did not. As the prisoners were forced to file past the gallows, the whole camp saw him gasping for his final breaths. When someone in the crowd cried out, “Where is God?”, Wiesel says, “I heard a voice within me answer him: ‘Where is He? He is hanging from these gallows.’”

You’ve probably heard this story before, but what I hadn’t heard is Weisel’s own vulnerable explanation of it. He didn’t presume God was alongside the dying child in his suffering, as I had heard portrayed.  He was declaring that ‘his faith in a God who could or would intervene on behalf of his people or any other people’ was dead. Right there, in Auschwitz, God was seated so high above the circle of the earth – not powerful at all, but removed.

And even though I know in my head that the words of Isaiah’s prophecy were written to a hope-less group of God chasers who had lost everything, as encouragement that they are not forgotten, still it feels like cold comfort, and it’s understandable that when the shit truly hits the fan, faith is called into question. And, at those times, we might find ourselves believing, along with people like Weisel and Isaiah’s contemporaries that we are forgotten or disregarded by God. At the very least, we might understand why the people of the Holy Land, or Afghanistan or Sudan or Ukraine or countless other places, may feel so.

And yet, all is not lost. Of course all is not lost.

Because we don’t face the world’s traumas with a far-off God, seated high above the circle of the earth at all. We don’t only approach the God of the Old Testament scriptures. Listen to the words of Mark’s gospel…

That evening, at sundown, they brought to him all who were sick or possessed with demons. And the whole city was gathered around the door. And he cured many… for that is what he came to do.

Friends, the world is broken. It is. And we seem determined to dole out punishment and pain on one another – killing people and planet systematically and indiscriminately. But the hope of the Christian faith is that our God is not far off, seated above the circle of the earth, looking at the inhabitants like grasshoppers. Rather, God, in Christ, became one of the grasshoppers – became one of us and listen to where he is to be found…

Now Simon’s mother-in-law was in bed with a fever, and they told Jesus about her and he came and took her by the hand and lifted her up.

Have you not seen? Have you not heard?

The everlasting God is not far off but came near and is right beside you just waiting to take your hand and lift you up. Whether you are sick, in danger, or in the pit of despair, God in Christ is alongside you to take hold of your hand and raise you up – yes, even to soar on eagle’s wings. And because God is not far off, there is always hope. May we know it. May we see it. May we be it.

I’m going to close with a poem by Chelan Harkin called The Worst Thing:

The worst thing we ever did
was put God in the sky
out of reach
‍‍‍‍‍‍pulling the divinity
from the leaf,
sifting out the holy from our bones,
insisting God isn’t bursting dazzlement
through everything we’ve made
a hard commitment to see as ordinary,
stripping the sacred from everywhere
to put in a cloud man elsewhere,
prying closeness from your heart.
‍‍‍‍‍‍ ‍‍
The worst thing we ever did
was take the dance and the song
out of prayer
made it sit up straight
and cross its legs
removed it of rejoicing
wiped clean its hip sway,
its questions,
its ecstatic yowl,
its tears.
‍‍‍‍‍‍ ‍‍
The worst thing we ever did is pretend
God isn’t the easiest thing
in this Universe
available to every soul
in every breath.

Amen.

A Sermon for Aboriginal Sunday

Jonah 3:1-10       Psalm 62:5-12      1 Corinthians 7:29-31       Mark 1:14-20

Much of today’s liturgy has been provided by Common Grace. They describe themselves as a movement of individuals, churches and communities pursuing Jesus and justice for the flourishing of all people and creation… with a focus on listening deeply to our first nations people. Their material states that the first biblical text ever recited on these lands we now call Australia was by the chaplain of the first fleet, Revd Richard Johnson, in February 1788.

The passage he read was Psalm 116 verse 12, “What shall I render unto the LORD for all his benefits toward me?” And a monument stands on Gadigal land, at Sydney Cove, on the shores of Botany Bay, in memory of his sermon.

Just a week before that sermon, Captain Arthur Phillip, sailed into the bay with eleven shiploads of convicts, to establish a penal colony, hoist the British flag, and claim the lands on behalf of the British Empire, marking the disruption and dispossession of First Nations history and cultural connections to their lands, language and heritage.

