Rev’d Peter Balabanski

Advent B 2020 -Isa 40.1-11; Mk 1.1-8

A friend and I talked about some of the less obvious questions of Christian healing. We didn’t talk about healing of body or mind, but about repentance and being welcomed back by God. Advent has a lot in it about repentance and forgiveness. They’re the time-honoured way we’re restored to fellowship with our God, with the source of our being. So they’re our means of the deepest healing possible; they’re about being made whole again when we’ve been broken. Let’s think about this.

Today, we heard Isaiah proclaim a healing re-union with God to a broken, exiled people. They’re lost. Between them and their home is a vast desert they can never hope to cross in their own strength. But Isaiah proclaims that a highway is being built to rescue them, beginning in Jerusalem, and crossing the desert without a bend. It’s a construction of such vast scale that any mountain or valley in its path will be levelled to make way for it. The wilderness will no longer be a barrier to their home-coming; to being re-united with their God.

God will to cross the desert from distant Jerusalem, and gather them in gentle, strong arms. Their home-coming is assured. They need no longer despair over their exile; no longer is their life defined by where they can’t be. The mountains and chasms of their despair are dissolved when they turn to watch in hope for their rescuer. They only need to turn and see that God will come to bring them home.

This is the Gospel, isn’t it. People trapped by circumstances beyond their control, dominated by a powerful enemy, cut off from God, and suddenly, good news – Gospel – breaks into their despair. God is doing what we cannot – God is coming to gather us up and bring us safely home. Home is the place where we can be whole people again; healed people. How utterly different from being in exile! As slaves in exile, all you have of yourself is the leftovers that your captor leaves after they’ve seized what they want from you. You’re not a whole person; you’re just a leftover. ‘Be comforted,’ cries Isaiah. Good news! Look for wholeness!

So how does this happen? Mark’s Gospel begins by reminding us of what we heard in Isaiah ^(40.3) – a highway will roll across the wilderness, and God will travel it to come and rescue us.

Mark tells us these prophecies are fulfilled in John the Baptist; the promised messenger in the wilderness – and we’re only four verses into the Gospel! He tells the story of John calling people out to the wilderness to discover the wilderness inside them; how they are a lost people in need of wholeness; lost and lonely, and needing to be found. John calls them out to him; calls them to remember their ancestors’ exile, and like their ancestors, to repent – to turn and face God.

In baptism, John washes them in water to consecrate their bodies as fit dwellings for the Holy Spirit. And the one to come will wash them in that very Spirit; the Spirit of God – the very source of being. We will be whole in a way we couldn’t have imagined; restored in a way we have always needed, but may never have known we could be. Whatever keeps us from that wholeness – even a mountain of despair, or a chasm of fear – it will be levelled by the one who’s so determined to come to us that nothing will stand in the way. The coming one is Jesus, the Christ.

Like Isaiah’s divine shepherd who crossed the desert to rescue God’s people from exile, Jesus comes to accompany us through a wilderness. Each Advent we renew our commitment to this journey – our commitment to be ready to meet this one who has come, and is coming again, this Jesus. We renew our commitment to go with him wherever he leads. Part of that commitment includes a willingness for life in the desert – for learning what it can teach us, and seeing its lessons as being of God. You can find the desert in prayer, in being alone, or even in simply stopping for a time; choosing stillness. It can also come uninvited.

These desert times help us find that trusting in God is possible because in the desert, we see ourself for who we really are. We face our demons, and we learn where our trust really belongs.

We discover where our life has been heading. We own our part in responsibility for it. We’re ready to turn from a life filled with the clutter of things we once treasured. We’re ready to drop all that, and to reach out empty-handed to the hands that are stretching out to us. They stretch out across the mountains and canyons of the wilderness. We take those hands, and we know we’re welcomed home; forgiven; healed; free; suddenly light; miraculously … whole. It’s a different sort of healing from what we normally think about. But this is Advent.                                Amen

Rev’d Dr. Elizabeth McWhae

Christ the King Sunday – Ezekiel 34:11-1, Psalm 100, Ephesians 1:15-23, Matthew 25:31-46

INTRODUCTION:

This Sunday is called Christ the King Sunday because it marks the last Sunday of

Pentecost. Put simply this means that we have come to the end of the Christian Year A. Next Sunday will be the beginning of Advent and the start of Year B. More importantly, though, this is a day of endings. That is why the Gospel reading for today focuses on the final judgment. In it Jesus determines who is acceptable and unacceptable in the kingdom of God

There is also another ending we can consider today. The ending of our feeling of relative safety and possible assumption that those of us living in SA are safe from the dreaded coronavirus. We are not. That insidious virus is still among us, as the last few days have shown. And so is the panic and anxiety that accompanies it. Which just goes to show that not far under the surface of our lives we harbour fear and uncertainty. In a way it is like a trauma, a community trauma.  So, where is God lurking in all this?

POINT 1:

I want to look at our Gospel reading from Matthew, because It has something to tell us about where God and Jesus are to be found. And that surely is where we want to be.

Firstly a bit of context about this section of Matthew’s Gospel. These verses form part of an eschatological discourse Jesus is having. Eschatology is a fancy word for the last things, or the end times. Prior to these verses Jesus has told 3 parables: the faithful and unfaithful servants (24:45-51), the 10 virgins (25:1-13) and the talents (25:14-30).The theme of these parables is watchfulness, being prepared and diligent with one’s talents, so that one is prepared for the final judgment. The verses we are considering today are that final judgment.

So what do we have? We start off with a grand vision of the Son of Man, who is Jesus, seated on his glorious throne. All the nations are gathered before him, so this is expansive and all inclusive. The sorting begins and as a shepherd sorts the sheep and goats, so Jesus sorts some into the sheep group and others into the goat group. It has the feel of a parable at this stage. Generally in the Old Testament the right hand of God is the good side to be on, so we have a hint that the sheep will be better off. The goats, however, are on the left hand of God, which is never a good place to be.

