Lent One – 2024

Genesis 9:8-17 Psalm 25:1-10 1 Peter 3:18-22 Mark 1:9-15

We hear the story of Jesus in the Wilderness on the first Sunday of Lent, every year, so it may sound familiar. Satan tempts Jesus in every way and yet he doesn’t succumb. And often the teaching is that Jesus has gone there before us and because he managed to not give in, and we should try to do the same. In Mark’s account, the whole scene takes only two verses.

‘The Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. ¹³He was in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels waited on him.’

Mark speaks fast. He talks really quickly and very dynamically.

Everything happens suddenly, or immediately. His whole gospel is at breakneck speed but – even so – forty days in fewer than forty words is still some going. And we hear it every year, but because of Mark’s brevity, we might more easily notice the events either side of the wilderness story.

So. [hand actions] Jesus comes from Nazareth…

Goes down into the water…

Comes up out of the water…

The spirit comes down from the heavens…

And then Jesus is driven into the wilderness.

That’s a lot of movement. A lot of going down and coming up. And if we read those movement words in the original language we discover that the spirit descends in the exact same word as how the temple curtain was torn from top to bottom at the moment of the crucifixion – like, at the moment of Christ’s baptism, the veil between heaven and earth became separated, just as it did at the moment of his death.

And the spirit drove Jesus into the wilderness in the same way, with the same word, as Jesus drove out demons, AND in the same word as would be used to describe violent sickness – the Spirit vomited Jesus out into the wilderness; that same spirit that unzipped the divide between heaven and earth in her descent then convulsed Jesus into the wilderness. The same that spirit descended to proclaim God’s love and parenthood drove Jesus from that place of identity and holiness right into the firing line of the wild beasts.

Surely there must have been a purpose for that deliberate act. It wasn’t just a suggestion made to the dripping wet Messiah – it was a propulsion. And I guess that makes sense; there would be very few of us who would choose to wander into the wilderness, or into any other difficult or brutal situation. Maybe there was a purpose?

When I say ‘purpose’, please don’t hear me saying that God causes or chooses suffering for God’s children. I am not saying that. I don’t believe God allows suffering, just so we learn something, and certainly not as punishment. Let me make that clear. But I can believe that our God is one who accompanies and who redeems – that no situation is wasted – that nothing is so bad that God cannot bring good out of it – and that, despite how alone we might feel in the moment, God is always alongside us, and is always for us. If you hear nothing else today, please hear that.

So… Perhaps there was a purpose for Christ’s journey into the wilderness, because when we return to the passage, we discover what came next, or what the wilderness prepared Jesus for. He is spewed into the wilderness, where he spends 40 days and nights, and then he re-emerges with this message – it is the first thing Mark’s Jesus says and it is this: the time is fulfilled – the Kingdom of God has come near, repent and believe.

And where did he discover this? In the wilderness.

And that sounded like the most Jesus-thing I had ever heard.

In the darkest place, where there is nothing but brokenness and danger – that is where the Kingdom of God comes first. Of course it is! Isn’t it always that God shows up where we least expect it? Isn’t it always in the darkest place where the light shines brightest? Of course, God’s Kingdom came near in the desert place of the wilderness, where Satan was prowling and the wild beasts were sniffing about. Of course it did. Of course it does!

When Jesus went into the wilderness, the veil between heaven and earth was the thinnest – the Spirit had torn it open in Her descent at his baptism. Heaven was closest, clearest, and the spirit sent him to the most barren place, to take his light there first. And only once Jesus had kicked a chasm into the darkness of the wilderness did he come to tell the others – now the kingdom of God is here. Now we can begin.

So, if you are wandering in the wilderness, even if you are just skirting around the edge, knowing it is near, hear this; you are not alone, you are not abandoned, you are in the place where the Kingdom of God will break in first, and you will be there to see it.

That is what the newly baptised, wilderness wanderer teaches us. And then our second reading reminded us of what the crucified Jesus did first; ‘he went and made a proclamation to the spirits in prison’, it said. When the curtain was torn in two the next time, on the cross, at Jesus’ death, he went first to the spirits in prison – or rather, he went to the depths of hell and said ‘it is over’, light wins. Love wins. The kingdom of God has come near. Jesus always goes to the darkest place first. And if that is where you find yourself today, Jesus is on his way. The kingdom of God is coming near.

And for those of us who aren’t in the wilderness right now, we would do well, this lent, to make it our purpose to go to the darkest place we can find and take the light of Christ there. But don’t be surprised to find it there already, ahead of us, because it is always in the place of death and decay that our Lord is to be found first. And it is there, in the bringing of light and hope, that the Kingdom of God comes near.

Repent and believe. Amen.

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 10^th 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 10^th 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.

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 24^th 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.

