Rev’d Peter Balabanski

Pentecost + 24b – Ruth 4 – Mark 12

We’ve just heard the joyful end of a love story. But Ruth and Naomi’s story had some tragic moments along the way. It starts and finishes near Bethlehem. Naomi, her husband and their two sons go to Moab across the Jordan to escape a famine. But Naomi’s husband dies. She manages to marry her two sons to Moabite women; Orpah and Ruth so they’re all safely connected with extended family networks. But ten years on, tragedy strikes again. Both of Naomi’s sons die. Now there are three childless widows left to grieve together. Where can they turn?

Naomi hears that the famine in Judah has ended, and so she sets out to travel home. She tells her daughters-in-law to go back to their family homes and try to re-marry. Reluctantly, Orpah does leave her. But Ruth clings to Naomi and says: Where you go, I will go; where you lodge, I will lodge; your people shall be my people, and your God my God. Where you die, I will die – there will I be buried.

Utter commitment; Ruth takes a great risk going with Naomi. Like Abraham, she leaves country, kindred and ancestral home to go somewhere unknown. She does it because she loves Naomi; she’s determined to care for her. So they travel to Bethlehem together. They arrive at the beginning of the barley harvest. To support Naomi and herself, Ruth goes straight to the fields to glean; to gather stalks of grain that the reapers have missed. If she’s lucky, she’ll strike somebody kind. Hebrew Law required reapers to leave something for the poor ^{(Lev 19, Deut 24)}. Not everyone did this, but Ruth found plenty to gather because she struck kind, Godly people.

We find out why they are like this when we first meet the land-owner, Boaz. He and his reapers greet each other respectfully in God’s name when he arrives. Boaz is the head of a decent, caring household. And as it happens, Boaz is a close relative of Naomi’s late husband. ^{Ruth 2.1} He’s exceptionally kind to Ruth. He says he’s heard of her loyalty to Naomi, and he takes Ruth under his wing.

That evening, Ruth finally staggers back to town carrying about fifteen kilos of barley. She’s thoroughly quizzed by Naomi about her extraordinary day. As Naomi hears about Boaz’s gracious care – particularly his willingness to go beyond the requirements of the Law – she begins to see a chance for Ruth.

Hebrew Law calls upon a man to marry his brother’s childless widow so she might have children to inherit her husband’s property. ^{(Deut 25, Gen 38)} Naomi thinks Boaz might just go beyond the call of duty and, even though he’s not a brother, he might marry Ruth anyway.

So as we heard today, Naomi got Ruth to wash and anoint herself, put on her best clothes and head straight back to the farm. She was to seek out Boaz at the threshing floor that night and wait until he’d gone to sleep. This is where the adults only bit begins, so we cut a long story short. Ruth effectively proposes marriage. Boaz is rather pleased but says there’s a possible snag. There is another, even closer relative of her father’s. But he’ll see what he can do. Before dawn, he sends Ruth back to Naomi with a gift of so much grain that it takes a donkey to carry it. Seeing this, Naomi becomes quietly confident.

Boaz heads up to the town gate and the first person he meets there is that other relative. They negotiate the matter in the presence of the gathered elders.

Boaz puts it very cleverly. He makes sure that relative realises that he may claim Ruth’s father’s property, but that if either Boaz or the relative marry Ruth and she bears a son, the son will eventually get the property back. Not only that; Ruth’s son will also have a part-claim on the relative’s estate. That’s something the relative won’t risk that, so before the elders, he takes off a sandal and hands it to Boaz; a gesture which in Hebrew Law says – She’s all yours.

And as we heard, Ruth and Boaz would become the great grandparents of King David. The graciousness of a destitute widow and the decency of a good-hearted farmer are pivotal in the history of God and humanity. The book of Ruth is traditionally read in Synagogues at the feast of Shavuot – the anniversary of the giving of the Law at Mt Sinai. Ruth’s journey from Moab to Bethlehem is seen as an allegory of the people who left Egypt and went to Mt Sinai to receive the Torah.

Ruth’s story, and the Gospel story of the generosity of that poor widow who Jesus sees in the temple, tell us that the loving sacrifices of little people are noticed by God. And by God’s grace, they can shape history in extraordinary ways. In this time where climate change and pandemic weigh so heavily on the poorest and most vulnerable of the Earth community, we should be encouraged to act on our kind, generous impulses to support them. I suspect that it will be one of the poorest of the poor who does something – acts in some way, gives in some way – and God will use their gift to transform history again; that’s my prayer; we should be encouraged as big people in a big wheel – because we have no idea what God might make of our sacrifices. Amen

Vicki Balabanski

Teach us so to number our days. That we may apply our hearts to wisdom. (Ps. 90:12)

All Souls is a time when we sit quietly for a little while with the reality of death. Death of someone or ones we love, and the reality of our own death.

The first time I can remember thinking about death was when I was about 8 years old. It came about when my mother showed me a photo of a girl about my age, a girl I’d never met, called Elsa. My mum said that Elsa had died, and I remember staring at the photo and feeling very sorry for Elsa. As we looked at a photo together, my mother said that God had spared Elsa the sufferings of this world. This wasn’t something that I had expected to hear from my mum – she wasn’t a very pious person.

I remember feeling outraged. Could she possibly think that being spared suffering was enough reason to make sense of Elsa’s death?

In retrospect I admit that maybe mum could really have thought that– her own experiences of life, wartime, being displaced, may have led her to hold that view. Or maybe it was the answer she had been given as a child. I couldn’t accept that there could be any logic to this girl’s death – a girl I had never met, but one who was probably just like me. After all, if there were logic to it, by that logic, God might want to spare me too, and I wasn’t going to agree to that.

Mum was trying to define death as a friend. But I wasn’t going to see it that way. I wanted no such friend.

St Francis of Assisi, in his Canticle of the creatures, Brother sun and sister moon, says something similar:

We praise You, Lord, for Sister Death, from whom no-one living can escape.

