All posts by Judy

Accept the yoke of obedience, and commit to do God’s perfect will.

Rev’d Peter Balabanski

Lent 5 B – Jrm 31 31-34, Ps 119 9-16, Heb5 5-14, John 12 20-33

Today’s gospel reading takes us a little bit out of sequence. Just before today’s scene there was Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem, which we’ll mark next Sunday. That scene ended with some exasperated Pharisees grumbling to each other: 19 …“You see, you can do nothing. Look, the world has gone after him!”

They didn’t know how truly they spoke, says John. In the very next verse – the one we began with today – we’re told that ‘…among those who went up to worship at the festival were some Greeks.21 They came to Philip … and said to him, “Sir, we wish to see Jesus.’ These Greek Jews don’t come directly to Jesus, they go to Philip. And Philip doesn’t go straight to Jesus either. He goes to Andrew.

Is this a chain of access through social secretaries; the birth of Church bureaucracy? No, there’s more to it than that. Philip goes to Andrew with the foreigners’ request to see Jesus. What’s so special about Andrew? In John’s gospel, Andrew’s the first-named disciple of Jesus. John 1.40 He’s one of those two disciples of John the Baptist who were first to follow Jesus. He was also the first disciple to recognise Jesus’ true identity. In Jn 1.41, we see him find his brother, Simon Peter, and tell him, “We have found the Messiah.” Going back to Andrew, the gospel writer has taken us back to the beginning; to where Jesus was first recognised for who he was. Why?

John the evangelist is saying that with the request of foreigners to see Jesus, we’re at a new beginning in our understanding of who Jesus is; we’re at a turning point in the Gospel. By doing this, John helps us see what Jesus’ enigmatic answer might mean. 23 … “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.

Earlier, Jesus puzzled us by telling his mother – my hour has not yet come. 2.4 –at the wedding at Cana But today, he says his hour has come. And it has something to do with foreigners seeking him. Now Jesus’ mission broadens as he starts to become available to the wider world. But just how he’s going to be glorified is going to challenge us all. 24 Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.

Jesus is telling his friends that it’s soon time for him to die. It must have bewildered them. Buoyed by the great triumph of the Palm Sunday procession, the disciples would have been filled with hopeful expectation. No-one would stand in their teacher’s way now! But suddenly they’re confronted by some of Jesus’ most solemn pronouncements. And they’re not just pronouncements about Jesus.

There’s the grain of wheat saying, but what Jesus says next calls his followers to join in his path to passion and death too. 25 Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. 26 Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there will my servant be also. Following Jesus means turning from our priorities to his; choosing the way of Jesus over the way of many instinctive choices we might make. We are disciples, students, followers of Jesus. In fact, together, we are him. He will die; he will give up everything – to bring life to the lost. And we who follow him need to be prepared for the same.

The call to be a disciple of Jesus is utterly uncompromising; but we can miss seeing that. We look back at all this through the great triumph of Easter. Easter filters our vision; it makes the passion and death of Jesus somehow less terrible for us; less demanding of us. But we can’t let that happen. We can’t pretend that any more than we can pretend that the suffering and evil of our time makes no call on us.

Greeks to Philip to Andrew to Jesus, John took us back to the beginning to alert us to a new beginning. That’s what we do each year as a Church at Holy Week and Easter. We go back to our beginning; to our sharing in the Cross of Christ at our baptism, where the power of evil to own us was broken, and we committed ourselves to let Christ’s goodness to work new life through us. That’s our new beginning, and we must always return to it. We heard Jeremiah describe it as a new covenant.

Let’s consider all this in words taken from the Church of South India’s covenant service. Christ has many services to be done: some are easy, others are difficult; some bring honour, others bring reproach; some suit our natural inclinations and material interests; others are contrary to both. In some we may please Christ and please ourselves; in others we cannot please Christ except by denying ourselves. Yet the power to do all these things is given us in Christ, who strengthens us. Therefore let us make this covenant with God our own, trusting in the eternal promises and relying on divine grace. Let us pray: Lord God, in baptism, you brought us into union with Christ who fulfils your gracious covenant; and in bread and wine we receive the fruit of his obedience. So with joy we take upon ourselves the yoke of obedience, and commit ourselves to seek and do your perfect will. … I am no longer my own, but yours …

I remind myself that this is the prayer of people who, when they pray the Lord’s Prayer, literally ask only their bread for this day. Are we brave enough to make such a prayer our own?   Amen

Fearful decisions that can lead to a new life, new purposes and possibilities

Rev’d Peter Balabanski

Lent 4 / Mothering Sunday – Num 21 4-9, Jn 3 14-21

I remember Victor Borge talking in one of his skits about his grandfather who invented a cure for which there was no disease. Back to front ideas like that are puzzling and arresting. They certainly grab people’s attention.

There’s something back to front in this morning’s readings that seems to have a similar effect. God tells Moses to fashion a bronze image of a serpent, a creature scripture names as cursed. Gen 3.15 We heard Moses was told to raise a bronze serpent on a pole so people who’d been bitten by snakes could look at it and live. It worked, but on the face of it, it seemed like a reverse hair-of-the-dog remedy.

Jesus took up this image and compounded its strangeness one night when he was visited by a Pharisee called Nicodemus. Nicodemus was one of the most senior Jewish religious figures at that time. He visited Jesus at night presumably so that no-one would notice. Jesus was someone the religious authorities were doing all they could to sideline and silence. To be caught visiting Jesus was not good public relations for a Pharisee. Nicodemus was taking quite a risk. In Jesus’ position, I think I’d have been relieved that at least one of the authorities might take me seriously and try to deepen the friendship. But not Jesus.

