Rev’d Peter Balabanski

Ascension – Acts 1 1-11, Ps 97, Eph 1 15-23, Lk 24 44-53

Our prayer of the day for Ascension is quite startling and wonderful. Let’s turn back to it again – it’s just before the Bible readings. O God, you withdraw from our sight that you may be known by our love: help us to enter the cloud where you are hidden, and to surrender all our certainty to the darkness of faith in Jesus Christ.

O God, you withdraw from our sight. We’ve reminded ourselves of that just now by putting out the great Easter candle. We lit it on Easter morning to be a sign among us of Jesus resurrected. And we’ve lit it at every one of our gatherings throughout the season of Easter. But today, after we read in the Gospel about Jesus taken up from among his disciples – taken out of our sight, we put that candle out. Like the physical presence of Jesus was taken from the first disciples, our sign of his presence among us – the light on the Easter candle – was taken from our sight.

Our prayer of the day gives us a reason for this. It’s so that [God / Jesus] may be known by our love. Now, you and I are the ones who have to make God’s love known. Jesus did it; he made people know God’s love for them. He loved people that no-one loved; he forgave people what no-one would forgive them, he healed people that no-one could heal. And now our prayer of the day says that’s our job. We are called to be God’s messengers of this love. Putting out the Easter candle says the job is now ours. You and I are to be the Christ-light for this world to see.

An older priest I knew used to describe Jesus’ Ascension as his moving from the here and now to the everywhere and always. And that means us. We’re everywhere. Jesus wasn’t everywhere at once during his ministry on Earth. But we – his Church – we are everywhere at once. We are called to make God’s love known everywhere and always. But where do we start? Our remarkable prayer of the day has more to say about that too. Help us to enter the cloud where you are hidden, and to surrender all our certainty to the darkness of faith in Jesus Christ.

Enter the cloud where you are hidden!? We saw a cloud take Jesus up out of their sight in this morning’s reading from Acts. If you remember the Exodus story, you’ll remember how God went in front of the people in a pillar of cloud by day, and a pillar of fire by night. They couldn’t see God; only a cloud or a fire. But they were led by God’s presence in that cloud and in that fire, and they followed God’s leading. Enter the cloud where you are hidden. What might that mean for us? God is invisible to us. Jesus is invisible to us. And we’re meant to make them known?!

There’s an old story about a child in a kindergarten busily painting a huge picture. The teacher asks What are you painting? The child says God. The teacher says But no-one knows what God looks like! The child replies They will when I’ve finished.

Enter the cloud where you are hidden. Our prayer of the day challenges us to enter the mystery of how we are to get on with helping people know what God is like: how we are to get on with helping people experience God’s love. We prayed not only that we might enter the cloud where Christ is now hidden, but that we might also surrender all our certainty to the darkness of faith in Jesus Christ.

This prayer seems inspired by The Cloude of Unknowyng, an anonymous English work of Christian mysticism written in the late 1300’s. It’s a guide to contemplative prayer. Its basic message is stop making up theories about God, and just be brave enough to enter the place of unknowing. And there, begin to glimpse God’s nature.

So, surrender all our certainty!? Heavens! We’re people of the modernist era. With our fixation on evidence-based certainty, we’re deeply challenged by this part of the prayer. We’re the ones most shocked by our crazy world where grotesque influencers and political fools seek to get ahead by replacing scientific certainties with their empty wishful thinking so they can amass power and wealth. Maybe they are the reason we find this bit of the prayer so challenging. But those influencers and political fools are empty counterfeits of what this prayer is on about; deceivers.

We are called to surrender all our certainty to God; not to liars. To Christ who we can trust, because we know what he’s like. Instead of the greedy lies of influencers and fools, we celebrate Jesus for his self-emptying love. We can safely surrender all our certainty to him. We can trust him. With him, we can let go safely.

Even so, the most challenging words of this prayer are kept for last; surrender all our certainty to the darkness of faith in Jesus Christ. I avoid the word darkness wherever I can in church because of its unconscious associations for some people with racism. So I’ve struggled with that word in this prayer. But deep in the night, I was given the Easter association with it; a vision of a seed planted in soil – there to die, but in doing so, bearing much fruit. ^{John 12.23-26}

This prayer challenges me; challenges us all to risk burying the precious seed of our certainties in the rich, dark soil of faith; to trust God will help us bear the Spirit’s fruits of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness and self-control because they’re how people meet Jesus. So we can pray this prayer with hope, not fear. Or to return to today’s other metaphor, when we put out the Easter candle today, we surrendered the certainty of that light before us, hoping that very light might shine in us and from us. And that’s what we’ll see next Sunday at Pentecost.

Let’s pray the prayer again.   O God, you withdraw from our sight that you may be known by our love: help us to enter the cloud where you are hidden, and to surrender all our certainty to the darkness of faith in Jesus Christ. Amen.

Rev’d Peter Balabanski

Easter 6 – Acts 16 9-15; Ps 67; Rev 21 10—22 5; John 5 1-9

In the National Church Life Survey, there’s a question that asks us, ‘How often during church services do you experience Inspiration, Joy, Awe or Mystery, A sense of God’s presence, Growth in understanding of God, Being challenged to take action, Being strengthened spiritually?’ These are the sorts of experiences we see happening in today’s readings. They’re filled with hope in God’s power. Yet they’re not questions we often ask ourselves. Our Zoom study group pondered similar questions last Tuesday and it was a very precious time of sharing.