How does the king decide who is a sheep and who is a goat? Solely​ by the way that they have lived their lives. To the sheep he says, Come,​ you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; ​for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me. ​The sheep appear confused and ask when did we do these things. They seem to be taking things too literally .And the king answers Truly​ I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who​ are members of my family, you did it to me.

As you know the goats get the opposite treatment. Truly​ I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.

POINT 2:

What can we learn from this final judgment scene? Well, surprisingly we learn that being a church goer is not a prerequisite to being with the sheep. And even being a person of faith is not a prerequisite. What​ counts is the orientation of a person’s life towards others. Is it open to helping those less fortunate and most vulnerable or not? If your focus is one preserving yourself and overlooking the needs of others, you are a goat. If you are concerned for the vulnerable and weak you are a sheep.

Does this answer the age old question about those who belong to other faiths or who don’t know Christ but live an exemplary life? Go figure.

For me, the biggest question that these verses raise is why is Jesus biased to the poor. And by the poor I mean those in most need; the hungry, the thirsty, the stranger, the naked, the sick, those in prison. And the answer that always comes to me is that these are the people who are the most traumatised. This is not to downplay the fact that we all have big and little traumas in our lives. But some are worse than others.

The difference between the sheep and the goats in this Gospel reading is that the sheep were not afraid to engage in the trauma of other people’s lives, whereas the goats were concerned with their lives and wanted to avoid the trauma of others. Ironically though the goats avoidance of trauma only lands them in more trauma.

POINT 3:

I believe Matthew is trying to make a point here about the way Jesus looked at life. It is a theological point. And it is about trauma. Jesus is saying in this final judgment that traumatic events happen to us all. Trauma is a part of life. Trauma was the defining event of Jesus’ earthly life. How else could you describe the process of his passion and crucifixion. Trauma led to his death. But trauma did not have the last word. Life, love and resurrection did.

We are made in the image of God and so if Jesus knew trauma, we most certainly will too. This is why the cross of Jesus is so compelling. Because we can relate to his trauma from the experience of trauma in our own lives. This is what compassion and empathy are all about. Feeling the pain of others and trying to help. The big and small traumas of our lives push us towards a God who in Jesus says to us engage with these traumas and they will reveal God to you in new and unexpected ways. This is why Jesus said when you attend to the most vulnerable ie. the hungry, thirsty, stranger, sick, prisoner, you are in fact attending to me. This form of spirituality is well understood in Catholic Christianity, but not so much in evangelical and

Protestant Christianity, where the focus is more on right belief than right action.

CONCLUSION:

This final judgment scene from Matthew”s Gospel illustrates that Jesus Is primarily concerned with our outlook towards others. Are we people who are concerned for the well-being of others or are we always thinking of ourselves first? This is what determines if one is grouped amongst the sheep or the goats.

Of course, this is hardly a surprising outcome. Even in the Old Testament, the first commandment was to love God and then to love your neighbour as yourself. So those who attended to the hungry, thirsty, stranger, naked, sick or imprisoned were those who loved God and their neighbour.Those who didin”t attend to the hungry, thirsty, stranger, naked, sick, or imprisoned didn’t love God or their neighbour.

After the week that we have all had, of not knowing what is going to happen next, it is good to know that Jesus’ judgment of us is based upon our love for and of each other. I must say that I have been impressed as a community how we responded to the very abrupt shutdown that was forced upon us. And now that restrictions are easing again let us rejoice that this communal trauma will serve as a reminder to us again that we are called to be sheep that love and not goats who always think of themselves first.

When was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you? I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me. So​ this is where God and Jesus are lurking in our lives and longing to reveal themselves. We need look no further than our everyday encounters with those in need.

Bishop Greg Thompson

Remembrance Sunday: Finding Home  – John 15

Recognise me as Herbie’s grandpa – thank you to Fr Peter for inviting me to preach on this service of remembrance.

We reflect today on the impact of war and peacemaking in Australia’s experience and hold in prayer those who still carry the physical, mental and spiritual wounds of conflict in the defence of our nation and in the service of those who needed defending. The enormous loss of Australian 62,000 lives in WW1, the 160,000 injured and the extraordinary grief and loss across our communities led to communities and churches building memorials and creating public and private rituals to help with the grief and trauma. Historian Jay Winter wrote “it is not an exaggeration to suggest that every family was in mourning: most for a relative – a father, a son, a brother, a husband – others for a friend, a colleague, a lover, a companion.” Jay Winter Sites of Memory, Sites of Mourning: the Great War in European cultural history 1995. Compounding with the arrival of the Spanish Flu 1919, the nation was traumatised and had to find a way to grieve and recover by remembering the fallen and those who sacrificed their lives. – ‘Lest we forget’.

In Newcastle Cathedral where I served as bishop there is a golden book with all the names of the those who died in the first world war from the region. Not unlike the books found in most churches throughout Australia.  Uniquely the golden book of Newcastle Cathedral had its beautiful gold cover made from the melted down wedding and engagement rings of the women who lost partners. The gold chosen to underscore how precious the people within it and how profound the sorrow that was endured by those who read them.

Trauma leaves its mark in the memory of people and in the landscape. This is the human experience of nations and individuals. It is in the experience of conflict and of great loss as people come to terms with a disorientation of what they knew as home and safe harbour and face internal and external threats.

Remembrance Day and Anzac Day alongside other public days of remembering well are significant days of trying to make sense of trauma and allow the community to support the traumatised. Therapist and writer Bessell van der Kolk in his book ‘the Body keeps the score: Mind, brain and body in the transformation of trauma’ 2014; “After trauma the world becomes sharply divided between those who know and those who don’t. People who have not shared the traumatic experience cannot be trusted, because they cannot understand it.”