After baffling Nicodemus with his teaching about being born again, Jesus went on to confront him with an image of himself as being just like the cursed serpent of Moses up on the pole. He’s talking about his crucifixion, and the fact that his being raised on the cross is a means of healing for anyone who can truly see. Nicodemus certainly can’t truly see at the moment, but he will understand later. We know this because Nicodemus, Joseph of Arimathea and the women will be the only followers of Jesus brave enough to claim Jesus’ body from the cross and lay him to rest.

Today, Nicodemus shows us how embracing a change that you fear might spell your end is a decision that leads to new life, new purpose and new possibility. International women’s day on Friday celebrated many women who’ve demonstrated that to us; few more powerfully than Lowitja O’Donoghue, whose life was celebrated with a state funeral on that day. Today, we see Nicodemus risk his standing in his own community for the sake of an instinct that this dangerous Jesus might just be the one he should follow. … And of course, God took the risk too, loving us this way; he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him may not perish, but may have eternal life. Risk-taking is our calling and that calling comes from our risk-taking Lord. I pray that we open ourselves bravely to this adventure. Amen.

May we become a living temple of God’s love

Rev’d Peter Balabanski

Lent 3b

Before the readings

Our Bible readings today sound like they’re all about rules and regulations. That makes me start thinking about the trouble I get into when I break rules.

But then I think how big sisters and brothers protect little kids when a bully tries to break the rules. So I remember that rules are not to stop us having fun; God gave rules to protect little people – poor people, hungry people, sick people, working people, old people, refugees – little people. God gave us rules to remind us to help these little ones; to make sure they know God loves them.

So when we start with the big rules today – the Ten Commandments – maybe we can hear them saying God loves everyone – especially people who need help; people who aren’t safe. There are 603 other rules in the Hebrew Bible that started from those ten, and lots of them are about looking after little people. God loves little ones very much. That’s really something to think about.

Some people already have. That’s why today Psalmist wrote a love-song to the Law. That’s why Jesus got so wild when he saw people using the Law wrongly and making the Temple more of a business than a place for people to come and be with God. We’ll hear that story last. But now let’s listen to the readings.

Ex 20 1-17  Ps 19  1 Cor 1 18-25 Jn 2 13-22

Sermon

The collect prayer of the day: Lord our God, by your Holy Spirit, write your commandments upon our hearts, and grant us the wisdom and power of the cross, so that, cleansed from greed and selfishness, we may become a living temple of your love; through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

 This is a beautiful, rich collect prayer; a string of wisdom’s pearls which gathers the themes of today’s readings and also threads through other Biblical themes in a remarkable way. It opens with the invocation Lord our God. It’s a simple but amazing statement that our life with God is one of mutual belonging and trust; and this gives meaning to everything else.

By your Holy Spirit, write your commandments upon our hearts. Linking Holy Spirit and our hearts recalls Rom 826-27 where we learn how the Spirit lives within us, praying for us in those agonising longings which never find words, and that God, who knows the heart’s secrets, understands these prayers. (J B Phillips tr.) It’s a beautiful picture of how our mutual belonging with God finds expression – it’s an utter gift of God.

Here we ask the Holy Spirit to inscribe God’s commandments on our hearts; very different from how God’s commandments were first given. As we just read, they were first given through Moses to the people of Israel – a written covenant of mutual care. In Ex 3118 we’re told they were written by the finger of God on tablets of stone and given to Moses.

But in our collect prayer this morning, we prayed that God the Holy Spirit might inscribe them not on tablets of stone, but directly onto our hearts. This recalls the new covenant in Jer 31, where the Law of God would be inscribed onto the very hearts of the people of Israel.

Can the finger of God touch our hearts? We’ve just prayed in confidence that this should happen. What will this do for us? Will it grant us the wisdom and power of the cross? The collect prayer links the touch of God’s finger on our hearts with blessings of wisdom and power. Here, it echoes the Psalmist’s love-song to God’s Law. Psalm 19 celebrates the way God’s commandments revive our souls, how they give us wisdom and joy, clear our vision, and purify us, leaving us with the sweetest taste in our mouths – so much more than much fine gold can do for us.

Is that an odd move for you? The Psalmist contrasts the gift of the Law with another standard measure of value, fine gold, which comes off a poor second. Law or gold – relationships or wealth – represent the two sets of values competing for us. Do we begin to hear the distant chink of coins falling from the money-changers’ tables here?

Paul gives us a contrast too; wisdom or power. He contrasts the wisdom of the Cross and the other wisdoms it confronts: the empirical proofs of signs, and the idolising of rhetorical prowess and learning. Here, he speaks directly into our time. Our time worships wealth and influence – and those who wield them gag and belittle any challenge to their power. But Paul knows that they don’t speak with anything like the power of God’s love; the love we encounter uniquely in the Cross of Christ.

So our collect continues – Grant us the wisdom and power of the cross, so that, cleansed from greed and selfishness, WE may become A LIVING TEMPLE of your love. Cleansed. The collect prayer now links us to the Gospel, where Jesus cleanses the Temple of commerce. Here is the same Law and wealth contrast that we heard in the Psalm. Now we hear the love of God expressed in the crash of falling tables, the lowing, bleating and clattering hooves of startled beasts, and the anguished outcries of Jesus, the sellers of the birds and animals and the outraged money changers.

Cleansing greed and selfishness is a roaring battle which Jesus fights for us and with us. It’s an inner battle. And today, we see a dramatic picture of it in his cleansing of the Temple.

We know this, because when the officials ask him what sign he can show them to justify his outrageous behaviour, he tries to teach them that the cleansing is the sign. It is a sign of the inner cleansing we all need, so we might become a living temple of God’s love – a worthy temple of the Holy Spirit who we’ve asked to inscribe God’s Law on our hearts. And have you noticed that the collect only mentions one temple? All of us together are the living temple – not each of us individually. We are his body. And in Jesus’ name, in this prayer, we ask God to do this in us.