This day and date confront and remind First Nations Peoples about their loss and their ongoing suffering and trauma as they continue to struggle for justice, dignity and basic human rights.

We are centuries into, and centuries away from, making true reparation for the shockwaves that were sent through the ground and the communities in those actions.

One of the aboriginal elders, when speaking about the site of that first recorded sermon, powerfully states, ‘The first time I came to this place…all of a sudden, I started listening from the floor up, from my feet up. [and] I could hear it screaming and I could hear within my spirit, the voices of Ancestors who have not received peace from justice and right relationship. I could feel them coming all the way through and I could hear them through my feet…’

And it all began at the water’s edge.

And this morning’s gospel passage is also at the water’s edge, on the shores of the sea of Galilee.

‘As Jesus passed along the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and Andrew casting a net into the lake—for they were fishermen. And Jesus said to them, ‘Follow me and I will make you fish for people.’ And immediately they left their nets and followed him. As he went a little farther, he saw James and his brother John. Immediately he called them; and they left their boat and followed him’.

And all week I’ve not been able to get away from the fact that both events – the domination of this land, and the beginning of the Jesus movement – both began at the water’s edge.

I am not comparing the two. Please don’t misunderstand me. I am not saying that Jesus calling his disciples was anything like the claiming and stealing of this land. There are no comparisons, and it would be naïve and crass to make one. And yet, the water’s edge is a significant place, isn’t it. And Jesus chose to walk there to find his first disciples.

The water’s edge is one of those liminal places – one where the veil between earth and heaven is thinner. Where it is clearer to see the glory of God. Where beauty is crisper and creation more alive. The water’s edge is a place of invitation and permission. And where do we see that more clearly than in the invitation of Jesus in his call to the first disciples.

They almost certainly didn’t know him (although his reputation may have started to spread), but there must have been something in his manner and his voice that was completely compelling, because they immediately left their boats and their trade and their family and friends and followed him. And it kept happening.

And what I am left thinking about that is the significance of the waters edge.

How it can be used as a place of welcome or a place of attack.

A place of invitation or a place of domination.

How it can be used to call or disperse others.

When the first fleets arrived at the water’s edge it set off a series of events that changed history and showed humanity at its worst – a greedy, grabbing, disruptive and destructive force. Christ’s footsteps along the waterside set off an entirely different series of events that changed the world for good – a revolution of love and grace, healing and wholeness – yes, still a total disruption of all that had gone before – nothing would ever be the same again – but it was a fulfilment, a completeness.

And we have a choice about what our life will count for too.

We have the privilege here to also get our feet wet. We have the chance to go to the shoreline and reflect on these two completely conflicting events. We can put our feet in the water’s edge and choose whether the mark we make on this world will be good or bad, greed or grace, healing or destruction.

At the water’s edge – looking out at vast expanses of sea and sky – it is easy to feel completely insignificant, tiny, like a blip in time and space. And we are that, of course we are. Merely beloved stardust. But we also have a unique opportunity, individually and collectively, to be a force for good, a force for holiness and love, and yes even to change the course of history forever. If the captain of the first fleet could change this country then so could we. Particularly if we doing it at the invitation of the One who walks by the waters edge and still says ‘follow me’.

‘Follow me’, comes Christ’s call of invitation. And we can still choose to leave everything behind and follow him. Imagine what we can still achieve, by leaving and following, or continuing to do so. Go and put your feet in the water and started listening from your feet up to that call. What will you say?

Common Grace has a question for us, so my last word in theirs, and they say this… ‘is the church willing to even begin, and then continue to be the example of love and truth that this gospel of Jesus is?’

Are we?

Amen.

Come and See

1 Sam 3:1-10           Psalm 139:1-5,12-18     1 Cor 6:12-20          John 1:43-51

Are you the sort of person who needs to see something in the flesh before you go ahead and invest… Despite my capacity to be click-happy with internet shopping, resulting in things arriving that look nothing like they did in the picture, really I am someone who needs to see it first before I know if it is for me.  When I had to choose a college to train for ordination I visited more than half of the institutions, until I just knew where I should go.

When I was offered my curacy parish, I didn’t say yes until I had been to the town and the churches and had literally touched the stones walls. I didn’t say yes until I had stood underneath the enormous statue of Christ on the reredos and whispered ‘I would like to serve you here’ and got the sense God agreed it could work out.