Such trauma is not only carried by survivors of war, but within communities where there has been radical loss to a way of life and to individuals who have had their safety taken from them. Susan Brison a survivor of rape and attempted murder writes ; “it is only by remembering and narrating the past – telling our stories and listening to others – that we can participate in an ongoing, active construction of a narrative of liberation, not one that confines us to a limiting past, but one that forms a background from which a freely imagined – and desired future can emerge.” Aftermath: Violence and the remaking of Self 2002.

Is this not what we are doing in the reading of ancient scriptures, the rituals of eucharist and prayer? Retelling our stories of faith and failure, to remember well who we are and where our home is? And so to make space for healing and grace for our wounds.

As we mark Naidoc week with the theme ‘always was, always will be’  we can support and stand with first peoples the acknowledgement of the trauma upon their culture and peoples and stand with them as they remember their history and relationship to this land we call Australia. As they retell their pain and loss this is not a threat to our history or identity but an invitation to have understanding and be in companionship as they re imagine a better future. This will make us a nation that attends to its wounds and finds a way to celebrate the past without denying its shadows. To truly make it our home for all who were born here and who have come to our shores.

Kerry and I have lived and ministered in the NT over 4 decades – as a youth worker, later priest, army padre, and then as bishop. We had the privilege of working with Indigenous people. Over 40 years ago I met with a traditional indigenous owner of Kakadu – Old Bill. Some of you would know of Ubirr rock in Kakadu national park. It is a very large monolith rising above the flood plains where many tourists visit for the view and the extraordinary Aboriginal rock gallery of art for over 40,000 years.

This is the place in the wet season that is above the floodwaters where traditional people gather to tell stories, conduct ritual and thrive around fires above the floods. As water rises on the flood plains indigenous people locate to higher ground – and so do the animals. The paintings are of the animals and ancestors. This is a place of dreaming. And the generations of paintings tell of the hopes and hazards, the law and the community that is in the hearts of people. Old Bill took me to this place and showed me some of the paintings sharing a little of the significance of ancient visions that sustained a people. One set of paintings was particularly important to him. There was a large ochre coloured outline of a hand, and a little child’s hand alongside it. He said this was his father’s hand and his own small child hand alongside it. I was moved by the tenderness and the history of that dreaming place.

And I wondered where my dreaming place was is in this ancient landscape. For I am a sojourner, traveling and living in many places among many people, whose ancestors came from distant lands sometimes without a choice and as someone who has been traumatised through my early years and has had to attend to the trauma of child abuse in the church.

In John’s gospel Jesus uses this word “to make a home” or abide with the history and hope of God’s abiding presence in the land and temple in mind. God’s abiding presence in the home of the temple is now located in Christ and that presence is being made real to his disciples. In John chapter 1 opening words – God pitched his tent among us, in the Word made flesh.

In John 15, Jesus teaches that our home it is not so much our efforts to find or make a home or temple, but home is what God does in our hearts. John 15:9 “As the Father loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love.” God is our heavenly homemaker who sets up camp in us.

For those who carry trauma hear Jesus’ words “Abide in my love.” (John 15:9). Finding ‘Sanctuary’  a place of rest and safety is a huge task for the traumatized. Church communities can embody sanctuary through church buildings and grounds, as places of prayer, oasis and renewal where people do not have to be on guard. However Jesus calls to us, to have a ‘sanctuary’ at the heart of our work and relationships. To nurture a spirituality with the help of a community to be nourished, so that our story may be heard and that we may belong.

In 1972, the Times magazine called Dr Robert Coles ‘the most influential living psychiatrist in the US’ His literary work ‘Children of Crisis’ series received a Pulitzer prize in 1973.

Coles began to distrust the trad psychiatric method, of an expert sitting at a desk listening to a patient and then choosing an appropriate treatment. He needed to cross the bridge between observer and observed. – ‘ to bring alive the innerness of those lives’. He did this by going among the most marginalised people in the US – the migrant, black and poor communities, and listening to their stories. He became the student and they the teacher. (P95-96 Yancey); In the 1960’s Ruby Bridges 6 yr old African American crossed the gauntlet of protest lines every day to attend school moving through white faces that shouted abuse and threatened her. Coles watched and studied this girl from the view point of how do children live with great stress. It took some time for him to earn the trust of her family as no white person had entered her house before. He thought he’d come to treat a disadvantaged person but the roles were reversed. Ruby became his teacher. 6 yr old Ruby prayed as she embarked on her school day, for herself, that she would be strong and unafraid, and for her enemies, that God would forgive them. ‘Jesus prayed on the cross’ she told Coles, ‘Forgive them, because they don’t know what they’re doing’.

….. I have known human beings who, in the face of unbearable daily stress, respond with resilience, even nobility. And I have known others who live in a comfortable, even luxurious environment and yet seem utterly lost. We have both sides in all of us, and that’s what the bible says, isn’t it? The bible shows us both hope and doom, the possibility and the betrayal. In its stories, sometimes the favourite becomes fatally tempted and sometimes the lowly and obscure one becomes an agent of hope if not salvation. I believe those stories are part of each of us.’ P112 P Yancey.

Jesus said; ‘And I appointed you to go and bear fruit.” (Jhn 15:16) ‘Sanctuary’ is always in relationship with ‘Pilgrimage’ in the spiritual life. We will be renewed only as we trust in God and choose to be open to the wonder of God’s love along the way. This means that the sanctuary does not need to be a fortress against the world, frightened of change but open to the call of Christ to follow him. Such an awareness leads us to times of refreshment we thought weren’t possible if we had stayed in the shelter of sanctuary only and not at the edges of life, bearing the fruit of love and faith. Such a ‘Pilgrimage’ is not a kind of tourism, passing through the world as if we are only observers – for we are children of God who are called to bear fruit as we companion the burden bearers of our time.

