Rev’d Peter Balabanski

Pentecost + 11C  Isaiah 58 9b-14, Ps 103 1-8, Heb 12 18-29, Lk 13 10-17 

We are all baptised into a royal priesthood; a priesthood of service. The blessing at our baptism sets out the terms of our service; strengthen the fainthearted; support the weak; help the afflicted; give honour to all; love and serve the Lord. All of us are called to this work. By doing it, we express the breadth of God’s love and kindness – it’s something we learn from watching Jesus at work.

And we just saw him at it in the gospel today. Jesus is at Synagogue. He sees a woman with a spirit which had crippled her for eighteen years. He sees her and calls her over; he declares her release; touches her, and suddenly she’s free.

We met her as a hostage to her condition – held to ransom by a spirit which had crippled her. Now we see her released. Naturally, we – or any normal person – should rejoice at her deliverance. So we’re shocked by the reaction from the Leader of the Synagogue (ἀρχισυνάγωγος). I don’t think he truly represents his people. He sounds more like one of those sad people you meet sometimes who are obsessed with control over their little power base. And they often manage to create a one-person bureaucracy to protect it.

Sadly, like many such people can, this Leader of the Synagogue has developed quite a bit of control over the regular congregation. We see him play to the gallery: … he kept saying to the crowd, ‘Come on the other six days to be cured – not the Sabbath’. But he doesn’t have that authority. He’s not a rabbi / teacher. He’s somewhere between a verger and a master of ceremonies. He manages the physical arrangements of the synagogue’s worship; he may choose who does the readings. It’s a serious ministry role, but he’s lost the plot somehow.

As he plays to the gallery, his cronies must be nodding; people who might like him to choose them as readers, or for other prominent roles. We can guess this because Jesus doesn’t respond to the Leader of the Synagogue, but to the people the LoS is appealing to. You hypocrites! Doesn’t each of you on the Sabbath untie your ox or donkey … and lead it to … water? There is wriggle-room in rules, and for good reasons. Hebrew Law has many nuances.

In Hebrew theology, there are two complementary emphases on the significance of keeping Sabbath. (I owe this insight to Em Prof Charles Raynal.) These are expressed in the two versions of the commandment to keep the Sabbath – the one in Exod 20.8-11, and the other in Deut 5:12-15.

Exodus placed its emphasis on the seventh day of creation; Gen 2.2-3; we rest because God rested. But in Deuteronomy, your slaves and animals should keep Sabbath because God rescued you Hebrews from slavery in Egypt. So keeping Sabbath – imitating God in that sense – means passing on that freedom. So holy acts of justice – particularly freeing people – were appropriate to the Sabbath.

So there was a different, but complementary emphasis on Sabbath observance between Jesus and some people in the synagogue? For Jesus, the Law is first about grace, not propriety; justice, not who’s right; release, not captivity.

Jesus is not alone among Jewish ethicists. In Lev 25, we find the call for a time of release from bondage in the Sabbath year – the year of release from debt and captivity – when birthrights given as surety on loans were restored. This woman’s healing from the spirit that cripples her is her Sabbath release. So as Jesus teaches, healing her on the Sabbath was absolutely appropriate. The crowd is convinced and rejoices with her. Jesus taught the crowd – not the leader of the synagogue. They could be brought to the light.

This story reminds us that the struggle which has been wracking the Anglican Communion and the Anglican Church of Australia for decades – our widely-publicised debate over what Scripture actually says about human sexuality – that this debate over what is right is no new thing. This dispute in our gospel over an appropriate interpretation of the law about the Sabbath is a helpful parallel.

Many Christians desire the clarity and simplicity of definite black and white rules; to know the difference between right and wrong. And many Christians find Jesus’ choice to prioritise justice and compassion to be their guide when making their own choices. That difference is a point of contention in our church and in many others. The way we manage that contention with each other is our witness to the wider community. Jesus prayed that we might be one – in order that the world might believe. ^{Jn 17.20-21} How we manage our dispute is critical to God’s mission.

Our role as members of the royal priesthood is to follow the pattern Jesus sets. As we saw today, when he’s challenged, Jesus calls for compassion and integrity to return to hearts that have been hardened.

We should do what Jesus does, and like him, work for justice, mercy and faith; the things he called the weightier matters of the Law. ^{Mt 23.23} Then I believe we will do our bit for answering his prayer that we might be one.   Amen.

Rev’d Peter Balabanski

Pentecost + 10 C – Jrm 23.23-29 Ps 82 Heb 11.29–12.2 Lk 12.49-59

We may need a bit of recovery time from our readings; particularly Jesus’ strong words in the Gospel. So we’ll come back to them in a minute. We need a way into them first, and for me, one way comes through yet another recent conference; Lambeth, the worldwide Anglican communion’s ten-yearly bishops’ conference. Abp Geoff recommended that we all listen to a keynote address by the Abp of York, Stephen Cottrell. I sent you a link to it in my weekly. https://youtu.be/ZccZazNlnMI Start at 31’24” It’s a speech about mission and evangelism, and early on, he makes some very clear statements about our core mission as a church. He says, The Church of Jesus Christ makes disciples. Not converts; disciples; followers of Jesus. And what do disciples make? Disciples make peace, disciples make justice, and disciples make the kingdoms of this world the kingdom of our God and of his Christ. We are not trying to build the earthly empire of an institution called the church. What we are about is this. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done.

Disciples make peace; disciples make justice. As we look around the world today, we shudder to see what happens to many of the people who work for peace and justice. If you do that kind of work, you invariably confront vested interests. Our readings today remind us that it was ever thus; that worldly power is often violent and remorseless in its defence of the status quo. And it’s that type of power’s opposition to missions of peace with justice which our readings describe today.