Francis invites us to view death as friend, even as our sister. We all have known someone who has reached the point where they are wanting to embrace death as friend. That’s the meaning of the word ‘euthanasia’: good and welcome death.

St Paul, by contrast, sees Death as enemy (1 Cor. 15:26): ‘The last enemy to be destroyed is death’.

The Book of Job is on this side of the ledger, too. Job gives a pretty bleak look at mortality. It’s a passage full of questions about what hope there is if everything ultimately ends in death.  Job ‘numbers his days’ and ‘applies his heart to wisdom’, but at this point in his story, everything seems absurd and futile. The experience of our own mortality can invite us to ponder what really matters in life, or it can leave us feeling very alone, whether there is any meaning to be found at all.

So we have both insights as part of the tradition: death as friend, and death as enemy. We experience both perspectives at times: death as friend, death as enemy.

My mother herself died within two years of that talk, and before a further year had passed, my father died as well. My sister and I were still at Primary School, and we had no family in Australia. As a child, their deaths were the end of my world.

My memories of this time are of fear and also courage, grief, lots of discussion about where we would now live, and a certain isolation that descends when your peers are no longer on the same page as you are. God was present too. Because we were not allowed to view dad’s body nor attend the burial, probably for fear of what the grief might evoke in us, any talk about God was held at arm’s length. In the end, my sister went to live with our next door neighbors.

And I eventually went to live with a family a few doors away that was newer to our community – a Churches of Christ family with three daughters.

Mum and dad’s death was the biggest challenge to my faith that I had ever had or would ever have; how could a loving God let that happen?

John’s Gospel weaves a mysterious picture of death, judgement and eternal life. These are images we often associate with the future, but here we are told that these are already at work here and now. ‘Very truly I tell you, the hour is coming and is now here when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear will live.’ This eternal life is not some future disembodied existence, but life that we’re invited to participate in here and now. We are invited to enter into the life of God, described here as the love of the Father and the Son, which makes space for us.

For my eleven year old self, and for me today, I found that invitation into a life that crosses the boundaries to be compelling. I can’t explain how, but in the darkest of places, I sensed the loving presence of God.

Death is real. It’s the consummate expression of what it is to be human: our creatureliness, our mortality. But death is not the point of it all; life in relationship with the infinitely loving God is the point.

As Jesus says later in this Gospel: I came that they might have life, and might have it abundantly. (John 10:10)

Jesus models a particular type of life: It’s about living a life of generosity and compassion. It’s a life that sits lightly to itself, not constantly worrying about preserving what we will ultimately lose anyway. This sort of life also has something to say about our attitude to our self, our personhood, our soul. Our life, our soul, is found in service: those who put all their effort into preserving their life, their personhood, will lose it. After all, death will be the end of it. But those who voluntarily surrender it, will find that it is caught up in the very life of God.

There are many biblical streams of thought which reflect on death: death as friend, death as enemy. Maybe tonight we can ponder death as a horizon that reminds us to reflect on what really matters. And if we can do so with the sense of God’s loving embrace, death ultimately holds no power over us.

Teach us so to number our days. That we may apply our hearts to wisdom. Amen.

Rev’d Peter Balabanski

All Saints – B  31-10-2021 John 11.32-44

^{Isa 25.7} The Lord will destroy … the shroud that is cast over all peoples … ⁸ the Lord will swallow up death for ever. Then the Lord God will wipe away    the tears from all faces

Since WW2, probably now is the only time this image of a shroud that is spread over all nations can be sensed in this country – the shroud of Covid-19, and the shroud of human-induced planet-wide annihilation. Everyone is threatened with the kind of danger that is normally only faced in a time of war. Death threatens.

Today – All Saints’ Day – we hear the story of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead. The raising of Lazarus is a startling confirmation of the power Jesus claimed over death when he said: Very truly, I tell you, the hour is coming, and is now here, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live.^{Jn 5:25} We’ve just seen Lazarus hear that voice, and we’ll all hear it ourselves one day. So today it’s time to talk about what happens when loved ones die.

One of the central things Christians believe is that Jesus gives believers eternal life. John’s gospel speaks of this gift often. ^{(Jn 3.16,17,36, 4.14,36, 5.24,39, 6.27,40,47,54,68, 10.28, 12.25,50, 17.2,3)} The special meaning of this gift that we celebrate today is that our loved ones who’ve died are not dead to God. Even though, to us, our loved ones are gone for now, we believe that they are alive in the presence of God. To us, they rest in peace, awaiting the last day; the day when all will be raised and Jesus will come a second time to judge the living and the dead. We may be constrained in time, but time is within God. So both the living and the dead are present to God.

This means that all the people around the world who gather for worship today are not the whole Church. On All Saints’ Day, we celebrate a Church that is much bigger than we can see. We look around at each other today and we see visible saints. But we don’t just gather with the believers we can see. We believe we’re also surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses (μαρτυρεῖτε), as our prayer book says every saint’s day. I’m sure I sometimes hear them joining in when we sing together.

These invisible witnesses are in God’s presence – veiled from us, but alive to God. Our Scripture sentence today from Revelation gives us a fabulous vision of what we’ll see when the veil is removed: I looked, and there was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb…^{Rev 7.9}

It’s a huge vision; a vision of what Jesus’ work finally achieves; the consummation of the great search and rescue mission that each and every one of us is engaged in.

I marvel at this; that we each have a part to play in something so huge – a movement that means we and that countless multitude of saints can celebrate the end of all bitter tears – can celebrate an eternity of joyful peace in the company of those we love, and in the presence of the God who loves us and wants us together like this!

