Priest – Page 3 – Holy Adventures

When we give up and go back to fishing…

You might remember, a few weeks ago, I spoke about the installations at Cottesloe Beach and the hanging metal one that, from one direction displayed the word YES as the wind moved the dangling pieces in the sun, and then, as you walked past and looked back it somehow showed the word NO. Incidentally it won the top award for the sculptures by the sea this year, but the point was that sometimes we see things differently, as if for the first time. And it keeps on happening. Last week, even as I was reading the gospel reading in the service, I noticed something for the first time. And this week it’s happening again with this morning’s passage.

So, a short time has passed since the first Easter and the disciples are in a real spin. They’ve walked the last 3 years with Jesus. They’d heard and responded to His call to ‘follow Me’. They were there. They saw him heal and preach. They’d been given the Eucharist and had their feet washed. They’d walked in Gethsemane, and they had fled. And then Jesus died, and they had to face their grief, recognise their failings, recognise that He had not abandoned them but that they had, in fact, abandoned Him. And, even as they were wrestling with all that, He defeated death and appeared to them, despite the tomb being sealed and the doors being locked. And He kept on doing it.

And then Peter says, ‘I’m going fishing’ and some of the other disciples say, we’re coming.

And the point of this passage is often the redemption of Peter – you know, Jesus asks him 3 times ‘do you love me’ and 3 times tells him… ‘feed my sheep’ and this covers over for the 3 denials of Peter and that is great. It’s true and redemptive

But here’s the thing that has struck me. Listen to this… ‘I’m going fishing’.

Peter and his friends have had the most incredible, life changing, utterly transformational 3 years. They will surely never be the same again, surely. And yet, in their grief it seems that all is lost and what’s the point and those three words of Peter sum up his absolute despair; screw this, I’m going fishing. Really, what is the point? All is lost. I am lost. Total defeat. Can you hear that?

So off they go, and they land up, 80 miles away on the sea of Tiberias, in a boat, catching nothing. And then – would you believe it, even though they’ve gone all that way – Jesus pops up again. They don’t recognise it’s Him, but He tells them to cast their nets on the other side and they bring in this huge catch of fish. They haul the net ashore and share in a breakfast BBQ of bread and fish, with the risen Lord. Jesus even brings his own fish for them because its already there waiting when they reach the shore. Amazing!

And, unlike ever before, I’m feeling the potential awkwardness of that breakfast… oh, don’t get me wrong, they’ve already encountered Jesus twice before and it’s been fine – peace be with you, receive the holy spirit, as I was sent so I am sending you – but now, they’ve gone back to fishing. Peter has given up on who he was – Jesus is even calling him Simon – the person he once was, back before everything had got so great – back before he became the rock upon which the whole church would be built. It just feels like one of those awful, awkward meals where there is tension all around. Can you feel that?

And when they finished breakfast Jesus said to Peter, ‘Simon, son of John, do you love me?’ Ouch.

Simon – yep, remember who you once were.

Son of John – remember where you came from.

Do you love me?

And then there is this beautiful and bittersweet exchange where Jesus asks and asks and asks again and Simon responds and asserts and affirms and the gospel writer says, ‘Peter felt hurt’. Jesus addresses Simon, and Peter felt hurt. Wow. I want to sit with the complexity and depth of that too. It’s just all so poignant and deep and reassuring and unsettling. Can you sense that?

And then Jesus says, follow me.

Follow me. Jesus had said that, right at the beginning, right at the water’s edge when they had been there fishing, three years before. And hadn’t they gotten up, left their nets ‘straight away’ and followed him – not knowing what it would mean or what it would entail but doing it anyways – and now he’s asking again. Follow me…except, this time they all know exactly what this invitation includes – heck, Peter even knows what kind of death he’s going to face.

And it seems like this is something so significant. It’s like, the first time they heard the call they blindly followed – all gung ho and all in – yeah this sounds fun, let’s go! But now, now they are asked again – it’s like a second conversion.

And, as always, as it was for them, so it is for us, friends.

At our baptism, we, or our parents, heard that first call – follow me – and we did it, blindly. And then, somewhere along the way, we hear the call again. And again. And each time we have the choice. And how often do we also revert back to who we used to be and what we used to do? How often do we go back to whatever our equivalent of ‘going fishing’ is? How often do we need Jesus to come and find us and meet us at the place we’ve run to? Do you recognise that?

I think this story is so tender – almost painfully so – because it is our story and it is brutally familiar. And today, as every day, we have this invitation again. Follow me, Jesus says. Even unto death.

Hear him ask. What will your response be?

Amen.

I have seen the Lord!

I have several favourite preachers that I turn to, often, to see what they say on a bible passage. One of my all-time favourites is Nadia Bolz-Weber – a Lutheran priest with an outrageous number of tattoos and a potty mouth, with a passionate love of Jesus and a healthy disrespect for the confines of Church. I don’t know why it’s a match really 😉

What she has to say on this week’s gospel passage is so beautiful that I’ve taken chunks of it and my voice is intertwined with hers to such an extent that I need to give that acknowledgement to her, from the off.

So, this morning we meet the disciples, huddled in the upper room, for fear of the Jews, and unlike last time, Thomas is now with them too. And I suspect that having denied, betrayed, and abandoned Jesus the disciples were really wallowing in their shortcomings. It wouldn’t be a stretch to think they were passing around blame and justifications for the death of Jesus, trying to make the others faults greater than their own; ‘if Judas hadn’t betrayed him it would’ve been ok’ and ‘there was no space to stay at the foot of the cross anyways, with all those women around’ and ‘Peter, if you hadn’t denied him first, I was going to say I knew him’ …I mean, they’ve all screwed up.

