Rev’d Peter Balabanski

Easter 3 A– Emmaus Road – Hospitality – Meeting Jesus again

The two shattered travellers told the stranger, we’d hoped that Jesus was the one to redeem us. There are now 130 million forcibly displaced people walking that road of shattered hopes with them. And in the crisis gripping the world today, we might all wonder what’s to become of our life’s hopes. Today’s gospel story invites us to know that the real source of our hope may be walking right beside us. ³¹ … their eyes were opened, and they recognized him.

The Emmaus story is only going make sense from the perspective of faith. If you and I chance to meet the risen Jesus and if we are open to being touched by his life and teaching, then this story will be one which resonates with the deepest desires of our hearts. And we shouldn’t be discouraged by imagining we don’t have such desires. Why are we here, after all, hearing about him? Isn’t there something in us that draws us back again and again, hoping to catch even the most fleeting glimpse of that astonishing stranger who may be walking by our side today? We might think we have unorthodox ideas about who Jesus is – that we somehow misunderstand him, and so we mightn’t be granted that elusive glimpse.

That was exactly the case for those two travellers walking away from Jerusalem. Think about what they believed about Jesus They told him ²¹…we’d hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel. They still had the idea that Jesus should be the one to rid Israel of the Romans, and turn it into an independent state with him as its ruler; a political king like David was. But because they wanted his power to be political power, they were baffled by the vulnerability of the crucified Jesus. It’s the same delusion gripping the world now; counterfeit messiahs telling us the lie that our salvation lies in their weapons. But Jesus did reveal himself to these two travellers.

These two had showed their misunderstanding in the very act of retreating to Emmaus that day. Earlier in the gospel, when ^9.51 Jesus set his face to go to Jerusalem, they’d walked with him. But today, they were walking away from Jerusalem – literally turning their backs on the hope that had been their compass until then. We meet them today leaving behind their cherished image of Jesus, and descending the mountain from Jerusalem to the plains; abandoning a mountain of hope. But even then, Jesus came to accompany them – gently to teach them again, and to reveal to them a deeper hope; a hope so deep in their hearts that they were hardly conscious of it. They wondered at it later, how their hearts had been set on fire. ³³ That same hour they got up and returned to Jerusalem; and they found the eleven and their companions gathered together. They resumed the original course that they had chosen to travel with Jesus.

It’s important to remember what opened the eyes of these two disciples. The first thing was teaching; Jesus’ faithful teaching of the scriptures set their hearts on fire. This is the responsibility of every Christian gathering. Hearts and minds need to be offered the scriptures’ power to inspire faith. That was the turning point for these two friends on their journey.

The second thing that opened their eyes was something they did. They responded to the teaching with gratitude. They offered to host their strange companion and eat with him. Their response to the gift of inspired teaching was hospitality. Being taught from scripture is at once a duty and a means of experiencing God’s grace. It’s a duty because scripture enables a response of faith: Isa 55 ¹¹ so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and succeed in the thing for which I sent it. And it’s a means of grace, particularly when your response to the scriptures is hospitality. For then you may discover your guest is an angel, or even Jesus.

The third thing which opened their eyes was understanding: firstly, realising that they were in the presence of Jesus in his crucified, risen, physical body; and secondly that he was made recognisable to them in the breaking of the bread.

His physical body – he’d walked miles with them teaching them, yet still they didn’t recognise him. So understanding on its own is not enough. Just so with the scriptures – often in themselves, not enough. But together with the special actions which Jesus himself handed down to us – in today’s story, re-enacting the Last Supper – they recognised the risen Jesus for themselves. That’s what we’re here to discover. In our gathering, listening, singing and in our sharing of the sacrament – and we need them all – we find that we are the risen body of Christ in this place.

For our two companions on the road, it still didn’t stop there. The final act is to respond. These disciples responded in two ways. The response to God’s call is to do justly and act kindly, and that was shown in their insistent hospitality.

To the experience of meeting Jesus, the response is to seek out fellowship with others to celebrate Christ risen, and go out to proclaim him. And that they did too.

This parish has all these gifts: fellowship, scriptural study, hospitality and faithful, Eucharistic worship. And yet, in our very uncertain time, these are not enough. We need two more things. We need to embody words and actions that offer people real hope. We need to walk alongside people and open the message with them. And we must do it humbly recognising that as much as our companions on the way might meet Jesus in us, we might just as easily meet Jesus, face to face, in them. Amen

Rev’d Balabanski

Easter 2A – John 20.19-31

There’s an extremely well-worn old proposition that doubts Jesus really died on the cross. It says Jesus just passed out, the Roman soldiers mistakenly thought he was dead, and they let people take away his body to be buried. So presumably, after a 48-hour sleep, Jesus woke up so well rested from the exertions of his passion and crucifixion that he could unwrap himself, and unnoticed by the guard outside, push a ton or so of limestone aside and wander off to look for his friends. So it’s a lovely thing that our prayer for the day calls God the hope of those who doubt.