In today’s Gospel, we see the face of the God who makes it all happen. There are tears of deep compassion on that face! Jesus weeps with his friends in their grief – the same Jesus who summons his dead friend from the grave. Jesus weeps for the death of Lazarus and for the pain of those who love him. Jesus shows us God’s compassion for you and me. And out of that compassion, Jesus acts with appalling power. Jesus’ tears are the compassion God feels for the suffering of all the living. And his summons to Lazarus to come out from the tomb is what Jesus will call each one of us to do.

What will that day be like? When I think about this mighty sign of Lazarus’s raising, I’m reminded of Ezekiel’s thundering oracle: Then you, my people, will know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves and bring you up from them. I will put my Spirit in you and you will live. ^{Ezek 37.13-14}

The raising of Lazarus is a story of what God does – the lengths God goes to – to make faith possible for us – to make possible a free relationship between a frail, half-seeing person and our God who loves us. In Jesus, God comes and cries our tears with us, and in God’s time, will come to our graves and call us out from them.

These are not stories made up to create a system of belief. They are genuine stories told by people who experienced them as Good News – written down so that we might be encouraged by this Good News and have some hope in our lives that is greater than just an end to grief. And these stories which hold the rumour of God’s love for this world – these stories have been preserved, experienced, lived and told by generations down the ages – continuing with us – the saints.

These people are all the saints whom we honour today – the billions of ordinary people down through the ages who have lived and transmitted to us the resurrection faith; our hope of an eternal life of peace and joy with our loved ones under the delighted smile of our God. Thus the beautiful 27^th Psalm says, I believe that I shall see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. ^{Ps 27.13}

So, with all the saints, we praise our God through Jesus Christ our Saviour. Amen.

Rev’d Peter Balabanski

Pentecost + 22   – Mark 10 46-52  Blind Bartimaeus

One of the oldest prayers of the Church is called the ‘Jesus Prayer’. Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. It should ring a bell; we sing a version of it every Sunday in the Kyries – Lord have mercy. And today we heard it when Bartimaeus cried out to Jesus, ‘Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me’. His cry is one of the earliest forms of the Jesus prayer we have. And my experience of this prayer is that when you pray it, things really happen.

Sr Joan Chittister ^OSB says “…prayer is not something given to us to change the world. It’s meant to change us, so that we can change the world.” Please hear that carefully; prayer is given to us. Does that match what we think prayer is?

I think this means that the words we pray may be ours, but what makes them prayer is a gift from God. It’s only possible that our words become prayer because God has reached out to us first; God has come near to us, like Jesus did for Bartimaeus. Without that nearness, there’s no prayer; just words. God coming near is the enabling thing; it gives us the gift of prayer.

“…prayer is not something given to us to change the world. It’s meant to change us, so that we can change the world.”; it’s given to us to enable change

Today we see that gift for change at work. Bartimaeus refuses to let his gift be silenced or controlled. The immediate effect on him is that his prayer sets him free from worry about his most precious belongings; they are the good will of his neighbours, and his beggar’s cloak – both absolutely critical to his survival. He ignores his neighbours’ attempts to control his access to Jesus. And he throws off his cloak. He might never find it again. Bartimaeus discarding his cloak becomes for us an image of someone who leaves their old life behind when he springs up to go to Jesus. “…prayer is not something given to us to change the world. It’s meant to change us, so that we can change the world.” …

Prayer changes the people around Bartimaeus because of this change they see in him – he changes from a beggar into a disciple. As Bartimaeus blindly feels his way towards Jesus, people who, moments ago, were trying to shut him up have turned into his cheer squad. They were an impediment to his healing one minute, and an aid to it the next. “…prayer is not something given to us to change the world. It’s meant to change us, so that we can change the world.”

In today’s Gospel passage, I see this understanding of prayer come to life in a way that confronts me head on. I feel Mark’s eyes on me. I’m one of that capricious crowd. First I’m trying to gag Bartimaeus – sternly ordering him to be quiet – and then the moment Jesus has said the magic words, ‘call him here’, I change and become all friendly and encouraging; ‘Take heart; get up, he is calling you.’

I’m afraid that first reaction is sometimes my instinctive behaviour when I’m confronted by overwhelming need; need that I can’t possibly meet myself. Rather than refer it on to Jesus, who can meet any need, I can be tempted to turn a blind eye to the need: to turn my back; “what can I do about it?” And if it’s insistent, I might even be tempted to discourage the messenger from telling me about it.

When I do that, who’s being blind to what Jesus can do? Who needs to be changed? Today, Mark helps us see a blind beggar sitting next to the dusty road that runs up from Jericho to Jerusalem. I wouldn’t have seen him otherwise. And that beggar Bartimaeus – son of honour – teaches me and the rest of the crowd that we’re blind to Jesus – blind to his love, and so blind to the real reason of his coming. The blind man reveals this to us; to people who can be spiritually blind.

We learn through the gift of prayer to see people who pray out of deep need; we learn to see them as Jesus sees them – not in terms of how they inconvenience or embarrass us with our inadequacy – but through the eyes of love. And that changes us. It changes us so we become ready to be Christ on earth now – his body – and in his power, to throw off our mantle and step forward to change the world.  Amen

Personal reflections on the St John the Evangelist Halifax Street Adelaide, History of a Colonial Church (working draft 2021).

Judy Gilbertson

Firstly, I must say that I could never be construed as a historian. At St Johns that cap fits firmly on two heads whom we all know and respect. But I do find enjoyment in good stories and this church certainly has a few.

Guests who roam around our church may wonder at the aged fixtures, beautiful glass windows and … they may even look at the Rood and wonder where these features all came from…and indeed they should. For we are a part of this city’s colonial past and on a journey to this present moment.

When Rev’d James Farrell sailed from the motherland to lead his new congregation at St Johns- in -the- Wilderness he was no doubt full of energy. He was sent out into the bush to find his church only to discover its foundations. The tears he is said to have shed can be understood as he was expecting something much much better.