In our part of the Anglican Church, talk about visions from God, seeking God’s direction and sensing God’s presence can seem to some of us as though it’s a different dialect. Same basic language, but expressions we don’t tend to use. It means we can be puzzled by symbolic language and imagery like the book of Revelation uses, while such things seem to speak directly to other Christians.

Is the sense of God’s presence and power in the book of Revelation more the province of pentecostal and charismatic worship? No. In our prayer together, we also ask God to intervene in our lives and in the affairs of the world. The music and singing in our worship takes us to that place too. And sharing communion is the most important thing for many St John’s folk. So our language is symbolic too.

How often during church services do you experience Inspiration, Joy, Awe or Mystery, A sense of God’s presence, Growth in understanding of God, Being challenged to take action, Being strengthened spiritually? Quite often, actually.

I remember as a teenager hearing preachers who said how wrong it was just to be a Sunday Christian – to pray and sing about peace and love and good will and be near God one day, then go out the next day and dance to the tune of a cruel, competitive world. That tension’s still true today. And it’s not meant to be that way.

Our gatherings are meant to help us recall that our whole lives are lived in God’s presence. We learn songs and hymns and prayers so we can take them everywhere with us. Our prayers are about justice and mercy and faithfulness and we’re called to take them out with us so we make a difference. What we do here shapes us to keep the conversation with God active at all times and wherever we are. But it’s one thing to say that we want to practise God’s presence in our daily lives; it’s quite another to do it. That’s where our scriptures come in; they model this discipline.

In today’s episode from Acts, Paul, Silas and Luke follow God’s leading in very challenging circumstances. They’ve been in south and central Türkiye visiting some of the young churches they’d founded earlier. They long to carry their mission into other parts of Türkiye too. But the lead-up to today’s passage sees the Spirit veritably herd them across Türkiye to its north-western seaboard, repeatedly preventing them from going elsewhere. They get herded to the port city of Troas (a little south of Troy and Gallipoli), and there, one night, Paul is given a vision of a Macedonian man pleading with him to come to help them.

Paul and the others respond immediately, sailing across the Aegean Sea to Macedonia. There they seek out the sort of people who pray. And today, we see them find a group of women who gather to pray outside the city. Luke calls people like these women ‘God-fearers’; that means they’re people who aren’t Jews, but they are attracted to the Jewish idea of the one-God-over-all.

These women pray together. But they do it out of the public eye, likely for fear of persecution by the Romans. Our story tells us that this secretive little group of inquirers has caught God’s attention. One woman in particular, Lydia, responds to Paul’s and Silas’ teaching by accepting Jesus and being baptised together with her household. She and her household have become the bridgehead of Christianity’s first arrival in Europe. I marvel at all this, but maybe I shouldn’t. Now that the Church has so much more experience of the work of the Holy Spirit, why should we be surprised any longer that the prayers of Lydia and her friends are heard by God. Why should I marvel that God sends Paul and Silas and Luke a thousand kilometres over land and sea in answer to the prayers of a small group of women.

It’s Luke’s grand theme of people joining in God’s mission. And when God calls us to join in, that call brings with it an invitation to begin something new; something you could hardly have predicted. We at St John’s need to be awake to God’s call. What’s God’s mission to the people of this parish district, and how are we meant to get on board? Like Paul, we’re on a journey. And like him, we’re sometimes confronted with dead ends. Where do we turn then? Is anyone among us being given a dream; a vision? It’s a different dialect, but it is our language. So let’s give this dialect a try. Maybe we need to wait for a dream, wait intentionally. Maybe someone’s already been given a dream. Either way, we’re called to discern God in it, and if we do, we’re to be obedient and follow where the dream calls us. Amen

Rev’d Hiliary Reddrop

Matthew 25:31-45

Thank you, Peter, for giving me this opportunity to speak about my ministry, a ministry that is a privilege to engage in, hospital chaplaincy.

May was set aside in the diocese a few years ago to celebrate and give thanks for the ministries of hospital, Anglicare, welfare and community chaplains. This year all chaplains, including school chaplains, have joined together to celebrate our ministries. During the month some of us are talking about chaplaincy in parishes across the diocese.

I am one of the chaplains in the Southern Adelaide Local Health Network, commonly known as SAHLN. SALHN covers the Flinders Medical Centre, Noarlunga Hospital, the Repat Health Precinct and Jamie Larcombe, the mental health unit for veterans and first responders. I’m based at Flinders. In SALHN the Chaplaincy team works on a ward basis. My wards are Laurel Hospice and the Older Persons Mental Health Unit. When an Anglican chaplain is requested across the hospital, I visit these patients. I also respond to requests  to visit from across the hospital when I’m on call.

Team members are known as Spiritual Care Chaplains, offering more than religious care. When I introduce myself to patients, with the greeting Hello I’m Hilary. I’m from Spiritual Care, many people respond with, I’m not religious, I’m not spiritual, I don’t go to church, or something similar. Some are surprised and others sceptical when I say, I haven’t come to visit you to talk about religion, and allow conversation to flow from there. A few do understand that spirituality is more than belief in a deity.