And then, even while they’re locked away, it is here, amidst doubt and fear, amid blame and justifications that Jesus came and stood among them. Jesus; clearly no respecter of locked doors, or self-pity, or hiding, comes and stands among them. It is here he chooses to appear to his beloved Christ deniers – those he loves who abandoned him and he says ‘Peace be with you’. Peace? They’ve denied and betrayed and deserted and made fatal mistakes in their discipleship…and Jesus’ first words to them are, Peace be with you.

His final words, if they had been there to hear them, was ‘it is finished’. That was it, the end. The end of the old world order. And now is the dawning of the new world; all that was is gone and the new beginning is one of peace. Absolute, all consuming, fear swamping, peace. The old is forgiven. The new is freedom.

And notice the text doesn’t say “when they had repented of what complete asses they had been; and when they had perfected their faith and the purity of their doctrine; and when they had achieved the right condition of personal morality THEN they were worthy of receiving Jesus.” No. There they sat. Fear, doubt, betrayal and more than a little shame.

But it takes more than shame and locked doors to keep Jesus out. In fact; it’s just like God to barge in uninvited through our fear and locked doors to remind us, like it or not, that we are the recipients of peace, grace, forgiveness, and God’s spirit. Jesus just has this way of coming along and saying an insistent ‘yes’ to our polite “no thank yous”. And that’s exactly what he does for Thomas.

Thomas wasn’t there for Jesus’ first visit. He didn’t hear those first soothing words of peace. He only gets to hear about it second hand. And he doesn’t believe the disciples. And I don’t blame him! Their track record hasn’t been great so far, has it? Peter told Jesus he would die for him, just a few days ago, and that turned out to not be true, so he has said his own polite “no thank you” to the news that Jesus has risen from the dead. He doubts. And it’s not surprising is it, because even though Jesus has cryptically said he will be back, and the disciples have said they have seen him, it’s just not something that dead people do, is it? So, yes, he has doubts.

But doubting isn’t the opposite of having faith…it’s a component of having faith. Doubting can mean we haven’t forgotten the story. Doubting means that we don’t have it figured out all on our own. But the best thing about doubting is it’s honest.

And now, when Jesus appears again, Thomas meets him, honestly, with his doubts in his hands and mouth, and then he trades it all in as he comes face-to-face with Life and makes the boldest statement of faith that we hear in the whole bible: “My Lord and My God” he says. Jesus’ presence is the perfect antidote to doubt. We might still feel it, but it can have no power – it isn’t true – because Jesus conquered doubt at the same time He defeated death. When Jesus kicked death into touch, He also told guilt and shame and fear and blame exactly where to go. None of those things can function under Jesus’ peace.

So what about us, huddled here today in our 21^st century equivalent of that same room. How are we feeling? What are we believing?

Here we are, along with those first disciples, tentatively trying to get things right, more often getting things wrong – doubting, denying, wandering off, forgetting. But, I have seen the Lord, friends. I have. I have seen him here in the mass and in the faces of each of you. I have seen him over coffee and broken bread. I have seen him in the gardens and the chapel. I have seen him in the ocean and the sunsets. I have seen the lord. And we will each reach out and touch his resurrected body at this altar in a few minutes. We have seen the lord. Do you believe? Will you, like Thomas, reach out your hands and touch our Risen Lord? Will you receive his peace and God’s spirit and be changed? Will you kneel in wonder and worship and echo that great and abiding statement of faith; my lord and my God, and will you pass it on to others that they too may have life in Christ’s name?

Alleluia, Christ is risen!

He is risen indeed, Alleluia. Amen.

Easter Sunday 2022

What a holy week we have had, haven’t we?

If ever I needed cast iron proof that I’ve truly found my tribe with you lot, this holy week has confirmed it. A few of us have yawned through Morning Prayer or whispered our way through Compline. Beauty and creativity have sprung up in the labyrinth and the graffiti wall and most abundantly in those stations of the cross. We have held silence and sacred spaces and banquets and night watches. We lamented and waited at the foot of the cross. We have tried to, faithfully and tentatively, walk the Way of the Cross and we have done it together and we made it to resurrection. And didn’t we just!

And then, we hear the most stunning account of the resurrection narrative, as recorded in St John’s Gospel. We see faithful Mary Magdalene – last to leave Golgotha, first to arrive at the grave. We witness her fear at the moved – removed – stone, and we watch as these anxious, grief-ridden, competitive disciples – barely even able to cling to that title – race to the tomb, summoned by Mary’s fear rather than their own devotion.

They look in, they don’t go in, they go in, they see the linen wrappings, they believe, they don’t understand and then they go home. The account of them is frantic, chaotic, and kind of exhausting. But. Mary stood weeping outside the tomb.

They are too-ing and fro-ing, running and racing, and Mary just stood weeping. Sometimes it is good to just stop, pause, and have a good weep. Be like Mary!

And then, the tempo changes into this beautiful tender kind-of distanced embrace.

She sees two angels – just sitting there in the tomb – and they ask her ‘why are you weeping’ and she says, ‘they have taken away my lord and I do not know where they have laid him’, heart-wrenching, and then she turns, in her grief, and she sees Jesus. He’s right there and she sees him, but she thinks he is the gardener.

Through history, art has given us gorgeous glowing images of the resurrected Christ. He is always wearing billowing white robes because he must always be standing in front of some kind of holy wind machine. And he is glorious and radiant and…really clean. But Mary mistakes him for the gardener, and if you’ve been around these grounds on a Wednesday morning, you will know what gardener’s look like. They don’t wear their best clothes and they have mud under their nails and leaves in their hair. And I think maybe that says something more important about resurrection – something that is stolen from us if we cling to these images of a golden angel, minus the wings.

Jesus was dead. He was beaten and broken and dead. Murdered, brutally.

On Friday I told you that I still deeply wonder why Jesus had to die, or if he even did have. And I said I will always continue in that wondering, and I will. But the bottom line is, he died. We know that to be true. God died and was placed in that tomb. And in my questioning and my wondering I have spent some time thinking about what happened next.