Doubt can be a very healthy thing. Today’s gospel is one that people often call the story of doubting Thomas. And the doubt Thomas expresses is an extraordinary gift; so extraordinary that the writer lets this doubt eclipse other very important things in this story. What things? For one, this is when Jesus breathes the Holy Spirit on his disciples and gives them the same authority to forgive and heal that he exercised during his own ministry: ²² Jesus breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. ²³ If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.” Enormously significant! These gifts are foundational to the Church. We recognise them at Pentecost, at ordinations, every Sunday – and yet they almost take a back seat at this point in John’s Gospel.

What else? What were the first things Jesus did when he appeared to his disciples – before Thomas came? Listen again: ¹⁹ Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” ²⁰ After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. The first thing Jesus does is to show them that this body of his is the same one that was crucified just days earlier. He shows them before Thomas declares that he won’t believe until he’s seen and touched Jesus’ wounds. So what Jesus does isn’t provoked by Thomas’ doubt. It’s a statement that Jesus makes of his own accord.

This passage is full of things we still do to express our faith as the gathered body of Christ. It’s very like our Church services. We share Christ’s peace like he did in this story. The Spirit descends on the gathered community. The authority to forgive sins is exercised, and blessing is given to everyone. This passage gives us much that is central to Christianity.

But what really gives this passage its force is the presence of the physical flesh of the risen Jesus – shown to the disciples at the beginning, and offered again to Thomas at the end. Thomas’ confession of faith – my Lord and my God – is the high point of this amazing passage; it’s the proper response to the Word made flesh.

The absolutely central symbol of our faith is Jesus’ own physical risen body. And we are his body; like Jesus’ body was, the temple of the Holy Spirit. The doubt, expressed by Thomas and the many who have known it since is answered by Jesus. His answer inspires us to proclaim Christ risen to every new generation. Doubters are God’s gift to us. Their integrity calls us to proclaim the Jesus we know – as it did our patron John who wrote so that we may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing we may have life in his name.

So let’s be grateful to the doubters; let’s be grateful for our own doubts. Doubt is our opportunity to explore ever more deeply the mystery and the grace of God becoming one of us – our opportunity to work it through when we are ten, twenty, thirty and forty and seventy and ninety and a hundred – so that we don’t have to live in our old age with the faith of the young person we used to be. Doubt is something God transforms into the gift of spiritual growth.

As well as all that, our Gospel today says that physical bodies are important to the Christian faith. Our faith is not just about what popularly gets called the saving of souls. Our faith is in Jesus, our God, who experienced real doubt, mortal life and death, just like we do. What does that mean about the way we live out that faith.

I think a helpful answer was given by Rowan Williams.

It should not need saying, but it must be said: our Christian faith is a faith in the rising of Jesus Christ from the tomb in his glorified body; and so it is about leading lives that take the life of the body seriously. The words for salvation and health cannot be distinguished in most languages, and this should remind us that faith in Christ has to be bound up with care for suffering bodies as well as suffering souls.

Only Christ can make us whole in every aspect of our lives. But we can show the world something of the nature of that comprehensive hope in Christ as we put our energies to work for healing. First we have to begin to learn what it is for each one of us to receive healing: quietly and thankfully, we must let our wounds be exposed to the physician and allow his life to sink into our lives. And then we must act as if we believed we had truly received authority to heal – in all sorts of different ways.

Each Sunday here, we share healing ministry in faith and trepidation. It’s a miniature of what we do with every step in our lives. We journey in hope that in God’s grace, each step will reveal a blessing; like the benefit of doubt. Amen.

Rev’d Balabanski

Easter reflection

Nicola has painted our Paschal Candle this year with a dove and with olive branches – symbols of peace that speak our prayers in this very dangerous time. On this joyful day, we celebrate the Resurrection of our Lord and Saviour – the Prince of Peace. But we’re celebrating at a time where wars rage and some of the combatants are invoking Jesus as their champion. So there are more-than-usually distorted brands of Christianity being presented to the world. The message some church leaders in powerful countries are presenting to the world is shockingly twisted. Their idea of a Christian message is a vicious brand of bombastic triumphalism. It’s nothing new. But we’re seeing this happening in our daily news with wartime leaders getting themselves publicly blessed by compliant church leaders. How can any Church bless their sort of behaviour – as though God condones it!?

We’ve spent the season of Lent – and particularly Holy Week – focussed on Jesus’ own example of emptying himself of his divine power; of rebuking his disciples when they spoke or acted violently. On Palm Sunday, we saw him enter Jerusalem in peace, even while the crowds were egging him on to seize power and save them. On Maundy Thursday, we saw him risk his life by staying in Jerusalem to teach his disciples about three things: to follow his example of gentle service to others as their model of real leadership; to love others selflessly like he loved them; and to remember him always as the one who offered his own body and blood to protect us. So peaceful; so generous; so full of love for others.