So let’s remember what we’ve seen Jesus do in the Temple today and ask that he might do it in and for us in this Lenten time of cleansing. Amen

To understand Jesus is to know about the cross

Rev’d Peter Balabanski

Lent 2 B – Mark 8.31-38

8.31 … the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again.

Jesus is saying that whatever he was sent to do, it necessarily involves him going through terrible suffering. And he doesn’t just say it once. This is the first of three passion predictions Jesus makes in Mark’s Gospel. (9.31 & 10.33) The other two times, his closest friends respond selfishly – arguing about which one of them is the greatest 9.34 and asking to sit at his left and right hands in his glory? 10.37 So we can read Peter’s response today as trying to defend some personal ambition of his own.

Where did these ambitions spring from? The answer I grew up with was that people who witnessed Jesus’ ministry up close hoped he might be persuaded to take on a more political role and lead a Jewish uprising against the Romans. And as chosen, close associates of the next head honcho, these disciples nursed ambitions about their own importance come the revolution. But Jesus talks about having to suffer, be rejected, die and rise again. So much for their dream of a military revolution.

To be fair, Peter and the others were speaking for everyone who wanted an end to foreign occupation. They echoed the prophets who’d condemned the arrogance and selfishness of empires and bad rulers; who called for a more just rule, where widow and orphan would receive care. So is Jesus’s message somehow different from these messages of the prophets’? Maybe. We understand the disciples. We see wrongs in our world today that we wish God might solve with a show of force.

We often hear people – including professed Christians – calling for strong-arm solutions to social and political ills. Is that still the delusional voice of Peter? Because Jesus rebukes Peter. He reminds Peter and the others that God’s priorities aren’t there to serve ours. It’ll take a lot for Jesus to get Peter and the other disciples to see and ‘think the things of God’. Jesus’s message has to cut through.

34 [Jesus] called the crowd with his disciples, (So Mark’s telling us that this is for us too) [Jesus] said to them, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. 35 For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it.…”

The cross is still some way off, but Mark puts this reference to it here. He does this so we can see this early in the Gospel that we only understand who Jesus is – who we follow – when we know about the cross. Jesus is calling us to join with him and serve a very different order – to challenge the wrongs we see, yes, but know that speaking truth to power comes at a cost. These people bite. There are people here who know that from costly personal experience. But what does that achieve.

Let’s look at the words of Alexei Navalny on the back of our service booklets. It’s part of what he said in court after returning to Russia from Germany after the poisoning attempt on his life.

“If you want I’ll talk to you about God and salvation. I’ll turn up the volume of heartbreak to the maximum, so to speak. The fact is that I am a Christian, which usually rather sets me up as an example for constant ridicule in the Anti-Corruption Foundation, because mostly our people are atheists and I was once quite a militant atheist myself.

“But now I am a believer, and that helps me a lot in my activities, because everything becomes much, much easier. I think about things less. There are fewer dilemmas in my life, because there is a book in which, in general, it is more or less

clearly written what action to take in every situation. It’s not always easy to follow this book, of course, but I am actually trying. And so, as I said, it’s easier for me, probably, than for many others, to engage in politics…

“ ‘Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be satisfied.’

I’ve always thought that this particular commandment is more or less and instruction to activity.  And so, while certainly not really enjoying the place where I am, I have no regrets about coming back [to Russia], or about what I’m doing. It’s fine, because I did the right thing.

“On the contrary, I feel a real kind of satisfaction, because at some difficult moment  I did as required by the instructions, and did not betray the commandment.”                    ~ Alexei Navalny, 2021

Navalny found strength in obeying the call of Jesus. He heard Jesus tell us to follow him to a life where we’re free to live; free to risk. He took up his cross and followed Jesus, and the people who worked with him, even though they ridiculed him for his faith, I guess they’ve ended up following Jesus too, albeit indirectly through Navalny.

Jesus is telling us that these are not things we achieve in our own strength or by our own work – or that some strong leader can serve them up to us. This freedom and courage are gifts from God alone. When we truly follow Jesus, the Kingdom breaks into us; the Spirit gives us the courage and the strength to serve justice and peace.

There’s one confusion for us western Christians in hearing clearly what Jesus says. We tend to hear Jesus addressing us as individuals. We’re not like the majority world who hear Jesus addressing us as community. Mark’s gospel makes it explicit here that Jesus spoke to the crowd and the disciples; not just to Peter. v.34

That means this is a call to this community – our community – to be one which takes risks to speak truth where it’s not welcome, to name wrongs which want to masquerade as something normal, and to listen always for the Christ who calls us to embody justice, mercy and faith.

And who for? Just to take one example of many, there’s an epidemic of loneliness and depression in our community, particularly among young people now. We are the community which Jesus has called into being, called to creatively address such a wrong. We are called to seek out, nurture and to assist with the healing of such people. We are called to be the community that receives and welcomes such dear ones – a community where all know we are loved by God and called by Jesus; serving him together as a living sanctuary.   Amen

 

Jesus’ ministry begins without people

Rev’d Peter Balabanski

Lent 1b Gen 9 8-17, Mk 1 9-15

Four things happen right after Jesus passes through the waters of baptism; 1 he sees the heavens torn apart, 2 he sees the Spirit descending onto him; 3 he hears God the Father call him ‘my Son, the Beloved’ and declare he’s ‘well pleased’ with him. So surely he must be ready for his public ministry now; powerful, blessed and deeply connected with God. But no, there’s something else. Suddenly, immediately, 4 the Spirit throws him out into the wilderness for forty days where he’s tempted by the enemy – the accuser – and he’s with the wild beasts, and the angels minister to him.