In our creeds, and in the pages of scripture, we hear about how Christ descended to the dead. On Good Friday God died, but by Holy Saturday, God was up to God’s amazing, transformative, redemptive work of salvation, for all people and all situations, for all time and all eternity. First stop; the gates of hell, and with the keys of life Christ smashed them open – I swear, from the inside, and then declared, ‘everyone out – you first Judas’.

On Holy Saturday Christ was BUSY!

There was work to be done. He didn’t just rest there in that tomb, healing. He got straight to work in the divine plan of all salvation. There was more to do. Death needed to be shown it didn’t win. Pain and suffering didn’t win. Destruction and human failings didn’t win. Abuse didn’t win. Hatred, oppression, injustice, poverty, racism, war; all these things didn’t win. Love won. Love wins. Love goes down to the dead and restores life. Love smashes the gates of hell and sets captives free. And Love beats darkness; it takes it and redeems it, into something good and pure and holy and beautiful. It’s no wonder Mary mistook Jesus for the gardener. That’s exactly what he was – the pruner, the re-creator, the One to plant the new heaven and the new earth.

You see, the resurrection isn’t about making everything shiny and clean. It is about total transformation – destruction of the old and creation of the new. The work of the holy gardener, sowing and seeding and cultivating new life. Sowing seeds of light and hope in the places of all darkness so that it might overcome.

I love the thought that the risen Christ looks more like a slightly scruffy gardener with dirt under his nails because it means he’s at work and it also means I can more likely imagine becoming more like him. I’ll never be a wingless angel, but I might get messy in the work of telling darkness and death to pack its bags and leave. I will gladly get messy in the work of telling oppression and injustice that its days are numbered, and it has to go. That’s the work of the gardener and that’s the work of us because we are the gardening team.

So, this easter, this year, listen out for the voice of that holy gardener as he calls your name – like he did with Mary – and then look up, see this gardener handing you a spade, because there is work to be done and our Risen Christ needs a hand.

Amen

The Great Unknowing

A sermon for Good Friday*

*I first preached a variation of this sermon in 2017, on my first Good Friday as a priest. My training priest was so furious with me – that I had told people that I don’t know why Jesus had to die – that I didn’t preach on Good Friday again, until 2022. Now I think that sharing our doubts and questioning, even as priests, especially as priests, is essential. So here it is again; revised, revisited and still unsure whether Jesus really HAD to die, or if it was a sure consequence of real living…

I remember the exact moment when all I knew and believed about what happened on the cross came tumbling down around me.

It was 2011, and a Tuesday, around 7:30am. I was sat on my sofa, drinking coffee, reading the bible passages for that day. I had all my theology and knowledge, safely and neatly stacked in metaphorical boxes around me, lids firmly fixed down. I remember so clearly that as I sat and read one of the accounts of the crucifixion, I felt this creeping sense of unease wash over me, and something inside my mind or heart dared to ask this question that I’ve asked countless times since: Did Jesus have to die? ‘Why did Jesus have to die?’

And I realised I no longer knew the answer.

I knew it was safely stored somewhere in one of these proverbial theology boxes that I’d carefully been packing since Sunday School, but I couldn’t locate it. And I knew it was important – I mean, I had to know why Jesus had to die if I wanted to be one of His followers, right? So I put down my coffee, and quickly got dressed. I didn’t have to be in work until 9am, there was still time to figure this out and get things straight before then. I drove to my church and burst through the door and straight into my priest and blurted out ‘I no longer know why Jesus had to die?’ and she looked a bit stunned by this early morning theological conundrum, and she ermed and ahhed a bit, and then she looked at me and said what, in hindsight became the most beautiful answer. She said, ‘I don’t know the answer to that’…

And so, my quest continued…

At that time, I worked at the cathedral and was surrounded by priests all day, so I went to ask them. I dashed to work, armed with my burning question; desperate to have it sorted, as quickly as possible.

I got to my desk and was facing precious Martin; a wonderful, kind priest, who was very posh. And I said to Martin ‘why did Jesus have to die?’ and, without missing a heartbeat, he said ‘Gemma; Jesus died for the propitiation of our sins’ and then he paused and said ‘…yep, I’m happy with that’, but I wasn’t. I tried on this theory for myself and I couldn’t make it fit. And I didn’t know what propitiation meant.

And then in bounded Keith – big, brash, loud, Baptist minister Keith. And I asked Keith, ‘why did Jesus have to die?’ and he said ‘so God could look at you.’

What?!

‘Yes’, he said ‘before Jesus died, God couldn’t bear to look at you because you were so full of sin and God can’t look upon sin’. And I remembered this explanation from before; this was one I’d clung onto for years, and I tried it on again, and the weight of it did something bad to my heart and soul and I knew I couldn’t carry this explanation around any longer. I knew God loved me, loved all humanity, every last one of us, through all time and eternity, and I couldn’t reconcile that love with God not being able to look at God’s people, unless Jesus died.

So I pressed on with my big question.

And I pressed on.

And I still press on.

And I will press on, always.

And, if that even is a question then, still, I don’t know why Jesus had to die. In fact, I don’t believe he had to; not to fulfil a great celestial plan, anyway. But Jesus showed – still shows – such a radical way of living, such a purity of life, heart and mind that death was… inevitable.

I know Jesus turned everything upside down with His outrageous, indiscriminating, love; and when humankind comes face to face with that love, it does something to our very core and sears into our soul and it’s so rare, so ‘raw’ that it’s terrifying, and our fear causes us to kill it. To kill love. I know that.

And I also know that even though Jesus told his closest friends, over and over, what was going to happen to him, still they didn’t understand either. They didn’t know why Jesus had to die. Not only did they not understand, they ran away and betrayed Him, and denied they’d even known him. They didn’t understand what was happening.