So in Jeremiah’s oracle, God sees charlatan prophets trying to blind people to the truth, and Jeremiah is sent to confront them. Propaganda demonises its opponents with lies about them, and then uses its lies to justify their persecution. Jeremiah’s persecution is graphically remembered in the reading from the letter to the Hebrews. We’re no strangers to propaganda in our time. Right now there are bogus websites being registered by Australian parliamentarians. They intend to use them to peddle lies and foment division about the upcoming referendum to make sure it fails; bogus websites with names like ulurustatement and voicetoparliament. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-08-10/pauline-hanson-one-nation-may-lose-voice-referendum-websites/101317366

Jeremiah reminds us that God sees this sort of thing quite clearly, and that when we see it happening, like him, we’re called to speak out for justice so others see what’s happening too. The Psalmist is quite clear that God sees this as a core element of our vocation – to see injustice and call it out; judge for the poor and fatherless, it says, vindicate the afflicted and oppressed, rescue the poor and needy, and save them from the hands of the wicked – rescue these dear ones from walking about in darkness. So as we see the gap between the haves and have-nots steadily widen, we’re called to challenge that vigorously; to make sure others see what’s happening too. Peace without justice is an illusion.

This is not to say we’ll prevail in our lifetimes; but even so, it’s what we’re called to do – to see things the way God sees them, and to risk saying what we see. In our reading from the letter to the Hebrews after listing the successes of God’s people early on, there’s a turning point at v. 35 where things turn very ugly. There’s a series of chilling descriptions of people suffering dreadful violence and isolation. That’s what happened to God’s prophets – like Jeremiah – and to many early Christians. The letter to the Hebrews tells us they didn’t get to see what was promised, but as ‘a great cloud of witnesses’, they watch over our continuation of their struggle. One sobering detail is that the Greek word for witnesses is martyrs.

So I think we’re ready for the Gospel now. This shocking outburst from Jesus is one we instinctively read as prescriptive – as though he wants all those divisions to happen. But in the context of the journey we’ve walked with him since the end of June when we saw him turn his face to Jerusalem ^(9.51) – a journey where disciples and opponents alike have put him under a blowtorch; a journey to certain death – he’s describing his own experience, and Luke is describing that of the early church.

Jesus has not called his followers to validate the status quo [of haves and have nots]. His missional agenda of compassion, mercy, and justice shatters such a status quo. If we follow his call, there will be inevitable divisions and contentions.^[1]

So if we disciples are to make peace and justice, how do we do that? We probably won’t be able to avoid opposition, division or contention. But even Jesus couldn’t dodge that. So what do we do?

Abp Stephen Cottrell encouraged us to embrace evangelism – noting that the word Angel – messenger – lies at its heart. But he didn’t mean hard-sell scalp-hunting evangelism; he meant something quite beautiful.

He remembered the best definition of evangelism he’d ever heard as One beggar telling another beggar where they might find bread. If we thought of our witnessing to what God has done for us in those terms, if we didn’t get confused and imagine ourselves to be the baker; then our discipleship wouldn’t resemble the status quo that such humility so powerfully challenges.

Disciples make peace, disciples make justice, and disciples make the kingdoms of this world the kingdom of our God and of his Christ. We won’t necessarily see that happen in our lifetimes, but we will be living witnesses to it in God’s good time.

Amen.

^[1] Carlson, Richard. P. (2010). Exegetical Perspective on Luke 12:49–56. In D. L. Bartlett & B. B. Taylor (Eds.), Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary: Year C (Vol. 3, p. 363). Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press.

Rev’d Peter Balabanski

Pentecost + 9 – Isa 1.1, 10-20 – Ps 50.1-8, 23-4 – Heb 11.1-3, 8-16 – Lk 12.32-40

It’s lovely to be back here with you all. Week by week during our absence, you’ve faithfully gathered here to worship God with your usual care and friendly joy. I’m very grateful to all of you who’ve seen to that.

Those services have often been a pleasure we’ve shared with you online as we’ve responded to the text message that St John’s has gone live. We’ve been in lots of places over the past months, had some wonderful experiences and learnt a huge amount. Thank you for helping to enable that.

Some time ago, I started looking at the Bible passages set for today and I worried about how they’d come across. People often tell me they struggle with the God of the Old Testament, and today, Isaiah’s in full flight letting us have it. Isa 1^.15 When you stretch out your hands, I will hide my eyes from you; even though you make many prayers, I will not listen; your hands are full of blood. They’re confronting words. I worry about how the kind, faithful people of St John’s feel when this is read out at them?

Lots of people have trouble with Old Testament portrayals of God, and I worry that today’s readings contain just the sorts of sayings that drive people away from reading the Hebrew Scriptures. It’s unfortunate that we don’t get to hear these readings in their full context.

In this case, we need to be aware of the oppression of poor peasant farming families back then by a rich, politically-connected religious elite. Isaiah is saying what God feels about corrupt Temple priests who required compulsory offerings three times a year from these poor people. And they set the level of offering, not the peasants; the poor people had no option to say they couldn’t afford it.

So you might understand God’s disgust at these priests as they offered sacrifices which cost them nothing, but left many farming families destitute? That’s where the strength of the language comes from.

But that was thousands of years ago; what’s it got to do with today? I heard similar words to Isaiah’s at the Receptive Ecumenism conference. A distinctive focus of RE is that we seek healing from other traditions for the wounds and failings of our own churches.

One speaker – a Pentecostal professor from the USA – told us Pentecostals have wounded, dirty, bloody hands; they’ve lost some of their inclusiveness, and have become more identified with fundamentalism and nationalism. One practical outworking of that was their participation in the religious right’s support for Donald Trump. She was gutted to have to own this. Her words bloody hands echoed Isaiah’s!

Our tradition has blood on its hands too. Our history as a church putting its prestige first and protecting paedophiles is just one case in point.

So should we want God’s view voiced any less forcefully than Isaiah put it today? I think not. But without access to historical context and such a present-day parallels, Isaiah can be hard to read.

The difficult readings don’t stop with him today. Isaiah and our gospel both recall last week’s warning parable from Luke 12 about the rich farmer. I shudder at the way ‘giving texts’ like this used to be brandished in stewardship campaigns. People felt hounded by a Church that just seemed to be after them for their money. Historical context helps us to read these texts too in a way that Jesus might have wanted us to.