On this Remembrance Day as we companion the burden bearers of war and remember their loss. May we allow Christ to make his home in us so that we may become a sanctuary for the burdened and companion them in their restoration.

Rev’d Susan F. Straub

Introduction

The readings from Joshua and I Thessalonians today, hold God’s promise of life:  plenty of life, inexhaustible life, eternal life.  Abram was an old man, as good as dead, and God called him and promised to make through him a great nation.  Jesus died and God raised him and made through him a great people of faith. Is that the end? I don’t think so, life isn’t static is it, it flows on. Same with God’s promises.

What do we need to have in order for God to continue to fulfill this promise?  The lamp of Faith and the good oil so that the light which signals that God’s love is here, right where we happen to be, doesn’t go out in times of darkness.  Faith is simply believing in God, the work of Jesus on the cross, and his promise of eternal life. To make it personal, this means ME! That’s grasping the vision. As we step out to begin the life, we use the good oil of whatever goods we have, and crucially, keep walking and giving to the end of our days.

With new cases of CoVID-19 being found only among those arriving from overseas, it’s no wonder health and government officials are warning us of complacency.  It’s so easy to let our guard down when we’re thinking:  Well, it hasn’t happened yet, could be a while; or even, it might never happen!

Matthew 25:1-13 – The wise prepared and the foolish unprepared

The passage from the gospel according to Matthew this morning is about being prepared:  prepared for Christ’s coming to us, the end of our time on this earth, and our celebration with Christ. It’s about keeping in mind the vision so that the mission is fulfilled through wise stewardship: able to meet those things which are not necessarily hoped for, but which are possible.  Just as Matthew was writing for his church, who hoped for and expected Christ’s imminent return.

Verse 3, at the beginning of Chapter 24,  we read:  ‘When he (Jesus) was sitting on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately, saying, “Tell us, when will this be and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?’

In Matthew’s gospel, Jesus didn’t give them a date: nothing so certain. He did give a list of disasters: wars, conflict, famines and earthquakes. Unfortunately, disasters happen in every age.  At no time in history perhaps are we more aware of disasters around the globe. Our own age is one of almost instant transmission of information. Jesus also warned his disciples of disasters in their relationships with others: hatred, betrayal, being led astray by those whose word they trusted. Again, unfortunately, things that happen at some time in the lives of all of us to varying degrees.

It’s important for us to understand that Jesus was speaking of these things not to the crowds, not to the Pharisees, but to his disciples, those close to him. One who learns a way of being and relating to the world from Jesus, is not guaranteed personal peace, prosperity, health or life being fair: the traditional blessings of the righteous. Again, Jesus turns things around. Rather than good deeds and a righteous life bringing blessings to the individual, being a disciple of Christ is do the work of bringing blessings to those who don’t have them:  his peace to those who don’t have it; prosperity to those who don’t have it; health to those who don’t have it; justice to those who don’t have it. Living the life of Christ, is to live the life of the Spirit: working to bring God’s promise of life to fulfillment. It is to live the life of giving life, and meaning in life, to others. It is to be wise in our stewardship of our resources.

The oil that keeps the lamps burning to light the way for Christ to come, is not only the spiritual oil of faith and vision, and other spiritual gifts, but also the material ‘good oil’. For many the light that allows them to see Christ – precedes his coming into their lives – is thrown by the oil of goods: of buildings and land such as cathedrals, churches, rectories, gardens; of great works of art and literature; newsletters and computers;  bread, cakes, wine and money.  All these are provision for our purpose: lighting the way of Christ.

Those who seek to bring Christ’s peace, prosperity, health, and justice get in the face (or up the nose) of those who have something to gain from their own way of thinking, and living. And sometimes we meet resounding indifference. At some time, too, we might be in need of peace, prosperity, health, and justice.  Disciples of Christ understand that we, as humanity, all share this common life.  Our Lord is God who came among us and shared the life we have in common (disasters unprecedented? Or ‘…there is nothing new under the sun’ ?).

Be that as it may, it’s important for us to recall that Jesus then went on to teach his disciples that whatever the circumstances, they must be constantly prepared to receive him, and to do what was necessary for him when he came. They were to give an account of themselves; not only ready but ABLE; not only with the lamp of faith, but with the ‘good oil’, the provision, to light the way of Christ as he came again. Those in the darkness of despair and hopelessness, may see, find faith in their lives, and stay for the celebration.

Whether he came earlier or later than the disciples expected, once he came, it would be too late to make up deficiencies:  “When was it that we saw you hungry, or thirsty, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not take care of you?”.  Such deficiencies Jesus told his disciples would exclude them from the celebration:  will exclude us.

The parable tells us that those who think it unnecessary to make provision for a lengthy period of waiting for Christ’s return to judge the living and the dead are foolish. They are rightly excluded from the joy of the feast.

Henri Nouwen wrote:  ‘celebrating means the affirmation of the present, which becomes fully possible only by remembering the past and expecting more to come in the future.   But celebrating in this sense very seldom takes place.  More often than not the present is denied, the past becomes a source of complaints, and the future is looked upon as a reason for despair or apathy. Nothing is as difficult as really accepting one’s own life.’ (Creative Ministry, p. 100).

This is not only true of individuals, but even of the church itself. So, as disciples of Christ, we are to see the future as a land of opportunity for the fulfillment of God’s promise of, not just existence, but never-ending life: eternal life – and joy in it!

Rev’d Peter Balabanski

All Souls 2020 – Job 14.1-15, Ps 90, Jn 5.19-29

You remember the light of the Christ candle at last Sunday’s baptism? It says that the resurrection of Jesus long ago is something we trust in so much that we pass its light on to our children. We look back through the lives of all our dead to the resurrection of Jesus, and that event transforms the meaning of those deaths from futility into hope. The baptismal candle says that resurrection is everyone’s gift.

