Tag Archives: kingdom of God

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.

The parable of the sower…NOT the parable of the soil, seed or rocks

Isaiah 55: 10-13               Psalm 65: 8-13      Romans 8:12-25      Matt 13: 1-9, 18-23

This isn’t the first time I’ve stood before you with one of our poppies in my hand, and I doubt it will be the last, but this morning’s gospel passage reminded me once again of the sermons these poppies keep preaching.

I’ve just returned from 2 weeks in the UK, visiting family and friends.  In the town I emigrated from, the local council have strewn wildflower seeds along the central reservations of the main roads in and out of the town and they are bursting with colour. There is evidence of seeds being sown and plants being grown, all over the place. And when I left here, the poppies were dormant and nowhere to be seen, and now they are beginning to burst out again.

This morning’s gospel passage is about seeds and plants and growth too… or is it?

Jesus calls it the parable of the sower – listen then to what the parable of the sower means, he says. Not the parable of the seeds or soil or the birds, or rocky places or thorns, or anything else. Listen to the parable of the sower.

A farmer went out to sow his seed and he scattered it; on the path, in the thorns, in the rocks, and where the soil was good.

The farmer scattered the seed everywhere. They didn’t care where it landed – they just flung it about. Some of it took root, some of it didn’t, some of it was food for the birds, some of it grew into food for people, some of it lived and some of it died.

This is a parable about the farmer, about the one who sows the seeds. And in this story, the farmer is God, and the seed is Jesus. And God has this amazingly healthy lack of concern about where God sows. In God, Christ is for all people, all the time, in every place. And here is the surprising thing, perhaps – it is God who sends the Christ-seed, it is God who does the planting of the Christ-seed, and there is no place where God won’t send and plant him.

What? You mean it isn’t about us and about our acts of evangelism and our publicity of the Jesus story and our capacity to paint him in a good light that spreads him across this world? Well, alleluia, this gospel story seems to be saying no, it’s not. God is the farmer and God sows the love and light and life of Christ like wildflowers. (Even the OT reading reminded us that it is the work of the rain from heaven that makes buds blossom and flourish, and not us… And the psalm said – YOU tend the earth and water it, and make it rich and fertile). Hang on a minute. God has got this covered and doesn’t need me to do the work for God? Consider that for a moment!

So why am I standing here with a poppy in my hand? Because these poppies remind us about the lavish, indiscriminate, vast outpouring of the message of God.

These poppies, as you may know, originated in Flanders fields, in Belgium, where two pilgrims procured seeds and brought them back to St Paul’s. And those seeds were sown and these poppies grew. Then a gust of wind came and took some of the seeds of these first poppies and carried them on the breeze to Martha street and they dropped and fell on the concrete and they magnificently burrowed their way down, and the seed died there, but, in time, their strong but delicate head burst back up through that concrete. And along came a bird and pecked a poppy plant and carried the seed to south beach and up to the city and out to the hills, and poppies sprang up there too. And then, to raise funds, some people harvested the seeds and sold them here, and people bought them and planted them in other suburbs and other states and maybe even other countries, and the poppies continued to grow. And they are everywhere. And they cannot be tamed.

And as it is for these poppies, so it is for the word and love of God. But more so.

Because what began at the dawn of time, and came to human life in a manger in the middle east, is now known throughout the world. And we never know how fruitful anything will be. We never know if concrete will discourage or challenge the seed. We never know where the bird will drop it, or where the Holy Spirit will blow it. All we can do is watch what the farmer is up to, and see what happens. All we can do is welcome babies for baptism, watch God plant and water the seeds of faith in children like baby Ada, and then wait for flowers and fruit to grow.

Three weeks ago, we had a confirmation service with the Archbishop and we began a new tradition here. We gave to each candidate a little sapling, with a tag on it that read, ‘plant this as a reminder of the new life that is yours today, in Christ’, and we sent them home with it. And we planted one here too, with a tag that said ‘confirmations, June 2023’.

Today we will continue that tradition – as part of our work towards reaching net zero, and because it is good and true – and baby Ada will be given a plant with that same message. And hopefully Brett and Hayley will take it and plant it. And we will plant one here too, as a reminder of this day – so we get to see, visually, what the holy farmer, the sower, is doing among us.

Friends, the sower is at work. Seeds are being nurtured and grown. Flowers and fruit are bursting out all around us. God keeps on planting and watering and tending the earth. And we get to watch God’s Kingdom grow, thanks be to God. Amen.