At the New Testament conference last week, Prof John Barclay gave an extraordinary paper about the social significance of giving in the time of Jesus. He started by talking about a 2^nd century writer called Artemidorus who interpreted people’s dreams; people from all walks of life.

Unusually for an ancient writer he didn’t just deal with rich, influential people, so he opens a rare window onto the world of ordinary people in antiquity. Many dreams he interpreted from poor people revealed that their deepest desire was to be able to give. That’s interesting!

Prof Barclay spoke of a strict social convention in the ancient world about reciprocity and equal exchange. It was so strict that many poor people weren’t just denied life’s chances like poor people are today, but in their inevitable, frequent times of crisis, they got locked out of almost all social relationships.

To survive, you needed ‘a network of mutual support, where you could hope for material aid from relatives, neighbours, and friends on the assumption of a commitment to help them when they needed it.’ The ability to give and receive on equal terms decided if you belonged in society or not.

So when Jesus calls people to give, he’s saying something quite different from what we might have heard during the Gospel reading. It’s not about making us feel guilty, it’s caring about our survival; about helping us to belong. We need to belong. In the majority / poor world, this value persists.

We all have stories of being in tight situations where help has been offered just when it was needed. And like many of you, I’ve heard travel stories where the people who gave help were extremely poor. What they gave represented a really significant part of what they possessed, like a whole week’s food.

So today’s scriptures don’t confront us with the challenges we might have felt when we first heard them today. But they do confront us. They bring us face to face with God’s passion for justice for the poor, and for rehabilitating the rich and powerful: face to face with God in Christ who would go to the Cross to create a generous, open community of belonging where all are safe.

We are called to be that community here and now. Amen

David Hilliard OAM

 As some of you know, I am a retired academic historian, and when I lead the intercessions at our Sunday eucharist I try to say something about the lives of the saints and heroes of the church who are commemorated in the Anglican Church calendar around that day. This morning I would like us to think about the significance in the Christian story of a man we commemorated yesterday, Joseph of Arimathea.

Joseph from Arimathea we meet in the gospel accounts of the crucifixion of Jesus. All that we know of him is that he was a wealthy man and a member of the Jewish council but had taken no part in the condemnation of Jesus. He was ‘a good and righteous man’, says St Luke, ‘looking for the kingdom of God’, a disciple of Jesus but secretly. After the death of Jesus Joseph bravely asked Pilate for his body and buried it in the tomb that he had prepared for himself, newly hewn in the rock.

Early in the history of the Christian Church Joseph of Arimathea became the subject of legends which reached their peak in the twelfth century – that he was in possession of the holy grail, the cup that Jesus used at the Last Supper, and that he had gone to Gaul (France) with the apostle Philip to preach the gospel. Philip had sent him to England and the king who received him gave him an island later called Glastonbury, in Somerset. It was later claimed that Joseph of Arimathea was buried at Glastonbury and that the staff he planted in the ground produced a thorn bush which flowered at Christmas, and so on. Combine these stories with legends about King Arthur that associate him with the same place and you will see why modern Glastonbury is such a popular place for tourists and for those who gravitate to places they see as magical, endowed with supernatural vibes.

Joseph is associated with Nicodemus, an influential Pharisee whom we meet in St John’s Gospel. In chapter 3 Nicodemus came to Jesus by night to ask him questions about his teachings, in chapter 7 he speaks up on behalf of Jesus, and in chapter 19 he assists Joseph of Arimathea in preparing the body of Jesus for burial, binding it up in linen cloths with an expensive mixture of spices that he himself had contributed. One wonders about what happened to these men afterwards but they disappear from the New Testament writings.

Both men, Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus, were disciples of Jesus in secret. This idea of the secret followers of Jesus is worth thinking about. These have been many Christians who have made themselves invisible in order to survive. The theologian John Calvin coined the term ‘Nicodemites’ to refer to them. It was not a compliment. He saw them as cowards, timorous people who refused to stand up and witness to the truth before kings and those in authority. He could point to those words of Jesus (Matthew 10: 33): ‘Everyone who acknowledges me before men I also will acknowledge before my Father who is in heaven; but whoever denies me I also will deny before my Father who is in heaven.’

There are many examples of ‘Nicodemites’ in Christian history. When the Christian Church began to persecute heretics – those it regarded as holding erroneous beliefs and therefore sought to exterminate – to avoid death, the so-called heretics had a habit of conforming outwardly but still holding their views. They held the faith within their families and remained in contact with like-minded people through secretive networks. In England for example there were the Lollards, the followers of the fourteenth-century heretic John Wycliffe who survived in some places for 150 years. In those parts of Europe and the Middle East where militant Islam overran the early Christian communities and imposed mass conversions there were many crypto-Christians in Syria and Turkey and Cyprus and other regions who outwardly conformed to Islam but managed to survive by practising their faith in private, in their own households.

During the English Reformation of the sixteenth century that minority of the population that persisted in their loyalty to the Pope rather than accepting the monarch as the head of the church managed to survive as an underground Roman Catholic network under the protection of gentry or aristocratic families. Their big houses provided space for secret chapels and places to shelter visiting priests.

There were secret Christians in Stalin’s Russia when his persecution of the church was at its peak in the 1930s. In China, Christians learnt to hide during the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s. Since then, Christianity has been tolerated and the major denominations are recognised by the government; they are the only authorised Christian churches. However, it is estimated that tens of millions of Chinese Christians – some say the majority of them – do not identify with what they see as government-controlled churches. They prefer to worship in small groups, meeting in private houses as unregistered gatherings, and keep a low profile. The government of course knows who they are but occasionally, to make life uncomfortable, they might get a visit from the police, or someone gets arrested for infringing a government regulation or other offence.