Because of the resurrection of Jesus too, we can also turn to look into the future and see our own deaths not as capricious ends, but with the hope that they are a part of the way to a joy which cannot be snatched away. Hope; belief. Are they enough? We want certainty, but we’ll never be absolutely sure. And that’s not a bad thing.

We’re often tempted to assert something definite where we want to defy the sadness of loss; where we want to fight with God over the rights and wrongs of someone’s death. But in the end, our faith doesn’t deal in those certainties – doesn’t centre on a God who can be manipulated into indulging us. And that’s good; frustrating, but as it should be.

Job and the Psalmist speak realistically of the difficulties of being mortal. They’re clear about death being a part of life. They don’t pull any punches. They engage with God in very strong language, and ask the same ‘why’ questions that we ask. They know God has something to do with this.

What does our heritage offer us here? After worship in many churches, people will pray that the souls of the faithful departed may rest in peace and rise in glory. There are plaques here and in churches around the world asking that we ‘Pray for the Soul of … . Do we really expect things to change for the dead? Is that what all those plaques are calling for?

One way to think about it is to say that God, free from time’s constraints, is able to be present to us, and at the same time, present to those Souls we are praying for.

I suppose that could mean that just as we pray for the souls of the faithful departed, in God’s present, right now, our distant descendants might be praying for our souls. And while for them, we might be a plaque on a wall or in a churchyard somewhere, what they are praying in that distant future might, by God’s grace, have some influence over the way we choose to live now. I wonder.

Jesus, in today’s gospel, takes us deeper into this realm of fluid time, grace and choice, and so into the significance of such prayer. ²⁴ Very truly, I tell you, anyone who hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life, and does not come under judgement, but has passed from death to life. ²⁵ ‘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.

Present, past and future all dissolve into grace without time. Death dissolves into a greater reality of life which is an answer to a call – a call from we know not when – but a call which we might dare to ask might be uttered.

For our loved ones, for us, no certainty – but there’s hope. For our loved ones, for us, no manipulating a system, but there’s prayer.

Hope and prayer are not bad options in a real world.

So let’s hope, and let’s pray.         Amen

Rev’d Peter Balabanski

All Saints – Rev 7 9-17

The book of Revelation was written in a time of terrible persecution for the early Church the outsiders of their time. It’s a book willed with visions and dreams, with hope and resilience; but only for those with eyes to see. Revelation has only ever spoken to them; people who can crack its code and find hope and resilience in it. The persecutors of the early Church would have drawn a complete blank.

Often, in times of great suffering, someone will emerge from amongst a sad and frightened people – someone with a vision. This visionary can see something that nobody else can – it’s their gift. The visionary isn’t blind to the day-to-day pain and misery that everyone’s going through; anything but – they’re in it too. Yet they’re given a vision – a vision which can lift a suffering people’s eyes from their misery, and fix their gaze on something better, so that suddenly, their perspective changes.

When perspective changes, nothing tangible changes, and yet everything changes. Suddenly people believe in change. Then the suffering and misery they endure, and the hatred that poisons their lives are no longer their defining boundaries. Without being physically or emotionally set free, people’s spirits are nevertheless released. They’re given their full humanity back – but given it in a secret way – in a secret place that their persecutors can’t reach. That’s what the writer of Revelation gave to a persecuted Church; that’s what visionaries still give people in our time.

So if much of the book of Revelation is opaque to us, maybe it’s just that we’re waiting for the right time to read it – let’s pray that we’re spared that time. Revelation is written in a sort of code. Let’s crack it open a bit. ^{7.9 …} I looked, and there was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages. How does that bring hope to persecuted Jewish and Gentile Christians?

Do you remember the promise God made to Abraham – Genesis 12.3 – in you, all families of the earth shall be blessed? Here it is pictured as fulfilled.

What’s being said here is that persecutors can do what they like, but in the end, what God has promised is what goes. Revelation goes further – all tribes and peoples and languages: languages. This goes back further – to the tower of Babel, where God confused the languages of the people. This vision sees all that division reversed – what was broken gets mended in this vision. So wounds in the Christian community – divisions and misunderstandings – are also going to be healed.

The verse goes on; this multitude is standing before the throne and before the Lamb, robed in white, with palm branches in their hands. These people are in God’s presence – in the presence of the Lamb. Jesus, the one who was killed but is now alive again, is enthroned in splendour. And the multitude is robed in white, the robe of martyrs – of those who witnessed with their lives – the robe of the baptised.

“These are they who have come out of the great ordeal; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. ⁵ For this reason they are before the throne of God, and worship him day and night within his temple, and the one seated on the throne will shelter (pitch the divine tent over) them.

So these persecuted, martyred ones are resurrected too, and they’re bearing palm branches. What people waved for Jesus on his road to the cross, they wave still, having travelling that road themselves to death and resurrection. What the palms proclaimed of Jesus’ royalty then is vindicated for them now, where all is fulfilled.

Can you see how subversive this writing is? Can you see how it would give heart to people who know martyrdom? And at the same time it confounds their persecutors utterly? It’s a secret language – a precious gift – a language of indomitable hope.

This subversive passage is set for this feast of All Saints to remind us that our defining reality is not suffering and death, but the healing and life which God chooses to give to and through all the nameless little people – the glorious nobodies – who’ve handed our faith down to us. ¹⁷ …the Lamb at the centre of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of the water of life, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes. There is a vast multitude with us today who’ve carried us and whom we carry inside us. We worship God with them today.