So suddenly, in today’s climate of barbaric distortions of how to follow Christ, I look at our Easter service booklet with somewhat different eyes. I’m conscious that our service begins by announcing our sure hope of sharing Jesus’ triumph over death. The Exsultet says Jesus rose triumphant from the grave. And we’re singing hymns about Jesus as the risen, conquering Son, about joining in hymns of triumph; and about Easter as our triumphant holy day. Are we proclaiming a message that could be co-opted to triumphalism; to an obsession with success and power? When we use language like this, we run a risk of it detouring our discipleship into strange places – turning us away from Christ’s example of servant leadership and self-giving love to the point where he willingly gave his life for others.

So I think our Easter message at this very dangerous moment in history is that we need to learn from the people who really do reflect these characteristics of our Lord. The Christians I’m aware of who truly reflect Christ’s self-giving love are actually pretty hard to see. They don’t put themselves forward as leaders or movers and shakers. They’re more likely to be quietly praying for us – another thing Jesus did a lot. They’re more likely to be interrupted by someone in need, and putting down what they were doing to attend to that other person’s needs.

They may be seen as fools ^{(1 Cor 1 18-25)} who give away their lives for others. But they do reflect Christ to the world; the Christ who gave everything, who died for us and rose again.

So it’s appropriate that before we renew our baptismal promises on this Easter Morning, we hear again the charge that is our baptismal blessing. It’s our job-description for a faithful Christian life that is seen as such foolishness by the power-obsessed of this world.

Go forth into the world in peace; be of good heart;
hold fast that which is good; render to no one evil for evil;
strengthen the faint hearted; support the weak;
help the afflicted; give honour to all;
love and serve the Lord,
rejoicing in the power of the Holy Spirit … Amen

Rev’d Balabanski

Maundy Thursday reflection – Exodus 12, John 13

We’re given the story of the Passover as our first reading. It’s the Jewish people’s formative story about their escape from slavery; about God taking leadership of them. Leading them from being slaves to being a people; a people who would be God’s means of blessing all families of the Earth.

Their slavery was one they had gradually fallen into. They’d started living in Egypt as a privileged people, protected by their patron, Joseph’s special relationship with the Pharaoh. But once a new Pharaoh came along, things changed, and their status deteriorated. By the time Moses came along, they were a brutalised underclass forced to work under unbearable conditions.

Today’s Passover reading sees them just about to escape. Their escape will be associated with death; with a sacrifice that they offer, and a final, terrible curse visited on Egypt. And their escape will entail a journey of forty years, seeing if they will follow God.

This evening’s Gospel story is associated with the Passover story because it’s also a story about escape from slavery. There’s also a feared ruling group – the Roman Empire. But the slavery we escape from is not servitude to a ruling group. Rather, it’s a slavery that comes from alienation; a slavery that comes from our alienation from the source of our being – from God. Cut off from God, we are easy prey to any power that seeks to take us over.

Paul says we experience the Source of our being – we are connected to God – principally through the things God has created. We experience God, then, through our connection to other creatures, and to creation as a whole. We experience God through relationship. And we see Jesus today teaching his friends that this relationship – this healing of alienation and loneliness – is experienced when we enter into a life of voluntary service whose motivation is love. That stops us being the centre of our own lives – which is the heart of alienation – and opens us up to the world of loving service which is our way of being God’s blessing to all families of the Earth.

Jesus demonstrated this in his life of self-giving love, and through tonight’s simple example of servant leadership – washing his friends’ feet. Leadership is service, and we are called to that leadership in a world that is starved of love and starved of real leadership. Amen

Rev’d Peter Balabanski

Lent 5A – John 11.1-45

In many parts of the world, refrigerators are few and far between, and things can be very smelly. The stench of decomposition is a very common reminder of decay and death. It influences the way you behave and it colours the way you see every living thing. They and we are all too temporary. In developed countries, that’s something we work hard to shut out.

But it’s there, underneath. I remember an article in New Scientist where they interviewed people like us about charity. They found that people valued charity more if they were asked about it within sight of a funeral parlour than if they were interviewed anywhere else. Our behaviour is affected if we have thoughts of death

There’re no such options for the people we’ve read about this morning. All that overcame the limitations of physical existence then were miracles; not predictable things. You couldn’t switch miracles on. They came from somewhere else, and for reasons known to God alone. So life included mortality, and there was no way of ignoring it.

So maybe we developed-worlders find it all a bit graphic this morning, the way Lazarus shuffles out still wrapped in his shroud. Not that it wouldn’t have been a shock to the people who were there. And then they had to resume living with Lazarus until he died again. How would we deal with that? How does this story affect us who keep ourselves so insulated from death and mortality? What can we developed, sophisticated, deodorised people learn to hear in this story? Let’s see.