How did these secret Christians sustain their faith over time? This is an important question but often hard to answer because secret groups by definition tend not to leave much (or anything) in the way of records. For Protestant Christians underground it was the Bible and well-known psalms and hymns. For Roman Catholics and Orthodox Christians underground it was prayer books, liturgical texts, holy pictures, icons for the Orthodox, the rosary for Catholics. And sometimes they might get a visit from a priest in disguise to celebrate Mass and administer the sacraments.

So Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus as secret followers of Jesus had many successors. Most of us would not seek martyrdom. At a time of persecution we would all want to survive if we had a chance, and probably we would learn to compromise and lie low. We should honour those who have maintained their Christian faith underground.

Obviously if all Christians had been secret and kept their faith to themselves the Christian Church would never have got off the ground. It would have withered and died. On the other hand, those underground Christians over the centuries have displayed great courage in just holding on, in very hostile environments. They kept their eyes on Jesus. They remembered his teaching, in today’s gospel, that one’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions. They absorbed St Paul’s words in his letter to the Colossians that we heard this morning: ‘Seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. When Christ who is your life is revealed, then you also will be revealed with him in glory.’

Canon Bill Goodes

Seventh Sunday after Pentecost  2022  Hosea 1:2-10,  Psalm 85, Colossians 2:6 – 15, Luke 11:1 – 13

“The Lord said, ‘Go, take yourself a wife of whoredom and have children of whoredom, for the land commits great whoredom by forsaking the Lord’ ”  (Hosea 1:2)

No, I am not going to get into the arguments concerning the legalization of Prostitution, and I don’t think that the prophet Hosea had anything to say about it either.   He was using that irregular expression of sexual urges as a picture of the way the people of Israel were practising religion in an irregular way.   He went on to use the names of the children that he and his wife had as clear messages about the fate that was to befall Israel at the hands of the Assyrians — a fate that Hosea was quite clear was God’s punishment for Israel’s disloyalty.   The children are named “Jezreel,” the valley where Israel’s defeat will happen, “Not Pitied” (Lo-ruhamah), because the Lord will no longer pity his people, and finally “Not my People” (Lo-ammi), because the Lord has rejected them as his own.

These family relationships were to be seen as a picture of God’s relationship with his people.   In the final paragraph of the section we had read this morning, God promises to restore the fortunes of his people.  Even there it is in terms of family relationships that this restoration is pictured:  they will be  “Children of the living God”.

It is no surprise, then, when Jesus is asked to teach his disciples to pray, that he begins with a familiar relationship, “Father”.   For some people today this presents difficulties, but it is important to recognize that the term is a picture of the disciples’ relationship with God, not a theological statement of God’s very nature.   It is but one of any number of such pictures of God, and it is useful as it pictures our relationship with God in family terms.

I’d like us to spend a little time this morning with this best-known prayer of God’s family.

There are two versions of the prayer in the Gospels, both of them rather shorter than the version that we use day by day.    The version in Luke that was part of this morning’s gospel is  the shorter of the two.   It addresses God:  “Father”.    It  goes on to express something of right relationship with God:  “may your holy nature be recognized” — “hallowed be your name”.   It prays that God’s purposes might be fulfilled, as God’s rule is expressed in the life of the world — “your kingdom come”.   It prays that our daily needs might be met— not of course our accumulation of wealth, but what we need each day — “give us each day our daily bread”.   It asks that our fractured relationships with those around us might be restored — “forgive us our sins”.   It asks that we might be spared from “the time of Trial”, usually thought of as an end-time, eschatological event rather than earthly trials and tribulations.

So, on which of these clauses do you focus as you pray the prayer?

Clearly Matthew and Luke had different ideas as to the heart of the prayer.   Matthew places the prayer in the context of forgiveness.   The prayer is introduced there with talk about not heaping up of empty phrases, expecting our prayer to be better heard because of the many words.   Jesus assures his hearers that “your Father knows what you need before you ask him.”   Matthew adds to Luke’s shorter version the request “your will be done on earth as in heaven”, and at the end “rescue us from the evil one”, but moves immediately from the text of the prayer to unpack its content: “for if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you”.   He clearly wants his readers to see the prayer giving attention to forgiveness.

Today’s Gospel reading makes it clear that Luke thinks that the focus of the pattern prayer is on “Give us each day our daily bread” — he follows the prayer with all that teaching about asking and receiving:  “Friend lend me three loaves…” and even though the friend is reluctant, (who likes being disturbed from a warm bed these nights for any reason?) finally he gives what is requested.   Then he gives the assurance that we will be given what we ask for, what we seek, where we need to enter — and that the gift will be what we really need, not some poor substitute.   Did you like the way today’s  Prayer of the day expressed it:  “we ask, we seek, we knock at your door:  help us so to seek that we may truly find, so to ask that we may joyfully receive, and so to knock that the door of mercy may be opened for us.”

So, we are to ask for the meeting of our daily needs — but somehow we have become conditioned to say “I shouldn’t ask for anything for myself”, but clearly this teaching of Jesus encourages us to ask.   I sometimes wonder whether we forget this when it comes to praying for healing:  somehow we think it is better to ask for healing for other people than to admit our own need for greater wholeness.   “Ask, and you will receive”, Jesus assures us — even if we ask for ourselves!

Certainly, our prayer for forgiveness, and for the healing of human relationships is important also.   And the prayer suggests that those who are unwilling or unable to forgive others may find it difficult to accept forgiveness for themselves.   (It is interesting to compare the two gospel writers here, as well:  Luke: “forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us”  — does he have a rather rosy view of our willingness to forgive those who owe us something?    Matthew: “forgive us our debts, as we have forgiven our debtors”, rather giving the impression that our receiving of forgiveness will happen in the same way as we have offered it to others).

But our prayers for ourselves, whether in terms of daily needs, forgiveness, or in eternity, are always made in the context of God’s nature, God’s relationship with us, and the structure of the Prayer Book collects makes that clear.   These beautifully-crafted prayers begin with an address to God, and then a remembering of some of God’s character.   For example, the Prayer of the week for this week begins “O God, the protector of all that trust in you, without whom nothing is strong, nothing is holy” — and it prays all this before it goes on to pray “increase and multiply upon us your mercy”.   Is this something that we need to remember as we come to God in prayer, or as we lead the prayers of the congregation?   Certainly we are to place our requests, our needs, our concerns clearly before our loving Father, Mother. King, Lord, Provider,…, but it is good for us to recall something of the richness of God’s nature as we do so.   “Father, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come” comes always before “Give us” or “forgive us” or “save us”.