And then I moved to the other side of the world, and there was no chance to ‘come and see’ at all, because, well, covid. How was I supposed to know what this place felt like if I couldn’t come and see?  How did I know if I would sense the spirit about her business if I didn’t take my shoes off and connect with the ground?

Sometimes God is just incredibly faithful and makes everything work out, without us being able to see at all. We just hear the call and we go, like Philip.  Not because we are good, but because the God who calls us is. And sometimes we really do want to come and see. Sometimes we won’t commit to something without seeing and touching and tasting and engaging all our senses. Like Nathanael.

And then there are also times when the reputation of the place goes before it; Can anything good come out of Nazareth??

Now I am not saying our reputation here goes before us. I’m not saying people would say ‘can anything good come out of Beaconsfield?’ At all. But, when I first arrived and was new to the diocese I would meet my new colleagues across the diocese and even before I got to the end of my name they would say ‘oh you’re the one from St Paul’s Beaconsfield…… how is it???’ in that deeply inquisitive, kind of way.

And I would say, even back at the beginning, and more so now…it is great. It is a great place with amazing people. And I mean it. And oftentimes I also say ‘you should come and see!’ and I kept thinking about that this week when reading this dialogue between Philip and Nathanael.

And what it made me think is you have to be pretty careful making blanket invitations like that, because people might come. They might come and like it and stay and fit in and add to our growing tapestry of family life here. And they might come and not like it and they might say mean things about the stuff we hold dear. Or they might come and really like what they see and they might stay and they might not be like us. And they might sit in your seat and their children might make a mess and a noise – or they might. And they might move in with all their worldly possessions and set up home in our favourite bit of the grounds and they might be hideously inconvenient. We might invite people to come and see and they might have ideas for improving things – which means changing how things happen around here – and we said come and see but we didn’t mention change. And yet, we still keep extending our invitation, don’t we, because we want this to be a place where everyone is welcome.

Extending an invitation – meaning it – and going with the flow with whoever the spirit blows in – is risky. Don’t mistake me – there isn’t an alternative. Its what we must do, but we can also recognise the cost of this kind of radical hospitality.

But the other thing I have been thinking about this story is, it’s all well and good inviting people to come and see, but the more important consideration is what do we want people to see when they come.

And I can think of several things I want people to see; I want them to see a warm and friendly welcome, a happy and real bunch of people who like being community together. I want them to see a place that is simply stunning, well-loved and where love seeps out of the walls and up from the ground. Those things are important, but I guess the local AA meeting or the bowls team or book club might want those too.

Of course, the thing we want people to come and see isn’t a thing at all. We want people to come and see the Christ and meet the Divine and encounter that unending grace and mercy and that deep deep unquenchable unfailing love. And they might do that through our community and our grounds and our welcome, but it is so much more than that.

When we invite people to come and see, we invite them also to take and eat and take and drink. We invite people to leave behind the things, the resentments, the darkness they’ve been dragging around with them for decades and we invite them into the freedom of confession and forgiveness. We invite them to come and see the one who is higher than themselves, greater than their biggest fear, deeper than their deepest doubts, the one who formed their inward parts; and knit them together in their mother’s womb.

And we invite them to say yes.

Our invitation is not to a place or a service, it is to an encounter with life and love and truth and goodness. It is an invitation to belong, just as they are, and not to stay that way but to be changed and moulded and remade. And it is the same invitation for us.

We already came here. We have already seen.

And yet that unconditional welcome and invitation and call continues to be extended to us too.

Jesus still says follow me. Will you come and see? Amen.

A Theology of Water

Genesis 1:1-5        Psalm 29     Acts 19:1-7             Mark 1:4-11

 

You will know if you meet an open water ocean swimmer. You will know in seconds, especially if it is winter. You will know because they will tell you. We can’t help ourselves. We swim first thing, usually, and we carry that ocean experience with us all day; the waves, the temperature, the movement, the ocean life, the saltiness, it sticks to us, flows through us and it somehow continues to wash over us, in meetings, in the supermarket, in the street, so it’s not surprising that it also features in our conversations. A lot.

 

This week, I’ve been thinking about this morning’s readings while I was in there.

