year B – Page 3 – Holy Adventures

We wish to see Jesus

Jeremiah 31:31-34 Psalm 119:9-16 Hebrews 5:5-14 John 12:20-33

I have a question for you: Why do you come to church? (You might be sat there wondering the same thing!) But genuinely, why do you come to church?

Our community is pretty fabulous, the coffee is fresh, there is often champagne, the choir always sounds great, sometimes even the preaching is ok. But what is it that draws you back, week after week? Or what brought you back after that long spell you had away from church? I’ve been thinking about it, and I have to believe that, as with the Greeks in this morning’s gospel passage, the bottom line about why we each come, is that we want to see Jesus.

You see, there are nicer people, better coffee, colder champagne, greater music and yes even better sermons, elsewhere, but the reason we come here – I might even dare to say, whether we realise it or not – is because something inside us is captivated, drawn, intrigued enough by the notion of God that we come along because we want to see more, maybe even touch, hold or taste more. Like those first century seekers, we want to see Jesus.

On Tuesday night I went to a different church for a meeting. I didn’t realise I was going because I wanted to see Jesus. I thought I was going because it was in my diary. But there I met this woman called Asuntha. Asuntha Charles is the National Director of World Vision in Afghanistan.

Born in a village in southern India, Asuntha was the last daughter in a family of six. There was no reason for her to go to school and every reason for her to be married. But Asuntha was born to a feisty mama who, whenever Asuntha asked ‘can i…’, replied with ‘let her have a go’.

Asuntha completed school and university and became a social worker, always seeking out women and children in the world’s poorest corners. More recently her work has taken her to Afghanistan. When Taliban rule began, humanitarian agencies were encouraged to pull out, but this tiny, brave, single woman refused to leave. She showed us photos of 5 year old girls she had rescued from the marriage they were being sold into, with men nearing retirement age. And she told us that she will work with girl children in that broken place until one of them becomes president.

I thought I was going to a meeting. I was. And in it, I saw Jesus.

Sir, we wish to see Jesus. Well, go and hear Asuntha. Go and see what people do in my name, he says.

The next day I went to share holy communion in an elderly care facility and I read them this bible passage and I told them how I had seen Jesus the night before, in the words and face of Asuntha. And then Janet spoke.

Four months ago she was given three months to live. But Janet knits. And she has a deal with her Lord that so long as there is wool, she will keep knitting. When the wool runs out, she will go home, she says. She is midway through her recent cancer treatment and feels rotten but wool keeps appearing in her room and she often has no idea how it got there. So, she addressed the group, saying, ‘I knit. I knit beanies and mittens and socks for prem babies. And sometimes, when I knit, a little teddy pops out and I give that to the babies too. And I do that as a reminder that Jesus loves them’. And she was not in the least surprised when I said I could see Jesus in her. She can see him too.

Sir, we wish to see Jesus.

Well, he is appearing in knitted bears and beanie hats in prem baby wards of Perth’s hospitals. You will see him there.

And we come here with that same request – we wish to see Jesus.

And we might glimpse him in the scripture, or hear him in the melody of the hymns, we may hold him in our hands; eat and drink him in the mass, and at the end of the service I will send you on your way with these words; ‘May you see the face of Christ in everyone you meet, and may everyone you meet see the face of Christ in you’.

Sir, we wish to see Jesus – he is right here – around you and within.

Or, to use St Patrick’s words, whose feast day we remember today;

Christ is with you, Christ before you, Christ behind you, Christ in you,

Christ beneath you, Christ above you, Christ on your right, Christ on your left,

Christ when you lie down, Christ when you sit down, Christ when you arise,

Christ in the heart of every one who thinks of you,

Christ in the mouth of everyone who speaks of you,

Christ in every eye that sees you, Christ in every ear that hears you.

You wish to see Jesus?

He is right here.

Let us pray:

God. We wish to see Jesus. Show us where we might find him.

Open our eyes, unclog our ears to hear him, make us attuned to where Jesus shows up. Show us Jesus in the changing of the seasons; in the warmth of the sun and the cool of the clouds.

Share Jesus with us in waves on the beach that are made of the same water that lapped on the shore when he roasted fish with his disciples after the first Easter.

Show us Jesus in those we look up to and respect.

Show us Jesus in those who serve others, in those who bring new life into this world, and in those who care for us after death.

God, show us Jesus in the places and people we don’t want to see Jesus in.