Thanks be to God for this wonderful prayer:  may we use it not simply as a summary but also as a pattern of our prayer day by day, and Sunday by Sunday.

For the kingdom, the power, and the glory are yours, now and for ever.

Canon Bill Goodes

Sixth Sunday after Pentecost  2022  Amos 8:1-12,  Psalm 52, Colossians 1:15 – 29, Luke 10:38 – 42

Sunday 17 July 2022

“Hear this, you who say, ’We will make the ephah small and the shekel great, and practise deceit with false balances’”  (Amos 8:5)

This is a verse we could well have quoted when some weeks ago, a neighbour left a note for us objecting to the Climate Change Now banner outside the Church.   “I want climate change action,” he wrote, “but it is not the concern of the Church!”

Well, clearly, Amos the prophet, speaking God’s word to the people of Israel, would disagree:  the dishonest dealing in the market-place, “buying the poor for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals and selling the sweepings of the wheat” — this was just as much an affront to God’s righteousness and the integrity of God’s people, as was any hypocritical reliance on the externals of worship.

As we think about that little section of the prophet’s message, we see how the dealings in the market-place were placed in the context of cosmic events: “I will make the sun go down at noon, and darken the earth in broad daylight”.   And within this connection between cosmic and commercial, the prophet identifies “a famine…of hearing the words of the Lord.”

We find this connection also in the domestic setting in the Gospel reading, with Martha, the conscientious hostess being “distracted with much serving”, while Mary “sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to what he was saying”.   It is easy for us to become “distracted”, particularly by the word “better” in the Lord’s answer to Martha’s complaint — in fact the adjective is not comparative at all, it is the word for “lovely”:  “Mary has chosen the lovely part, which shall not be taken away from her” —  clearly both the listening to God’s message, and the daily domestic duties were significant offerings to the Master.

When Saint Paul wrote to the Colossian Christians, he was concerned to stress this concern of God for everything in life.   In the first paragraph of the reading from Colossians 1 that we heard this morning, Paul uses the word “all” over and over again.   “In Christ all things in heaven and earth were created”, “in him all things hold together”, “through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things”.   Through the cross, Jesus is making peace with all things.

What comes to mind for you when you hear “all things” in this context?   Is it the amazing photos of far-off galaxies taken by the latest space telescope — are these among the “all things seen and unseen” of the Creator, and of him “through whom all things were made”?   Or is your picture  of “all things” one of land-forms, oceans and atmosphere —do we see that these geographical features can come to a state of peace through Christ?   Perhaps “all things” for you conjures up pictures of the vast range of different plants or animals, not only surviving but thriving under the hand of the creator.   What an amazing claim the writer is making — that it is in Christ that these mind-blowing collections of creatures find their place, their purpose, their peace!   But of course “all things” does not only refer to the grand celestial scale, but the mundane as well — it includes the activities, the ideas, the people that we deal with day by day, in what Amos would refer to as “the market-place” — the commercial as well as the cosmic!

Paul goes on from these exalted heights to talk directly to his Colossian readers, for these are clearly among the “all things” that he is singing about:  “you …he has reconciled”.   It is the one who deals with “all things” who also deals with us, and presents us “holy and blameless and irreproachable before him”.   He then draws on his own experience of suffering to point to his calling as an apostle of Christ’s reconciling work, and then directs his readers to “the riches of the glory of this mystery”, — and that word “mystery” might be better translated as “the revealed secret “ — these riches are “Christ in you, the hope of glory”.   We move swiftly from inter-galactic space to the human heart!

Does that expression give you a warm feeling in your heart — that this amazing, creating, reconciling Christ is “in you, the hope of glory”?   Perhaps the message of the Psalmist occurs to you, “What are we that you should be mindful of us:” he cries:  “what are we that you should care for us?”    The one whose glory is proclaimed by the heavens themselves, is in us, filling us with “the hope of glory”!    Amazing!

But the warm feeling is all very well, but it should express itself in worship and praise, in the common life of the People of God, in our joining in the worship of the church.   (Though all these things are motivated not simply from the warm feelings, but from deeper, more lasting convictions and from a faith that says, “no matter what I am feeling, God is true, God is love, God is calling me into relationship with him”.)

But whatever is motivating our being with the Church this morning as it offers worship and celebrates the Sacrament, the prophet makes it quite clear that even this activity is worthless unless it is done in the context of the integrity and honesty of our life in the daily activity of the market-place. Earlier in his short book of prophecy Amos puts it most starkly, in the words of the God who called him to be a prophet, “Take away from me the noise of your songs;  I will not listen to the melody of your harps, but let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.”

And what comes to your mind when you think of this justice, this righteousness?   Is it in ecological crises that this rolling down needs to take place?   Or is it in the warfare and civil strife that we see so starkly displayed in the news?   Is it in climate change, in family violence, in employment conditions, in social security provisions, in political dealings, in racial relationships, in gender equality?   Is it in some of these that we long to see justice and righteousness flowing?   In all these areas and many more, God, the God who made, loves, reconciles all things, calls for “justice to roll down like waters”, and calls us, in whom Christ lives, “the hope of glory”, to give ourselves to lives of righteousness in both our cosmic and commercial contexts.

When, at the end of our liturgy, we respond to the Deacon’s cry, “Go in peace to love and serve the Lord”, we are committing ourselves to the pursuit of this justice, this reconciliation, this peace, this hope of glory!   “In the name of Christ.   Amen!”