On that first Good Friday night, they weren’t sat around in the upper room waiting for what had been promised to them, full of hope, nodding knowingly. They were hiding; huddled there, this night, terrified, distraught, guilt-stricken, with images of their best friend; bloodied and beaten and broken. They could still hear the cries of the crowd – crucify him. And they could hear their own voices – I don’t even know the man. Life was gone. Hope was gone. Jesus was dead. That’s what they knew. So if that’s all we know too, that is enough…

Today we do well to kneel at this cross, where our friend Jesus is beaten and broken. And we kneel undone, as we see our sin and hear our own failings ringing in our ears. All we have known is in tatters around us because we haven’t always followed the examples of our Jesus. But we also know, in ways we can never comprehend, that His crucifixion is part of something bigger than our understanding.

We do not fully know what happened on the cross, or in the darkness of that tomb, none of us do – and the truth is we cannot, because this is the work of God Almighty, an unfathomable act of grace and mystery, where death equals life. And that is enough. That is even good.

So, we kneel here today, clinging to our faith and to our humanity, and onto to any shred of knowledge we may ever had – albeit tentatively – and, as we do, we hold fast to all we know of the extravagant, unending, indestructible love of God. We kneel with those disciples who knew nothing, but still dared to be together, even if it was in hiding.

And we watch, and we weep, and we wait… And it is good. Amen.

When the world isn’t glorious, but the bible readings are…

A few Sundays ago, I woke up before my alarm and in that half-asleep-half-awake state I had to decide whether to go back to sleep or get up and get in the ocean. By some minor miracle I hauled myself out of bed and went for a swim…and as I did, so a family of dolphins went right past me, so close I could almost touch them, and I was reminded of this morning’s gospel passage…

Now Peter and his companions were weighed down with sleep; but since they had stayed awake, they saw his glory

Since they had stayed awake, they saw his glory.

Since I had been awake, I saw the glory of those dolphins.

And I committed that moment to memory, thinking ‘that’ll preach’. And, oh how I intended to use that as a springboard into the importance of keeping alert to see God’s glory. And then the events of this week happened, and it turns out that the glory that we hear about in our readings today isn’t how life is right now.

Life isn’t always shiny bright faces and booming affirmations from the almighty.

Life isn’t always feeling the Divine One so close we can reach out and touch them.

Life isn’t always mountain top experiences and dolphins at dawn. Most often we just trudge on, one foot in front of the other, trying our best to follow Jesus – two steps forward, one step back.

Today’s readings are all dazzling and full of glory but, for most of us, life is probably rarely like that. For our brothers in detention, and our sisters and brothers in the Ukraine it couldn’t be further from that. And what can we say, today, when our readings say one thing and our news says something hideously different… Sometimes there just aren’t the words for how terrifying, how horrendous, how utterly devastating life gets.

Standing with Jesus, on top of a mountain, is one thing. But what can we do, how do we stand, what do we say to our fellow siblings, when we and they are far from that mountain top. Far from that light. Far from anything resembling beauty.

You know, some of the ancient churches in the Ukraine have opened their crypts – their deep, rock hewn, dark crypts, where long-dead saints have been resting for generations and generations – they have opened these places for the dead with an invite for residents to find their way there, for safety. These ancient graves are being used to preserve life. Maybe that says more about glory, more about hope, more about the role of the church and the goodness of humanity. The image of finding refuge – preserving life – in this place of death is so deep, huge, and I don’t have the words for it, but somehow perhaps it shines with the radiance of God. And maybe words just get in the way, anyway. Sometimes, often, I think we need fewer words.

Which brings me to this…

Today is the Sunday before Lent – Lent begins this coming Wednesday and we recall our own humanity, in sorrowfulness and repentance, as we are marked with the sign of the cross in Ash.

Two years ago, before any of us knew a pandemic was around the corner, I read about an ancient practice that takes place on this day, in churches worldwide, called burying or locking the Alleluia. It dates way back to before the 10^th Century and begins to explain why we stop singing and saying Alleluia, in church, during Lent.

Burying the alleluia, which we will physically do at the end of the service today, is a kind of gimmick, but with beautiful imagery and deep reason. The word is buried, locked away, until the Easter Vigil, when it is ‘released from captivity’, like Christ in the resurrection. That, in itself, is enough, but there’s another aspect that resonates with me today, at this time, when the world seems even more intent on destroying itself and her children.

By burying the Alleluia, as a physical reminder that we will stop proclaiming this word of deep praise for this while, this is an act of solidarity with those who currently can’t proclaim Alleluia, those who have lost or let go of their Alleluia, because life or death or external or internal factors are preventing them from being able to; those for whom Alleluia is the furthest word from their lips because of invasion and war, or their own captivity, or mental ill health, or addiction, or homelessness or hunger, or bereavement or loneliness. These are our friends, our brothers and sisters, our family members, ourselves. And by acknowledging that praise is sometimes impossible, or paralysing is a simple but powerful prayer for those who are suffering. Sometimes not speaking is at least as powerful as prayer, maybe more so.

And, in our worship, during Lent, we no longer use the word Alleluia. There’s a space, a gap where it once was. This lent, may we really notice it is gone. May our liturgy and worship take on a sombre tone, a more serious meaning. And each time we notice its absence – in that silence, may that be our prayer for those who are currently unable to murmur that word of praise; may it be our prayer for the trafficked, the asylum seeker, the traumatised family fleeing war, the homeless, the terrified world leaders, the lonely, the addicted, may it be our prayer for the deepest saddest parts of ourselves. And may we reach Easter, together, in full anticipation of being able to unlock, dig up, our Alleluia, and see it resurrected with the Risen Christ; for each of us, and for those who we remember in love and solidarity this Lent. Amen.

Responsory for Burying the Alleluia:

When Jesus came down from the mount of Transfiguration, he began to tell his disciples that he would be betrayed and crucified.