Spirituality, simply put, is about what gives us meaning and purpose in life, the reason for getting up in the morning, what motivates us into action, our values and our hope. Some people I meet will say they believe in something but are unable to express it in words. For others they believe in God in their own personal way but don’t go to church. Others tell me that their family and pets, their various activities such as walking on the beach or in the bush, gardening, craft work or tinkering in the shed are what gives them purpose in life. The majority of people we visit do not have a faith tradition, some describe themselves as lapsed but our ministry is not to separate the sheep from the goats, we are available to all patients, their family, carers, friends and all staff.

Chaplaincy is about relationship. We go to people who don’t know us, nor we know them, and somehow we build a relationship of trust often in a very short space of time. We are often told things that have been long forgotten, deep hurts from the past or perhaps more recent hurts, things they’ve never shared before with anyone. For all who we interact with we are the hands of Christ, at the bedside, in the corridor, and occasionally in the Chapel. Our main role is to listen, to deeply listen to what is being said, and unsaid, observing what is happening for the person as they talk to us, as they share their needs, their life stories, their joys and sadnesses, their fears, their determination, their hope.

My ministry in the Hospice brings me alongside people with a life limiting illness, approaching the end of their life, which could be months, weeks, days or hours away. They are receiving palliative care. Their big questions may be, Why me? What have I done with my life? What do I do with my life now? Or they may express sadness, I don’t want to leave my family. Elderly patients are often worried about their partner, How will they manage when I’ve gone, I’ve always done everything.  Another question might be, What’s going to happen now? That question might mean what’s going to happen right now or for those who are imminently dying, what is after death. Some of these questions and thoughts are no different for patients in other wards. They may have been in an accident or have an illness that has changed their quality of life. What will I be able to do? What work will I be able to do? I’m going to be a burden.

Do chaplains have the answers to any of these questions? We might have some answers, but we’re there to listen. We can guide the conversation to help the patient think things through and allow the patient to come to their own conclusions, but it’s not our role to give direct answers, especially if they are asking about their illness and treatment. We are not allowed to give medical advice. What has your dr told you? Have you asked your nurse? are questions I put to the patient. Or I might suggest they ask to see the social worker if that is more appropriate.

Chaplains are not allowed to proselytise. If a patient asks questions about faith matters we can talk about religion in general terms, but only in direct response to their conversation. We can’t disagree with their theology or try to change their beliefs or thoughts. We are there to support them, not add to their anxiety or vulnerability. If I’m asked a direct question about faith I try and reflect it back to them, I’m interested in hearing what you think. Occasionally I will be challenged and asked about my belief in the nature of God. That’s when I tread very carefully and don’t disagree or agree with their theology even if it is different from mine! Some push back and ask very direct questions, especially about a God of judgement. I simply say in many situations that I believe in a loving God, adding more to that according to what lead up to me saying that.

Recently in the hospice I was asked to visit a patient in her 90’s who had asked for a visit as she was frightened about dying. I’d learned prior to visiting her that she believed in God. I visited her and she told me quite a lot about her life. After a while I asked her what she had hoped for from a visit from Spiritual Care. She was unable to give me an answer. She wanted me to visit again. At this visit as I thought our time together was coming to an end she said, I have a question. I thought here is her reason for wanting visits. What will happen after? What will it be like? I want peace. I’m a firm believer in the action of the Holy Spirit as I often find appropriate words coming out of my mouth and I have no idea where the words have come from. Into my head came the words of John’s Gospel, and I said, In John’s Gospel we are told ‘In my Father’s house there are many mansions. May be some of these mansions are for people who want peace and other mansions are for people who want to sing with the angels and the archangels.  We don’t know what it will be like, but we will be with God in a better place. Your place may be one of peace. We have our hope and our trust in God. It satisfied her. I visited her a couple more times before she was discharged back home and nothing more was mentioned about dying except she told me she wanted me to visit her on her next admission because that would be her last admission.

Some patients spend weeks, sometimes months, in hospital. These are the metaphorical prisoners we visit, trapped in a bed, some attached to medical equipment, others just not healing due to their illness or their age, perhaps recovering slowly in rehab.  They might hunger and thirst for some company. Staff often ask us to go and visit these patients. We have the time to be at the bedside, to be present and listen. We aren’t under the time pressure other staff are under. We might stay only minutes, or it may be an hour or more. Some visits are just one-off visits while others may go on over a matter of weeks. One of the privileges I have of being in the Hospice is getting to know some patients, their family and friends, spending time with them listening to their life stories. Families or friends can’t always be present all the time. I visit sleeping or unresponsive patients if they are on their own. If I haven’t met the patient or family, I don’t presume they will want me to be present. I stand by the bedside and pray silently for a few minutes. For those I’ve spent time with I’ll sit with them in silent prayer or pray aloud if I’ve gained their permission to pray with them on a previous visit. On Friday I went to a patient who was unresponsive and actively dying. She has no next of kin. I stood beside her and introduced myself and told her I’d been asked to visit her. She had a beautiful crocheted blanket on her bed. These blankets are given to patients who are end of life, in the hospice it’s a quilt. I described the blanket to the patient. A couple of nurses came and attended to her and after they left, I told her that I was going to pray for her and hoped that was alright. Usually I ask permission to touch a patient while I pray but she couldn’t give permission so I didn’t touch her. Most people don’t refuse but some don’t want to be touched.