I was thinking about the dawn of creation where the Genesis God ‘swept over the

face of the waters’ and it was from that place that God said ‘”Let there be light”; and

there was light’. And it was good. At the beginning of all things, there was water.

 

 

And the amount of water on the planet hasn’t changed since God first swept over it. it hasn’t changed since that first burst of light – we have just moved it about, harnessed it, drank it, wasted it, swam in it, watched while it evaporated, and sheltered – or danced – while it poured.

 

The water we swim in is the same water the Spirit brooded over. The water in our taps is the same water that Paul and Apollos and John baptised in. The water of our own baptism is the same water that Christ was baptised in. The same water that the dove descended onto. The same water that God’s voice spoke over, and proclaimed “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”

The same water that made up 70% of the body that God came to earth to inhabit, makes up 70% of each one of us too. And God loves every drop of it – every single atom of which we are made up.

 

The same combination of hydrogen and oxygen – colliding together to form H2O – is in and around us, as it was in and around the Creating God, and as it was in and around the human God. And as I have immersed myself in that water each morning, so I have marvelled so deeply; it’s no wonder we are drawn to the water’s edge. No wonder we thirst for it. God made it and it makes us. Incredible.

 

 

Several years ago, there began a trend for choosing your word for the year. I was a committed eye-roller at this fad. I was utterly resistant to choosing a word, even more disparaging about the notion that God might give me a word for the year and I perfected my displeasure in people sharing their word with me.

If you’ve read the newsletter this week you will see that two years ago, my word was ‘healing and wholeness’. Last year my word was ‘light’ and this year my word is adventure. But additionally, this year, I have begun to wonder, even daring to ask, what is God’s word for our church for the coming year?

 

(For those who are still at the eye rolling stage of this type of thing, get ready…)

 

I wonder, I might even be so bold as to say I believe, that our word here at St Paul’s, for 2024, is flow. Flow. I’m not fully sure what that means but I think it is entwined, saturated even, in the sentiments of this morning’s readings.

 

 

God brooded over the waters and proclaimed light in the darkness.

The same God brooded over the waters of baptism and proclaimed great pleasure.

From the moment of creation, through the incarnation, during the life, death, and resurrection of Christ, until here and now, and beyond, God has streamed through history, cleansing and healing and nourishing and inviting each and every person to get into that slipstream and go with the flow of God’s grace and favour. And water is the source of life. Life does not and cannot exist without it.

 

And I am believing that God, in 2024, is inviting us to swim deeply, with the flow of God’s love – for the good of our own healing and for the life of those in and around this place.

 

 

Usually, on this day in the church year, we do a symbolic act of renewing our baptism vows – often I spatter you with holy water and encourage you to ‘remember your baptism and be thankful’. But this word – flow – is a holy invitation and we need to choose whether we will accept it, individually and collectively, rather than just being recipients of a soaking, whether we want it or not.

 

So, I’m going to bless this water and when you come forward to receive your communion, you can do whatever you choose as a symbol of your yes to the invitation of God to be part of God’s flow of life and abundance this year. And, if you want to begin the year by receiving prayer – perhaps for a fresh outpouring of the living waters of God – people will be at the font during communion, offering to pray for you.

 

 

We give you thanks that at the beginning of creation your Holy Spirit moved upon the waters to bring forth light and life. With water you cleanse and replenish the earth; you nourish and sustain all living things.

We give you thanks for your Son Jesus Christ: for his baptism by John, for his anointing with the Holy Spirit.

And now we give you thanks that you call each of us to new birth in your Church through the waters of baptism.

Pour out your Holy Spirit in blessing and sanctify this water so that as we approach this water, we made be made one with Christ, and move ever more closely in the flow of the Spirit. Bless us, your church, that we may be a blessing for others. Amen.

 

The Magnificat of 2023

2 Samuel 7:1-11, 16   The Magnificat       Romans 16:25-27     Luke 1: 26-38

Back in July, while I was in England, my dad asked my family ‘if you were a contestant on mastermind, what would your specialist subject be?’. And we thought long and hard about our answer. His was episodes of the dare-I-say dated crime drama Columbo, and the races of one specific horse of the 1970s. But mine would be the life and works of the Blessed Virgin Mary.  And, if I can peel your thoughts away from what your mastermind specialist subject would be, let’s consider Jesus’ mum.