Martha and Mary send Jesus a message. It’s a prayer. It’s the most basic prayer of all. They tell the one they call Lord what’s going on in their lives: Our brother Lazarus … “he whom you love is ill.”

They don’t say what they expect Jesus to do. But very significantly for us, the response they receive is precisely the response that most of us receive when we pray. A long, frustrating silence. We are shown that the prayer is heard; they aren’t. And we have the privilege of following its hearing and response step by step.

To read John’s gospel effectively, we need to know that the Jesus who John presents to us demands a discipleship from us which involves our whole person; body included. Discipleship is learning to grow in the way we understand and follow Jesus – living more and more in his love. That involves change; just as living consciously always will. And change means saying goodbye to things you’ve grown out of, so that you can put on what fits you now. But new things – think new shoes – take some use before they are comfortable.

John’s Jesus makes people change in exactly this uncomfortable way. He seldom ever does exactly what people ask him to. He seldom answers directly the questions they ask him. If he did, with our hindsight, we can see that there’d have been no real opportunity for growth. Everything would have just been confined to what Jesus’ disciples could imagine. We wouldn’t be opened up to what Jesus can see.

So instead of being straightforward and practical, Jesus turns every prayer and every question people ask him into the starting point of a new, unnerving journey of growth in discipleship. And really often, Jesus starts with our physical experiences.

John’s gospel emphasises our physical senses. There’s massive eating and drinking (wedding at Cana; feeding the 5000, woman at the well; bread of life), lots of touch (cleansing the temple; Jesus’ baptism; stop holding on to me; touching people he heals; foot-washing; wounds – Thomas), seeing (the light of the world – the man blind from birth), hearing (in the beginning was the Word; the sheep know my voice). And of course, as today reminds us, lots of smelling; the most evocative of all the senses. (Mary’s Nard, Nicodemus’ spices)

What that means is that in Jesus, God comes to us literally as we are – as physical beings with all the gifts and limitations that involves. And Jesus demands that our discipleship is as much a physical one as a spiritual and mental one. If we don’t quite get the extent of the physical commitment demanded, Jesus goes on to show just how strong his commitment to physical self-offering is by going to the cross.

So today, we’re being reminded of the limits of our physical life if we have no guidance – if Jesus is not with us. We started with Mary and Martha’s prayer, and Jesus’ delayed response. Jesus did know what was going on for Lazarus (he told his disciples that Lazarus was dead). But he worked to turn Marth and Mary’s prayer into an opportunity for their growth. And that’s what happened. He took Martha from complaint to confession of him as Messiah. He took Lazarus from irreversible corruption to new life when he called him by name.

He called him by name – Lazarus. So Lazarus was still the same person after death as in life; still able to respond to that call by the giver of life. This means we can believe that people who live in our hearts, but whose ashes are out there in our parish memorial garden, are only as far from new life as their name is from the lips of our Saviour.

Jesus calls to life the one in whom was no life. But he calls his people to do the physical work of setting free – opening the cave, removing the cloths. The physical work of discipleship is every bit as much God’s plan as anything else. All of us are called. All of us is called; every bit of us.                                       Amen

Rev’d Peter Balabanski

Lent 4A– 1 Sam 16 1-13 Ps 23 Eph 5 8-14 John 9 1-41

They say seeing is believing. Today’s Gospel explores this and its chilling opposite, wilful blindness. We begin with the disciples asking Jesus if the man was born blind because of his own sin, or that of his parents. It was a widely held view in the ancient world that unusual suffering came as a result of sin. We often ask a question that shows it’s not such an ancient perspective either – What did I do to deserve this? But what a question to ask about that man! Had he offended God before he was even born!? Had his parents offended God, and God made their baby blind to punish them? Who’d been spreading such ideas? Who was really blind?

A/Prof Kylie Crabbe reminds us that this story comes out of a time when disability would have been very common; very visible; a time when average human life expectancy was about thirty-five. So the amount of life when you might expect to have ‘normal’ health would’ve been quite short. Maybe it was a comfort to think everything was in God’s hands. You find a similarly cold ‘comfort’ in the eastern doctrines of karma and dharma

So who sinned? Jesus answers this confronting question by saying something that our translation this morning really distorted. It read, the man was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him. Do they mean God purposely put this poor man through blindness from birth just in order to reveal divine power sometime down the track? Surely not. I find the more literal ESV translation more helpful; and some different punctuation. It was not that this man sinned, or his parents. But, that the works of God might be displayed in him, we must work the works of him who sent me as long as it is day. The man experiences God as a blind person. It’s from there that he does what God’s calls from him, just as as we do in our lives.