We need to notice two things here. 1 The ministry of Jesus is not to come out of his divine power, but out of his human vulnerability. And 2 humans are not the whole of God’s plan: part of it, yes; but not all. Once he’s baptised, Jesus goes first to be with creatures other than us: wild beasts; angels. We are not the whole story

Jesus comes out of the water and he’s propelled into the wilderness for forty days; being with beasts. The beasts connect him with the flood story we just heard, and the wilderness connects him with the central story of God’s ancient people; the Exodus. God rescued the Israelites from slavery in Egypt bringing them to safety through the waters of the Red Sea. They got across safely, but found themselves in the wilderness; in their case for forty years.

And at the end of the Exodus story, Joshua (same name as Jesus) led God’s people across the Jordan River into the Promised Land, and suddenly they had to fight battle after battle if they were to keep hold of the land at all. For God’s people, coming up from the water is not a conclusion, but a new beginning – not a statement that from now on, we are self-sufficient, but that here, we rely on God.

It’s not always an easy beginning. We land in a new adventure that God’s been planning for us. We make our landfall only to feel like we’re starting from scratch. Kindy – school – work – marriage – parenthood … Repeatedly, we’re reminded of how helpless we are – utterly reliant; like newborns. Jesus knows this feeling. And that’s good news. In Mark’s gospel, Jesus’s experience of the wilderness is one of nurture and care; angels minister to him. Temptation is not the centre of Mark’s version; it’s being in a real world and receiving care when you need it. Jesus is one of us; not aloof – not all-powerful; not invulnerable; quite the opposite.

We learn from him that our pilgrimage is a journey into learning to rely on God; learning to discover God’s care for us – and for the beasts and angels – to learn it from experience; not by right.

We learn from today’s Gospel that like Jesus’ baptism, ours was always going to be a signal of testing to come, but that none of us approaches that time of testing alone. Jesus had beasts for companions and angels to meet his needs. Who do we have? Who’s committed to sharing our years of pilgrimage with us; who are our companions? Who are God’s ministering angels in our wilderness times? Animals?

I’m not being flippant. Those wild beasts out in that wilderness; God loves them just as we know God loves us. What we learned from the flood story this morning, and what we can learn from elsewhere in the book of Genesis (1, 8 etc), in the Psalms (50, 105, 128), and in the prophets Isaiah (11) and Jonah (4.11), is that God has a special care for the wild beasts. Scripture says the wild beasts Jesus was spending time with were creatures that God had declared to be good, creatures that God also made a covenant with, creatures who, as the Psalms tell us, praise God by their very existence.

I believe that now, as we grow increasingly aware of our impact on the other families of Earth, a part of every Christian’s pilgrimage must include owning our responsibility for what happens to God’s other creatures. We can be ministering angels of God to those wild creatures, just as we’ve always been protectors of any human beings who, for whatever reason, can’t speak in their own defence.

We can raise our children and grandchildren to know how to choose to be ministering angels of God to silenced people and wild creatures. But we have to make sure those people and creatures survive now, so our children might have them to care for.

And we have to make sure that children can grow up in a way that gives them space and time to experience wilderness – not distracted, but simply in a wilderness – where they can have the opportunity to learn how they rely, at the most basic level, on their God; the God who calls them into existence, the God who loves them, the God who calls them on their pilgrimage with all God’s people as ministers to all God’s beloved.

And finally, should the world change and our own children come to number among those who are silenced by poverty, disaster or tyranny, we have to ensure that these Bible stories are told everywhere – that the Gospel reaches all families of the Earth – that God’s words might go forth. For when they do, they will not return empty. God will call other carers to follow the example of Jesus – to minister not out of their strength, but simply out of who they are.        Amen.

Jesus Cleanses a Leper

Rev’d Peter Balabanski

Epiphany + 6 – Mk 1 40-45

And then along comes a leper! Early in Mark’s gospel, just about every verse begins with kai (and or and then). Events in Jesus’ life seem to cascade in on him at this very early stage in his ministry. Not just little things, though. And then along comes a leper!

What do we know about the illnesses the New Testament calls leprosy? The word lepein that it comes from means scale or peel off It describes a variety of disfiguring diseases, not just leprosy (mouldy, salt-damp infected walls too!). The Law of Moses said anyone with a disease like this must cry out ‘unclean’ wherever they went so that no-one would come near them and be contaminated Lev 13.45. Jews believed that anyone touching a leper may as well have touched a corpse. To do so would shut you out of social and religious life for at least a week. But someone who actually had this sort of disease was numbered among the living dead; an untouchable. Luz II 5

So this man who came to Jesus was an outcast of the most severe order. Rabbinic writings after Jesus’ time show that scholars believed leprosy was as hard to cure as raising someone from the dead. It was really a life sentence. This man was perpetually unclean, and that meant a life forever apart from everyone else. On top of that, many people saw leprosy as divine punishment for some serious sin the sufferer must have committed. So he couldn’t expect to be treated with compassion either – people would think You’ve only got yourself to blame! He lived in the wilderness in many ways. That’s where he came from, and he came to Jesus.

He must have been desperate. The loneliness and desolation must have been gnawing at him from the inside like the disease gnawed at his body to make him so reckless as to approach someone.

And he says to Jesus; if you choose, you can make me clean. It’s as if he is talking to God; only God can heal at will. But actually, he doesn’t ask to be healed. He asks to be made clean; by which he means to be restored to society.

Of course, that meant healing, but the important thing for this man was being clean; to have the chance to be with people again! It meant so much to him – he wanted it so urgently – that when he was healed, he couldn’t wait long enough to see the priest before he talked with people. What use is a priest anyway? They could only declare people clean. Jesus can make us clean. Suddenly he was whole! He had to tell everyone this.

But let’s go back to the way Jesus treated him. It says he was moved with pity. In many Bibles, you’ll see a little footnote mark next to the word pity. And the footnote will read, Other ancient authorities read anger’.