In place of our psalm today we read those glorious words of Mary’s song of social justice, the Magnificat. My favourite Magnificat-fact is until as recently as 1986 it was against the law in at least two countries for it to be recited, in public.  In Guatemala and India, the government banned this passage because they recognised its power and they feared that if the poor or oppressed heard it, there might be an uprising, a revolution.  Mary’s prophetic view of this world is not just a system that is a bit better than the old one. It is a brand-new creation, and it makes the old order unrecognisable.

This wide-eyed girl said a defiant yes to a new world order and agreed to fulfil her part in it and I want to do the same. I want to be that radical, that defiant, that obedient. But do you know what I only just realised this week?

As much as I love Mary, as much as her words are indelibly inked on my skin, as much as her YES has got me into all kinds of holy trouble and led me to this, I’ve often kept her as that teenage mum. Apart from an occasional moment or two, she’s mostly been singing the Magnificat or birthing in the stable. But this week, I read this poem and it has woken something up in me so I wanted to share with you these words from the writer Katie Baker.

I am the Mary of your Christmas cards.

I listen calmly while the angel brings me news that will shake my life beyond all measure.

I accept what has been ordained for me.

I am young and dressed in blue.

I am the Mary of your Christmas cards.

Despite travelling almost 100 miles on a donkey across a desert and giving birth in a stable, I am still immaculately clean and tidy, cradling my infant son, unperturbed by my surroundings.

I am still young and dressed in blue.

I am the Mary of your Christmas cards, welcoming shepherds from the nearby fields and strangers from afar; a person who treats such events as if they happened every day, calmly pondering on them in my heart.

I am still young and dressed in blue

But is this really me?

Do you have any picture of me beyond that of Christmas cards?

Where is your picture of me in the temple, as Simeon tells me how a sword would pierce my soul?

The angel brought greetings and told me not to be afraid, so I am calm on your Christmas cards; but do you never see the terror in my eyes as I hear Simeon’s haunting words and I do fear what is to come?

Maybe you do have a picture of me 12 years later – but have I aged in your eyes?

Am I calm and serene, frantically searching for my son, lost on return from the temple?

He was calm – but not I.

I was frantic.

Do you have a picture of me 30 years after your first picture of me?

Am I still dressed in blue?

Are there lines on my face?

Is my hair now grey?

Do you see me at the wedding feast, recognising deep within that his time was coming and he would soon be no longer mine?

Do you see me hurt by his rejection when he declared that all the world was his mother and his brother and his sister.

I knew that he had a greater purpose – but do not imagine that there was no pain for me in this. How I aged in those three years.

But am I still young in your picture?

Was I not grey-haired as I stood at the foot of the cross?

Do you know what it takes to watch your son being crucified?

Some parents still do.

As they pierced his side, my soul, too, was pierced.

Do you have a picture of me – in tears, distraught at the anguish of my son?

Or am I still the Mary of your Christmas cards?

They laid him in a tomb – it seemed so final – it seemed I had lost him for ever.

Where was the angel now to tell me not to be afraid?

My fellow countrywomen kept vigil; I was not alone in mourning.

But you who know what happened next, do you let me grieve for the end I thought he’d reached?

You know the end – you know the triumph of his resurrection, the Kingdom without end – and knowing this affects your picture of me.

I remain always young and dressed in blue, calm and serene, humble and willing – never allowed to show fear, hurt, anger, pain and grief.

For many I remain the Mary of Christmas cards.

If I am to be called blessed, please remember all I stand for.

As you receive your cards this Christmas, please look at me and remember that this is just the beginning.    

Isn’t that wonderful?

The Mary of my knowledge was wild eyed, brave hearted, defiant and rebellious – a real revolutionary – but I had kept her young. By doing that I had denied Blessed Mary of burying her child. She knew that pain. And when he ascended he left again. I denied her of that too. She is so much more than we might have space for in our minds.

So before we dash headlong into Christmas Eve, before we celebrate her in carols and candlelight let’s just pause and consider the lifelong love of this earthly Mother, chosen for great things, and fully human.

And may we be inspired by that wild teen to whisper our own yes to God’s call, for the rest of our lives, not just for this snapshot, or this chapter. May our own yes be as bold as Mary’s and as lifelong. And might it even be as wild. Amen.