Recently I have had nurses in the Older Persons Mental Health Unit tell me on different occasions that when Spiritual Care has visited the patients are calmer, more peaceful, which makes it easier for them. What a gift, to be told you make a difference and to know the difference is not just for the patient but for the staff as well. Very humbling.

I’m fortunate that I am part of a supportive team. We listen to each other and encourage each other to care for ourselves when we know we’ve reached our limit for the day.

I know, like me, my fellow chaplains within SALHN, and across the diocese, feel so privileged to be involved with Chaplaincy ministry, spreading God’s love to all we meet, not only in words but also in actions, prompted and guided by the Holy Spirit, to go where we need to be, often arriving at the perfect moment for the patient or their family member, or meeting a staff member who just needs to talk.

On Thursday 29^th May at 4.00 pm in St Andrew’s Walkerville chaplains are gathering to celebrate our ministry. You are invited to join with all chaplains and chaplaincy volunteers in the celebration and to join us in refreshments after the service which the Archbishop and Bishop Sophie will both be taking part. Please come if you are able. Amen

Rev’d Peter Balabanski

Good Shepherd Sunday C – Jn 10 22-30

My sheep hear my voice.  I know them, and they follow me. ^{John 10:27} Jesus knows us and loves us.

When you think about it, how many people really know you, warts and all, and still love you anyway? We deal with lots of people every day – people who don’t know us, but want something from us – or we want something from them. Most of those relationships are superficial. How many people in our lives really know us and love us anyway?

Caro spoke to parish council last week about the many people in our community who are so isolated that it’s a significant health risk to them. Their loneliness is up there with obesity, smoking and heavy alcohol use as a mortality risk; particularly younger people! Why are people in any community so isolated that it puts them at risk of dying? How many people really know them? Who do they love? And who loves them? For these people, isolation is a matter of life and death. And yet their situation can be improved so simply –with genuine friendship.

Eugene Petersen describes a moment when … someone enters our life who isn’t looking for someone to use. They make time to find out what’s really going on in us. They’re secure enough not to exploit our weaknesses or to attack our strengths. They recognise our inner life and understand the difficulty of living out our inner convictions. They confirm what’s deepest within us. They’re a friend.  ^{Eugene H. Peterson ‘Leap Over a Wall’}

Who really knows us? We just heard Jesus say My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me. ^{John 10.27} Jesus declares his friendship for us as being of that very rare quality we’ve been thinking about. ‘I know them.’ To let anyone get to know us at a really deep level, we have to trust them; trust them with our deepest feelings; know we’re safe with them even when our most embarrassing weaknesses are disclosed; trust them to deal gently with our very strongest convictions; our greatest passions. And that goes both ways.

Perhaps you know the very beautiful little poem of W.B. Yeats: ‘He wishes for the cloths of heaven’.

Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths, / Enwrought with golden and silver light, / The blue and the dim and the dark cloths / Of night and light and the half-light, / I would spread the cloths under your feet: / But I, being poor, have only my dreams; / I have spread my dreams under your feet; / Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

Yeats somehow captures the beautiful, vulnerable friendship that Jesus our Good Shepherd offers us – where he’s as vulnerable as we are. Whatever predicament we’re in, he’s in it with us; shivering in the cold; wilting with heat and thirst; facing our fears with us.

We’re completely safe offering Jesus our feelings, our weaknesses and our passions because he knows us and yet he loves us anyway. He knows how dangerous we can be to a friend, and yet he’s come to be that friend. He hasn’t come to condemn us, but to save us. ^{John 3.17} We’re safe with him.

He’s entered our world in utter vulnerability as the baby. He’s faced our shame and helplessness as the naked man hanging on the cross. He has come fully into our world so that we might enter fully into his.

Jesus, our good shepherd, calls out to us to follow him on the path that leads to that place of green pastures and still waters, to a living hope in the face of danger – even in the face of death.

My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me. ^{John 10:27}

Follow. We had that word in the 23^rd Psalm too. Jesus the good shepherd calls us to follow him. King David tells us what will happen when we respond to this call – Surely your goodness and loving-kindness will follow me all the days of my life; and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.

Prayer

Jesus our Good Shepherd, we know your voice. You call and we follow you. Jesus, gate of the sheepfold, you are our doorway into life. You are the doorway through death into eternal life. You call and we follow you.

Jesus our Good Shepherd, you have laid down your life for us. There is no greater love than this. You know us – you know the danger – and yet you love us. Grant us the courage to love like you do, and to do it bravely in your precious name. Amen

Rev’d Peter Balabanski

Acts 9 1-6, Psalm 30, Revelation 5 11-14, John 21 1-19

There’s a recurrent theme in the today’s scriptures. In the readings from Acts, the Psalm and the Gospel, we see a person being brought back from the brink to a place of safety and healing. That’s central to the issue we’ve been called to focus on today. We’ve been called to think, pray and act on the horrifying epidemic of domestic and family violence against women and children. And we have to make sure this parish is a place of safety and healing for anyone who needs us.

Domestic and Family Violence is abusive behaviour that’s used to control or harm someone in an intimate relationship. It endangers their safety and well-being. It has many faces: coercive control, emotional abuse, verbal abuse, financial abuse, psychological abuse, spiritual abuse, physical abuse, and sexual abuse. And a child witnessing Domestic and Family Violence is suffering child abuse.