SOMETIMES WE LOSE OUR ALLELUIA.

Jesus did not enter into glory before he stretched out his arms on the hardwood of the cross.

SOMETIMES WE LOSE OUR ALLELUIA.

Jesus told his disciples, “If you want to become my followers, deny yourselves and take up your cross and follow me.”

SOMETIMES WE MUST LET GO OF OUR ALLELUIA.

For the days of Lent, we stop singing and saying, “Alleluia.”

SOMETIMES WE LET GO OF OUR ALLELUIA.’

At Easter we will again celebrate the Resurrection and sing “Alleluia! Christ is risen.”

IN GOD’S TIME, WE WILL FIND OUR ALLELUIA!

Ouch, Jesus!

As I said at the start of the service this morning, I am speaking at an event in our grounds this Thursday, arranged by Fremantle Council, about my work in India to help combat modern slavery. I can’t think of a single thing more important than ending the buying and selling of humans. It is that thing that I will never stop working for – the thing I would go to prison for, if I thought it would help – the thing I might even die for. And I won’t talk much about my adventures in India, or the stories of the precious women and children I met there, because I want you to come on Thursday night, but I can’t help being reminded of those people and their plight, when I hear this morning’s first reading.

Today we only get the ‘happily-ever-after’ bit, but Joseph’s full story is one of favouritism, bad parenting, jealousy, murder attempts, human trafficking, lies, false imprisonment and eventual redemption – God sent me here to preserve life, Joseph tells his slave trading brothers. Or, as one of my favourite bible verses later says, what you intended for harm, God intended for good. And Joseph kissed his brothers and wept with them, and they talked together.

Joseph’s brothers sold him into slavery, faked his death, separated him from his beloved dad, he was tricked, imprisoned, forgotten about and then, when they are reunited, Joseph kissed them, wept with them, and talked with them. It’s almost like he heard Jesus’ teaching from today’s gospel reading, some 6 or 7 centuries before he said them.

Loving his enemies, doing good to those who had hated him, blessing those who had cursed him, freely giving to them, choosing not to judge but to forgive. And Jesus tells us to do likewise. It doesn’t make for easy listening, does it?

At best it sounds like an impossibly hard task, good but almost entirely unattainable. At worst it sounds like allowing others to abuse us, walk all over us, a real wet response. But I don’t think either sound like the Jesus I believe in.

And as I reflected on that, so I remembered the first visit to the brothels, while I was in Mumbai – full of imprisoned and trafficked women, like Joseph, and full of those who were buying and selling them – like Joseph’s brothers.

I kept a journal while I was there and one particular day I wrote this…

I’ll never forget stepping into the first brothel and seeing the women; a diverse mix of young and old, loud and silent, laughing and staring, fully clothed and almost naked. Instantly I loved these women. Instantly I could see they are children of God and that God’s image is clearly stamped on them; they weren’t the dirty, cheap, slur on society they are often painted as…

And then I saw the men. And I despised them.

They made me want to scream: How dare you touch these beautiful women and think you can buy them? How dare you mar the image of the creator in these precious children?

Then the challenge from God began.

“They are my children too” God said.
“They are made in My image too”
“My image is marred in them, but it is not destroyed”
“They are my children and I love them”

Last Thursday I shook hands with the first pimp I have ever knowingly met. I looked at him – he was small and polite. He asked me my name, in English. I told him my name, in Hindi, and asked him his. Kasim.

…And all I kept thinking was “you buy and sell women and children for sex”.

And God kept saying to me “can you see Jesus in Kasim?”.

And the truth is, to my shame, I couldn’t, but maybe this is what Jesus means when he says love your enemies, do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return…bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you…Do not judge. Forgive…

Love them because they are also beloved of God

Do good because everyone deserves that, even those we think don’t

Bless, pray, give, forgive.

Not because we are better but because everyone is our equal, everyone is made in the image of God and bears God’s image in their very soul. And because doing these things is good for us and God always wants what is good.

Withholding blessings, prayer, and refusing to forgive is bad for our hearts, souls and bodies and how can we hope others will encounter the gift of love God has for all people if we refuse to love, or if we set conditions on who or how much?

Jesus calls us to such a high standard of living, not as a to-do list for God to love us, but so we might live more freely, just exactly as we are created to. And that others might too.

We work through the deep and difficult work of forgiveness so we are released from carrying and holding resentments that hold us captive.

We strive to love our enemies because otherwise we are poisoned and drawn into a life of harming others.

We do good to those who hate us, not to encourage behaviours of hate, but because we are committed to counteracting them.

And these responses are God-given because they change us. They reorient us. They place us right back into the truths of who we are: God’s beloved children…just like our enemies.

Ultimately these acts, which may seem defeatist and disempowering, centre us in a powerful place of knowing who we are, and who God is. When we act in these ways, these counterintuitive ways to how the world works, we claim truths about God, ourselves, and how God calls us to respond towards others.

We love because we are loved

We love others because they are also loved

That’s really it

How tough it is, what a life’s work it is, but the alternative doesn’t bear considering.

In the Kingdom of God, the alternative doesn’t even exist. Amen.

Jesus is his Mama’s boy…

Do you ever open your mouth, and your mum pops out?! Unnerving isn’t it!

So often I hear Sue Sampson coming out of my mouth. Her compassion for refugees, her frustration of inefficiency, her hatred of injustice, her defiance of the patriarchy and certain political leaders, her love of trashy TV and always the glass of wine…There’s rarely any doubt that I am my mother’s daughter.

And in this morning’s gospel, we encounter something similar: Jesus, God’s Son is very much Mary’s boy. Did you notice?