The beginning of the Good News…

Isaiah 40:1-11                   Psalm 85                 2 Peter 3:8-15a                 Mark 1:1-8

 

Hear the voice of the prophet St Maria Von Trapp echoing down the ages, as her voice cries out in the Sound of Music, and she proclaims, ‘let’s start at the very beginning, a very good place to start…’.  She was onto something because way, way, before Maria’s sage advice, so St Mark was saying the same. ‘The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God’, he said. The beginning.

 

And where did he start? Did he list the genealogy of the Christ child, like Matthew?

Did he start at the conception of John the Baptist or Jesus, like Luke? No, he didn’t.

For Mark, the beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, went back some 700 years before his birth with that glorious prophesy we heard in our Old Testament reading – See I am sending my messenger ahead of you who will prepare the way, and his voice will cry out in the wilderness ‘…prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God…’

 

 

Jesus’ birth and what it meant for all humankind forever, was so significant, so transformational that it didn’t begin in that stable in Bethlehem. It didn’t even begin at his conception. It began millennia before, with Isaiah prophesying it and John the Baptist fulfilling it and that good news changed the world forever.

 

The good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God is that the valleys are lifted up, the mountains are brought low, the rocky paths are made level and the barren land breaks into rich fertile soil. The sick are healed, the broken are made whole, the blind can see, the lame can walk.

 

And God’s glory is revealed. To everyone. Not just the religious few. Not just to those who, for whatever their credentials say, somehow apparently deserve it. Not only for the in crowd. And never at the exclusion of anyone else. The glory of the lord is revealed for all people. And that is good news, because it means we get to see it too. All of us.

 

 

So, if this is where the good news of Jesus Christ begins, where does Mark say it ends?  Does it end at the crucifixion when Christ takes his throne on that wooden cross? Does it end in his death in that stone cold tomb where, to the rest of the world, it certainly seemed to end? Does it end in the glory of the resurrection or the holy relay race of the Ascension?

 

No, the storytelling of Mark’s gospel ends like this…

 

Jesus said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation [and] 19 After the Lord Jesus had spoken to them, he was taken up into heaven and he sat at the right hand of God. 20 Then the disciples went out and preached everywhere, and the Lord worked with them and confirmed his word by the signs that accompanied it.

 

 

So, really, it doesn’t end at all. Because, in Isaiah’s prophesy, and in John the Baptist’s mission, the good news of Jesus Christ the Son of God really began – the good news that was in place since the dawn of time put skin on and came and lived among us and he brought the glory of God to a hurting world as a promise and a hope for all people. And that story, that mission, that good news has never ended. The disciples went out and preached everywhere and the Lord worked with them. And as they went, so they still go.

 

And for those of us who are trying to be followers of this God man, our job is to keep on going with that good news. To keep sharing it with all people. To keep telling that story. To keep proclaiming the word of the Lord. To walk with others through the valleys of despair until those valleys are lifted up; to remove the rocks of pain and sickness and struggle and loneliness from the paths of others, and to care for this world so that the barren places can become lush again. The beginning of the good news came. It is here. But the story is not over.

 

 

During advent we have time to pause, and take stock. It is the perfect time for us to consider our own part in the story of the good news of Jesus Christ. How are we contributing to it? Are we fulfilling our role? Is the story still being told in us and through us?

 

And today we celebrate the wedding of Cecilia and James. And we pray that their marriage will also be a significant part of the telling of this fabulous story of good news.

 

And every year, on this day, as you celebrate your anniversaries, I encourage you to pause and reflect, look back and look forwards, and see how you have told the good news story of Jesus in you love of one another and of others and, most importantly in your love of Him who loves you. Amen.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hope: She is Fierce!

Isaiah 64:1-9     Advent Prose    1 Corinthians 1:3-9      Mark 13:24-37

 

Today is the first Sunday of advent, the start of our new year, and our theme is hope.

 

Last week, we heard Jesus’ familiar words from Matthew’s gospel, that said ‘when was it we saw you hungry and gave you something to eat, or thirsty and gave you something to drink. When was it that you were in prison and we visited you…’ and we heard Jesus’ reply; ‘when you did it to the least of these, you did it to me’ and I spoke about Ned in detention, and how we can see the Christ in the faces of those most in need.  