Remind us that they share a spark of the eternal life of Christ, even if we might not see it, even if they might not see it.

Show us Jesus in a world that doesn’t look like the one Jesus proclaimed and show us Jesus calling us to make that world a reality.

God, we wish to see Jesus.

We want our eyes and ears and hearts to be open. God, refresh us with Jesus.

Amen.

For God so loves…

Numbers 21:4-9 Psalm 107:1-3,17-22 Ephesians 2:1-10 John 3:14-21

For God so loved the world that he gave his only son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.

Objectively, this verse is the most famous of all Jesus’ quotes. It is probably the most popular bible reference in the world. And a verse that elicits more than 2 million internet searches, month upon month. It is often described as the ‘bible in a nutshell’. It features on signs at sporting events, on the underside of paper cups in a well-known American burger chain. In the Baptist church of my childhood, it was even the code for the burglar alarm – 43:16! And is a passage one is hard pressed to pass over, when it crops up in the gospel reading for the day. Truth be told though; I don’t love it. And spending a week studying it has forced me to consider why.

As I have read commentaries and sermons, so I discovered I’m not alone in this opinion. More than a few other preachers struggle with it too. Some write that they don’t like the ease with which it can be used as an exclusionary way of saying ‘I am in’ and ‘you are out’. And because it isn’t the whole message of God’s love for God’s world. And for too long, it has been used in more conservative contexts to highlight the doctrine of Penal Substitution, which says God gave His son to die on the cross, to take the punishment of the sins of the world; that Jesus died as an atoning sacrifice, so humanity could be reconciled to God.

And, as one commentary writer said, either we believe in a God who forgives, or we don’t. And if we subscribe to a belief in a forgiving God then we can’t also subscribe to penal substitution – because that isn’t forgiveness, that is atonement. If we believe in outrageous grace and unconditional love, we can’t also believe a price needed to be paid.

You see why I have struggled with this verse?! But I think it says three really important things. The first is this:

It says that God looks at the world and loves it, loves us, loves. God loves.

For God loved the world so much that He gave.

God’s heart, God’s opinion of the world is summed up in one word – LOVE. It is God’s love for us – for us all, for all God has created – that means we can be in relationship. Not blood sacrifices, not right thinking or believing or feeling – simply that we are the recipients of God’s love and grace. And that is enough.

As St Paul wrote in our epistle for today, ‘God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us… made us alive together with Christ – by grace you have been saved …this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God’.

The next thing we can learn is that this gift of love changes everything.

So here is an interesting thing; almost everywhere else in John’s gospel, the word “world” is used negatively — to refer to an entity that is at odds with God, even the enemy of God. So, in Jesus’ farewell discourse we hear that he is not of the world, we are not of the world, the world will hate us, just as it hated Christ…and so it continues. So, it is remarkable in this passage to find Jesus say God loves this God-hating world so much that God is willing to give the most precious gift God has, as God’s most profound act of love for this world. And this gift is so that the world might be changed and saved.

Not from a wrathful God, but from itself. From a place of darkness into a place of light.

And that is the third thing…

God sent God’s son as a transforming gift, from darkness to light.

Jesus came to a world that was hostile, but beloved of God, as a life-giving, love-proclaiming gift, and a source of unquenchable light.

And what did the world do? The world loved darkness.

The world loved darkness because darkness hides our actions, our meanness, our corruption, our wrongdoings. The world loves darkness because we can do what we want and not get caught.

So God, the brightest light of the world, the one who created light, sent a fraction of Godself, wrapped up in the skin of Jesus to bring light – the light of the world. Not to shame the world, not to trick the world into being exposed, but as an outrageous gift of love, to say ‘I see you, and I know you, and I still utterly adore you’. I can see what you are doing, and I love you. Don’t run and hide – you are loved.

And the world hated it.

Not the whole world, of course, but the people and places of power and evil – the systems and structures that needed darkness so their work could thrive and spread. They didn’t want light. They needed darkness to be able to function. So when they encountered The Light, they killed it. They killed the expression of undeserving, unmerited love – the gift of God – the true light.

But God’s love has never been destroyed. God’s light has never been extinguished. And in this generation and in this place, we are it. We are the light bearers of the God who loved the world so much. And that gift – that free gift – needs to be taken to the world’s darkest places and shone on the world’s most corrupt and dark systems, policies, and ruling forces so they are revealed and potentially redeemed in that blaze of light. And we are the hands and feet and voices and actions that carry it.