Eventually the church was built but it was far from serviceable. Indeed, it was with time so woebegone (according to Rev’d Slaney Poole) that it was condemned by the City Council. The walls were out of plumb and cracked and the floor a home to white ants. All I can say is that the parishioners must have been sturdy folk at that time. Given our risk management focus these days most of us may have felt compelled to stay at home, or listen to the service from one of the cracks in the walls.

With the passage of time a new church was built and many of the old bricks provided for the building of what is now known as St Mary Magdelene….so all was not lost. The style of that new church is the form we have today.

Over the next few decades, the depression, world wars, and indeed the great flood of the river Murray created havoc in society. St Johns led the way with youth shelters and accommodation for homeless men and women. We should be proud as parents of these programs.

More recently arrangements with the Society of the Sacred Mission proved hugely beneficial to both parties. It seems to me that a pivotal point came when Father Christopher Myers was appointed as he took to heart the outcomes of the Second Vatican Council. I recall him saying to me how important he thought visual experience and power of beauty was to worship “to move people beyond words alone.”

Thus began a monumental shift in the St Johns interior decor. I have no doubt many of you may recall those heady days of renovation. They must have been all consuming. Ron Danvers told me that when Father Christopher hung the Rood, he felt the church’s keystone was at last in place…. how special is that!

To those of you who are part of that history and the wonderful restoration work I say thank you.

Looking back over our grand history I am taken by the faith, resilience, and sheer determination of our forebears. Even we, who seem to live in a time bubble, can if prompted, look back at our youth and marvel at the journey that has led us here.

The thing that is the bedrock of our lives, and that unites us as a community is our faith. Without this certainty and guidance, life would be lived from one moment to the next and from one challenge to the next, without recourse to a rationale for the journey we seem to be on. Similarly church life can either be lived thinking of short-term goals or perhaps expanding them to a more distant horizon, the “long game”. That is the difference between strategies quickly achieved and those that are worked through over time.

I would like to think that at some point in the future a historian will say …look at the St Johns church and its community…still strong and purposeful. They must be blessed … and indeed we are. Let’s be grateful for God’s guidance and for providing us with an anchor and strength as we move through this life to the next.

But let’s also look at the journey of our forebears as they can teach us much.

David Hilliard OAM

St John’s is one of a handful of congregations in Adelaide which have had a continuous existence since the early years of the colony of South Australia. And unlike most of the others it remains on the same site.

In reading the history of this church, which was initiated by Caroline Adams and Ted Ward and brought to completion by Judy Gilbertson, I am struck by these particular features.

Churches change. This is pretty obvious. And they have their ups and downs. St John’s had a near-death experience in the 1970s and was rescued by the arrival of the Society of the Sacred Mission which brought in new people and revitalised the parish. Sunday worship and the preaching at St John’s in the 1840s was very different from, say, 1901 and there are many differences between 1950 and the present.

This is one of the few churches in the south-east corner of the city of Adelaide and therefore it has a unique relationship with this area. The only other churches are, I think the Christian Spiritualist church in Carrington Street and the Christadelphian Temple in Halifax Street which do not see themselves as part of the local community. Madge Memorial Methodist Church, further west along Halifax Street, was closed in 1960.

When this area was thickly inhabited St John’s was parish church for all sorts of people who lived here, in the big houses along East Terrace and the little cottages in the side streets. This is shown by the number of names on the First World War honour roll of young men from the parish who served and died. But today St John’s does not have the same local connections that it once did and not many parishioners live in the area. For the people who occupy the cafes and restaurants in Hutt Street on Sundays this church is foreign territory.

For much of the last 130 years, since the opening of the new church in 1887, St John’s has a strong tradition of church music. In the early years there was large choir of men and boys and H. P. Finniss, who was rector in the 1920s was a noted church musician. In recent years this tradition has been revived. The church has come to be a popular location for concerts and recitals.

Notable people have been associated with this church. Not many can claim as a parishioner a professor who was later awarded a Nobel Prize – Sir William Bragg. Many parishioners have played an important role in the public life of this city and state.

The people of St John’s have not been concerned only with personal piety and the church world. They have looked outside. They have sought to meet the physical needs of people of the area – relief during the Great Depression, Father Wallace’s assistance to homeless men in the 1970s, and notably the youth shelter that evolved into St John’s Youth Services.

There is much to be proud of. However, no church can live off its history. This church has shown that it can adapt. It has great resources to meet the challenges ahead.

Caroline Adams

As the second Anglican church in South Australia St John’s holds an important place in the European history of the colony. Since its shaky beginnings from the laying of the foundation stone in October 1839 and its early meetings in the ‘Temple of Ease’ in Halifax Street it has been a part of Adelaide life. It has been a constant through depressions, wars, good times and pandemics. Such as constant can be a great comfort to the community. It is also important to consider that the land that St John’s was built on was sacred to the traditional owners. In a way we are continuing to uphold a sense of sacredness.

Researching the history of St John’s allows me to enter into the lives of others. Yes, the past is a foreign country that we can never fully understand, but we can appreciate the faith of those who came before us, from Jane Cox of Derby who, it is reported in 1841 donated amongst other things, some 200 hymn books to the fledging church, to local parishioner Professor Bragg. (How many churches can boast a Nobel prize winner as a sidesman!) Reading old copies of the parish magazine reveals that they had similar issues to us, from fund raising activities to caring for the welfare of others. They also had to deal with war, and indeed much of the fabric of the church has some connection to the memory of those who served Australia in war, from the memorial candlesticks (and snuffer) to the font and various stained-glass windows. There is a certain incongruency in that so much of the beauty of the church, much commented upon by visitors, is as a result of such remembrance.

Rev Don Wallace, writing on the 125th anniversary of St John’s wrote how ‘[T]he original St John’s congregation were pioneers. They faced the task of establishing a nation, and the equally formidable task of meeting and dealing with all the new knowledge that was just waiting to be born …’. In the 21st century we are still pioneers, exploring how we can best use technology, negotiating living in a postmodern world with a multiplicity of voices and working out how we can live ecologically sound in God’s creation. Perhaps in years to come, historians will be writing about how we, in our little corner of Adelaide, tackled these challenges.