 

And the thing that always broke me most, about visiting Ned, was that he had given up on hope. He had had his hopes raised and dashed too many times in the 11+ years he was locked up. For him hope was too dangerous a thing. In one of his newspaper articles Ned wrote ‘hope is like torture to me. I can’t afford it’. It seems to me that one of the biggest crimes humanity can inflict on another is to remove hope.

 

 

And while it was Ned’s own court case that finally brought a change in legislation that ruled indefinite detention as unlawful – a ruling that brought hope to so many detainees – it still didn’t give hope to Ned. It didn’t free him.

 

This week, on Thursday, I got the very tiniest glimpse of what he had faced, and what it is like to feel out of hope because I got a text that said, ‘He’s out’…and a follow up one that simply said ‘free’. I facetimed him and saw him standing on the right side of the wire fences, with his bags. I got a picture message of him in the taxi, driving away from detention. But I didn’t dare hope it was true until I stood side-by-side with him in the city much later that night – outside, under a huge sky. Only then did I dare to hope it was true and that his future is free and bright. And I don’t know how long it will take for Ned to have hope that this is true, or that his future is bright.

 

 

Friends, there are some truly horrific things happening in our world today; I don’t need to tell you that. Climate change, global boiling, war, racism, oppression, slavery, huge inequality between the rich who just get richer and the poor who die from poverty. There’s injustice all around, and there is gut wrenching fear.

 

And yet, hope seems to be relentless in her pursuit of us. It’s almost like, whatever injustice humankind inflicts on another, still hope will find her way through – like poppies pressing through the concrete – we somehow can’t move without being bombarded by the blessings of the creator. Just like the fig tree in this morning’s gospel, so hope is sprouting her own leaves everywhere I look. She is all over the place and she is totally beguiling!

 

 

Hope is a fierce beast.

She is told she is torture and cannot be afforded, and yet she whispers quietly into detention cells and writes court cases to make indefinite detention illegal for all people, forever. And she wins.

She gets put on the back-burner but she refuses to stay there.

She stands, defiant, when the dangers and difficulties and darkness of this world threaten to overwhelm her. And she just lights a tiny candle to illume the whole place.

She dares to believe that another world is not just possible, she is on her way and on a quiet day, she can hear her breathing.

And she does all she can to live in that world today – as if it is already here.

 

 

Today marks the beginning of this new season of advent – a period of waiting. But in this period of waiting, we are not waiting hope-less and we are not waiting idly.

 

We are waiting, with hope, for the fulfilment of the promises Jesus made to return. And as we wait, so we are spotting signs of where Jesus is already alive and well and working. For us, hope isn’t torture and it can be afforded, because we can see, in part, that which we are waiting for. God is already here – always has been, always will be – what we are waiting for is already bursting out and springing up.

 

 

And it is characterised by hope. It is hope that the day of salvation is here…and coming…that it’s something that is not just possible but is on its way. It’s hope that says ‘even after 11 years we believe your freedom is possible and we will be with you until that day comes…and beyond’. It is the hope that says, ‘for you it is torture and cannot be afforded so we will hope for you until the time you can hope too’.

 

The springing up of the Kingdom of God looks like light in dark places, work for the unemployed, food for the hungry, release for those who are indefinitely detained, housing for the homeless, clothing for the naked, healing for the sick – hope for those who are in the depths of despair.

The unravelling and revealing of the Kingdom of God among us is pure hope for today and the future. It is hope-filled and hope-giving.

 

 

Hope is coming. It is on its way. And hope will not disappoint us.

And as we encounter those who are without hope right now, may we offer ourselves to be bringers of it. May we commit ourselves to noticing – like with the reminder last week to see Christ in the hungry and thirsty and naked and sick and lonely and imprisoned. May we need to notice those for whom hope is torture and offer to sit alongside them and hold that candle of hope for them, until they can hold it for themselves. Or, as Jesus put it in this morning’s gospel reading – ‘what I say to you I say to all: Keep awake’.

 

Friends, hope is all around us and she is unstoppable.

So let’s keep awake; let’s spot it, and spread it, and be it! Amen.