Domestic and family violence is rife in Australia and around the world. There’s a world-wide social-media epidemic presenting misogyny and the sexual degradation of women and children as normal; undermining their dignity and their humanity. We Australians export it to more traditional societies through tourism, the internet, and even through some distortions of our Christian teaching. This must stop!

Domestic and family violence is a terrible cause of suffering for many people in the Australian community, and we know the Church is not exempt from this. In fact, a 2021 survey revealed that in our churches more than one in three women and one in seven men report that they have experienced violence. That’s in our churches! And women are far more likely to be impacted by sexual and physical assault and sexual harassment. And yes, this is in the Anglican Church of Australia.

Some church leaders compound the abuse suffered by survivors of domestic and family violence because they wrongly counsel these people to stay in their abusive marriages – telling them to go back and forgive; try to prevent the violence.

Forgiveness should never mean accepting the continuation of violence. And nor is it anyone’s duty to manage how another adult expresses their anger. Everybody feels anger. But to express that anger through violence is a choice. So domestic violence is emphatically not the responsibility of its survivor. It’s the choice, the action and entirely the responsibility of its perpetrator. No ifs or buts!

Some church leaders give wrong advice to stay in an abusive marriage because they read, in a simplistic, literal way, four or five passages from the New Testament. ^{1 Cor 14:34-35, Eph 5:22-23, 1 Tim 2:11-12, 1 Pet 2:18-3:7, Matt 19:3-12} On the basis of this handful of first-century Mediterranean cultural teachings, some church leaders insist that even where there’s domestic violence, wives should submit to their husbands; should forgive; should obey. We know this is often lethal advice. The 2021 survey showed that domestic violence is actually worse in some church contexts than in the wider community, often in the name of these scriptures. If this advice to submit and forgive has ever been given to you or to anyone you know, please hear my apology on behalf of a very fallible Church. Jesus would never have done that to you.

The patterns of Domestic and Family Violence tell us that it is not a one-off matter of the perpetrator losing it or snapping – doing something out of character. No, it’s part of a pattern of controlling, belittling, abusive behaviour; an attitude which is the choice of the perpetrator. It’s a reflection of the perpetrator’s true character.

Domestic Violence is a vile thing and it has no place in any family or relationship – ever! And that goes even more emphatically for the Church, which must be a place of safety and healing. We know how Jesus cared for abused and suffering people. He defended them and challenged their abusers. We are committed to follow his example and teaching; called to follow him, as we saw in today’s scriptures.

We are called by Christ to be communities of healing, of safety, of generosity and respect; called to believe and advocate for survivors of this violence. And we are called to defend survivors from perpetrators, and to challenge perpetrators to turn from the attitudes and actions that they’ve chosen to live by. We are called to help such people re-form their characters into the image of Christ – just as we should all be striving to do with our own lives.

The Anglican Church’s Families and Culture Commission have launched this first Domestic and Family Violence Awareness Sunday to call everyone in the Church to shine a light on this issue. Because abuse thrives if it can hide in shadows. If we turn our backs and say it doesn’t have anything to do with us, that’s to condone it. And we know all too well what happens then. The Church has done that for years to innocent children. We have to make sure the Church is not a safe place for abusers to hide. No, we must be a safe place where survivors are believed, supported, healed and protected; given back a chance at wholeness and hope. Amen

Rev’d Peter Balabanski

Easter 2 – Acts 5 27-32, Ps 118 14-29, Rev 1 4-8, John 20 19-31

I once spent a few unplanned hours in a laundromat. I didn’t have a book with me, and the only reading materials I could find were magazines strategically left there by a religious group. Some of them studied characters from the Bible. I read one about Abraham. Other magazines discussed practical life-questions. I read one about how and why we should discipline our children. In each magazine, any questions that came up were answered by reference to passages from the Bible. The Bible was to be read as the final authority on all questions of personal character, and on the many day-to-day decisions people need to make.

These magazines were produced by a conservative group whose leaders keep a tight rein on the lives of each member. Their articles of faith are very clear and fixed. Deviating from them means a visit from the leaders. If they can’t turn you back to the straight and narrow, then it’s very likely that your membership will be terminated.

In traditional, conservative societies, this is quite common. But in 21^st century Adelaide, it feels strange. Once we leave school, we don’t often have a sense of how serious it is to risk being an outcast. Our mobility and relaxed social ethics give us hundreds of options for finding a place to belong.

So I wonder if any of us can grasp the extreme bravery of Peter and the other Apostles in today’s reading from Acts. They’ve been building a new community of people who share everything in common and publicly proclaiming their message about Jesus’ resurrection of the dead. We come into the story as they’ve just been arrested for a third time and brought before Jerusalem’s religious authorities.

The threat against them is complete exclusion from the religious and social life of their nation. Can you imagine that? It’s like being forced to wear a yellow Star of David in Nazi Germany. Yet Peter – the one who, just weeks ago, we heard denying Jesus three times – Peter takes the role of spokesman, and defies his lawgivers to their faces again. They’re released after a flogging, and yet every day after that, in the Temple and in their homes, they don’t cease to proclaim Jesus as the Messiah.

It’s a very powerful witness to the truth of what they’ve experienced. A simple person like Peter doesn’t change from being a grief-stricken, frightened liar into a powerful, defiant rebel leader unless something absolutely life-changing has happened. Whatever was the worst thing he feared before – death or social ostracism – it has utterly lost its power over him now.