Several commentators opt for the more difficult reading ‘anger’. One of them said; you can understand a scribe who’s making a copy of the gospel changing anger to pity. But what scribe would change it the other way? Bruce Metzger says it may even have first been mistranslated into Greek from Jesus’ heart language, Aramaic. In Aramaic’s modern version, Syriac, ethraham means he had pity and ethra`em means he was enraged). What do you think about this story if the word is anger?

There are certainly angry sounding words later on in the story, After sternly warning him, Jesus sent him away at once.v.43

What could have got into Jesus? (Story of the single Mum left to raise four children. Now adults at her birthday, the heart of their speeches was the statement that ‘Mum taught us never to walk past an injustice.’) The cost of getting involved – the danger, the pushback – these days, the trolling and character assassination. The injustice back then was the custom in that society that people with skin-diseases lived without human touch. Jesus would have been aware what it meant for him to respond to this man’s request and it may well have angered him – yet he reached out and touched him.

There are many things to discuss about this passage if we’re to get to the bottom of it, but in the end, we have to ask what is gospel – what is Good News – about it? For me, the good news is how this story says who Jesus is. Let me explain.

The Gospel of Mark has a thing in it that scholars call the messianic secret. Read the gospel, and count how many times Jesus heals someone and then tells them or the demons to keep quiet about it; not to tell anyone he’s the Messiah. Mark didn’t want readers to focus on Jesus as a miracle worker. For Mark, no-one could never appreciate what it means that Jesus is the Messiah without knowing him as the crucified one. And Mark proclaims Jesus as just that in his good news of Jesus.

The leper comes to Jesus out of the wilderness – out of exile, if you like. He’s untouchable; cut off from going where he wants to go, unable to touch anyone, and a danger to anyone who might touch him. Jesus rejects this man’s isolation. He does it by publicly touching the untouchable. And the man is set free, immediately. Suddenly made whole, he bounds off to bathe in his restored contact with people. Verse 45 says that he goes off proclaiming freely and spreading the word.

He does what Jesus wanted to keep doing. But v. 45 goes on to say that Jesus can’t do this any more. Now he’s the one who can’t go openly into a town – who has to stay out in the wilderness. This is the Jesus we know from the Cross. That leper in the wilderness had been on something like a cross – cursed and condemned. And by touching him and restoring him, Jesus changed places with him. This is the meaning of the Cross. Look at the crucifix – Jesus is there in our place. It’s a source of joy and freedom to the outcast and broken, because Jesus wills our wholeness – and he gives himself to make it happen.

This is the Gospel. Jesus the Messiah becomes one of us and sets us free to be ourselves – whole and connected. And the new freedom – the new life is a taste of the resurrection life he calls us to share with him. You and I must continue to proclaim and live this, and bring people to him from any and every wilderness. Amen.

Be like Jesus

Father John Beiers

Epiphany 5 – Healing Sunday

I delight in this parish. It is full of love, expressed and also unexpressed. While some of the blessings here are easily seen, there are many which are quietly hidden, and we do not know about them unless we ask. Thus the Op Shop is quietly arranged, the toilets are cleaned, and urgent financial needs of some of our brothers and sisters are met. Some actions of love and mercy, we will never know – but they all happen because people love Jesus and want to serve Him.

Sometimes football stars stay behind after a win, and help to clean up the grounds; others prepare the field for a game, but no-one ever sees them do it. The latter may not be motivated by Christian love –but they do it from a grateful heart. Look at Peter’s mother after she was healed. She has new life, she wants to give, she wants to serve;  just try and stop her.

While we do all these things from a grateful heart, there is no doubt that we still fall short of being like Jesus, in some parts of life. Of course, I am leading up to Lent, and what we will do to detect where some few changes probably need to be made.

Let’s look at the fourth Beatitude, the fourth “Blessed” from the Sermon on the Mount, from Matthew’s Gospel , chapter 5, verse 6. It says “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled”. Someone has said that this could be re-written as “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for ME.’

If we look at a hymn/song we sang recently “I want to walk as a Child of the light”, the essence is found in some of the following words: –

I want to walk as child of the light.
I want to follow Jesus.
The star of my life is Jesus.
I want to look at Jesus.
Show me the Way to the Father.
Shine in my heart, Lord Jesus.

This may seem to be baby talk, but if we really look at the words, it is all about…Jesus. The composer, Kathleen Thomerson, has an ardent desire to be enfolded in the love of Jesus. Her heart’s desire is to be Jesus in her life. She has a passionate yearning for Christ-likeness.

If our heart’s desire is to be like Jesus, that desire will eventually be granted. Meanwhile, we have this beatitude’s promise if blissful happiness as a “by-product” of our desire. Our lives may be full of sin and failure, but our longing will bring happiness. Although God is full of mercy, it is the opposite for human beings. Mercy and forgiveness do not seem to come naturally to us. Without the help of the Holy Spirit, we tend to want to “get our own back, and to seek revenge, or, at least what we might describe to ourselves as justice, reparation, compensation or asserting our rights. That is why it is so important to measure ourselves against this beatitude as a test of the reality of our Christian faith.

Mercy is part of the righteousness that the fourth beatitude tells us should be our fervent desire. A naturally forgiving spirit is rare, so, if we find that we do now have a forgiving spirit, we can rejoice at this work of God in us.. If we are kind to our adversaries in their distress, it is a sign that “I no longer live, but (that) Christ lives in me”. (Galatians 2:20)

My discipline this coming Lent is going to be a little different. I am going to compare my spiritual and actual life against all of the Beatitudes in Matthew chapter 5, one by one, and be honest with myself about how things actually are. Some of my complaints are so trivial, I am ashamed of myself. For example, there are often complaints about the hymns that we do not like. Do you know how difficult it is to please everybody? It is impossible. The only way would be to pick a hymn like “The Church’s One Foundation, which everybody (I hope) likes, and sing it four times on a Sunday, every Sunday of the year, perhaps alternating with O Come All Ye Faithful on some occasions.