Rev’d Peter Balabanski

Pentecost + 20 B – Job 23 1-9, 16-17, Ps  22 1-15, Heb 4 12-16, Mk 10 17-31

^{Heb 4.15} we don’t have a high priest who’s unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sin.

Today our scripture readings are about people being tested: their pain thresholds are tested; their faith is tested; their relationships with family and friends are tested; their commitment to God is tested. We’ve heard Job’s cry of fearful despair, ¹⁷If only I could vanish in darkness, and thick darkness would cover my face. Then the Psalmist’s anguished cry, My God, I cry to you by day, but you don’t answer: and by night also I take no rest. And in the Gospel, when Jesus calls the rich man to exchange his worldly inheritance for the inheritance of eternal life he seeks, the test is beyond him, and we witness his shocked grief as he goes away from Jesus.

We’d have more difficulty relating to all this if it hadn’t been for the past eighteen months where the pandemic response has seen the world turned upside down for us and billions of people. Old certainties have been swept away; connections with friends and family cruelly disrupted; people’s jobs dramatically changed – if they haven’t disappeared altogether – and making plans for the future has become frustratingly provisional. Most unusually for citizens of a country like Australia, we’ve had a taste of what life is like for much of the world much of the time. So this morning’s readings may speak to us more immediately than they usually do.

Job, the Psalm and the Gospel give eloquent portraits of human suffering in the face of God’s apparent silence, and Hebrews gives us Christ entering into that pain as both the mediator between us and God, and as the embodiment of both us and God. ^{Heb 4.15} we don’t have a high priest who’s unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sin.

This comes up in so many conversations – the question of where God is when it hurts. So many people are caught up in the apparent meaninglessness of their chronic pain, or that of their loved ones. Yet we, the Church, assert that God loves us. Does this make sense? How can God really be loving if this sort of thing is allowed? There are people all over the world asking this question right now – children orphaned by Covid, medical staff bearing the brunt of the unspeakable suffering of patients cut off from their families.

Online, there’s a parallel pandemic of unfeeling opportunism which makes things even worse for the victims of Covid. Where on earth is God? It’s no wonder that people feel cut off from the love of God when so much of the commentary offers such a cruel parody of the care God wants for them. People feel cut off.

Our readings today speak out of that experience of being cut off. They face the fact head on that being a person of faith doesn’t give us immunity from suffering or misfortune or unfulfilment. Job’s is a story of someone whose world collapsed around him. His neighbours turned out to be the exact opposite of the proverbial friends in need. His faith was no guarantee of him finding meaning in his suffering. And the Psalmist laments God’s silence in the midst of terrible pain. And then, out of the blue, we run into that rich man in the gospel. He had all his financial and religious ducks in a row in this life, but he wasn’t confident of his place in the next.

Faith is no insurance against being a mortal human. The rich man sensed this, so he asked Jesus, what must I do to inherit eternal life?’ It’s a question someone only asks if they’ve inherited everything they need in this life. Now he wants to know how he can inherit the life to come? The heart of this story is where Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said, ‘You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you’ll have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.’ Give away your family inheritance; your responsibility to your parents and your children; all you’ve been entrusted with; everyone you belong to. Go, give it to the poor. Then come and join me, says Jesus. I offer you a new family; me and my followers.

Jesus, looking at us, loves us. He calls us to be his family – to work with him to alleviate people’s poverty, their fear, their illnesses and their loneliness – to adopt these dear ones into Christ’s family by being family to them, and by doing that, to end the silence they’ve endured when they cried out for God.

And these stories today make me ask if there’s one more thing Jesus is asking of us – whether we may need to experience alienation and suffering and uncertainty like Job and the Psalmist and the rich man did so that we can offer true compassion to the poor and the needy – the compassion that comes from experience – maybe even of poverty. Then through us, these dear ones might just meet the one who’s able to sympathize with all our weaknesses, because we’ve been tested as they are.  Amen

Rev’d Peter Balabanski

St Francis Sunday – Season of Creation 5B

For me, this Season of Creation has again been one of deep challenge. In no other season of the year are we challenged so directly to renounce our current lifestyle and live simply so that others may simply live. The immediate urgency of that message is amplified by the international Covid vaccine disparities. While we rich countries discuss the possible benefit of a third booster dose, millions fall ill in poor countries and their health systems collapse as their governments cry out for even a first dose. What on earth do we think we’re doing?!

Live simply so that others may simply live. It’s very like a call to renounce the world of materialism and enter a religious order, and by doing that, to choose to proclaim the Gospel through a decision to live simply. Franciscans and many other orders choose a life of poverty, chastity and obedience; a choice for renunciation.

I had a childhood where a type of renunciation was a very attractive proposition; it was taken up by people who were just a little bit older than me. Their way was to drop out, leave the rat-race behind and embrace peace and love. It was the reaction of young, idealistic people against the lifestyle of their parents and the Vietnam War. They sang about these things in the protest songs of their era, and they carried their message to the world in VW Kombi vans painted with iridescent flowers. It’s an irony that some of them grew up to become prominent billionaire entrepreneurs.

So I’ve been left with an ethos inside me that’s a combination of the flower-power peacenik, the Sermon on the Mount, and Jesus’ command to mission. And on St Francis’ Day, it all comes to a head. It’s been given a much sharper edge by the intertwined messages of this year’s Season of Creation – creation care and social justice. They can’t be separated. I’m also aware that this Season of Creation is being observed by people of other faiths too. The call to detach ourselves from the ties that bind us to selfish lives, and instead live in simple ways that leave enough for everyone and everything to share in life; this rings true in other world faiths too.