Death certainly has lost its sting; Peter has seen Jesus overcome it. And for him and the others, it’s made the threat of social ostracism irrelevant. Reading this section of Acts, this new community is growing like a bushfire. Peter fears nothing; he and the others who ran away at the crucifixion are utterly transformed people. No fear; nothing but joy and an overflowing message of hope that will not be silenced. Their message is that once Jesus arrives in our lives, we are resurrection people.

This astonishing change in Peter is not the only transformation we witness today. It happens to the other disciples too – and in the Gospel we witness the moment and the manner of that transformation. We come into the Gospel today to find the disciples hiding together behind locked doors for fear of the same religious authorities. But suddenly Jesus is among them – Peace be with you. That fear? Let it go. Here are the wounds they gave me. Even killing me, they couldn’t stop me coming back to you. And he breathes on them: the breath of resurrected life. Receive the Holy Spirit. Together with this astounding blessing of new life, Jesus gives us a very curious gift: If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained. A precious gift won at such a cost to him – now it’s entrusted to us even though you could hardly say we were ready for any responsibility – cringing behind a locked door.

Just as Peter spoke for everyone in Acts, Thomas gives many among us a necessary voice. This bold, outspoken character says what needs to be said for us, who’ve not seen and yet have come to believe. Thomas’ faith is born of doubt; something far richer than a faith based in certainty. Jesus doesn’t reject Thomas for his doubt. Jesus invites Thomas to express his doubt, and to belong out of love; not fear. And Thomas’s great heart responds with the most profound confession of Jesus: My Lord and my God! He and the others saw their Lord risen, and that inspired their journeys of proclamation and baptism to the ends of the earth.

Faith based in certainty is stagnant and dead. But a faith where the possibility of doubt is accepted and taken seriously is something else. Today we’ve seen the beginnings of how that was a crucial part of nurturing a living, growing community of faith. We meet a small group of people who would go on to face decades of suffering and ostracism, and even so, they’d spend the rest of their lives spreading the hope they had in Jesus’ resurrection. Uncertain faith in our Risen Lord Jesus – in the strength of his love – still inspires people to share a hope far richer and far more adventurous than any certainty we might ever have dreamt possible. Can you share this with anyone you know; this uncertain faith?

Think about us as a ‘family’ suitable for ‘Social Prescription’ that a medical professional could consider for people needing community.

Christ is Risen! Alleluia! Amen

Rev’d Peter Balabanski

Easter Morning – Acts 10 34-43, Col 3 1-4, John 20 1-18

Today is the perfect day for the Anglican Church of Australia to enter the Season of Hope. Hope! Everything about today’s celebration of Jesus who rose from the dead tells of our hope as his followers. The fire is both the ancient symbol of God’s presence with us, and a symbol of the new life that raised Jesus from the dead. And the church is filled with flowers to remind everyone of God’s gift of life in all its astonishing diversity. Their myriad colours and fragrances, and the joy of gathering them in harmony celebrates God’s delight in their diversity, and ours. Our hope is alive!

The Easter Candle, sharing its living fire with each one of us; the way it’s marked to bring together infinity and time; the way its depiction this year of eggs, caterpillar, chrysalis and butterfly speak to us of apparent death being nothing more than the start of life in a new and more striking form; all this says too that our hope is alive! We sing this hope; we walk it in pilgrimage together, following the One who – as we said at our gathering – passed over from death to life. Our hope is alive!

Let’s think about that hope? We’ve gathered this morning to celebrate our Lord Jesus Christ ‘passing over from death to life’. It’s a staggering reversal of what we think is normal! We’re gathered to celebrate this miracle, and the hope it gives us.

I remember those whose feet he washed just a few days earlier. After he did it, he told them he’d go and prepare a place for them in God’s house; that he’d come back and take them to be together with him in that place of life. ^Jn14 That’s a promise we remember whenever one of us has died. It’s our certain hope that Jesus will come and take them with him. And they’ll be with him, ready to greet us when it’s our time. We can hope that because of what we celebrate today; Jesus passed over from death to life. Jesus is alive. Our hope is alive!

Maybe it’s hard for us to visualize how this hope might affect the way we live now. For me, we’re given a way to understand that effect in today’s Gospel – in what we just saw happen for Mary Magdalene. She was lost in the despair of Jesus’ death on the cross, and now, weeping before the confusion of a tomb that it seemed to her must have been desecrated. She was utterly gutted of hope.

Then suddenly, the living Jesus calls her by name. One minute, nothing to live for; everything that had given her life any meaning gone. And the next minute, she’s literally got hold again of her living, breathing Jesus. He’s come for her, and she’s fully back in the land of the living. She has hope again. Jesus tells her to go and share that hope with all the others. She’s alive again in a totally new way – and it’s happened for her on this side of death. It has for us too. This is the hope we’re given to live now!

Mary’s experience of renewed life is reflected in our reading from Colossians. You have been raised with Christ … for you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. This happened to Mary; one moment, as good as dead in her despair and horror, and the next, raised to life again by the risen Jesus. In the reading from Acts, we saw a transformed Peter too. Only last Friday we saw him cowed and hopeless. Today, we see him doing as Mary did; taking the hope of Jesus’ resurrection to bring the hope of new life to others.

