Rev’d Peter Balabanski

Lent 4 C – Lk 15 The parable of the lost sons

It helps us to know who was there when Jesus told today’s parable. There seem to have been some notorious sinners and tax collectors. They’d come to hear Jesus’ teaching. And watching on were Luke’s version of the morality police – some Pharisees and Scribes. They were grumbling loudly enough for us to hear them complain that Jesus welcomes sinners and eats with them. ^{Lk 15.2} Gate keepers can be a bit passive-aggressive like that.

Jesus responded with three parables; the parable of the lost sheep rescued and the rejoicing that caused, the parable of the lost coin found – and more rejoicing, and then today’s one. But the parable of the lost sons breaks the pattern. Yes, sons. The bitter, self-righteous, older son was every bit as lost as his younger brother had been. He wouldn’t come home to join in the rejoicing, and that hurt his father terribly. Ironically, this gate-keeper contrived to shut himself out.

Jesus was telling the religious officials in three different ways that the tax collectors and sinners who’d come to learn from him were very valuable. This parable says they were like his own children. But they’d got lost. Jesus had come to find them, and they’d come to find him. So they weren’t lost any more. Party time!

But the older brother in the parable – the judgmental, bitter one who grumbled about his father giving a feast for this son of yours! – does he remind you of anyone? He welcomes sinners and eats with them! Yes, the Pharisees and Scribes feature in this parable, don’t they. Just as Jesus reached out to the tax collectors and sinners through the younger son, he reached out to the Pharisees and Scribes through the tragic story of the older son. We never find out what happens to him, or them.

Jesus annoyed the Pharisees and scribes by eating with sinners and tax collectors; he publicly treated these socially ostracised people as if they were legitimate members of the community. But the Scribes and Pharisees thought they were the arbiters of who belonged and who didn’t. Jesus obviously thought differently. This parable says the sinners and tax collectors who came to him were his lost children, who’d been found. Social convention had given them up for dead, but now they were alive again with him. These kin of yours were dead and have come to life; they were lost and have been found. ^{Luke 15.32}

This is the absolute heart of the Gospel. The Gospel explicitly identifies the lost younger son with Jesus himself; dead, but alive again. ^{Luke 15.32} Like that younger son, Jesus left his father and came here squandering his inheritance among people like us to the point of giving up his life. Jesus who died, given up for lost by his friends, Jesus was raised to new life, gave those friends and us another chance at life, and leads us to the Father’s house ^{John 14.2} where the party is being prepared for us all.

Don’t we see Jesus in the Father running out to embrace his son? Can we hear him whisper in our ear that we are safe now, because we’re with him? Come home; come into the eternal, joyous banquet of unconditional, welcoming love!

Jesus came that all might have abundant life ^{John 10.10} – including people we find really difficult to deal with; people who offend against all our instincts and values. He came that all might have abundant life.

Even us? The Gospel is showing us, as we enter this parable, that we – even if we’ve given up on ourselves as lost – even if other people – even sisters and brothers have given us up for lost – we can see Jesus running out to us, to embrace us and clothe us in the robes of unquestioning belonging; unconditional belonging.

The three parables of the lost tell us how God values us. They tell us how God risks giving us the freedom to learn how valuable our relationships are by experiencing what life is like without them. But they also show us how God has chosen to be vulnerable to us in the love that will brave righteous anger to defend us.

That’s the love he calls us to show in our own lives too. Praise God for such scandalous love!  Amen.

Mothering Sunday Cake and Posy Blessing

Father and Mother God, giver of all joy:
we ask that you bless this cake and these posies,
so that they may be to us
symbols of our communion with you and with each other.
As they were once scattered over our land
as blossoms and blooms,
grasses, vines, trees and cane,
yet are now one,
so let us in our diversity
be your one redeemed people,
and your delight.  Amen.

 

Rev’d Peter Balabanski

Lent 3C – Luke 13 1-9

Oscar Romero was Archbishop of the city of San Salvador from 1977. At that time, his country, El Salvador, had a terrible government. Most of the people were kept very poor by a greedy few. But they were frightened to complain, because anyone who complained was arrested and tortured – often killed. Romero spoke out against all this until he was assassinated by government soldiers in 1980. They shot him when he was at the altar during communion as he raised the chalice of wine before the people. It’s like today’s gospel story; his blood and the communion wine were mingled at the altar. And five days later the soldiers opened fire on the people who had gathered for Romero’s funeral.