Canon Bill Goodes

Fourth Sunday after Pentecost  2022   Colossians 1:1 – 14,, Luke 10:25 – 37

“A Samaritan while travelling came near him”  (Luke 10:31)

Across the road from Saint Peter’s Cathedral in North Adelaide there is an inn, known for many years as The Cathedral Hotel.   In fact, I remember when it had painted in large letters on its roof “Vic Peters Cathedral Hotel”!   In the corner of that building operates a coffee shop, named for the parable in today’s Gospel reading:  “The Good Samaritan”.   To this bustling establishment come numbers of the other Cathedral’s members, along with staff and visitors from the nearby hospitals and other businesses for coffee, conversation, or even simply warmth.

For this particular section of the Christian story has caught the imagination of people from all sorts of backgrounds.   The “Good Samaritan” has given his name to charitable institutions, indeed to the very act of caring for people in need.   Much of this use, of course, skates conveniently over the subtleties of the parable, like the fact that the Samaritan was a person who was himself “on the outer” — perhaps not so much in need of food and clothing hand-outs, but very much despised and ostracised by polite society at the time.   Or subtleties like the overflowing generosity of his response to the traveller’s need.

In spite of this, we can thank God for those in our society who act as “Good Samaritans” in their response to human need, and we can pledge ourselves to join them as we find opportunity.

However, if we are to be fair to the biblical record of the ministry of Jesus Christ, we will also recognize where that parable comes from.   We will see that it is told in response to a question put by a person who may not have had the best motives for his enquiry.   Remember, “a lawyer stood up to test Jesus”, and then “but wanting to justify himself, he asked Jesus.”   And the question that sparked the parable was, “and who is my neighbour?”

For his initial question had been met with another question, “What is written in the law?”, and he had given a very correct answer, which Jesus applauded,   “You have given the right answer;  do this, and you will live”.   And this right answer had two parts:  Love God, and love neighbour.

The lawyer homed in the second part to continue his test.   In our day, we perhaps have a clearer idea of who we think our neighbour is:  perhaps our question today to test Jesus might be, “And who is my God?”   What story might Jesus tell to answer that question, so vital to our age?

It occurs to me that we might have a couple of possibilities right here in front of us.

A young couple came to Adelaide from a distant country.  Reflecting the complexities of the culture of their home land, they came from different faiths, but they had found their way of living with that difference with integrity.  However, after some time they had a baby boy, and it was decided that he should be brought up as a Christian, and so he was brought to Baptism.

Now if Jesus had told that parable, what would preachers have made of it — they might be asking how had Jesus provided an answer to the question, “and who is my God?”   Well, I would have said that the parable tells me that God can cope with a bit of messiness!   God doesn’t wait until everything is tidily arranged before acting in love.   It tells me also that God wants people to belong to him, and that the very smallest step towards him is taken up with astonishing generosity.   God even wants little babies, who cannot make decisions for themselves, to be taken into his fold, in love, and he accepts the assurances that sponsors give that the child will learn and come to value what God has done for him.   I would remember what Jesus said when mothers were bringing children to him for his blessing, “Let the children come to me… for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs”.

And the second parable?   Well, when European settlement in the Colony of South Australia was less than three years old, a prominent land-holder with property in the south-eastern corner of the newly-laid-out city of Adelaide, donated a block of land to the Church of England, and people began the task of building a church.   At that time, the land was in a somewhat remote area of the city, and the infrastructure was pretty primitive, but it was near the outer suburbs of Kent Town and Norwood, so a brick church dedicated to Saint John was duly opened, and church-life began here “in the wilderness”.   In the years since then the original church became unsafe, was demolished and re-erected near the centre of the city, and in 1887 a somewhat grander building was erected, and the parish of Saint John, Adelaide continued its life.   There have been many ups and downs in the church and in the surrounding area, in the years that followed, but the faithful offering of worship, the witness to the gospel in loving service to the community, the living out of the Kingdom of God, has continued to this day

And what would a preacher make of this parable?   What does it say about the question “And who is my God?”   Well, I would say that it shows God to be faithful over time, tailoring his gifts of grace to the circumstances of the age, and to the resources at God’s disposal in this place.   I would want to say that God is calling people of all ages and abilities, all states of health, to encourage one another, to join in prayer and worship, to be Good Samaritans in their community, and that he uses whoever is placed before him to accomplish his loving, healing, reconciling creative purposes.

“And who is our God?”   Yes, this is our God:  this is the one who works among us:  this is the one who takes Jordan Luke to be his own:  this is the one who calls us into his service.   Thanks be to God!

Rev’d Susan F. Straub

‘Waiting on God in the Eucharist’

Introduction

Today is the Sunday after the Ascension: Thursday was Ascension Day. The forty days from Jesus’ crucifixion was ended. In that time. a transformative time, he continued to be seen by his disciples. Now the disciples enter a time of transition. They wait for promised power from on high: a wait of expectation. The gospel passage we’ve just heard is Jesus’ parting prayer for them and for us. Yes, for us. “I ask not only on behalf of these (the disciples with him at the time), but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word” and his prayer was that we may all be one. Not as a one solid lump, as all ‘one in solidarity’  would imply, but as individuals of every time and place, each with our peculiarities, united by the love and worship of Jesus Christ – relating to each other in brotherly, sisterly love.

In remembering and showing love and thankfulness for one person, whether the occasion is Mothers’ or Fathers’ Day, or a birthday, a family maintains, or sometimes even renews contact, strengthens the ties that bind families together and, where those families can physically gather, a celebratory meal is part of the day.

Jesus’ not only prayed for our unity, our belonging together, but also gave us the means of experiencing it, maintaining it and strengthening it: the very act that we’ve gathered together to do, the eucharist. This is the joyful meal in which as brothers and sisters, we remember and show love and thankfulness for our one God: God, our father, God, our eldest brother, and God, who binds us together.

John 17:20-26

Jesus prayed: ‘As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us.’ In the eucharist we’re united with God as we eat the bread of Christ’s body and drink the wine of his blood.