However, some dislikes are a matter of real concern. In Normanton, on the Gulf of Carpentaria, our church of St. Peter had his symbol painted on the noticeboard by the gate. These symbols are an upside down cross, with golden keys behind it.  Some new, very serious Christians had come along, and were concerned that the upside down cross was , according to them, the sign of the devil, and could I get rid of it. I explained that the cross indicated that Peter was crucified upside down, and the key were the keys of the kingdom, given symbolically to Peter by Our Lord.  Also that these symbols existed together long before the so-called devil’s symbol existed . Their concern was still so great that it was a threat to their faith, so I had the sign taken down, and repainted without the cross. This was according to Jesus’ direction to do nothing that imperils the faith of a weaker believer.

So then, if you know of something that needs changing in me, please tell me. I will not get angry… I will just bite your head off!  Seriously, I need to prepare for meeting Jesus’ face to face, and that may be sooner than later.

All blessings to you this Lent. Amen

 

Christian self-limiting

Rev’d Peter Balabanski

Epiphany + 4B – 1 Cor 8 1-13

A man was driving his mother and his son to the shops. His mother noticed he wasn’t wearing a seatbelt. She suggested he fasten it but he said he didn’t think it was necessary. She thought for a moment, turned to her grandson in the back seat and said, ‘Undo your seatbelt darling. Daddy doesn’t think we need them.’  Her son never drove with an unfastened seatbelt again.

Today, we heard Paul challenge some powerful people who were giving a dangerous example to some very vulnerable ones. The church in Corinth had members who were very smug about their religious knowledge. They claimed a special freedom on the basis of this knowledge. They ate meat at public feasts. But the church in Corinth also had new converts whose faith was quite fragile.

Paul was concerned about Christians openly eating meat in Corinth because almost any meat sold in the marketplace came from animals sacrificed in pagan shrines – sacrificed to idols. Many gentile converts in Corinth came to Christianity from a religion where the relationship between a person and their god was like a protection racket. They’d offer animals as sacrifices to their gods to buy protection from things like illnesses or bad harvests. A recent convert to Christianity might take a long time to stop fearing that their old god still had power to hurt them. They might even be spooked into returning to the ‘safety’ of their former ways. God forbid.

The more knowledgeable, confident believers knew the local gods didn’t actually have any power; they couldn’t harm anyone. Paul quoted three slogans from these confident believers in today’s reading. One was All of us possess knowledge. That was manifestly wrong in Corinth. There was a definite ‘in-crowd’ with knowledge, but many others didn’t. The other slogans he quoted were No idol in the world really exists and There is no God but one. By that, the ‘in crowd’ meant the gods that ignorant people fear don’t exist. And if they don’t exist, the animals sacrificed to them aren’t contaminated by association with them. So any meat we buy is just meat; no more. Before God, I’m free to eat it; so I’ll just go ahead and do it openly.

Paul agrees, but he challenges their approach. They treat it as a question about correct understanding. But Paul writes about it as a pastoral matter; about caring for other people. Buying and eating this meat might do you no harm, but it could be a problem for new sisters and brothers in the Church. They all belonged in a wider community where they be invited to weddings and special days where meat would be served at the celebratory feasts. The example to set would be to refuse the meat.

Paul challenges the knowledgeable ones, what if a new Christian who’s recently been freed from a life of appeasing idols – someone who looks up to you as an older sister or brother – what if they see you feasting on meat that’s probably been sacrificed to idols? Their faith isn’t strong like yours; they haven’t thought all this through yet; they don’t understand yet. They’d just see an older Christian eating with pagans v.10. How might this challenge their new faith? They may think that if you can do it, it must be okay for them. Before you know it, they’re drawn back into their old ways. Your example could be the cause of their losing faith in Christ.

Paul writes, if my eating meat could make a vulnerable Christian stumble in their faith, I’d give up eating meat. They might be wrong; I might be right. I might have true knowledge. But if I don’t have love, I’m nothing. Being right is nothing compared with loving my sisters and brothers is. If Jesus died for someone weak and ignorant, I’ll look after their needs, no matter what I feel I’m giving up.

There’s a principle here. It is that confident, mature Christians are called to self-limit for the sake of any whose faith is vulnerable; to nurture new Christians, not risk their faith. This self-limiting principle shapes things we do here at St John’s to include and build up people who’d be left out if we just did things to suit ourselves.

We use service booklets instead of the prayer book, hymn book, reading sheet, pew sheet quadrilateral. The prayer book is obscure enough to newcomers without three other things in their hands and seldom anyone to help them find their way. Cradle Anglicans might feel at home with this and even like it. But it’s alienating and humiliating to newcomers. So we self-limit and offer a booklet. Everyone is on an equal footing that way. And the booklet helps those who can’t attend in person to participate as fully as possible from home as well.

We also serve communion without requiring everyone to climb steps – so everyone can participate equally regardless of physical constraints. We accommodate people’s preferences for kneeling or standing. We use inclusive language, and we have the Eucharistic setting in both our main languages. We put our individual preferences to one side because we’re called to keep everyone together – everyone welcome. We don’t insist on our right to eat meat, as it were, because it’s more important to look after the sensibilities of newcomers, or anyone who, for whatever reason, might stumble if they struggle to do what we decide is normal. I’m sure you can think of ways this principle of Christian self-limiting might be considered on a wider scale. But the vulnerable person’s welfare is always the priority.     Amen

‘Repent and believe the good news’

The Rev’d Dr. Susan F. Straub

Year B – Epiphany 3

 Introduction

Today is the third Sunday of the season of Epiphany. Each Sunday, we hear from our scriptures how people recognised that God was present among them. How they came face to face with the living God and heard God speaking with them. These were personal spiritual experiences.  In last Sunday’s readings, the boy Samuel heard a voice that sounded like the priest, Eli, calling his name. When asked, however, Eli told Samuel that he hadn’t called him.