Jesus introduces the healing by declaring himself to be the light of the world. Then he sets about ending the darkness this blind man has lived in from birth. He spits on the ground to make mud, and spreads it on the man’s eyes. Some commentators feel a bit grossed out by this. But knowing this is John’s Gospel, and that John so often links Jesus’ stories with others in the scriptures, it reminds us of another muddy story. It’s the story in Genesis about God making a person and animals from the dust of the Earth. Is John pointing to Jesus here as the one who can create sight from the dust of the ground? Is John showing us that Jesus, using the dust of the earth, can complete the creation of this person? St Irenaeus in the C2 certainly thought so: this very same Word formed the visual power in him who had been blind from his birth; showing openly who it is that fashions us in secret.  ^{Adv Haer V.15.3}

Jesus said God’s works might be revealed in this man born blind. And the gift of sight is the first we see. But there’s more. This man bears ever stronger witness to Jesus and what he’s done for him. First, he confronts the disbelief of his neighbours and acquaintances. They take him to the Pharisees. Some of them condemn Jesus for giving the man his sight on the Sabbath. Others, moved to wonder, debate this. They interrogate the man further. And again, he bears witness to Jesus. He tells them Jesus is a prophet. The Pharisees aren’t satisfied, and send him up the chain of command. Now Jewish religious leaders refuse to believe what they’ve heard. They summon the man’s parents to hear their testimony. His parents confirm what’s happened, but fearing expulsion from the worshipping community, they direct the inquisitors back to their son. By now any debate between the Jewish leaders is over. They’re in unanimous denial. There’s none so blind as the one who will not see.

So their second interrogation shows us the man born blind as the only one there who can see the truth. He tries to bring the Jewish leaders into the light, despite their reviling. Then they repeat that awful notion the story began with – you were born entirely in sins! In their fear, that cruel fantasy is what they choose to see. So they expel him; blacklist him from Jerusalem’s worshipping community.

Jesus hears he’s been driven out and finding him, draws him straight into new community. It’s a beautiful moment. It’s the first time the man born blind sees Jesus with his own eyes. Jesus asks him, ‘Do you believe in the Son of Man?’ And the man asks ‘who is he, sir? Tell me, so that I may believe in him.’ ³⁷Jesus said to him, ‘You’ve seen him, it’s me; the one speaking with you.’ ³⁸ He said, ‘Lord, I believe.’ And he worshipped him. Jesus shows him and us who God is really like!

Jesus, the light of the world has come. He opens our eyes to things once hidden. But John says his light will also cast shadows. We choose to turn to the light or to the shadow. This man’s physical blindness ended. We saw his courage in the face of the people who tried to shut down his witness. It was a powerful display of the works of God that Jesus told us to watch for. The man turned to the light. But his opponents moved from open debate and dialogue to blinkered, unanimous denial. Their slip of the tongue about being born in sin shows they believed the superstition that a disability is God’s punishment.

The man born blind turned to the light because of Jesus. He saw in Jesus who God really is. If seeing is believing, this Gospel really is Good News for us to share like that man did. Everyone needs to see Jesus and know the truth about God! Amen

Rev’d Peter Balabanski

Lent 3A – John 4 5-42

There’s a lot going on in this remarkable story! Jesus talked to a strange woman in a foreign place, defying strict cultural rules. A man and woman who aren’t married to each other were never to talk unchaperoned. Jesus also ignores another barrier. Jews and Samaritans weren’t on speaking terms with each other. Samaritans were hated outsiders. Yet in the gospels, outsiders seem open to recognise the truth about Jesus. This foreign woman is the first person Jesus tells who he really is; the Messiah. And in this remarkable story, she moves from a wary stand-offishness to real openness to who Jesus is. Then she proclaims him to all her fellow villagers.

And John is doing much more with this story, deliberately evoking the Jews’ and Samaritans’ common ancestry by telling us the encounter happens at Jacob’s well. You may remember Jacob’s story involved another well. He met his future wife Rachel by a well in the land of the people of the East ^{Gen 29} Samaria was effectively foreign soil for Jesus too. So today’s gospel presents us with Jesus at a well named for Jacob, another Jewish man who met a cousin at a foreign well. And like Rachel did, this Samaritan woman will also provide water from a well for a Jewish stranger to drink. Marriage will again be a major topic of conversation. And many listeners will know that the earlier well in Jacob’s story had a large stone covering its mouth; a stone which had to be rolled away to provide the gathered flock with its life-giving water. I’m sure John calls up this ‘stone-rolled-away’ image deliberately.

We’re told it was about noon. Do you remember last Sunday’s encounter between Jesus and his visitor, Nicodemus? It was night time then; Nicodemus didn’t want to be seen. But Jesus isn’t hiding his meeting with an outsider like Nicodemus did. His discussion with this woman would have scandalised his fellow Jews. It certainly shocked his disciples!