People came to Jesus today with a story that was just as terrible. Some people from Galilee had come to the Temple – they’d come to offer their sacrifice to God. And just as they were offering their gifts, the soldiers of the Roman governor killed them, right at the altar. The soldiers mingled their blood with the blood of their animals and birds that were sacrificed on the altar.

When the people told Jesus about this, he heard them ask a very complex series of questions. We may have just heard people tell him some terrible news. But Jesus heard them ask, ‘Why did this happen to people who were doing good? Were they really secretly bad people, pretending to do good, and God punished them? Does God strike people down like that? Do you have to be really terrible for God to do that, or could it happen to us too? Why would God let this happen to people who were doing something good?’ I think Jesus heard all these questions; they’re the questions people ask when bad things happen. ‘Why them? Why me? Why now?’ … We often ask questions like these when we get very sick, when we don’t seem to be getting better, or when terrible things happen to us or to people we love.

Jesus answered the unspoken questions of these people with a question of his own: ‘Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way, they were any worse than all other Galileans?’ Then he answered his own question: No! … ‘And’, Jesus told them, ‘the same went for the eighteen people who accidentally died when that building fell on them.’ If I tried to give his answer in different words, I’d say this. ‘Just because something bad happens to a person, it doesn’t mean they’ve been any worse than the next person. When you’ve lost someone you love, you deserve to know at least that!

What happened to these poor people could happen to any one of us at any time. So I’m really glad that Jesus said what he did. I’m glad to be able to tell grieving friends and family that Jesus said fatal accidents and fatal illnesses are not things God does to people. In this parish there are many who carry the sadness of the untimely death of loved ones. I’m glad to be able to assure you that illness and tragic accidents and the evil acts of dictators are not God’s punishment.

Jesus tells us these are not signs of God’s anger, but; just that we’re mortal. ‘So’, he warns us, ‘be ready – to turn to God.’ Why should I be glad to preach that? What’s good news there? Once again, the answer comes from Jesus; ‘…Unless we repent, we will all perish as they did.’ That sounds pretty ominous, but only until we consider how those people perished – completely unexpectedly. They had no idea it was coming. What might they have done if they knew they were going to die?

What would I do if I thought this year was going to be my last? If I were that fig tree in the parable, and I heard the gardener pleading for me to be given just one more season – I’d fix back-burner relationships first, then … what would you do?

Like many people I’ve journeyed with, in just that situation, I might set about putting my life in order. And I’d try to make sure I was better prepared to meet God face to face. I’d realise pretty quickly how silly it is to worry about what’s wrong with other people. I have plenty to do fixing myself up. And I have God’s love to tell other people about; that’s a hope that everybody needs.

Doing what Jesus says has far-reaching effects. When Oscar Romero was first made an Archbishop he was a government supporter. Then just three weeks later, a close friend of his was one of three people assassinated by soldiers for helping the poor. Romero said, “When I looked at Rutilio lying there dead, I thought, ‘If they have killed him for doing what he did, then I too have to walk the same path’” Romero repented; he turned; he left behind what was comfortable and safe, and he followed the same path as his friend; he turned, and truly followed Jesus. He only had three years more to live; what a blessing he turned when he did!

Jesus is telling us, don’t leave it all to the last few minutes.

The lovely poet and preacher, John Donne, put it very memorably:

Sleep with clean hands, either kept clean all day by integrity

or washed clean at night by repentance. ^{(Sermon XI, Lent, 20/4/1630 before the king)} Amen.

Rev’d Peter Balabanski

Lent 2 C – Gen 15 Ps 27 Phil 3 Lk 13

As we focus on the fate of a boat-person’s family today, it’s instructive to reflect that today’s readings present us with a world where everybody’s in the same boat. In church-language, it’s called a state of sin. But that doesn’t mean everyone’s some sort of spiritual criminal. What it means is that humanity is in more or less of a state of alienation or separation from God. We’re not necessarily in that state by choice; but we’re all in it, and it’s painful for everyone.

Everyone? It’s not just people who want nothing to do with God that suffer from this. It also afflicts people who love God, who seek God with every fibre of their being. Today’s readings show this. Look at Abram, the model of faith for Jews, Christians and Muslims. He’s a person who’s left everything behind to follow God’s leading. Yet today we see him as a man who has clearly lain awake worrying about what it was all for. Can that be true? Abraham, the model of faith, tormented by doubt?