So what are the next steps? Overcoming fear is one of them. Rowan Williams says that when we are healed of our sin and our fear, when we find our healing, our deliverance from selfishness and greed and anxiety, it begins to make a mysterious difference to everything. We begin to see that God’s purpose for the whole creation is glory for all that is made, where human beings share with all other things. As St Paul puts it, creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. ^{Rm 8.21} What joy!

Rowan Williams says that somehow our deliverance into joy and thanksgiving – into reconciliation with God and one another – spills over into the reconciliation and the transfiguration of the whole world we’re in. Our liberation is the world’s liberation. Good news for us should be good news for the whole of God’s world.

So for us to be sharing good news with the whole human race and the whole world in which and from which we live, means first of all for us to be set free; set free from the myth that somehow human beings really exist somewhere else than in the world as it truly is; that somehow we’re in charge; that somehow this is given to us to use as we wish, as if we were not embodied but disembodied.

Rowan Williams says we need to be delivered from all that. We need to be delivered not only from untruth but from fear; the fear that if we take steps of courage and generosity in relation to the world and to each other, that there’s anything fearful in that. We can live simply so that others may simply live. And that’s a new life; life for us, life for our neighbours, life for the creation in which God has placed us. That’s something for joy not fear. So let’s focus on the thanksgiving and the wonder of the gift we’ve been given in our universe. And the gift of faith, perspective, courage, and spirit-filled vision that is ours.

It starts right now. We begin this right now with our prayers for healing. Today, they’re worded in a way that calls each of us to the vocation of healing; healing for each other, healing for the sick and the poor, and healing for the Earth. Amen

Father John Beiers

As we read the Psalms, we become aware that the writers stood in awe of the created world, and constantly praised God as the creator. Over and over again, we read phrases like…(Ps. 8:4&5) “when I consider the heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and stars that you have set in order, what are we that You should be mindful of us?” Also Ps. 19:1 “The Heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament proclaims His  handiwork.” The Hebrews recognised the splendour of God’s creation, praised Him for it, and pointed out that only the wisdom and power of God could bring it into being. Indeed this was their proof of the existence of God.

As a child, the beauty and immensity of the created world was wondrous to me, but it did not yet point me to the glory of God, the Creator. But, as a child, I wondered why orange trees always produced oranges, and not avocados sometimes, or a mixture of both. Something or someone of intelligence was keeping things constant, not chaotic. As I learned about God through correspondence Sunday School lessons, I came to understand that God was the source of a stable and reliable creation all around me. How wonderful! And here are some instances that struck me as wonderful, and revealed a God of glory to me.

Brisbane Sunsets

Real awareness began when I was about 18, and the family had moved to Brisbane. We lived in an old Queenslander house on the top of a hill, in a suburb called Wavell Heights. The front verandah looked to the West, and often in the Summer there would be a heavy rainstorm at the end of the day. Residual clouds packed like fairy floss on the top of the ranges in the distance, at sunset, with colours that dazzled you. They were bright red, luminous green, royal purple, shiny yellow, and all colours in between. It was unbelievable. It made my heart glow. It made me think of God, in whom there is no darkness at all. The clouds could have been all black, grey and brown…but they weren’t. Neither was a rainbow, when it appeared. Nor was sunrise. Clouds were white, except when warning us of a storm. It seems that God planned the colours of such events to lift up the human heart, and to be glorious to behold. I was beginning to see the glory of God displayed in His creation.

I sometimes mentioned these wonders to others, and if they hesitated to use the word “God”, they gave the credit to a wondrous woman called Mother Nature. I could never track her down. There was no record of Father Nature, nor their children, but she seemed to be the source of all the wonders of creation, and no-one knew where she lived.

Reading the History of the Earth:

I was starting to see the Wisdom of God all around. At University I studied Mining Engineering and one major subject was Geology. Like all geology students, I bought myself a little geology pick, to collect specimens of rock. We would be travelling in the car, and I would say, “Dad! Stop” . He would say, “Oh, no, not again, more rocks to take home!” We were also taught how to read the history of local areas by studying exposed rock faces in quarries and road cuttings. The highway cuttings through the sandstone north of Sydney were great, but the cuttings on the South Eastern Freeway from Adelaide were the best. Clear for all to see were layers of sand, then clay, then maybe ocean sediments, where maritime fossils stood out. You could see where there had been a fault, where the earth had moved, and layers shifted relative to each other. Our geological history was not chaotic, but ordered, controlled by an intelligent mind.

Made in the Womb:

In the Old Testament, Psalm 139 says:-   “For you have created my inward parts:  you knit me together in my mother’s womb. You knew my soul, and my bones were not hidden from you; when I was formed in secret, and woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my limbs when they were yet imperfect. Day by day they were fashioned: and not one was late in growing.”

Even then, King David and others recognised that the world had  not randomly developed, but was the product of a divine intelligence, which maintained order and constancy. If it were not so, then woman could give birth to animals, fruit trees would produce any fruit at all, flowers would be chaotic, and the atmosphere would be totally unpredictable .Life would be unbearable and we would go mad in the confusion of it all.

Evensong in the Grove:

As part of creation, we have an ability  to recognise its beauty and attraction. For example, when, on one occasion, as a Bush Brother I was on a long drive from one centre to another, I saw a grove of tall trees on a sand hill just off the road a bit, I was drawn to stop and have my Evening Prayers there. I later mentioned this to Brother Godfrey, who said, “That is strange. I was attracted to something in that Grove, and I say Evening Prayer there too!”

Flying from Birdsville to Alice Springs:

Now that is a small thing, but significant to me. Now for something bigger. I have already told some of you here today about the following  phenomenon, so please forgive the repetition. I was elected to be Head Brother of the Bush Brothers, and part of my duty was to visit other Brothers in isolated places to encourage them in their ministry. I was greatly blessed to have a Cessna 182 to get around all over Western Queensland and NSW and the NT. I was the pilot. It so happened that I needed to fly to Alice Springs, and the fastest way was from Birdsville, a distance of about 600 km. This required me to cross the Simpson Desert, which I had never done before, and which, quite frankly, scared me a bit.