The bread and wine, fruit of human hands, are transformed for us through the power of the Holy Spirit into the Body and Blood of Christ. They become a pledge of the ‘new heaven and new earth’ (Rev 21:1). For Christ died not only for those who loved and love him, but for all. The reality of God’s gift of salvation can be seen, heard, tasted, touched, and smelled in the eucharist. Then we’re sent into the world. The more we are nourished by Him, the more we understand that we have a missionary task, in other words, what we experience is too good to keep to ourselves. We are to be ‘acceptable as an offering, made holy by the Holy Spirit’ (Romans 15:16) in order to be more and more ‘one, in heart and mind’ (Acts 4:32), in unity with God and each other. Why? So we can be witnesses and ambassadors of his love wherever we find ourselves, to tell of his love, to speak and act as he would, that is, in his name, so that others can experience God’s love

Unity is not an extra: it’s essential to what it means to be Christian. Did Jesus pray that we could all be equal to each other or that we should all be like each other, Jesus-clones, or even that we should like each other all the time?  No, but that we should love one another. To come together to celebrate, whether we’re here physically or joining on-line, leaving our differences at the door of this sacred place rather than our shoes! United in love, our mission, our meaning and purpose, is to show the way of Jesus, an alternative to evil, and to combat its acts of obvious or insidious harm. To show a love that doesn’t demand or expect reciprocity, ‘karma’, tit-for-tat.

We are all, however we come, whoever we are, the body of Christ. We celebrate the Eucharist together as a sign of our unity, joining with others all over the world. We belong to Christ and each other. We rejoice together as children of God the Father.

Canon Bill Goodes

Easter 5C 2022 -Acts 11:1 – 18, Psalm 148, Rev 21:1 – 6, John 13:31-35  Sunday 15 May 2022

“I give you a new commandment, that you love one another:  just as I have loved you, you also should love one another”   (John 13:34)

How do you deal with new things? I understand that there are people who are so keen on new things that they will adopt them uncritically, and champion them to everyone else. However, my experience is that many of us treat new things with a certain amount of suspicion — even hostility!   Has the COVID pandemic made us more accepting of the new situations that have dogged our steps over these last two years? Or have the constant changes to regulations made us want to hang on even more religiously to our past practices than we used to?

It is interesting to hear this message about the new things, in the context of last week’s meeting of the General Synod of our Church — was embracing the new the focal point of their discussions?

I must say I wondered about that phrase at the end of the reading from Acts 11 that we heard this morning. You remember “They were silenced:  they praised God, saying, Then God has given to the Gentiles the repentance that leads to life” The General Synod decision on same-sex marriage was greeted by threats of division, rather than by accepting that this was the direction of the Holy Spirit! I wonder whether our Parish Council meeting this morning will find such ready and complete agreement to some account of the introduction of a new practice!

For what was being defended by Peter in the face of his interrogation by the Jewish Christians was a complete novelty — for the first time the Christian message of Good News was being offered to people who were uncircumcised non-Jews — a Roman centurion to boot! Unheard of, because all of the apostles, and all of those who heard the word and were baptized on the Day of Pentecost were Jews — it had always been so!   And here was Peter with his strange story of a sheet-full of all sorts of creepy-crawlies being let down from heaven and offered to him as good food. How could this possibly be? Perhaps Luke had forgotten, by the time he wrote this account, or had even chosen to ignore, the hesitations, the heart-searching, the denial that customarily go with making revolutionary decisions!

In both the Revelation reading and the Gospel, the word “new” lies at the heart of the message their writers are putting before us. Here were Christians under threat or actual experience of persecution. The writer of the Revelation, near the end of his words of encouragement to them, sees something radically new.  The old order of heaven and earth has passed clean away, and the new Holy City has come down from God. Every tear wiped away, death and the accompanying mourning done away with. All the limitations that prevent us from enjoying the fulness of life are gone.   Words of living hope are given here not only for these early Christians, but for those living in our part of the world, and in our time in history,  “I will give water from the spring of eternal life”. This is a complete re-writing of our story — the old has passed away, and the new is adorned, radiant, like a bride.

Then there’s the Gospel reading. The commandment that Jesus gives his disciples is very familiar to us — “love one another”, and “this is how people will know you are my disciples.” All very well-known — but sometimes we skip over the “new” part of the story:  “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another” — or the “just as” part:  “Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another”. The love that Jesus’ followers are being urged to show to one another is “of the same nature” as that shown in the love that Jesus has for them. Recognizing that this is set in John in the context of the Last Supper, with all its emphasis on the coming death of Jesus, suggests that our love for one another is of a particularly sacrificial and all-embracing kind! Jesus loves us, and shows that love by dying for us — our love for one another  is to be of the same quality!

And it is interesting that the “new commandment” is given to the twelve — just after Judas has gone out. Now it specifically does not say : “love all those that agree with you”, but “love one another — as I have loved you”!   It was interesting in the shadow of the General Synod debate that I was asked by a Year 12 student doing Religious Studies for her SACE, a number of questions regarding our Church’s attitude(s) to same sex marriage. She wanted to know the biblical background, and whether our church had “adapted to the change” in state legislation regarding marriage.   After outlining my own understanding, and that which I believe to be representing the range of views in this congregation, I also felt obliged to refer her to representatives of other traditions in the Anglican Church locally! I certainly saw that as an expression of the love for one another that is enjoined upon us!

But it is not only towards those we agree with, or even those we disagree with — this love for one another has an even wider application. In his presidential address to open the General Synod, our Archbishop, as Primate, asked the members of the Synod first to consider the widest scope of the context in which the Synod is meeting, and the need to be reconciled to those who “have something against us”. He also asked his hearers to consider the widest possible application of the church’s mission to follow Christ’s “new commandment”. He quoted from a book called “Imagining Mission with John V Taylor”, which asks its readers “imagine that church is not the point of church, rather church exists to participate in the healing of all things- the world, its people, the planet itself. Church is God’s people participating in that liberation, a communion in mission. Church is Christ’s body prolonging the logic of the mission and ministry of Jesus Christ in the world”. The book also suggests “that mission is a longing to see all things renewed – our relationship with God and with one another, with our environment and species, with our societies, our world, and our cosmos. It is the healing and redemption of all things under the lordship of Christ”.