And the Psalmist; someone who writes poetry that sings of God’s care, nevertheless cries v.10 “My heart has said of you, ‘Seek God’s face’: your face, God, I will seek. Do not hide your face from me”. Do not hide your face from me?! Even in our spiritual teachers, we find anxiety where we want solid faith; uncertainty where we expect confidence. My heart has said… That’s the telling phrase. Every spiritual seeker of every tradition talks of something deep within us that cries out to connect with the divine who is both the source of our being, and the end of our journey – our goal. But here is the Psalmist, a giant of faith, praying that God will not hide; praying to find God’s face.

Abram and the Psalmist, faithful people, experience the pain of separation from God. So it’s no shame on us that we do too. We try to find out why. Is it something I did; is there something wrong with me. Other people have strong faith; they seem blessed. Why not me?

If we react badly to the question of our own suffering, we’re worse when we see other people suffering. Sometimes when people have something terrible happen to them, others can try to rationalize their misfortune by wondering what they must have done to ‘deserve’ it. We know that’s rubbish; we know, or maybe we don’t know, that we say things like that because we’re afraid of the cost that being really compassionate might exact from us.

A sign of how badly we react to other people’s pain is that suffering people are often left alone. Few people can cope sitting with anyone who is in agony. It’s that cost of compassion thing again; we can’t bear to sit with it. And the sufferers know it; they send people away; they say they’d rather be alone. They don’t want to be a burden to anyone. They become the carers of people who can’t cope with their pain.

Our alienation from God – our sense of isolation from others, our physical or emotional suffering; they’re all part and parcel of the one experience; they’re simply part of being mortal. And there is no way out of that, regardless of our faith. But the coming of Jesus challenges the inevitability of that separation. We couldn’t be ‘one with God’, so coming in Jesus, God dealt with it by becoming ‘one of us’. God goes the whole way; birth, suffering and death. Suffering? In the coming weeks, we will hear again of the agonized breakdown in Gethsemane; the cries of anguish from the cross, and we’ll know they were real experiences of separation from God; the alienation which is the cost of sin.

But that sin doesn’t mean criminality. Jesus was sometimes asked to judge between people; to apportion blame. Instead, he names the basic malaise; alienation from God. He aches for us. How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing! As followers of Jesus, our purpose is mapped out. We are to be there for people who suffer. We are to be Jesus for each other. The alienation people experience should never be compounded with cruel, needless loneliness born of judgement and exclusion.

The way that works out as a call to us, particularly today, is a call to solidarity with refugees – aliens here and in foreign lands. It’s foundational to our faith. Last week, we heard Moses giving his final instructions to his people about thanking God for what they’d been given. Dt 26 What’s really striking about these instructions is that they applied equally to the citizens of the Land, and the aliens who resided among them! Refugees had the same rights, the same responsibilities, and were explicitly entitled to the same inclusion – as full citizens. Jesus gave us this same principle again in the parable of the Good Samaritan.

That used to be our way in Australia up until the mid-90’s. We were compassionate, inclusive and supportive. Refugees received humane, just treatment. Today, as we proclaim our support for Farshad, we invoke again the ancient Biblical principle that underpinned – and should again underpin – our treatment of those who seek shelter among us. Amen.

Rev’d Peter Balabanski

Lent 1C – Luke 4 1-15

Today we saw Jesus subjected to temptations that attack mutual dependence – the trust and faithfulness we need in each other; the temptations we face that attack our life as a community, and our life with God. Today, we saw Jesus confront three of these temptations after he’d been fasting for forty days in the wilderness. At his baptism, God told Jesus, ‘You are my Son, the beloved; I am well pleased with you.’ ^{Jn 3.22} This didn’t start Jesus’ public ministry though. First, the Spirit led Jesus in the wilderness for forty days of solitude, fasting and temptation.

Today, after those forty days, we hear the devil’s sneering taunt, challenging the now famished Jesus to prove God’s words true; ‘If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become a loaf of bread.’ ^{Jn 4.3} God’s declaration about Jesus as his Son is challenged. Prove it mister! What’s this got to do with us?

I must say this one hits me hard. I can have the most fabulous experience of God’s strength and presence in my ministry one moment, and then the very next, I’m tempted to imagine it may have had something to do with my skill or ingenuity. And without sensing the movement, I’m duped into wondering – Could God have done it without me? And then where’s the logical next step? Poor God is so busy. Could I do this even without God? CRASH!!! I’m lost in a spiritual wilderness with only the fruits of self-delusion and self-importance to eat.