Food and Faith

Yesterday I got a message from my mum that said, ‘About your blogs. In some of the early ones there are some cliff hangers…….. Do you need to reread and pick ‘em out and address them?’. Well, I didn’t know I was writing cliff hangers! 🤣 and I’m sorry if you’ve lost sleep wondering if/when I’ll get around to addressing them*, but I did as my mama told me (I’m good like that 😉) and I thought I would write something about my love of food and faith, particularly the combination of the two…

Food in quarantine began well (if you like rice, which I do), but it seems to be on a sharp downwards trajectory. The last two nights I’ve had to call reception and chase my evening meal because they’ve forgotten me. One night I had a vegetable that was cold and hard and soaked in oil (and looked far from vegan, in a kind of rude way!) and I have no idea what it was. Lunch today was some kind of vegan sushi roll but, even after I removed the cellophane wrapper, I’m not sure the wrap was entirely edible. And I, like many members of society, have a real Hanger problem.

Needless to say, food has been on my mind quite a lot!

And I’ve also been reading this great book, Signs of Life, by Rick Fabian (founding co-Rector of St Gregory’s of Nyssa Church, San Francisco). In the first chapter he talks about an ‘open welcoming table’, meaning everyone is welcome to come and receive their mass, regardless of the point they are at in their faith journey (not dependent on baptism, confirmation, or even any kind of professions of faith). He describes the altar at SGN, and the two inscriptions on it. As you enter the church you can see the first inscription, which reads ‘This guy welcomes sinners and eats with them’…a version of Luke 15; a dismissive statement by the Pharisees and teachers of the law, intended as an insult or slur, but beautifully transformed here into an amazing message of welcome. And then, on the other side, facing the font, it reads, ‘Did not the Lord share the table of tax collectors and harlots? So then – do not distinguish between the worthy and unworthy. All must be equal in your eyes to love and to serve’, a quote from Isaac of Ninevah. Here, all are welcome, and you are also welcome to baptism, at whatever point in your journey that is fitting for you. A wonderful, inclusive, follower-led, God-breathed, holy welcome.

This ‘open welcoming table’ hasn’t always been part of my experience, my worship style, or even my theology. I can quote all the scriptures that say people should wait to receive the body and blood of our Lord. And yet, none of them make sense to me anymore. We can’t wait until we understand fully, or are worthy, or we will die waiting. And, for me, how it is at the altar is how it should also be at the dinner table, and vice versa.

Something happens in the mass that unites those who are present. Something happens at a dinner table that does the same. I’m sure that’s why Jesus spent so much time eating together with people. And what Jesus does, so we should too. A quick google search reliably informs me that food is mentioned 90 times in the gospels alone and eating is mentioned 109. It’s big business!

Eating together provides a shared experience, breaks down boundaries, disarms conflict, allows people to cook and serve and share and chat. Eating is also a basic human right and should be equally available to all people, all the time. And it’s also SO MUCH FUN!

Jesus could have commanded his disciples to do anything in remembrance of him. Every time you watch a sunrise; every time you get dressed; every time you walk on the street; but he didn’t. What did he say? Every time you eat this and drink this, remember me.

These musings about the connection between the altar and the dinner table, the mass and our meals, this open table welcome and those who are hungry each day; this lot has shaped me as a person, as a follower of Jesus, as a priest and as an advocate for those who are poorest. It has led me to transform a grade-II listed building into, not just a church, but also a Kitchen and a café that is free. It has made food more important in my life, not less and each of these musings have led to action, actions that have brought me face to face with poverty and injustice and the beauty of humanity and the harshness of addiction and some awful smells and some wonderful humans.

My musings about food and faith have given me sleepless nights, early mornings, so much joy, huge amounts of laughter, floods of tears, a more authentic expression of faith (I hope) and a church with coffee stains on the pews and marks on the floor. They have taken me on the radio and TV and to San Francisco and Hartlepool, and the more I think and the more I learn, the more I am convinced that something *extra* happens when Jesus-folk gather around any kind of table and invite others to join them too, so I will keep doing it, always. Partly because it’s one of the few things I am absolutely convinced about with my faith, partly because it accidentally turns out to be a pretty good model for evangelism, partly because it is loads of fun, and mostly because Jesus seemed to think it was a good idea in 1^st century Palestine and doesn’t seem to have changed his mind since.

So, as one of my all-time favourite writers said, (rest in power, precious Rachel Held-Evans):

“This is what God’s kingdom is like: a bunch of outcasts and oddballs gathered at a table, not because they are rich or worthy or good, but because they are hungry, because they said yes. And there’s always room for more”.

Alleluia! All you have to do is come hungry…or hangry even! Let’s eat! 😋

*if you’ve been left with any other ‘cliff hangers’ drop me a line and I’ll do my best to address them! 💛