When Mary discovered she was carrying the saviour of the world in her body, she burst into her song of liberation and justice – the one we call the Magnificat. With the Christ inside her she was able to see the world as it really could be, as it really should be, where the hungry are filled, the proud are brought low and the humble take their place; the rich are sent away empty, and the poor are provided for. I wonder how often she sang that song as Jesus grew. I wonder if she sang it to him at bedtime or bath time. I wonder if she sang it while he was a baby, a boy, a teenager, and an adult. I wonder if she maybe even sang it as she knelt at the foot of his cross.

Obviously we don’t know but hearing this morning’s gospel passage it is clear to me that it became very much part of Jesus’ DNA because by the time we join him at the ‘level place’ this morning he is preaching it for himself, almost word for word: Blessed are the poor, Blessed are the hungry, Blessed are those who weep, Blessed are the hated. Woe to the rich, woe to those who are full, woe to those who are spoken highly of.

Yep, Jesus really is his mama’s boy.

And just as Mary’s Magnificat makes for uncomfortable listening so too does the same message when it comes out of Jesus’ mouth, particularly for us…because we are way more among the ‘woe’s than the ‘blessed’s. But what can we do about that, because simply by birth we are fortunate enough to be counted with the rich and rejoicing and not the poor or hungry. And yes, we can give away what we have. We can try to share our power and our privilege. Of course we can, and we must, but the thing that struck me about these lists this week is the first point – blessed are the poor, for theirs, yours, is the kingdom of God.

And isn’t the point of following Jesus, isn’t the main point something about building God’s Kingdom here and now, spotting where it is cropping up and joining in. Didn’t we sign up to this Jesus movement to live in and extend God’s Kingdom and invite others to join us there too?

Blessed are the poor, for yours is the Kingdom of God.

If that is true – and Jesus says it is – then perhaps we should not only try to give up our wealth, but we should also be hanging out with those who are genuinely poor. If we want to experience the kingdom of God, that is where we will find it.

This week, many of you know, I went back to the prison at Perth Airport to visit our friends Ned, Aref and Javad. That place is like staring into the depths of hell. It is sterile and inhumane. It is devoid of compassion or friendship. It crushes spirits and sends hope away empty. It reflects all that is bad about humankind and shows a terrifying side of what one human can do to another and what one political system can inflict on those who are most vulnerable.

All three of our friends are in a bad way at the moment. Ned is being denied access to mental health treatment that he so desperately needs and is protesting that by refusing food. Aref, usually so full of hopeful expectation had really dropped his head. And eloquent and beautiful Javad broke my heart when he told me, ‘I own nothing, I have nothing, not even these clothes I wear, because at any point [these guards] can take it from me, so nothing I own is mine. It’s theirs’. He went on to say ‘you can live without food for weeks and you can live without water for days but you can’t live without hope, even for a minute so I am not living. I am just breathing’.

Blessed are the poor and hungry for yours is the kingdom of God.

Sitting at the gates of hell with these men reveals the kingdom of God. And I don’t know how that happens or even really what that means but I do believe it to be true. The detention centre does not feature in God’s Kingdom – the exclusion of refugees or boat people – the blind eye we turn to those who are literally starving themselves to death – those things are not aspects of the Kingdom of God but by being alongside these guys, by standing in solidarity with them, we somehow glimpse something of another way. A new world.

The needs of Javad and Ned and Aref make me feel paralysed and powerless. They bring me to the end of myself. And then, in that paradox, there I find God. Reaching the end of ourselves meant that many of you turned up at the centre yesterday and protested their treatment. Reaching the end of who we are meant several others came and lamented here at mass or joined in online or in our homes or are planning to go to the edge of humanity and sit with those guys in their cell and listen to their stories. And as we do, so we enter a new dimension of the Kingdom of God. I don’t know how that works, but it does.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German theologian, describes the Magnificat as ‘the most passionate, the wildest, the most revolutionary song ever sung’. Here on the mount Jesus sings his version of it, with his whole heart. As we seek to follow Him, may we find our own song of revolution, and may we sing it with all we have and all we are and as it changes us so may it also change the world. Amen.

Truth.

Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you.

And before you were born, I consecrated you.

I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.

You shall speak whatever I command you.

Do not be afraid.

These words from our Old Testament reading this morning were a promise to Jeremiah, but when we read them alongside our Gospel reading, I think they could just as easily be written for Jesus. And even for us too.

Have you ever wondered about the conversation God might’ve had with the Trinity before God the son was conceived in Mary’s womb? What did the divine parent say to Jesus – did Jesus receive a mission, was the plan shared, was there a specific plan, and when he was born as a human baby did he remember it, or did it come back to him as he grew. Or did he only know he was the son of God when he heard it proclaimed at his baptism? Was it as much of a surprise to him as it was to the others, gathered on the riverbank that day? The truth is, we don’t know but, by the time we get to this scene in the synagogue, Jesus certainly does know.

The spirit is upon ME, Jesus says.

And he knows exactly what his purpose is.

The spirit is upon ME, to preach good news to the poor, bring sight to the blind, win release for captives, smash oppression and proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.

Whenever Jesus became aware of his call, whenever he figured out what his life’s purpose was, he knew it by the time he stood up to read those scrolls that day, in his hometown.

And all spoke well of him and were amazed at the words that came from his mouth.

The synagogue was packed; word had got out that this itinerant preacher was coming home; he’d been doing amazing things all over the place and now it’s our turn to see him perform miracles and do great things for us. And he stands up and speaks with such boldness, such prophetic truth and everyone was amazed.

Isn’t this guy Joseph’s son?

Didn’t our children go to lessons together?

Aren’t his family sat right over there?

All were amazed at him.

So, what changed? How come, just 6 verses later, all in the synagogue were filled with rage? They got up, drove him out of the town and led him to the brow of the cliff so they might hurl him off. Why was there such a turnaround and such a strong, murderous reaction to what he was saying? They had known Jesus as a child. But had they really known him? Because here he is telling them he is a prophet, here he is suggesting – pretty boldly – that he’s the messiah. Isn’t that what they want? Isn’t that who they have been waiting for?