Temptation is false food. These days, we’re bombarded with images of people who are happy, fulfilled, successful, popular, secure and attractive. The implication is that they’ve got that way because they drink some particular high-sugar, high-caffeine drink or eat some particular salty, oily food. The further implication is that we can be the same as them if only we consume this sugary, oily, salty stuff too. In fact if you eat this, wear that, drive one of those or live there, with just the power of your money you can create a whole new self – not to mention a whole new admiring fan club.

The advertising industry has stopped simply telling us of the existence of a product. Instead they make us the product that’s being sold – or at least, an image of us. We will suddenly be the type of people we never dared dream we could be: attractive, confident, successful, powerful – once we’ve tried this life changing junk food. This is what the serpent did to Eve and Adam in the garden – you’ll be like God if you eat this. In fact, God will be redundant if you eat it, because you’ll become gods yourselves. Think of it – you; a god. Just take a bite. It’s what we just saw the devil try on Jesus in the wilderness; ‘If you’re the Son of God, come on, fulfil your destiny with a do-it-yourself dinner. The power is all inside you anyway, so it must be okay. It’s meant to be!’ Jesus refuses the temptation of false food.

Temptation of a false God complex. Never doubt the rightness of your perceptions or your motives. That was number two for Jesus today: ‘All this could be yours; rule it; fix up all the problems from a position of strength. You know it’s what they expect of you. If that’s how they want it, can that be so bad? It’ll all go so much more smoothly like that.’ But no; we’re going to watch Jesus do it the hard way over the coming months. He’ll do it from the position of a servant, not a ruler. Depending on God and others reminds us we don’t know it all.

Temptation is also to manipulate; and that’s number three for Jesus today. Jump off this pinnacle of the Temple and force God’s hand: make God keep the promise to send angels to save you. Imagine the public-relations coup that would be with the whole religious establishment watching on! Every time Jesus refuses; he chooses to rely on God’s provision, to respect God’s sovereignty, to believe in God’s love – he chooses to be one of us; to depend on others; to show us that it’s possible to be a frail mortal and still be real, loveable and loved, for all our faults.

False Bread. When we’re tempted to insist on self-reliance – on being independent – it cuts us off from each other. Particularly, it closes us off from love: God’s love, and other people’s opportunities for showing us love. Dominion. When we seek to control through our power, it insults God and demeans everyone else involved – as if this world is more ours than theirs. Manipulation. And when we test God to see if our Creator cuts the mustard – we also demean our community, like any shabby sociopath would.

Jesus shows the alternative to each of these temptations. This man, who never wrote a book, has shown with his life, his humility, his companionship, his love and his vulnerability that we are made for community, and that community is built on respect, service and humility – in a word, Love. Amen

Rev’d Peter Balabanski

World Day of Prayer – Ps 139: The Cook Islands ‘I made you wonderful’ / DV.

In 2019 I attended a gathering in Fiji involving the Pacific Conference of Churches. The Cook Islands Christian Church and the RC Diocese of Rarotonga are PCC members. The very issues we’ve been called to pray about today – the climate and pollution emergency, and the epidemic of domestic violence against women and children – were the main focus back then too. At that gathering, just like today, the focus was on the islanders’ suffering because of rich countries’ inaction on climate change and sea-level rise, and because of the various forces at work driving the epidemic of domestic violence against women and children across the Pacific.

The Cook Island women who have given us today’s beautiful service have called us to draw strength with them from three teachings in today’s focus Psalm. Ps 139 tells us with infinite tenderness that God knows us, that God is with us, and that God made us wonderful. But, today, these women also call the world churches – call us – to pray with them against forces which defile these glorious blessings.

Greedy, malignant forces are ruining life for innocent and vulnerable people; cutting them off from experiencing God’s gifts to them. This is a theme that runs right through scripture. It may surprise you to know it’s also present in today’s beautiful Psalm. There are four verses in today’s Psalm, 139, which in the Australian Anglican Church are almost never read in public worship. Our lectionary makes it optional to read them out. And we haven’t read them today.

Near the end of this Psalm’s beautiful meditation on the intimacy of God’s love for us and our delight in that security, these verses stand in shocking contrast to the rest. Here are two of them. ¹⁹ If only you would slay the wicked, O God: if only the bloodthirsty would depart from me! ²⁰ For they affront you by their evil: and your enemies exalt themselves against you. Where’s that come from?! This Psalmist is so sure of God’s love, of a life lived under God’s careful eye. Yet even so, the Psalmist records a personal experience of violence, and calls out its perpetrators.