So a major focus of this story is Jesus going to people considered to be ‘outsiders’. But it’s not someone sick or demon-possessed this time. Jesus crosses a border. He enters Samaria, initiates a discussion with an unaccompanied Samaritan woman, and finally, he even accepts an invitation to receive two days’ hospitality from the Samaritan villagers. None of this was thinkable in decent Jewish society.

Jesus asks this woman for water. In today’s Psalm 95, it was God who provided life-giving water. Today, this strange woman gives water to Jesus. But soon, she will take the water of life to her town – the good news of Jesus. At this stage in the gospel, her only equals as witnesses to Jesus are John the Baptist and Mary.

And another extraordinary thing; Jesus and this woman have a serious theological discussion. She knows her traditions. She’s waiting for the coming Messiah. In the synagogues, men and women sat separately. Here at the well, Jesus and this woman sit and speak together about the things of God. This is really remarkable!

And as a theologian, the Samaritan woman is no slouch. She misunderstands Jesus at first. But Nicodemus, the religious leader also looked like an amateur doing theology with Jesus. This woman makes much faster progress than him. She starts from a position of scornful sounding doubt – ¹² Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it? Then she progresses to a partial understanding, but still confrontational ¹⁹ Sir, I see that you are a prophet. ²⁰ Our ancestors worshipped on this mountain, but you [Jews] say … people must worship … in Jerusalem. Then she moves on towards the truth – ²⁵ … I know that Messiah is coming (who is called Christ). When he comes, he will proclaim all things to us. Finally, once Jesus has identified himself, she rushes to her village to share the good news. Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?

The most unexpected person can become the bearer of the greatest gift of all –the divine gift – living water; eternal life; bringing others to meet Jesus. An outsider can witness to the world. We outsiders can help people discover what those Samaritans soon proclaimed: ⁴² we know that this is truly the Saviour of the world. Insiders and outsiders? Jesus shows this up to be a complete furphy. John puts the story at Jacob’s well. Jacob was the ancestor of both Jews and Samaritans. Owning our commonality with others is essential; particularly at this time of the terrible war raging between the three sibling children of Abraham. How do we do this?

Jesus gave us our model today by walking straight into the point of no conversation and starting to talk. We know there are barriers being raised to prevent dialogue –barriers just as poisonous as those which forbade conversation between men and women, and Jews and Samaritans. But it’s only through conversation together about the hopes and dreams we hold in common that we will rediscover our real kinship. Jesus walked straight through the barriers and started the conversation. He showed us that’s how you find that your sister or your brother is just that; not your enemy; not a danger, but your brother; your sister.

We start by crashing the barriers. Jesus shows us how to do it. Today, let’s pray that we might find the courage and strength to ignore the threats and choose to fight openly for reconciliation; reconciliation between estranged siblings who are waging a war of unwarranted distrust and hatred that must break their parent’s heart. Amen

Rev’d Peter Balabanski

Lent 2A – Genesis 12 1-4a, John 3 1-17

Has God ever challenged you to really lift your game? I don’t mean something simple and one-off, like being tempted to do something selfish, but feeling moved to decide against it because you’re a Christian. No. I mean a really big challenge; a challenge to change the way you live completely. Has God challenged you to make a career choice that doesn’t necessarily pay as well as the alternatives, but you choose it because you know God wants you to make a difference for other people? Would you change the place you live, leave everyone behind, risk their bad opinion because God has asked this of you?  These are frightening questions.

Today we’ve met two faithful people who heard this big, life-changing challenge, and they said yes; their names are Abram and Nicodemus. Today we’ve been eavesdroppers, listening in as each of them met God in a life-changing encounter. God challenged Abram to leave behind family and home and go to a place God would show him. And Jesus challenged Nicodemus, a religious VIP, to drop all his current ideas about how to serve God best and instead to be born again from above.

Both of them are told God’s purpose for this great change. Abram is told of God’s intention to bless him, and through him, to bless all families of the earth. And Nicodemus is first to hear the best known saying in the whole Bible—God loved the world in this way: he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. So both of them are challenged to be part of something that changes the world.

These two stories have tremendous significance for us. Their greatest message is what they say about God. They tell us the reason for all God’s calls and challenges to us; it’s God’s love for the world. No qualifications, hesitations, exceptions or prior demands – God loves the world. Another enormously significant message in these stories: they show us that people choose to respond to this love by hearing it as a call to action, and then rising to the challenge. And when we do, the world is changed, because a new way has opened for the world to learn of God’s love; a new way has opened for the world to experience God’s love.

How to respond to these stories? We hear three messages in them. And each message demands a response. The first message is that God loves the world unconditionally. God doesn’t first tell the world to believe or be good or anything before God will love us. No; God loves us first. God is like any good parent. Good parents don’t expect their babies to give them signs of love before they’ll love them back.