Jesus comes to the synagogue with this great message – a message that is good news for the poor, sight for the blind, freedom for those in captivity, liberation for those who are oppressed – and everyone loves it – and then Jesus says, no prophet is accepted in his hometown. Basically, there’s nothing I can do for you here. Ouch.

Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing. But it is for the poor and the blind and the incarcerated and the oppressed. And they don’t like that because they want it to be for them. They want the goodness all for themselves. And isn’t that a condition of the human heart. As it was for them, how often is that true for us too?

Things switched dramatically in the temple that day. From amazement to vicious death threats. A total 180. And it seems that the crime Jesus committed, over and over, the one that sentenced him to death – first here in the synagogue and later at the cross is summed up in one word: TRUTH.

Jesus told the truth and people didn’t like it. Speaking the truth won’t win you friends, and it will threaten to get you killed. And it is the right thing to do. The only thing to do.

Jesus’ message of good news is really good, but it also means raises some uncomfortable truths. Jesus’ message causes us to examine ourselves and acknowledge we aren’t the ones who are poor, blind, incarcerated and oppressed. Jesus’ message invites us to join the ranks of those who willingly give away some of our own privilege in order that others may thrive and grow and live. It means we need to hold onto those Old Testament promises made to Jeremiah and Jesus, and us – that we were known by God before our very conception, that we are consecrated and called for a holy purpose, that we have a job to do, that we must speak out truth and love, just as we are commanded, and without fear because God is with us.

Jesus’ listeners in first century Palestine, in his hometown, only heard the deeply unsettling truth that God favours the poor and the oppressed. And it made them murderous. But the bottom line is that this is the truth. And we are not poor. But God shares God’s work with us. And we have the enormous and profound privilege of being able to become God’s hands and feet and mouthpiece in this generation. We can choose to be amazed by that invitation and take it. Or we can put ourselves first and turn it down. We can take truth and live with it, or we can try to kill it.

Later this morning we are going to pray God’s blessing upon our young people as they return to school, to a new school year, to a new school for some of them. I am going to pray that they know they were called and set apart before they were even conceived, for works of greatness, and that they might fulfil them, even today, even as children, even in their hometown. I’m going to pray that they will speak boldly, caring first for the poor and the oppressed. As you pray for them too, may you also know that you were born for works of greatness and that your greatest work is to care first and foremost for the poor and oppressed, following after the example of Jesus, and may this truth be the truth that sets you free. Amen.

Hope is Fierce!

Luke 21: 25-38

Wednesday night, just gone, I had a particularly bad night’s sleep and at 4am I found myself forming a sermon for this morning. Pretty pleased with myself for completing this task so early in the week I fell back to sleep with a smug grin. It was an ok sermon as well – advent is about waiting, I don’t like waiting, what things shall we do while we’re waiting – that was the kind of gist of it. Pretty solid. Maybe I’ll save it for next year, I certainly cant preach it today because on Thursday morning I woke up to some awful news from back home and it resonates so deeply with this morning’s apocalyptic gospel reading that I knew a complete rewrite had to be in order…

‘There will be … confusion by the roaring of the sea and the waves’, Jesus said

On Wednesday afternoon, this week, at 2pm GMT – just as we were beginning what for me was that sleepless night, 28 people died in the English Channel, while trying to cross from Calais to the UK in a small inflatable boat – the biggest loss of life by drowning in the Channel in many years. The BBC reported 27 deaths: 17 men, 7 women, 3 children, but there was also an unborn child, because one of those women was pregnant and that child’s life counts, and was lost too, so the number is 28. Two of the passengers survived, and only one of those who died has so far been identified: 24-year-old Maryam Nuri Mohammed Amin – a Kurd from Northern Iraq, who was travelling to the UK to surprise her fiancé.

She messaged him as the dinghy began to lose air and sink. She told him the boat was deflating and they were trying to get the water out of it. He said, ‘she was trying to reassure me in her last message and give me hope that the authorities were on their way to rescue them, but the help came too late’.

She was trying to give him hope.

‘There will be distress’ Jesus said

On Thursday, this week, it was the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women and the start of a campaign called 16 Days in WA.

16 days in WA draws inspiration from the global movement for 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-based Violence to create change in culture, behaviour and attitudes that lead to violence against women and their children. Politicians took to social media with their slogan ‘don’t be silent when you see violence’, to encourage ordinary residents, like us, to speak up when we see violence or disrespect towards women. They want to bring hope to those women and children who are trapped in domestic violence, or controlling relationships. They want to give hope that there is a way out.

Today is the first Sunday of advent and our theme is hope.

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

People are fleeing for safety and are dying in their attempts. And in the 21^st century we are still having to educate people, or commit ourselves, to speak up against violence and disrespect where we see it. It beggars belief.

And yet, I can’t get away from hope! I 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 a magnet, a real draw, irresistible in her approach and totally beguiling!

People are being drawn to our community and are encountering the source of all Love. We are recognising afresh that we are standing on holy ground here and this is a place where healing and wholeness spring up, even through the cracks in solid concrete, and there is nothing we can do to tame it or to stop it. I am thankful for that which has gone before and al that has led to this point – the good and the bad. I am grateful for the hard slog you lot have put in. And I am hopeful, so hope-filled for our future together because I feel like, what we are waiting for here is a time of rejoicing, a time of jubilee. ‘Our redemption is near’ – that’s what Jesus calls it. I can’t help feeling absolute hope, even in the midst of some real shit.

Hope is a fierce beast.

She texts her frantic fiancé, saying help is on the way.

She refuses to be silent in the face of violence.

She flees abusive partners when her life is in danger.

She turns a convict-built hostile place, designed as an asylum for women, into a glorious vibrant arts centre (I discovered that piece of heaven on earth this week too!).