This sudden contrast comes as a shock to us – security and delight on the one hand, yet fear and loathing on the other. It could well describe the emotions of a people who experience violence against the very Islands they call home. – or of a person subjected to domestic violence. Let’s consider the violence against the Islands.

At the conference we attended, we learned how the Pacific family feels a very deep and personal grief because of the double catastrophe of rising sea levels, and the pollution ravaging ocean, air, land and living creatures in the Pacific region. They are all casualties of our greedy culture of more is better – our relentless generation of plastic waste; our relentless plundering of their children’s future.

I want to tell you about Josefa, a minister from a Pacific Island nation. Josefa told us his family’s story of the rising water that we all know threatens them right now. We know of it but not personally. Josefa gave us permission to share his story.

Josefa’s ancestors raised a large mound on their farm. On that mound, they built their family home. Just before he addressed us, he’d spoken on the phone with his brother who told him the water had now come up to the mound. The unthinkable is staring them in the face. The terrible sadness Josefa feels came home to me when he told us of a traditional family custom on his island. Every year at Christmas time, families go to the cemetery together to visit their ancestors’ graves. He said, ‘We show our love and respect for our parents, grandparents and ancestors by carefully tending their graves, but especially at this time. Then we all return to our family home together and share a wonderful feast of thanksgiving for our family.’

At this point, Josefa fell silent. Then, almost gasping with the effort to speak, he asked, ‘How can we do that any more? They’re saying we’ll have to leave our island soon and find somewhere else to live. But who would we be then? Who would we be without our island? We could no longer be the people of this island. If there is no island, then we are no more.’ The depth of Josefa’s grief was overwhelming; I can’t imagine losing my connection with everything my families have ever been; never able to go back to the place my story happened. That’s death.

And domestic violence? That’s the other evil – here, around the world, and in a particularly shocking way in the islands. We’ve heard and read today how women are significant custodians of islander culture. They are the ones who pass it down to the next generations. And yet the export industry of misogyny and sexual degradation of women and children from outside societies is corroding all that; undermining their dignity and their humanity. We export it through tourism, through the internet, and tragically, through some distortions of Christian teaching.

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

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

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

The patterns of domestic violence tell us that it is not a one-off matter of the perpetrator losing it or snapping – doing something out of character. No, it is a pattern of controlling, belittling, abusive behaviour which is the choice of the perpetrator; a reflection of the perpetrator’s true character.

Domestic Violence is an evil thing and it has no place in any family or any church – ever! And it should stop being exported by influencers, tourists, cultural colonisers and indeed churches.

The Cook Island women who have given us today’s beautiful service remind us that God knows us, that God is with us, and that God made us wonderful. Today, we affirm that God has made the Cook Islands and the People of the Cook Islands wonderful: that they bear the image of God. And we affirm that we will pray against – and work with them against – forces that would mar that beautiful image.

So to end, let’s return to the Psalm. The Psalmist knows violence and abuse, but as its final word, this Psalm tells us that loving care is the birthright of all people from the strongest to the most vulnerable. God has made the islands and the islanders beautiful and wonderful.

So let’s hear with them the Psalmist’s declaration of God’s care.

Ps 139.9   Lord, if I spread out my wings towards the morning: or dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me: and your right hand shall hold me.

God knows us, God is with us, and God made us wonderful. Amen.

Rev’d Peter Balabanski

Transfiguration – last Sunday after Epiphany – Ex 34 29-35, Ps 99, 2 Cor 3 12-42, Lk 9 28-36

Readers of Harry Potter books will know that transfiguration means change. At one point, the students had to change a teacup into a tortoise. But they were told marks would be deducted if the tortoise’s shell still had a willow pattern on it. And what if a person is transfigured? Many stories explore this idea, like R.L. Stevenson’s story of the good Dr Jekyll and the evil Mr Hyde. He raises the question of how these opposite aspects of a person’s nature might achieve integrity in ways that are true to themselves and safe for the community they live in.

Today, integrity and honesty seem completely up for grabs among world leaders. So the story of our leader, Jesus and his transfiguration is important to ponder. St Luke presents the story of the transfiguration in a rich and challenging way? What’s Luke trying to get across to us? And as followers and imitators of Christ, what are we to do about it? Who is the real Jesus that we seek to follow and imitate?

This is a very densely packed part of Luke’s portrait of Jesus. Just a few paragraphs after today’s account of the Transfiguration, we come to the pivotal turning point in this Gospel. Jesus sets his course towards Jerusalem; towards inevitable betrayal, suffering, rejection, death and resurrection. And over the coming months of Lent, we hear the call to turn with Jesus and walk this same journey.