Rev’d Peter Balabanski

Pentecost + 21 – Baptism in Holy Communion – Chizara Obi

You are my Child, my beloved; I delight in you – Mark 1.11

On my silent retreat last week, providentially, one of the Bible readings we were given to spend time with was the story of the baptism of Jesus as it’s described in the first chapter of Mark’s Gospel. Here’s how it goes. Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptised by John in the Jordan. And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. And a voice came from heaven, ‘You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.’

After I’d spent a long time with this reading, I talked about it with my retreat director who surprised me by suggesting that I should try out hearing those words from heaven as if they were spoken to me. You are my Child, my beloved; I delight in you. I spent the next day wrestling with it. I wonder if you’d like to try it for a few moments – listen to those words from heaven, and hear them addressing you personally. You are my Child, my beloved; I delight in you.

Please hear it again: You are my Child, my beloved; I delight in you.

I don’t know about you, but I found it very difficult to hear these words as being addressed personally to me. It’s something important for me to work through. But for the moment, it’s enough for you and me to know that even if we struggle with it, it is true. Our faith doesn’t depend on how we feel. Those words are true for me; true for each of you, and in a very special way today, true for Chizara Chloe. When Chizara emerges from the waters of baptism today, several things will happen and they will be her first, special taste of those words from heaven; Chizara, you are my Child, my beloved; I delight in you.

The lighting of her baptismal candle from the Easter candle will proclaim that the new life which raised Jesus from the dead lives in Chizara from the moment of her baptism. That’s one way she’ll hear the voice say You are my Child, my beloved; I delight in you.

The joyful procession of thanks will be a way we can share in that delight with Chizara. You are my Child, my beloved; I delight in you.

And then at the altar she’ll be anointed with Chrism Oil, and we’ll all say the prayers of commissioning and welcome which affirm the truth of those words from heaven for Chizara. She’ll be marked as Christ’s own for ever, and she’ll be received and welcomed as a member of the universal body of Christ, as a child of the one heavenly Father, and as an inheritor of the Kingdom of God, together with all the baptised. All this will speak of the meaning of those words from heaven for Chizara – You are my Child, my beloved; I delight in you.

I can see why my retreat director thinks we should each hear those words from heaven for ourselves; you are my Child, my beloved; I delight in you. Nothing can block the truth of that gentle love; nothing can quench that delight. The Spirit who descended on Jesus has, over the millennia since, descended on all the baptised. And this morning, that same Spirit will descend on Chizara.

Let’s begin that part of her journey with her now. I invite her sponsors and parents to bring her forward now.

Rev’d Peter Balabanski

Dedication Festival – 1 K8 22-30, Ps 84, 1P 2 4-10, Mt 7 24-29

Sometimes when you visit a special place in the Holy Hand, a fragment of Scripture will come alive for you in a new way. One such place for me is a little chapel inside the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem (Eastern churches call it the Church of the Resurrection). This ancient church was built around 326 CE by St Helene, the mother of the Emperor Constantine. It was built to enclose two important sites.

One site is the one that gives the Church its name, the Holy Sepulchre. Originally a cave was cut into the wall of a disused quarry, and bought by Joseph of Arimathea to serve as a family tomb. It’s the tomb he gave to enable the hasty burial of Jesus.

The other site is very close by. It’s a rough rocky outcrop that was left over in that disused limestone quarry. It was left there as it was useless for building material. Tradition places Jesus’ crucifixion on the top of this crumbly, fissured outcrop – a highly visible place just outside the city wall. And it’s still there to touch and to see. You can touch the top of the rock from inside a chapel built above it. You touch the stone by crawling under the altar and reaching down to it through a hole in the floor. And downstairs in a small, dimly-lit chapel, you can see its base lit up through a window set into the wall. Pilgrim groups walking the way of the cross stop here for the tenth time to remember Jesus being stripped of his garments before his crucifixion. And the scripture they read is one we heard this morning. The stone that the builders rejected has become the very head of the corner. ^{1 Pet 2.7b – Ps 118.22}

Those words in that place. Jesus was the stone rejected by empire builders – people who built on the sand of their own ambition and pride, their selfishness and their cruelty. But Jesus rose from the dead, from a rock cave to be revealed as our cornerstone – the foundation on whom we and everyone and everything stands.

Today we gather in this much smaller, much younger stone church to give thanks for the hundred and eighty-one years of worship and loving service Christians have been able to offer here, and to affirm again that Jesus is our one foundation-stone.

Our parish family began its life here as St John’s in the Wilderness. But with time, things have changed. For many years now, we’ve been St John’s Halifax St., a central-city parish. How have we navigated this change; how have we responded faithfully to what this calls from us? Our foundation, Christ, has always been our guide. His love and acceptance offered to the poor, the lonely, the sick and the troubled have remained our standard. Our mission has become more complex with the passage of time. The needs we are called to address keep growing.

Years ago, we responded to these growing needs through the establishment of St John’s Youth Services, and by entering into a covenant with the Cathedral, St Mary Magdalene’s and Anglicare in order to nurture and manage the Magdalene Centre.

But now both SJYS and TMS have grown up, and despite the strong ties that still bind us, they’ve left us with something like empty-nesters’ syndrome. Painful as that is, it’s a good thing. We can celebrate the wonderful work our kids are doing out in the world. But we can’t relax. So what’s next? Many of us are very active as individuals in voluntary community work. But as a congregation – a parish – what’s our next project? How do we imagine ourselves as the body of Christ – as we say each week – embodying Jesus in a community where, in the post-Covid and climate-changing world, needs and crises are greater than they’ve ever been?

We’re empty nesters. One of Michael Leunig’s cartoons depicts an empty-nester couple sitting in their calf-leather recliner-rockers in front of a magnificent home-entertainment unit, each with a large glass of red in their hand. And there’s an embroidered sampler on the wall proclaiming their new motto: ‘We have overcome’.