Jesus’ resurrection is our hope, and it’s a hope the world desperately needs. Today we see that clearly. Death is something people fear; something people do all they can to ignore. It can bleed people of hope. Some use this fear of death to manipulate other people. But if all the poor, frightened, threatened people knew the hope that we share, that in Jesus, our death has already happened, that our new life is in Christ; that we have been raised with him here and now, they could be transformed by that hope.

Nothing prevents physical death from happening for anyone. But people who belong to Jesus have hope because he is alive. People who belong to Jesus have a living hope that’s built on trust in his integrity, built on his love for us, and his call to us to a life that has meaning and purpose. It’s also built on his promise that at our death, our risen Lord will come for us – call us by name, Life is wonderful with this hope. And with a world in such need of this hope, it’s vital that everyone of us shares it.

We were commissioned for this at our baptism. We were called to share with others, by word and example, the love of Christ and his gospel of reconciliation and hope. ^{APBA p. 69}

As we renew our baptismal promises now, let’s re-commit to that. Let’s put this new life of ours at the service of the One who gave it to us – that same hope – and share it with others. Because he was raised for them too. Amen.

Rev’d Peter Balabanski

Maundy Thursday – Ex 12,  Ps 116,  1 Cor 11  Jn 13

Tonight, we’ve heard again how four of our ancient, sacred traditions began – the Feast of the Passover, the Lord’s Supper, the Christian principle of Servant Leadership – shown by washing each other’s feet, and the New Commandment – to love each other like Jesus loves us.

From Exodus, we heard the story of the first Passover – the final rescue of the Hebrew people from slavery in Egypt began with a meal where people ate standing up and dressed for travel – ready to flee at a moment’s notice. It’s called Passover for a strange reason. Before this meal, each household had to sacrifice a perfect, unblemished lamb and roast it over a fire. They had to daub their front door frames with blood from this lamb. The blood would be a sign to protect the household. God was sending the angel of death on Egypt to kill all the first-born in every household. But if the front door frame of a house was marked with the blood of a lamb, the angel of death would pass over without killing anyone within it. A short time later, the Hebrew people were delivered from slavery through the Red Sea.

The Church calls us to read this story tonight because it connects with our Christian story. Our Christian story tells of the blood of a perfect man being the means of our rescue from slavery. We remember this every week at Holy Communion.

Passover meals are happening this week. Jewish people celebrate their rescue and thank God. They drink three cups of wine at this feast: the cup of sanctification celebrates the special bond they have with God; the cup of praise celebrates God rescuing them from captivity; and the cup of redemption celebrates God redeeming them so they are no longer slaves.

In this evening’s Psalm, we read about another cup; the cup of salvation. The Psalmist wants to offer it as a new sacrifice – a sacrifice of thanksgiving, offered by someone who knows freedom in God.

Paul’s letter links the imagery of Exodus and the Psalm as he describes the Last Supper that Jesus shared with his disciples. Jesus is the sacrificial lamb and his blood is our protection. And Paul also names the fourth cup of salvation, which proclaims the Lord’s death until he comes.

Into this mix, the Church also gives us John’ story of Jesus washing the feet of his disciples. It also happened at a meal – but not at the meal we might first think of. The meal where Jesus shared the Last Supper with his disciples in Mt ^26:26-29; Mk ^14:22-25 and Lk ^22:7-20 was the Passover meal. But in John’s gospel the meal where Jesus washed his disciples’ feet happened before the Feast of the Passover ^13.1.

In John’s Gospel Jesus will die on the day of preparation for Passover ^19:31. That’s the time when Passover sacrifices began in the temple.  So in this Gospel, Jesus is the sacrificial lamb––the Paschal Lamb––the Passover Lamb––the Lamb of God who takes away the sins – not only of Israel, but of the world. This is the same as Paul’s understanding; that Jesus’ blood will save us.

But Jesus adds something new to all this. During the meal, he takes off his outer robe and, clothed only in a loincloth, he ties a towel around his waist. Thus dressed as a slave, he washes his disciples’ feet. And afterwards he says, “… if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you.”

So Christian ministry is defined for all of us: the Christian is always a servant, and service is always given for love. It’s summed up in the New Commandment. We care for others like Jesus does as a sign to all people. It’s the reason God’s people were freed from slavery in Egypt, and it’s the reason we’ve been set free from slavery to futility and despair. We are set free to give hope; set free so we can tell people that God loves them. And we are to show them that by serving them and serving each other in love. I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.

This night, we remember Jesus’ blood; we drink it in the Eucharist; Jesus’ blood offered to protect us and all the world from the angel of death. We are given a picture of Jesus as the lamb who gave himself to be sacrificed for us; to free us from slavery; to lead us into a community of freedom and love; to build us up into a people set free to shine in the world’s night, like a bonfire of hope burning on a mountaintop, guiding lost travellers to hope, to safety, to welcome, to love – to Jesus. Amen.

Palm Sunday 13-4-2025 – Phil 2.5-11, Luke 22.14 – 23.56

^{Phil 2.5-8} Christ Jesus, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death – even death on a cross.

Our study group last Tuesday was deeply struck by these words from the Philippians hymn that we just heard read to us this morning.

The Creator and giver of Life empties himself of all power, eternity and majesty – lets go of it. And instead, takes up a simple, mortal existence. And today we see him give up even that; give up even the simple, mortal life that remains to him, in order to ensure our life; my life, your life.