Our plane had two Automatic Direction Finders, or ADFs. Nearly alI aerodromes at that time had a radio beacon which broadcasted a signal in all directions, on a particular frequency, which could be picked up by an ADF in a plane. The ADF’s needle then pointed to the destination. I knew that I would lose the Birdsville signal about 100 km out into the Desert, and that there would be a considerable time before I could pick up the signal from Alice Springs. I would be flying about 100 km or more without any visible means of knowing where I was, but I would have radio contact with Alice Springs for some of the way. So I sat down with my aeronautical maps, and studied the route. There was sandhill after sandhill for most of the route. But I discovered something wonderful. Every sandhill was recorded on the map, all the way along my path. This meant that those hills were stationary. They did not move. They could be used as landmarks for navigation. Some forked then rejoined, some just terminated. Others just started. Obviously, God had designed them especially for aviators.

So then, with full fuel, I started the engine, and activated the signal from the Birdsville beacon, about 100 metres away. It was a strong signal. Then I switched on my second direction finder, dialled up Alice Springs, and, wonder of wonders, the needle slowly swung round to point to Alice Springs. It should not have happened like that. I was not in the air, and I was certainly out of range. Thanks be to God, I now felt much better. The trip went well, with recognisable sandhills all along the path.

But it doesn’t have to be something major like that trip over the desert to see the glory of creation. Anyone can see it.  Consider a sunflower. It’s big and there is an evident pattern to the arrangement of its parts ,which never changes. It is called fractal, and it happens with many flowers. Here is a tiny flower, so small that it takes a magnifying glass to see the detail. And guess what? It has the same repeated pattern of a fractal. Coincidence? I don’t think so. God appears to have a whimsical nature.

Conclusion:

Finally, I want to say that God’s Creation is wonderful for us, like it was for the Hebrews, even if we live in a technological world, and that it is relatively stable, allowing for the fact that Los Angeles is prone to earthquakes, that Hawaii has active volcanoes, and that certain islands grow while others disappear. If we respect these anomalies, then our world is a safe and predictable place to be. If we know that our wildlife has specific habitats, we must respect and preserve them. But, above all, it is clear to see, for those who open their eyes, that our God has created a place of wonder, keeping it all in balance, where we can live in harmony with it all. And if you are spiritually depressed, look into a tiny flower, and realise that God made it to lift your heart to Him, and say “Thank you”.   End.

Rev’d Peter Balabanski

SOC 3  – The family of God in our Common Home – Prov 31, Ps 1, Jas 3-4, Mk 9 30-37

A capable wife who can find? What we heard from Proverbs today is the culmination of the book. The environmental scientist and priest, Shaun Cozett writes, [It’s a book where] Wisdom is often spoken of in feminine terms. So to speak of Wisdom as a woman or a wife is nothing strange. Here … Wisdom models the way to look after our home. … She ensures that everyone and everything can flourish: her family¹⁵, the poor²⁰, the land¹⁶ and the economy.²⁴

I notice too ‘she’s not afraid for her household’²¹ and ‘she laughs at the time to come’.²⁵ If only that were true for everyone now.

The Season of Creation is a time when we, the Church, focus on something called incarnational spirituality – the understanding that a physical, flesh-and-blood life can be a true expression of the Spirit of God. We Christians know this most clearly expressed in Jesus, the Word of God, born and living as one of us.

With Jesus as our central focus, we might easily overlook a passage like Proverbs 31 where the Spirit of Wisdom is presented to us incarnated as a woman. Like Jesus, she embodies Wisdom’s gracious and life-affirming nature. She too is an expression of incarnational spirituality. The lesson she offers is that every aspect of our physical life is spiritually significant; our choices and actions don’t just affect ourselves and other people; they are important to God, and essential to true flourishing. That’s the message of today’s Psalm too; we are to be like trees planted by streams of water, who yield our fruit in due season.

Our New Testament scripture readings, like the Psalm, present us with the seriousness of choosing otherwise. We get a sense from them of the destructive power of passions, divisions, bitter jealousies, selfish ambition, and competition. James describes as demonic the way these impulses can distort wisdom.

We saw Jesus confronted by these impulses among his followers today. For a second time – even despite the disastrous episode with Peter we saw last week – Jesus tries to teach them about his death and resurrection. Again they don’t get it. Their response is to argue among themselves about who is the greatest. So Jesus teaches them that leadership is service, not dominance. ^{Mk 9.36} Then he takes a little child … in his arms, and says to his disciples, ³⁷ ‘Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.’ Yet another chance! That’s grace at work for you.

True leadership is shown in care for the most vulnerable, and it is in giving this particular kind of care – where we don’t anticipate a repayment or a higher status for ourselves – it is in service and care that we meet God in each other and in ourselves.

In the language that incarnational spirituality might apply to this sort of choice, we’d be exercising our primal vocation to serve and care for Earth ^{Gen 2.15}, and realising our primal identity as Earth-creatures made in God’s image and likeness. ^{Gen 1.27}

That’s what the Woman-Wisdom of Proverbs is teaching us; what the birth and ministry of Jesus is teaching us; that we can embody God’s life-giving kindness and service too. The Good News is that God offers us divine wisdom and the rewards of wise living, even while we are still acting unwisely. That’s Shaun Cozett’s helpful paraphrase of Romans 5.8 – God proves God’s love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us. Here it is again; God offers us divine wisdom and the rewards of wise living, even while we are still acting unwisely.

So we are called to Earth care. Those who are teaching us about the best exercise of this care – scientists who work in meteorology, biology, oceanography and geography, and agencies of the United Nations and NGOs who work with the people and other creatures hardest hit by global heating and habitat destruction – they are all crying out to everyone to do what we can. Wisdom cries out in the marketplace, and thankfully, many people are answering that call.