 

Christ the King 2023

EZEKIEL 34:11-16, 20-24  PSALM 100      EPH 1: 15-23     MATT 25: 31-46

Today we celebrate Christ the King. In liturgical terms this Sunday is the baby of the family, only initiated in 1925, in response to the reign of Mussolini, and the rise of fascism. It was put into the church calendar to remind her people that Christ is Sovereign, not Mussolini.

In the 1920s, the church may well have needed reminding that because Jesus is King, Mussolini is not. And isn’t it ever thus? Today perhaps the church still needs reminding that because we believe Christ is our Ruler, then it means neither Charles nor Albo nor Biden nor Netanyahu nor Zelensky, nor anyone else, past present or future, can possibly be sovereign. Not in the real order of things.

So what does this rule and reign look like? What does it mean for us who try to follow the true King, and live in his alternative kingdom?

I came to the scriptures late this week, but it turned out they had already been chasing me. When I read the gospel reading, we’d already heard it at morning prayer and I’d already made the journey to Yongah Hill Detention Centre to see Ned.

In the 2+ years I have been visiting Ned we have sat in a variety of prison visiting rooms, on screwed down chairs with no natural daylight. Very occasionally we have been given a glass of water. But this week there is a new ruling. Now visitors can bring in factory-sealed snacks to share. So, with my cellophane neatly in place, I arrived at the soulless, colourless, miserable detention room with sweet baklava and biscuits and sour cherry juice, and we sat and shared this mishmash meal together. And while I joked to Ned that this was the first time we had been out for dinner, and I didn’t rate his choice of restaurant much, the food we shared felt almost as sacred as our holy meal here. It was a communion of sorts.

And when I read this gospel passage ‘I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, … I was in prison and you visited me’ I knew afresh that, although it looked to those stone-faced eager-eyed guards that this was just a detainee and priest eating pastries, I knew, I know, that we were eating with the Christ; that we could see him, if we cared to notice, in the faces of each other, in the eating and drinking and in the visiting.

And I heard Clare O’Neill spouting vitriol on sky news about the release of people from indefinite detention, and I heard her describe them as deplorable and disgusting. I heard her say ‘I don’t want these people in our country’ and I dared to believe the truth that if we draw the line of who is in and who is out, then we are in danger of creating a divide and discovering we are on one side and Christ is on the other.

Whenever we say one is in, and another is out we will always find Jesus is never quite where we expect him to be. Because in his alternative rule and reign, he will always be found on the margins – his Kingdom flourishes and grows and blossoms right there on the edges, because that is where the hungry and thirsty and lonely and sick and naked and imprisoned and enslaved and hated people are found. Those are our King’s people – they are the people of the Kingdom. They are his family. And if we are hungry or sick or detained or bought and sold or despised – then we are first in line to his throne.

And for the vast majority of us who aren’t counted in that number, we should make certain sure we are in their company, because in the feeding and visiting and sharing and giving, in the hanging out on the margins, with all that might cost us and all that might take, it is there that we will meet Christ.  It’s there we will be changed. We might need to move ourselves from our comfort to discomfort, from wealth to poverty, from fitting in to being judged and excluded, but the riches we find there will be beyond measure. Hang out in the darkness because that is where the true light breaks in.

You know, I was brought up in a church that was all about making sure you were on the right side of the line – you’ve got to be sure you’re a sheep not a goat because Jesus is coming back, and he’s going to send you to fire and damnation if you’re on the wrong side of the divide. That theology was damaging to me – is damaging – and I could never find the good news. It was a rule of fear and didn’t help me know how to be free to live now. So, when I read these verses about judgment and separation and eternal punishment I don’t know what to do with them. But I do know this: our King is a king of love, a gentle servant shepherd, a just and righteous King and this passage says he does the dividing. It’s up to him and it’s not up to me.

It is up to him, but he is very clear on the bit that is up to me – feed, give, clothe, care, visit, notice others and take light to the places of darkness. Simple, clear instructions for living. And if we focus on that, if we focus on the hungry, the thirsty, the naked, the sick, and the prisoner, if we focus on making sure our welcome is unconditional and inviting, if we add our voices to the light instead of the darkness of exclusion and judgment then we will see the Christ. And we will know him. And we will learn we are blessed by the Father since the foundation of the world.

And as we gaze out from the good pasture of our lush grazing land among the flock, so we may see that the goat pen is empty because all have been gathered in.

Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these, you did it to me.

Amen.