Parents love their children before their babies even know them – a bit like the way God loved you and me even back in Abram’s time. And if we are to respond to this, it’s because we see that this is what God is like, and like children do, grow to love just like that; to love the world like God does. Which is good because the second message our stories tell us is that God wants the whole world to experience that love. Again, just like any good parent, God wants the kids to grow up knowing that they are loved and loveable. Kids learn that by being loved; by experiencing love and care. It’s a tragedy if anyone grows up feeling unloved and worthless.

But experiencing love isn’t an automatic thing for kids or anyone. It only happens when people give it to them. And therein lies the third message of these stories. God sends people into the world to give people the blessing of God’s love. We saw Abram sent out, and we know Jesus as the one sent to us from God. And even Nicodemus would join in. They all willingly left behind what was familiar and safe, and set out – God alone knew where – to bring people to experience God’s love.

The conversation we overheard between Jesus and Nicodemus was God’s new call to Nicodemus to do what Abram and Jesus did. This deeply pious man who visited Jesus under cover of darkness would one day heed the call to become like Jesus – to go out in broad daylight and risk everything he had always stood for to bring others to a knowledge of God’s love; to give others a taste of God’s love for them.

The move from shadow to broad daylight – from blindness to sight – is only part of the journey of discipleship. Discipleship is about more than just personal change in the disciple. It sets us free from all that.

Choosing to be Christ’s disciple sets us free from having to find meaning and purpose in our lives just in how we look, or how clever we are, or what we can do, or how impressive our friends are. Imagine leaving all that clobber behind. One day, you wake up from a bad dream, open your eyes and know that you’re loved just for who you are. If, in that moment, you saw someone else crying out in their sleep – needlessly suffering, you’d want to wake them up and tell them they’re okay. You’re fine; God loves you. We’ve discovered God’s unexpected, un-earned love for us, and we know it’s there for you too!

So now it’s clear. God sent others; we’re next. We’re called to lift our game and do what we can to make sure God’s beloved know that that’s who they are: Wake up; it’s okay; God adores you.   Amen

Bishop Greg Thompson

Matt 4:1-11 St Johns

When I was consecrated as a bishop in the NT in 2007 I was told by another bishop that two things would change – my food will improve and I would never be told the truth again.

In Newcastle Diocese while we being examined by a Royal Commission for over 2 years, I quoted this to a senior lawyer and advisor to Newcastle bishops– he responded by saying that bishops needed to be protected. The Royal Commission described this leadership behaviour as wilful negligence.

Deception is as old as the genesis story of the serpent in today’s lesson, while in the gospel reading Jesus confronts the father of lies

How do we live with a world which seeks to deceive us?

St Paul describes this as not wrestling with flesh and blood but powers and principalities.

“This England’ TV series illuminates political deceit during the Covid crisis in the UK.

In the Gospel of Matthew the descending Spirit anoints Jesus in his baptism for his role and mission. Now the Spirit leads Jesus into the wilderness where his identity and mission will be tested.

Wilderness ‘eremos’ is deeply embedded in the memory of Israel, as the formative place of Israel’s faith.

Deut 8:2; Remember the long way that the LORD your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness, in order to humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commandments.

It was in the wilderness, that Israel was called God’s son Hos 11:1 It was also the place of failure, danger and the demonic. In Leviticus, the scapegoat which carries the sin of the people is chased into the wilderness. It is in the wilderness that the great personal encounters with God take place.

When Jesus enters the wilderness, he is walking in the steps of generations. He is facing the absolute terror for the Jewish psyche of the demonic but also of the fearful encounter with Yahweh, the God of the desert. The Son of God must face the failures of the past and navigate a new course for his people and all humanity.

It is Jesus’ humanity, which is to be subjected to temptation –This is the human experience that Jesus enters as the Son of God. It is a wilderness from without and within that the Spirit leads him into.

Matthew provides the reader the equivalent of a passion play between the hero Jesus, and his enemy, the tempter to help us understand the trial he faced.

 ^“He fasted for forty days and forty nights and afterwards he was famished. The tempter came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become a loaf of bread.” Jesus answered him, “It is written, ‘One does not live by bread alone.’”

At one level, the three forms of the temptation focus on the three areas of life which were vital to Israel as the covenant pilgrims seeking the promised land – sustenance, protection and prosperity.

Jesus succeeds where Israel failed in the 40 years wandering and the many others that followed. Jesus vindicates the voice from heaven “this is my beloved Son” By so doing, Jesus defeats Satan and makes it possible for those who follow to enter the kingdom of heaven, the promised land, and enter a new freedom.

At another level each temptation is the very questioning of Jesus’ identity – “If you are the Son of God..” If you are the beloved, the One who carries the hope for the world, then you do not need to wait for God to vindicate you. It is the same temptation at the cross – “If you are the Son of God save yourself..”