And she stands, defiant, when the dangers and difficulties and darkness of this world threaten to overwhelm her.

‘When these things begin to take place’, Jesus says, ‘stand up and raise your heads’

My 4am sermon was right – advent is a time of waiting. But it was also so wrong. It’s not a time where we need to fill the space of that waiting with all this activity. It is a space in time where we need to simply stand. Stand up. Raise your heads. Hope is coming. Hope is on its way. And hope will not disappoint us.

And if hope leads us into action, all the better. If hope encourages us to speak out or speak up or make change or resist change then go with it. Let hope take you by the hand and lead you in the paths she walks.

And as we encounter those who are without hope right now, may we offer ourselves to be bringers of it.

Stand up, raise your heads, hope is drawing near. Amen.

Christ the King 2021

John 18: 33-37

I need to prefix today’s sermon with something of a caveat, on this day when we ‘celebrate’ that Christ is King. Much to my mum’s disgust, I am no monarchist, and maybe the echoes of Kingship and ruling and authority grate on you too. But can we try to shelve those strong emotions briefly because Christ’s Kingdom is no dictatorship or oppressive regime – everything we know about ruling and authority is entirely other in Christ’s rule. Thanks be to God. So with that in mind, fasten your seatbelts and let’s dive in.

We had a wonderful time this morning, didn’t we?!

All manner of amazingness happened at South Beach and we loudly and publicly declared – in word and action, that CHRIST IS KING. Josie proclaimed Jesus as her King and made some profound promises to try to follow him and we who are baptised, reaffirmed them too. And today, the church worldwide reminds herself, and her community that Jesus Christ is King – King of the World, King of the Church, our King.

So the gospel passage is kind of peculiar, don’t you think? A bit jarring. Maybe some context might be useful…

This passage comes immediately after the events of the last supper. Jesus has told his closest friends that the time has come for him to be handed over to be killed. Judas has left, collected his blood money, and is lying in wait for the moment of betrayal. Jesus and his disciples have wandered across to the gardens nearby, and as they walk, Judas leads a heavily armed detachment of soldiers and religious leaders to meet him. As they come face-to-face with Jesus, they fall to the ground in his presence, and then gather themselves. They capture him, beat him and hand him over to certain death…and that is where our gospel passage this morning begins. A beaten and bloodied Jesus is before Pilate and asked ‘are you the King of the Jews?’.

And Jesus doesn’t answer the question. He just stands, broken and half-naked, and asks a different question ‘Do you ask me this on your own, or did others tell you about me?’. In this whole exchange he frustratingly never answers the question.

And I don’t know why, because he totally could.

YES! I’m the King of the Jews. Yes, I’m the ruler of all the kings of the earth. I’m the alpha and the omega. He doesn’t tell him that just as he is being presented before the jeering crowd today, soon He will be presented before the Ancient of Days and given his true Kingship.

He doesn’t tell Pilate all the things he’s done… I’ve healed the sick and raised the dead. I’ve eaten with outcasts. I’ve spent time with the hated and kissed the untouchables. I’ve called out lies and falsehood and injustice. I’ve taken the lowest and the least, the uneducated and the hated and empowered them to pass on my message to generations to come.

But he doesn’t say any of that. He just gives this elusive answer… ‘my kingdom is not from this world’, he says, and how right he is. His kingdom was not like the kingdom of Caesar or Pilate or Herod; a kingdom that operated on violence and oppression and the ruling classes trampling on everyone else. It was, and is, entirely other.

It is a kingdom based on truth, not on power. A kingdom based on love, not hatred or fear. This is a whole different currency, and to the world, and to Pilate, and to people seeking to build kingdoms in the 21^st century, it doesn’t make any sense, but that is the subversive, counter-cultural rule of Christ the King.

The Kingdom of Christ turns the whole kingly order of things upside down. He didn’t come in the way a king should come and he didn’t live recognisably as a king. His crown was about to be one of thorns and his throne was a brutal cross. What have you done Jesus? This is not kingly. Are you really the king?

And Pilate’s question rings out today too, in this generation, because people are still searching for Truth. Looking for freedom and liberation, and they might glance at the church and wonder if maybe it could be true. Could Jesus be our King? Jesus’ Kingdom is not like Queen Elizabeth’s or Scott Morrison’s or any kingdom of this world. It’s not, but could it be relevant even now? Could it be something – some place – better and trustworthy and true?

For Josie today, and those of us who call ourselves Christian, we believe it is. We believe Jesus is King, and is good, and rules with justice and equity, not just testifying to the truth but actually being Truth; we believe he is the alpha and the omega and his kingship shall never be destroyed. At least, we’ve committed our lives to living as if we believe it, even on days when we don’t or can’t.

But what are we doing, that shows we are citizens of a kingdom that is not from this world? What are we doing, to point to Christ the King, and His Kingdom here, in Beaconsfield? A kingdom of peace and non-violence; a kingdom of life and light and love and freedom; a kingdom of good news, where the hungry are fed and the homeless are housed, where the naked are clothed and the lonely have friends; where prisons and hospitals are empty and the environment is clean and green.

A Kingdom where its citizens gather by the ocean at early o’ clock to publicly die to sin and rise to new life in Christ the King – a sure sign we are either mad, or serious about this…or both.

Today Josie nailed her colours to the mast. She joined the ranks of those who are baptised children of God. That kind of membership will never be repealed. She will be a baptised child of the King forever. And for those of us who are counted in that number, we too have nailed our colours to the mast…or rather, we have handed ourselves over to be nailed to the throne of our Lord – we have died with Christ and been raised to new life in Him.

Will we live every day for our King and for the building of His Kingdom here on earth, as it is in Heaven?

Now to Him who sits on the throne, be all dominion and glory and Kingship, now and forever, Amen.