For this “new commandment” that Jesus put before his followers, goes even beyond the newness embraced (finally) by the Church in Jerusalem in response to Peter’s plea:  it is to extend even beyond people of other religious traditions, or of none, beyond that of “our neighbours” or even “our enemies” — all of which is difficult enough! It extends to our love for the whole creation and the God who made it. It is this love that will enable “all things to become new”, and that will have us enter the radical new life inaugurated by the resurrection, to have our fundamental thirst slaked by water from the spring of the water of life.

Canon Bill Goodes

Easter 4C – Acts 9:36 – 43, Psalm 23, Rev 7:9 – 17, John 10:22 – 30

“Jesus said, ‘I am the Good Shepherd…My sheep hear my voice.  I know them, and they follow me’”  (John 10:11, 27)

I’m sure you have all seen pictures of Jesus as the Good Shepherd. It is a widely-used image displayed in many churches in windows, on banners, and on prayer cards — the shepherd, crook in hand, is cradling in his arms a loveable lamb. It is a very still, settled image, and one which might have inspired poetry of the romantic age — or even hymns like “loving shepherd of thy sheep”. The famous “shepherd” psalm that we read this morning sets the shepherd and his flock  “beside still waters”,  “in green pastures” and speaks of “goodness and mercy following all our days”.   Even the shepherds who “ran to Bethlehem straightway the Son of God to find” felt secure enough to “leave their flock a-feeding in tempest storm and wind”.

So, it was something of a shock to me when we spent a weekend with our family a couple of weeks ago on a mohair goat farm in Western Victoria.   After Church on Sunday morning, our hosts took us into their shearing shed to talk about their journey as shepherds. From the time that they decided to run these special goats, they have faced so many challenges.    There must have been constant temptations to give up and do something a bit more predictable! They faced entrenched monopolies, refusal to share blood-stock, droughts that turned the river water they used for  their goats into a toxic drink that killed them. The market for their wool has had wild fluctuations, and some of those who sold it had taken short cuts which gave mohair garments a bad name. They had great trouble finding someone who would deal with the hides of the animals they sold for meat. The goats grow wool which has no lubricant in it, and their wool grows all over the animal, which makes shearing goats a greater challenge than shearing sheep.

At each stage, I was impressed by the way they approached the new situation and were prepared to try new approaches that would enable them to continue their committed love and care for these animals, and to do so in ways that are sustainable, both for the animals and their shepherds!

I was surprised at this tale of adaptability and commitment, but on reflection I realised that even biblical shepherds had their challenges!   Remember the lost sheep! That lamb on the shepherd’s shoulder in the stained-glass window was one that had been lost, had to be found and pulled out of the brambles with the crook! The passages about the Good Shepherd in the earlier part John 10 spoke of the wolves coming to ravage the flock, and the tendency of the hireling to leave the sheep to their fate when the wolves came. Or remember how Jacob suffered from the machinations of an unscrupulous landlord when Jacob had the responsibility of caring for the landlord’s flock (and marrying his daughters!) His inventive ways of managing the breeding programme (of the sheep!) enabled him to thwart the landlord’s schemes.

So, a shepherd’s lot is “not a happy one” in many respects, and when we speak of Jesus as “the Good Shepherd” we need to take into consideration the negative aspects of the job as well as the “green pastures and still waters” ones.

It seems to me that what our goat-shepherds showed me was first of all a commitment to the animals and the vision of caring for them. But that commitment was not simply a dogged “carrying on in the face of difficulties” — remember Dobbin in “Animal Farm” :  “I will work harder!” No, there had to be a considerable flexibility and a willingness to try new directions to take account of what was happening, events largely outside of their control.

And, you know, that is just what God is like! God’s commitment to his covenant relationship first with the Jewish nation, and then with the Christian community is absolute:  his nature as chesed —  steadfast love expresses that commitment:  “God so loved…”

But the way that commitment was expressed varied over time, as God’s people in their various ways frustrated his purposes. God’s commitment to his covenant is absolute and unchanging, but the way it works out seems to be almost infinitely variable! God’s people in slavery in Egypt cry out to God for deliverance, and God hears their voice. The writers of the story make it look as though God knows beforehand all that will take place, and that God “hardened Pharaoh’s heart so that he would not let the people go”, but perhaps there is another way of looking at it:  isn’t it just as possible that Pharaoh and his advisers changed their minds, went back on their pre-election promises, and then God’s steadfast love for his people made new provisions which took account of these changes of heart. Then when they were on their journey to the Promised Land, the provision of the bread substitute, meat, potable water, and safe travel were all provided in response to particular situations. Again and again throughout their history the Old Covenant people upset the direction of God’s purposes, and God sent prophets and other agents to work from the new situation that the people had caused, to re-establish the working out of God’s loving purpose.

The Gospel writers normally referred to Judas Iscariot as “Judas who became the traitor”, and so gave the impression that this was always the plan — as though Jesus chose him as a disciple knowing, or even willing that he would be the traitor. But of course, these accounts were written well after the event, and perhaps this description simply expressed the writers’ incredulity that anyone could be a close follower of Jesus, and yet betray him.

We also have the capacity to make decisions which are not what God would choose for us, as he wills that we should enjoy fulness of life, and for us to make the best use of our abilities and potential — but we make wrong decisions, and, rather than write us off with a “well if that’s how you’re going to behave” sort of comment and leave us to our fate, the committed loving God is flexible in his dealings with us, and acts to make the best of the situation into which we have dropped ourselves.

So in the picture of Jesus as the Good Shepherd, we may see ourselves as the lost sheep. From time to time we experience the end of the crook around our necks, trying to drag us, kicking and bleating, out of the delicious-looking thorn-bush into which we have pushed our way! The Good Shepherd knows us, loves us, and puts himself into danger to rescue us. And, once there, no one can snatch us from his hand.  Thanks be to God.