That same experience was the beginning of my active faith: the voice calling my name in the night but husband and father saying ‘No. I didn’t call’. Later I recognised the voice in that of the parish priest who I hadn’t yet met, Fr. Conrad Patterson.

The gospel reading this morning gave us the call of Simon, Andrew, James, and John by the very Son of God, Jesus of Nazareth. Their process of discernment and understanding took years. In Jesus, God was doing something new.

Mark 1:14-20

Simon, who Jesus would name Peter, his brother Andrew, and James and John heard God’s call in Jesus. They left their old lives as fishermen and sons of fishermen to follow him and learn from him how to live in the freedom of God’s Kingdom, and to do as he did. In Him, they saw another way of thinking that enabled freedom of the spirit while still living in the reality of the Roman Empire. They had believed, for example, that everything in their lives was beholden to Caesar alone. The message was everywhere. Caesar was proclaimed ‘Son of God’ throughout the Empire and to serve him socially, politically, and economically was seen as a sacred duty. Living in the Kingdom of Caesar kept the empire not only ticking along but expanding.

The Melburnian journalist, Cheng Lei, released from three years’ captivity in China on 11th October 2023 said this about freedom: ‘There is freedom within and freedom without…the warders were more imprisoned because they were locked in what they could think, say, do, voluntarily, and for life. If you are not free of heart then physical freedom is wasted.’ (Clarke, R., 2024, Weekend Australian, 20-21 January 2024, p. 2).

Those first of Jesus’ disciples followed their fishermen fathers and believed that serving Caesar by providing the fish for the great fish-sauce beloved by the Romans, was their only option in life; that only news of another Roman victory at the edges of the empire, was the ‘good news’; that this Kingdom of Caesar would never end.

See how the words Jesus used: ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent and believe in the good news’, in such a context, had such a powerful effect on Simon, Andrew, James, and John. They heard a call to freedom from the totalitarian grip of Caesar by following Jesus: a freedom of the spirit.  Rabbis, teachers, had their disciples. He promised them that as his disciples, they would learn from him how to bring other people into the spiritual freedom of living in the Kingdom of God: “Follow me and I will make you fish for people.”  Real people. Ah! So still in this world of Caesar, of earthly Emperors, Kings, Queens, and Governors, or as today, communist, and other religious dictators, military regimes, or leaders of democracies.

We don’t need to be anxious or fearful, which we tend to be at the thought of any kind of loss or change, when leaving familiar ways, however, comfortable, or uncomfortable we may have found them. Jesus said: “Those who are not against us are for us” and God is not against us. God is for us!  We are free to enter at any time, in any place, the space, the silence, within us where God dwells. The door is always ready for opening.  It helps us to seek a quiet place apart from the crowd, as Jesus did when he communed with God in prayer. Looking to the God of Jesus as the One whose will is to be served, transforms lives from the inside out.

 1 Corinthians 7:29-31

Paul was one whose life was transformed, and he cared deeply for those in the churches.  In his exhortation to the Corinthians, he seemed to have a strong sense of impending doom. I think Paul was seeing and feeling what was happening at that time in the Mediterranean.  He saw the shifts that were occurring with the continuing decline of Greek culture, the ever-increasing ascendancy of the Roman Empire, and the conflicts, rebellions, and turmoil.  All of which sounds a bit familiar to us as well.

We can see here his concern that the Christians in Corinth and their faith should survive this sort of social and political upheaval. The danger wasn’t only from those in the region itself, but from those on the look-out for easy-pickings.  The unrest was drawing the attention of looters, the barbarous hordes of the countries to the north, eager for raiding.  The Corinthians were not going to survive if they didn’t understand their freedom in Christ. Paul wanted them to understand the fullness of the grace they had received and so structure their lives as far as they could, to ensure that the good news, the euvangelion, could still be heard regardless of what was happening around them. The good news of the freedom of the spiritual Kingdom of God is like a pearl of great price, like treasure hidden in a field for it brings not just survival but victory over adversity.

Paul was speaking from his own experience of that freedom and victory.  He was brought before rulers, councils and governors, arrested, flogged. Yet, like his Lord and Saviour, he never cowered, never spoke, or acted like the victim. Not a victim of others, of disease, adverse circumstances, old age, his Jewishness. He was fortunate to be a Roman citizen and he experienced all aspects of his life fully, but he wasn’t confined by identifying with any of them.

Conclusion

What happens when we start acting differently from what others may have expected from us? You know the saying; For every action there’s a reaction. Some may grumble, withdraw, or even persecute or bully. Others may simply be perplexed, or maybe pleased or overjoyed. It doesn’t really matter, but those of good will often respond by changing, too. This is the way the Kingdom works in the world, like leavening yeast in a lump of dough. In this way, this one Jewish man, Jesus, changed the world, was Son of God. How did he do it?  By teaching a small group of men and women how to live in the freedom of the Kingdom. They changed on the inside and gradually learned to act in the way that Jesus acted towards other people.  The fishermen Simon Peter, Andrew, James, and John became fishers of people.

No-one was too high or too low, too respectable, or too disreputable, too wise, or too psychotic. They helped those in trouble: healing the sick, gathering the lost, accepting those who were different from them.  Helped those who believed that they were bound by the circumstances of their lives: the wealthy with their property and weighty responsibilities, the poor doing what it took to survive, those living as incurables. God in Jesus shows us that when people live with the self-reflective awareness that comes from regularly communing with God in prayer and accepting his rule, his Kingdom, they seek unblinkered and fearlessly for truth. They become fully alive to those around them, and in some way transform for the better their small part of the world. Living in the Kingdom of God is true freedom.