Jesus risks everything by not giving in. He risks that his identity will remain ambivalent, contestable and unproved. In the face of temptation, what Jesus has is the word of God. He does not make up his replies, he does not search for an adequate rebuttal, or concoct a defence, simply restates God’s promise. He does not use his own power to overcome, rather he points to the One who sustains and loves. Jesus’ reply is the adoration of God. He turns to God alone to learn what he has come to do. This is his freedom – he has no pretensions of his own nor independence. No one could take Jesus’ life from him. He himself gives it. He might have refused. He might have kept his life. But he gives it. This is the humanity that Jesus embodies and it is the freedom he offers, to each who might travel with him through the wilderness towards the cross.

How do we respond to the wilderness of deception?

Know that Jesus has experienced this fully and is with you by the Spirit – be not overcome, overcome evil with good.

Know that Jesus has overcome the power of sin- both ready to forgive and restore the penitent. Do not make worse the burden of suffering on survivors by requiring them to forgive. This will come with time and grace. Let the burden of repentance be upon the offender and the institution.

Know that light overcomes darkness – let truth of God’s word and of your story illuminate deceit.

The royal Commission power was in revealing the deceit of individuals and institutions over 40 years. Break the power of silence over the harming of the suffering. Listen to those who bear the suffering of the powerful. As a bishop being examined by the Royal Commission it felt like walking into the terror of a maze and of not knowing which way to turn. But I found companions on the way, courage to articulate my story and to name the behaviour of the powerful and turn the maze into a labyrinth – the light of Christ love and purpose carried me to the place of being a witness to the suffering.

I still at times feel like I’m in the wilderness but I have found the inner strength to confront deception and break the power of silence, and to let go of grievance over the lies of my church, to let the peace of Christ settle on my heart.

Rev’d Peter Balabanski

On Palm Sunday last year, we raised fresh, green palm crosses aloft and cried out with the crowds lining the track from Bethphage to Jerusalem; Hosanna! Save Us!

Today, we bring these palm crosses back. They’re dried out and more grey than green. Have our hopes dried up too? We actually burn our palm crosses today. Does that mean we’re declaring our hope dead – the hope we shared with those crowds who thought He would change everything that day? Hosanna! Save us! What from?

I have an idea that burning our palm crosses is in fact a symbol of out solidarity with the one who gave his life for us – that we are prepared to join him in the hopeless despair of Gethsemane if that’s what’s needed.

As we look forward through Lent to Good Friday, it’s perfectly clear what we’re crying for salvation from. The ashes speak of our own death. Yet Good Friday will speak of the one in whose death is our salvation. So maybe there’s another way of seeing what our actions today might mean – burning the palm crosses, being marked with the ash, being reminded that we are dust.

We know that in six weeks time, we’ll hold fresh palm crosses aloft and cry out again to be saved. The challenge to us is to be transformed people by the time we do that – or at least, to be people willing and active in the transforming work God wants to do in us. The language we use in the Church is to say we die to our old self in order that God might call forth the new life in us. How do we die to that old self which separates us from God, from our neighbour, from our true selves?

Lent is the season where this question is our focus. We enter the journey of Lent today. What lies before us is a journey beset with obstacles we need to overcome like temptation to self-centredness, and full of challenges we must meet like renunciation and repentance. What does this mean?

Temptation does not mean enticement in Scripture. There, the one who tempts most often, is God, and God certainly does not entice us. When God tempts, what is happening is testing, testing the faith and obedience of God’s people.

Renunciation does not mean giving up chocolate or coffee. The word renounce is used at our baptism and it is used in the context of repentance – turning from godlessness to God – choosing God.

Do you renounce Satan, evil, sinful desires?”

Renunciation is our exercise of will for God. It’s a positive choice.

So it follows that repentance does not just mean feeling sorry for the mistakes of everyday life. Rather it’s an exercise of our will to serve God – setting out again on the journey in the direction we chose when we first answered Christ’s call; embarking again on the Way of Jesus.

How does that work itself out in everyday life? That’s what we seek on the journey of Lent. But a hint comes from today’s Gospel – the first words about giving alms.

Almsgiving was the prime act of piety in Judaism – true religion is this; to care for the widow and the orphan. ^{James 1.27}

So Lent isn’t a time for giving up, but rather giving for – giving for life, giving for love, giving for God. The one who hath pity upon the poor lendeth unto the Lord.

 Jesus went first on this Lenten journey. He is the one who goes before us; the one we follow. We know where his journey took him, and today, as we remember that we are dust, we commit ourselves anew to accompany him, even on that road.

Mercifully, we know that because of him, death is not the end of this journey. Rather it is an end which he transformed into new life for any who would follow him to his gracious Kingdom of faith, hope and love. Amen