Jesus is the Lord of Life; the Creator. Yet from his own lips in the Passion Gospel, we heard him say just now that he chooses utter humility. And that’s what he wants the powerful among us to do too. In our time of even more than usually hubristic leaders, his words send a very special message to our world.

^{Luke 22.25-27} The kings of the Gentiles lord it over them; and those in authority over those people are called benefactors. But not so with you; rather the greatest among you must become like the youngest, and the leader like one who serves. For who is greater, the one who is at the table or the one who serves? Is it not the one at the table? But I am among you as one who serves.

Jesus put himself at the mercy of all the arrogance and self-delusion of humans who wielded power and absorbed it in his loving humility, exposing its emptiness for all to see. Then he took it with him to the Cross so it should die with him.

His call to his disciples – and they would soon wield great authority – his call to them and to us was always to take the role of the new kid on the block. To work from a posture of humility; to live naïve in the strength of his love. Most of all, he called those of us who are given any authority to let go of the delusion that it gives us any rights or privileges. Instead, he calls us to take hold of the responsibility it lays on us to love humbly. To turn to the sinner on a friendly, neighbouring cross and tell them how they can also be with Christ in paradise today.       Amen

Lent 5C 6-3-2025 – Isaiah 43 .16-21

On one of Richard Fidler’s conversation programmes, he talked with Andrew Harper; a cameleer who took people into the desert for a month at a time. Andrew described how, at the end of each journey, as they walked back into Birdsville his fellow travellers would become sad. Andrew talked about the sadness of ‘leaving my best self back there in the desert’; of his longing to be back there in the silence and the clarity of what’s truly important in life. He described our life in civilisation as a place where we just can’t get that sort of clarity.

This Lent, we’ve been reading scriptures that have taken us into the desert. This Lent has directed our focus at the three aspects of desert spirituality for us. There’s the literal desert that covers much of this Land and shapes what we think is our national consciousness. Then there are metaphorical deserts. The dry times of apathy and loneliness inside us which threaten to consume our life away. And then there are desiccating, enervating setbacks in our community and family life; things like selfishness and indifference.

Our lectionary this Lent has given us weekly Bible stories about people in the desert. Those people have shown us how, when you find ourselves in a desert, you can find a place where you learn to depend on God. One insightful friend told me, the desert isn’t about the absence of God; it’s about depending on God. That’s what we saw first this Lent. We went with Jesus after his baptism as he was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted for forty days. In the face of temptation, Jesus’ response of utter loyalty to God showed us how to stop depending on the transient supports of our everyday life, and instead, depend on God who is faithful.

The next week, we joined Sarai and Abram who’d returned to the Promised Land from Egypt. They felt confronted by their advancing age and the prospect of dying childless and forgotten. God’s response to their prayer happens to be the reason you and I are gathered here today. The desert isn’t about the absence of God; it’s about depending on God. Two weeks ago, we read in Ps 63 how young David was driven into the Judean desert by Saul’s jealousy; the king’s soldiers were ordered to kill David. But there in the desert, he was revealed to us and to himself as the amazing person God had known he was all along.

And last week, it was the Prodigal Son strutting off to his new life in a foreign land. He left his parents in a desert of grief and his brother in the dry place of righteous indignation – never mind the spiritual wasteland he sold himself into.

But amidst his tragedy, Jesus’ parable revealed the beautiful nature of God’s love and grace. That loving grace was the only hope for that family, for their village, and it is our hope too. And it’s there for each to discover in our own private deserts.

These private deserts are part of everyone’s life journeys; places where there seems to be no nourishment or hope; where grief, unforgiveness or disappointment control us. This Lent surprises us as we discover God’s healing love in such dry places. Each desert story has been about the transforming renewal of whole communities; and ultimately about making Earth the place that it should and can be.

The challenge is huge and counter-intuitive. Thinking of dry places on a community-wide scale, many of us will remember the millennium drought. Talk was all about dredging the Murray mouth as we franticly tried to keep the river and the lakes alive. Talk was also about the selfish disregard people from this or that state showed their fellow Australians. It was a bitter time – the water more bitter by the day; the constant to and fro of bitter accusation and angry refusal to turn from the desert of blind selfishness tore at the soul of our national community.

But back to our scriptures. After the past four weeks of temptation, doubt, fear, foolishness, grief and anger, today’s passage from Isaiah 43 is a wonderful refreshment. God is doing much more than just breaking a drought. Thus says the Lord, I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert … to give drink to my chosen people, the people whom I formed for myself so that they might declare my praise. We mustn’t miss the fact that the people still have to cross the desert. But God is with us; making a way, giving us water to drink, sustaining and helping us do what God’s people are always called to do; to offer that water to the world.

Our call is to leave the comfort and security of the familiar and head into the desert, because the desert is the native habitat of our souls; where we can truly be present to God. From there, our praises arise from lived experience as we become instruments of God’s desire to quench the thirst of all the families of Earth.

We don’t have much more time in this year’s Lenten desert. As we prepare for the season of Hope, let’s savour every moment of the clarity we know here in the desert. Those people Andrew the cameleer led back into Birdsville all feeling the letdown of leaving the desert; they’d given the desert a try, and something really important happened. It’s worth us giving it a try too! The desert isn’t about the absence of God; it’s about depending on God.                                              Amen