Have they shut the world out? We can’t be like that. We have a founder whose example defines our mission as one of active compassion and an accepting hospitality right to the end. We know that we are called to follow Jesus, walking the way of struggle together with each other and with all in need. Today’s hymns, psalm and readings remind us that the blessings we enjoy are inextricably linked to Jesus’ model of compassion and radical hospitality. They say the only way we can live with integrity is to be firmly founded on Christ’s example all our lives. There’s no retirement age for a follower of Jesus.

We’re experiencing our call to mission in the world in a different way from earlier generations because the place we have in the hearts of the wider community is steadily deteriorating. It’s as though we’re coming to be seen in the way the builders saw that old rocky outcrop in the quarry back in Jerusalem; no use for building anything. Many can’t see us as relevant to anything in the modern world.

Rev Andrew’s irrigation installer asked him, ‘So whaddaya do for a crust?’ Andrew replied, ‘I’m a minister in the church.’ To which the irrigation installer scratched his head in bewilderments and exclaimed, ‘Geez Mate! There can’t be much call for that any more!’

The local community care we once offered is increasingly managed by corporate agencies; no longer so much through humble parish relationships with locals. But we have gifts that corporate agencies can only dream of. The stone that the builders might reject can still be revealed as the head of the corner by our response to Jesus’ call. We still offer the millennia-old sanctuary of life-long friendship and protection. We still offer life-long belonging in a family community whose first principle is loving acceptance and hospitality; and we still offer life-long companionship on the pilgrimage that each person travels. Corporate agencies, eat your heart out!

Particularly here at St John’s, as part of our community care, we treasure beauty, culture, creativity, thinking, art, history, literature and music. All of these are under growing threat as a utilitarian world-view poisons our governments against supporting creative people in need, or funding the study of the humanities and social sciences. Again, as in earlier dark ages, this Church – the stone the builders would reject – we can nurture and preserve these gifts of civilization which, like creation herself, proclaim our Saviour as the creative, redemptive giver of all life, beauty and meaning

So what are we going to do next? I’m seriously asking for suggestions from each of you. Building on our strengths is a good start, but how? Over to you.                           Amen

Rev’d Peter Balabanski

Pentecost + 19 A – Exodus 32 1-14 Matthew 22 1-14

Was there a sign outside that wedding venue? Dress code. If ladies present, thongs, stubbies and dark blue singlets prohibited! Was it that sort of offence? Is choice of clothing so important that the heavenly bouncer, having roughed you up, then throws you into the outer darkness to weep and gnash your remaining teeth? I doubt it.

This is another in a series of parables where Jesus challenges some who believe they’re called and chosen to be the leaders of the chosen people. Jesus ends this parable with an unnerving warning: ‘many are called, but few are chosen’. Stung, these indignant chosen leaders will plot to trap Jesus.

A scary message of this parable is that there’s no guarantee you’re on the inside. Being on the invitation-list, being an insider – think of being a baptised or ordained member of the church today – neither qualification is a guarantee that you’re in – that you end up being chosen.

What about the chosen people; the called and chosen people – Israel? Over the past months, the lectionary has followed some central events of their call and choosing. The story of the Exodus records their rescue from slavery in the land of Egypt, and their journey towards the Promised Land. We’ve often been up close, like today, wincing at their rocky relationship with the God who rescued them. The people of Israel in the wilderness behave like the invited guests in today’s parable who violated the invitation so dreadfully. They were God’s invited guests – called out of slavery, led through the waters of the Red Sea to journey to a Promised Land, where they were to be blessed with freedom, justice, trust, wholeness and mutual respect; they were called to be a beacon of hope to the world.

To be the ones chosen for such a destiny was a staggering honour – called to robe yourselves in a rich garment of privilege that slaves could never have dreamt of. How do you begin to respond to such grace? This morning, sadly, we see how they do. As they wait for Moses to come back down from Mount Sinai, we watch them lose patience; lose trust. They decide to cover all bases and worship another god, just in case – an image of a golden calf which they make for themselves.

That’s what our parable depicts; people who only honour an invitation if they feel like it, who aren’t really committed – who don’t put on the garment – who publicly insult the King and his Son. The honour of the invitation is unimaginable; impossible to reciprocate. Yet they turn it down and even abuse and kill the bearers of the invitation.

In their place, strangers and foreigners are asked along, regardless; good or bad. This parable drives home the point that it’s not necessarily the people you’d expect to know God who actually do. God is more broad-minded than we can imagine, inviting … well… anyone … into the kingdom. That’s what makes Church so exciting; random; edgy – that’s something we call a foretaste of the heavenly banquet – the unpredictable, wonderful variety of the community God calls; God chooses – not whom we might have thought of at all.

Amidst all this, what’s this wedding garment about? The king noticed one hastily recruited guest who hadn’t put on a wedding garment. We’re clear that it’s an insult – not putting on the garment. But what is this wedding garment – what does it mean?

Over the centuries, people in the Church have come up with a fascinating range of possibilities. Very early on, Tertullian ^{160-225 CE} said it was a garment of good works and self-denial. Later, Hilary of Poitiers ^{315-367 CE} said the garment was the Holy Spirit. Augustine ^{354-430 CE} had two goes; first that it was a garment of love, and then later, that the garment was the Christ himself, whom we put on at our baptism. The Reformation preachers said that the garment was faith; faith that was active – so it was something you could see expressed in love and good works. Catholics of that time agreed about it representing faith, but the faith they meant was shown by the guests accepting the invitation to the feast; not by the garment. For them, it was clearly a symbol of good works.

In the 18^th century, a teaching surfaced that said wedding garments were given to guests by their hosts in that time. As you can imagine, this fitted very well into protestant teaching about faith as a gift from God; not a human work. That’s how it’s been preached in protestant circles now for over two centuries. ^{Luz Matthäus III: 246-9}

I think it was probably preached this way because people felt a need to explain why the king could deal so severely with a guest whose only offence was not to wear a wedding garment. And that severity is certainly an issue.