In our baptism, we were given the charge to ‘shine as a light in the world to the glory of God the father’ and that charge has never been revoked. We don’t need to chase darkness away – indeed, we cannot – we simply need to shine God’s light, that the world may know it is loved, and that we might be reminded that we are too.

So shine as a light in the world to the glory of God the Father.

Or as one of my favourite poets would say:

‘we step out of the shade, aflame and unafraid…

For there is always light,
if only we’re brave enough to see it.
If only we’re brave enough to be it.’

May we see it, may we be it and may the world be changed. Amen.

Turning Tables

Exodus 20:1-17 Psalm 19 1 Corinthians 1:18-25 John 2:13-22

At community breakfast yesterday I was treated to some of the more colourful stories from the life of St Paul’s. Like the time someone came right up to the altar, rummaged in the offertory plate, and helped himself to a few fifties and twenties before running off with them. Or the time someone put their hand up towards the end of a service and confessed, before God and the congregation, that they had taken and drank every last drop of the communion wine.

And that made me wonder, how the people in the temple recounted the story of Jesus’ actions that we just heard.

The Passover of the Jews was near, and Jesus went into the temple and found people selling cattle, sheep, and doves, and the moneychangers seated at their tables. He made a whip of cords and drove all of them out of the temple, including the animals. He poured out the coins of the moneychangers and overturned their tables. And then he told them, “Take these things out of here! Stop making my Father’s house a marketplace!”

It would’ve been one of the more memorable days at the temple. Surely it would’ve been talked about for generations! Just like those stories from the past years of this place.

So, on three different occasions this week, different people told me about the man who stole from the offertory plate. And in each retelling, the speaker knew that if that man had only asked for money here, it would’ve been given to him. That this is a place of giving, of provision, a place where those in need can come for help.

And what I heard in the tale of the person who took and drank the communion wine is that this is a place where we can ‘fess up to things we have done wrong. It is a place we can come as we are and say ‘yeah, I messed up’ and we will still be accepted, and find forgiveness. And it’s also a place where everyone is welcome to eat and drink our holy meal – all are welcome. You don’t need to sneak in and steal it, just come hungry and thirsty and hold your hands out and it is yours. And there’s nothing you can do to be more worthy and nothing will prevent you from being able to receive.

So when the temple goers and the disciples left the temple that day and recounted the story, what would they have said?

First, Jesus was really cross. Take these things out of here, as he cracked his newly made whip. And he overturned the tables and scattered the money everywhere. Stop turning my father’s house into a marketplace. But the thing is, the temple system ran on a marketplace sort of principle. You had to have money changers so worshippers could change regular cash into temple coins. And you had to have animals for sale so people could buy what they needed for their sacrifices. That was how it worked. So this outburst, this anger, ran way deeper. He wasn’t just clearing out the traders – he was clearing out the whole temple system. He wasn’t just overturning the seller’s tables – he was overturning the way things had been done for generations. He was flipping systems. He was changing everything forever.

In that act, Jesus is saying there is no longer those who are in and those who are out. There is no longer those who can afford to worship and those who are too poor. There is no longer a case where the rich and/or corrupt govern this place. It is not based on a financial interaction, nor on animal sacrifices. This is a new era. This is my father’s house – it is his home – he decides who comes in, and all are welcome here.

I don’t want your money. I don’t want you to buy me a sacrifice. I don’t want spilt blood. I simply want you – all of you – body, mind, soul, spirit, all you have and all you are, all you own and all you lack. I want it all.

And as it was then, so it is now.

There are no rules, no systems, in place that can or will stop anyone from coming to Christ – except for those that we might put in the way. And every time we block or stop others from coming into God’s presence, Jesus is right there ready to knock that over and turn it upside down and clear it out. And that is as true in this place as it is in the temple of our hearts.

You see, we come together in this place, in this temple, and Christ constantly waits to welcome us, and Christ constantly waits to challenge us to remove any blockages we have here.

But we are also walking, talking, living, breathing temples of God’s spirit. And I wonder what God might be eagerly waiting to clear out from within us too.

What blocks, what systems, what beliefs, what restrictions do I have in my own heart that prevent true worship from being able to take place there? What hurt, what self-doubt, what utter independence or pain am I storing up in my heart that needs clearing, yes even with a whip of cords.

Jesus walked right into that temple in Jerusalem and did the clearing, uninvited. I hope he will walk right in here too and clear anything that offends him or blocks out others. This is God’s place, God’s house, and God doesn’t need an invitation to be here.