 

The Lord is Here

The Rev’d Dr. Susan F. Straub

Epiphany 2

 Introduction

Way back ‘in the good old days’, we’d go to a dance or a ball, and there’d be a compere.  At the beginning of each dance, what would the compere say? “Ladies and gentlemen, take your partners – for the waltz, the quickstep, the Foxtrot or – oh excitement – the tango or the rhumba.  Who can remember waiting for the ‘take your partners’?  The boys would size the girls up and head over and ask: would you like to dance?  The girls would size the boys up and say ‘Yes’ or ‘Sorry, I’m sitting this one out’.  If they got up to dance, they got to know each other, remember, those were the days when talking to each other was part of dancing.  What was it like the first time you did one or the other? Feel a bit anxious?  What if I don’t measure up? Or maybe not even considering that you’d be left or refused? When you sat down again you were a changed person, not the person you thought you were.

Each of our three readings is about ‘take your partners’, for the dance of life, you might say. Each of them takes seriously that we are spiritual as well as physical beings, and that we should be careful about choosing the spirit in which we commune, in which we unite.

1 Samuel 3:1-10

The boy Samuel went into spiritual partnership with God when he Answered ‘Yes’ to God’s call, with the words ‘Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening’. Doesn’t matter that he’s a young person. God had seen him and known him as one who’d work with a steadfast and self-giving love for the best interest and welfare of his people, bringing the peace that comes from rising above the anxieties that limit us unnecessarily.

God favoured Samuel to work in spiritual partnership and demonstrate that God was still present with the people. This time to save them from the wickedness of the sons of the good priest Eli and restore life to the people. After Samuel answered ‘Yes’ to God’s call, Eli encouraged him to tell what God had said to him (although he already knew). It took a great deal of courage for the boy, Samuel, to tell Eli what God had said to him concerning the dismal future for Eli’s sons, Hophni and Phinehas and the family line.

Samuel had thought of himself as a boy and servant of Eli. Now, he had the awareness of who he could be and with his answer ‘Yes’, first to God, and then to Eli’s ‘Tell me’, who he would be. Samuel had a different understanding of himself. He was not a servant of Eli, first. He was a servant of God working in spiritual partnership to do God’s will.

John 1:43-51

Philip saw himself differently when he went into spiritual partnership  with God active in Jesus of Nazareth. Philip answered ‘Yes’ to Jesus’ call ‘Follow me’. In becoming a disciple of Jesus, he immediately did what Jesus had done. Just as Jesus had sought and found Philip, so Philip sought and found Nathanael.

Jesus had seen the little exchange under the fig tree between the two men, the look on Philip’s face as he said enthusiastically that he and his neighbours, Andrew and Peter, had in effect found the Messiah and named him as Jesus son of Joseph from Nazareth. Nathanael’s face reflected his words: “Can anything good come out of Nazareth!”. The look was obviously not one of wonder and delight! Not even of feigned, benign bewilderment just to be polite.  More likely the look was one of disdainful disbelief, completely without guile. Yet Jesus had seen in Nathanael one who could work with him to give new life to their people and their world.  The people would not die out in the terrible times that were coming. but survive, overcome fear, and live to flourish. How do we detect this from John’s narrative?

Jesus referenced Jacob when he said of Nathanael, “Here is truly an Israelite in whom there is no deceit!” (other translations read ‘guile’). Jacob had twice deceived. He deceived his father, Isaac, into giving him the inheritance and blessing that rightfully belonged to the first-born son, his elder brother, Esau.

Nathanael met Philip under the fig tree, the tree symbolically associated with future well-being and prosperity. Jesus told Nathanael “You will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man”’, a similar vision to that of Jacob’s ladder, the vision that began Jacob’s transformation. Jacob was deceived by his father-in-law to labour more than the promised seven years to marry Rachel. For love of Rachel, Jacob laboured fourteen years. When the time came to return home, Jacob overcame extreme anxiety to meet with his brother, Esau, once more. He was a changed person. So great was the difference in the new from the old Jacob that his name became Israel, and with Abraham and Isaac took his place as a revered father of the people, a giver and protector of life. Jacob was no longer the person he had thought he was.

 1 Corinthians 6:12-20

Paul was concerned for the Corinthians. Their sexual practices were neither physically nor spiritually life-giving. They had said ’Yes’ to God, but they could not spiritually partner God and continue in their old ways. Paul exhorts them to leave behind an, let’s say, unbeguiling part of who they thought they were, their identity, and transform so that they could partner God in a far greater enterprise, the transformation of humankind.

Stephen Koski wrote this about a woman called Grace who he met on a marathon. Grace was 63 years old and thought she was running in the five-mile fun-run. She’d never run more than that in her life but she’d mistakenly gone to the starting line of the 26-mile marathon. Stephen had to break the news to her that when she hit five miles she had a little further to go. He wrote: ‘Grace’s attitude was amazing. She said, “I’m here so I’ll run as far as I can.” I chose to walk during the water stations and Grace was afraid that if she stopped she wouldn’t get going again so she passed me … I crossed the finish line in a little over four hours and thirty minutes. I had to find Grace to see if she finished. There were 10,000 runners so it took me a while but I found her lying on the ground unable to move. She finished in four hours and fifteen minutes.

She had never run more than five miles in her life. She had a sad expression on her face so I asked her what was wrong. She said, “About the twenty-third mile, I knew I was going to finish and it was like my life flashed before my eyes. I can do this?! I looked back on my life and began to wonder about all the ways I’ve limited myself by what I thought I couldn’t

do,” Then a sheepish grin appeared, “But, let me tell you I’m also looking forward and I’m wondering what’s next.” Grace taught me a valuable lesson. It’s not who you are that holds you back. It’s who you think that you’re not.’

God is here to partner each of us, transforms us, and unite us for the welfare of humankind and the world.