But this teaching about God giving the garment sidesteps what all the other interpreters of the wedding garment were trying to address, which is what the garment says about our true relationship with God. Whatever else they say, they agree that this wedding garment means that something about us really matters to God, and secondly, that putting this garment is to accept the invitation to belong to God; it is to receive a new identity as one of God’s community. Matthew put things in a pretty scary way – with the murderers and their punishment, and the gnashing of teeth in the outer darkness. Maybe their community needed a bit of a kick-start at the time: this is, of course, told to shape a community, not individuals. So what might this parable say specifically to us? Does our community wear this wedding garment?

By wearing this robe, our community can honour God and his Son. Wearing this robe, we can radiate the joy and expectation of a wedding banquet. Wearing this robe, we can be a beacon of hope in the world. Wearing this robe proclaims that God is changing us; that we’re a work in progress. As one American Catholic scholar put it, today’s ‘Gospel is not the announcement that [we are] fine the way we are. Rather, [that] God loves us so much that he will not leave us unchanged.’ ^{Leonard R. Klein}

We’re called to open ourselves to that grace; to stay open to it so we can be changed and go on being changed; to grow, which is to live. We’re called to put on the garment to signify to the world and to each other our true identity as a community of Christ.                   Amen.

Rev’d Peter Balabanski

Feasts of Francis and Michael – Jrm 22 13-16, Ps 148 1-13, Rev 12 7-12a, Mt 11 25-30

(Patron saint of ups and downs.) Today, one of those we celebrate is Francis. He’s a wanderer whom we remember with love for his words of encouragement and wisdom to people and to birds and animals. Our Psalm this morning could virtually be his theme song. Praise (הָלַל boast of) the Lord from the Earth! All the creatures in this Psalm are cause to boast of God’s greatness – land and sea creatures, forces of nature, all types of people; everything boasts of God, source of our being.

Psalm 148 takes us back into the journey of our last four weeks where we’ve joined together with forests, soils, wilderness and rivers to praise / boast of God who is with us. In our hearts and minds, we’ve walked in forests where the sounds of the life surrounding us gradually still our talk, and the peace of listening prayer settles in. We’ve acknowledged that we and all life are born of the soil; so we’re all one family. We’ve heard the invitation to stay long enough in the outback that its seeming changelessness brings about deep spiritual change in us. And last week, we recognised rivers as the living bloodstream of this Land – like the blood of Christ is for us, bringing new life, protection and deep healing.

Nature is the constant work of the living God; teaching us about God’s nature. As spring erupts, God’s love for all life and for Earth who sustains us is now on show for anyone to see. May our eyes and hearts keep opening up to embrace a much bigger family than just our fellow humans. This past month, Earth has been our spiritual guide. In Francis we meet a daring ancestor who opened himself, body and soul, to her leading; to the spiritual journey we’ve walked this Season of Creation.

We know Francis gave up a life of wealth and luxury. He set out on his new journey of service to God, barefoot and wearing only rags. His new life was marked by poverty and humility. His vocation – his calling – was to rebuild a Church which was being ruined by its power and wealth, just as he had been.

Alongside his challenge to the church – and that’s still going on – Francis was himself ‘rebuilt’. His new life of poverty and simplicity led Francis to learn that God’s love is for all, not just for the great and the lucky; and not just for the human race either. Francis lived that new insight more deeply as time went on. He taught that all creatures bear witness to God as we do; he called them our sisters and brothers; fellow servants and witnesses of God with us.

So Francis’s original calling from God was to reform the Church.

As his understanding of his vocation developed, it was obvious that Francis’s life would become a challenge to the whole social order. Society should be just and compassionate; all people should be cherished. This conviction lies behind the confronting nature of the scriptures set for his special day. I can imagine Francis preaching from today’s passage in Jeremiah as he takes a rich person to task for using the unpaid work of neighbours to build a luxury home. The example of Francis’s life directly challenged the greed and abuse this represented.

Francis, like Jesus, lamented the idea some have, that only the wise and intelligent are qualified to exercise spiritual authority, or are capable of receiving spiritual guidance. Francis, like all the prophets of the Hebrew Scriptures, and like Jesus, his model and his master, defied the curse of self-importance; the delusional contempt of this world’s ‘great and powerful’ for the welfare and wisdom of the vulnerable.

A barefoot man dressed in rags lived a life which defied this very powerful delusion. And there’s no point in denying that the delusion lives on. Deluded human beings still seek to take the place of God, and they bring disaster to millions. But a barefoot man in rags who wandered and taught as his Master had done still speaks with a moral authority which human power can’t silence.

Our reading from Revelation 12 reminds us that this is a spiritual, cosmic struggle; one we don’t fight alone. Angels and archangels fight for us in a battle against the forces of hatred. Michaelmas is a time to celebrate with thanksgiving the myriad angels God sends to defend, heal and sustain all life.

As if our mortality weren’t enough, every generation is compelled to endure greed, injustice, hatred and destruction. Michaelmas is a time to stop and remember that God never lets us face these trials alone.

Over the Season of Creation, we’ve looked at the way greed and the abuse of power have been allowed both to ravage the world’s forests, soils, wilderness and rivers; allowed to ruin the lives of the creatures and ordinary people who depend on them for their livelihoods. The feasts of Francis and Michael remind us to be humble, vigilant and outspoken.

In God’s strength, and with the saints and angels beside us, we are called as a prophetic people to name and challenge wrongs when we see them, and to offer support and healing to those who are weary with carrying these heavy burdens. Let us be angels sent by Jesus to give help, rest and hope to these dear ones.         Amen