In this Season of Creation, the world’s churches and people of all other faiths are joining together in an unprecedented alliance to heed these calls for concerted action. I’ve given you a link in my weekly so you can connect with an organisation which is coordinating this multi-faith action. https://greenfaith.org/faiths4climatejustice/ There is much to be done in a country where the government is wilfully blind and deaf to wisdom’s cries for climate justice and the preservation of life, and instead places its faith, and the welfare of our region, in unspecified technology and a wild ‘for-ever-after’ arms race.

Wisdom’s call and our united response could not be more urgent. At deanery this week, as we were talking about these things, our Area Dean, Jenny Wilson shared a powerful statement from Dr Elizabeth Johnson SOSJ which drives home the meaning of inaction; Extinction is the death of birth itself. ^{https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NFZnJ9Q6_Ds}

Shaun Cozett asks, Could Earth be facing what Jesus was trying to teach his apostles in today’s gospel: “I will be handed over to people who will kill me…”? It’s the poorest and most vulnerable of Earth’s people and the creatures of Earth who have no voice, those who have done nothing to create this crisis, who are the first to bear its horror.

Jesus takes them in his arms and says to us now, ‘Whoever welcomes one such little one in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.’ Wisdom cries out to be visible, active, engaged – Wisdom must not let herself be gagged. God offers us divine wisdom and the rewards of wise living, even while we are still acting unwisely. I pray that we and people of faith everywhere may follow her lead.  Amen

Rev’d Peter Balabanski

SOC 2  – Mark 8.27-38

^{Mk 8.34} Jesus called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them, ‘If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. ³⁵ For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. ³⁶ For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life?

We’ve probably heard these words all our lives, and each time, we may have wondered what they’re asking of us. Jesus calls to the crowd and the disciples, it says. This is Mark’s way of saying that Jesus is looking straight out of the page at you and me – the crowd; it’s Mark’s way of saying Jesus is calling to each of us, and if we want to be his followers, we are meant to respond to this.

The words about gaining the whole world speak directly to me. I lack for nothing in this world. Yet I’ve just heard Jesus equate worldly gain with forfeiting life, and losing life for his sake and for the sake of the Gospel as the way of salvation. I’m strongly reminded of the words I quoted from Rev Sabelo Mthimkhulu last week. Those of us who live comfortable lives, can no longer live as if we are ignorant of the links between our comforts – built on exploitative and unsustainable economic practices – and the suffering of the poor. … So what’s a way forward?

Roman Catholic social teaching has always been very forthright. Discussing today’s gospel ^{(in materials I’ve sent you)}, they make a clear link between those who lose their life for Jesus’ sake, and for the sake of the gospel and the ones they call present-day climate martyrs. They write, ‘people around the planet who are raising their prophetic voices for Care of Earth and Care of the Poor in these times are enduring the resistance, persecution, suffering, and death we hear about. They make up a community of the human martyrs of this age, joining the plants, animals and other species suffering extinction from the effects of human-generated climate change. These human martyrs have numbered between one and two hundred each year in the last two decades and represent all major areas of the planet: powerful witnesses calling us all to the seriousness of our mission and to courage and hope.’

This is powerful teaching; it presents contemporary examples of people who deny themselves, take up their cross and follow Jesus. And it’s very, very confronting for ‘developed-world’ Christians. It’s a call to each of us to make real sacrifices for the sake of the Earth and for the sake of the Poor. I know that some of the goods and services I consume here cause the sufferings and deaths of poor people and wild creatures. If I wish to be a follower of Jesus, I must change the way I live, and I must urge people of influence to change the way the economy operates.

A story of economic regulations imposed on the economies of poor countries burdened by loans. These so-called ‘structural adjustments’ are required by the World Bank and International Monetary Fund who act on behalf of wealthy donor nations. The loan recipient countries are required to sell essential utilities to foreign bodies, and ordered to gear their primary industries – agriculture and resource extraction – so as to generate cash to service the loans. The fact that these requirements are imposed on many countries, and many are required to produce the same ‘cash crops’ simultaneously mean that the World Bank can ensure that we of the rich world pay these countries rock-bottom prices for them, and so the loans can almost never be paid off; eg, sugar in the 1980s and palm oil now.

If I wish to be a follower of Jesus, I must change the way I live, and I must urge people of influence to change the way the world economy operates. As a group, we’re not good at hearing this. We sing God’s praises for the plenty we enjoy. But if we get fired up to protest, it’s about personal liberties being infringed by others – like the Taliban’s treatment of women and girls, or other repressive governments’ unfair control of their citizens.

Yet when it comes to the effect of our developed-world economic system on the Earth-community and the poor of this world, as a society and as a church, we’re often deaf, or we think we have no voice.

There are loud voices out there who champion the status quo – angry, dangerous, false voices that intimidate and ridicule to silence the truth. It’s always been so; witness Good Friday.

But as followers of Jesus, we answer to the God who calls us to serve and protect the Earth, and in the Spirit’s strength, to proclaim good news to the poor and to set the oppressed free. Time is short, and the call is crystal clear to all of us. And of course, it’s risky to do this; our lifestyle will need to change.

This is how I hear Jesus’ words today; Jesus calls us, and says to us, ‘If you want to be my followers, deny yourselves and take up your cross and follow me.

In their joint statement, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, Pope Francis and Archbishop Justin link our experience of the Covid pandemic with the climate catastrophe in terms of the importance of justice. They remind us how we’ve ‘realised that, in facing this worldwide calamity [of Covid-19], no one is safe until everyone is safe, that our actions really do affect one another, and that what we do today affects what happens tomorrow.

These are not new lessons, but we have had to face them anew. May we not waste this moment. We must decide what kind of world we want to leave to future generations. God mandates: ‘Choose life, so that you and your children might live’ (Deut 30:19). We must choose to live differently; we must choose life.’   Amen