But when it comes to the temple of our heart, Christ won’t barge in. He waits for an invitation. We can choose to hold onto and perpetuate those systems that keep God out. We can set for ourselves rules and regulations that we must reach, and then fail to reach. And Christ is always waiting to dismantle them.

So, in the stillness and the silence will we whisper our invitation for him to come in and clear out, that our worship may be pure, unblocked, expansive, inclusive, and wholehearted, because that is the worship that is acceptable in God’s sight. Amen.

What if you fly?

Genesis 17:1-7,15-16 Psalm 22:24-32 Romans 4:13-25 Mark 8:31-38

It’s rare to remember the full contents of a sermon, isn’t it? I can probably remember around 4 great sermons in my life – the one that brought me back to faith in 2001, the time I heard this hot guy preach in 2005 – that was a real blinder – so much so, I went on to marry him! And there have been a couple of others, but they are few and far between. But it just so happens one of my all-time favourites was a sermon I heard on this morning’s gospel passage while I was sat in the Los Angeles sunshine, in an outdoor church, in a parking lot, that had been turned into a garden. A Garden Church. And it was 2017. My dear friend Revd Asher only spoke for 5 minutes, and he blew this gospel apart.

Asher is transgender and was born in a female body. He spoke about his teenage self, walking into a doctor’s surgery during his transition journey. The doctor invited that teenager to bring a few items that characterised them. In that box were photos of Mary – the name Asher was given at birth – they recalled the time she was bridesmaid, there were notes and trinkets and other things she held dear. And the doctor asked Mary if she was prepared to close that box and die, in order that Asher might live.

And Asher had a really important decision to make; Asher said, ‘I had to decide, was I prepared to give up what I believed to be life and do something really bold in order to gain what truly is life’. Asher, or Mary, was being invited to die in order to truly experience what is life. And in this morning’s gospel passage we are invited to do just that too.

If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves, take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.

In this invitation, I picture Jesus standing on the edge of a huge mountain, gazing over the precipice. So here we are, Jesus says: if you want to follow me, you need to let go of all this…let go of what you believe to be life, do something really bold, and then you will truly gain what is life.

Erin Hanson, a young Australian poet, captures something similar to this in her beautiful words where she writes, ‘There is freedom waiting for you, on the breezes of the sky. And you ask, “What if I fall?” Oh, but my darling, “What if you fly?’

Every single day, we get this invitation from Jesus Christ; there is freedom waiting, and it looks a bit different than you might expect because it involves being prepared to leave everything behind, even yourself, take up your cross and follow me, Jesus says. And yes, you might fall, but oh my darling, what if you fly – yes you will lose your life, but my darling, you will gain it. You will save it.

What an invitation – to give up the ordinary for something extraordinary. What an offer – and it’s definitely an offer, not a demand. If you want to become my followers. If you want to. You get to choose. And you can choose to say no. God won’t love you any less but oh my darling, then you might never fly. You might never gain that extraordinary life.

And what a day to be reminded of this because today we are celebrating baby June’s baptism. I once read a fabulous book about baptism where it memorably said ‘baptism is the sacrament in which we die’. That’s not something we often say, because it’s not that palatable for the parents, or their friends and family. But symbolically, in the waters of baptism we say yes to that glorious invitation from Jesus and that means saying no to doing things are own way. We are saying we will take the hand of Christ, step off from this ordinary life and believe we will fly. We are committing, each of us who are baptised, and teeny baby June today – we are committing to live our life Christ’s way, not ours – or rather, to deny ourselves and follow him. And because June is only 4 months old, her parents and Godparents will say yes to that eternal invitation on her behalf, and we will promise to help them to fulfil it, until she is able to stand before God and a Bishop and make those promises for herself.

In our invitation from Jesus, there is always something we will need to leave behind. Asher had to leave behind Mary. He had to do something bold to lose what he had believed to be life, in order to gain what truly has turned out to be life; a life laid down in worship and service of Christ’s church as the priest of God that Asher now is.

And just as Christ invited Asher to live his own extraordinary life, so Christ is inviting us, so Christ is inviting you.

What might you need to leave behind?

What do you need to let go of so you can take hold of new life with both hands?

Today Jesus is inviting baby June to the waters of baptism and every day he is inviting us to step out, leap off, from our ordinary existence into something completely extraordinary.

What if you fall? Oh my darling, but what if you fly. Amen.

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.

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.

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.