Today’s gathering here is our last celebration of the Epiphany light which reveals Christ as ‘the hope of all who thirst for righteousness and peace’. But in just three days, on Ash Wednesday, the ashes of our hope will be marked on our foreheads.

Luke’s account of Christ’s transfiguration comes just seven verses after Peter’s famous declaration that Jesus is the Messiah of God – the anointed one, promised down through the centuries. So if they already know his true identity, what’s the need for today’s special revelation of Jesus’ divine nature to Peter, John and James?

The answer is in those seven intervening verses. There, we hear Jesus spell out the true cost of discipleship to him. Deny yourself. Take up your cross and follow him. If you want to save your life, you lose it. What does it profit you to gain the whole world but lose your very selves? Those who are ashamed to own Jesus and his teachings must know that he’ll be ashamed of them when he comes again in glory.

So Peter’s declaration of Jesus’ true identity – as true as it may have been – in the end, he’s not there yet. His faith is still not enough to survive the rigours of even a routine life, far less one where you have to carry your own cross each day. We’ll be reminded of that in Holy Week.

And of course, we need to remember that Luke was writing for people who knew all about being persecuted.

On top of all these contexts, the account of the transfiguration itself is loaded with connections too. It’s literally at a high point, being on a mountain – like Moses was when he received the Law on Mt Sinai. And it’s also a glimpse into a reality that is usually only seen by faith and not by sight – Jesus physically revealed as he truly is, the beloved Son of God, the Chosen One, the One to whom the Law and the Prophets point. So there with him are Moses, representing the Law, and Elijah, the prophets. And as our other readings have reminded us, Jesus’ own transfigured appearance recalls Moses’ shining face after each time he appeared before the Lord.

So today we see Jesus, transfigured, radiant, glorious, and talking with Moses and Elijah, both also appearing in glory. He’s talking with these ancient ones about his departure – his exodus. And now we know that his departure is the way of the Cross. But Peter, James and John don’t know it yet. So we see Peter’s bumbling reaction – trying to freeze the moment in boxes – a bit like us trying to freeze important moments with our phone cameras. But thankfully the cloud comes – in the Exodus story, a sign of God’s presence in the daytime. The cloud comes, and from it, God’s voice declares, ‘This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!’

The voice tells them – and tells us – to perceive the significance of Jesus – not just when he looks white and shiny, but just as much when he’s dusty and disheveled. And in perceiving the significance of Jesus, we are to give him our attention, to listen to him. Listen to him. We are the ones called to be transfigured. When we give our full attention to Jesus, we are transfigured. As we heard Paul put it in 2 Cor 3:18, all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit.

That’s what it has to do with us. We are to be transfigured – to mirror God’s love and joy and peace and beauty. What Jesus showed his disciples was something he intended would happen to them too – to us too. We need it and the world needs it too. It’s how we’ll find out who we really are and become a community formed for what we’re truly called to do and to be. But change is anything but comfortable.

We’re called to risk it today: to prepare for this journey of transfiguration. In all the messiness of life, of discipleship, when we listen deeply to Jesus we will see ourselves and our community being shaped by God’s grace to become what God knows we can be, like it or not. Thanks be to God!  Amen

 

Rev’d Dr Elizabeth McWhae

7th Sunday after Epiphany – Gen 45:3-11, 15, Psalm 37: 1-11,40-41, 1 Co 15:35-50, Luke 6:27-38

INTRODUCTION:

Today I want us to think about love and forgiveness, 2 very loaded words, but ones that we cannot escape as Christians because they are central to Jesus’ teaching and therefore to us as his followers.

I often think about these two themes of love and forgiveness because I so often listen to people talking about how they cannot love someone or forgive them because of something that has happened. And I am struck by the number of families these days where one person, usually a child, won’t talk to another, usually the parent. And this goes on for years and years, often without one party, usually the parent, knowing what went wrong.

Fortunately two of our readings today deal with these themes of love and forgiveness, so we will look at Luke’s gospel and the reading from Genesis, the story of Joseph and his brothers.

 POINT 1:

Our gospel reading today follows directly on from the reading last Sunday. There are many people present, but again Jesus directs his teaching to his disciples. Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you……do to others as you would have them do to you……Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful. Do not judge and you will not be judged; do not condemn and you will not be condemned. Forgive and you will be forgiven; give and it will be given to you. These are all very straightforward statements, but actually implementing them in our lives and living this way is very difficult.

POINT 2:

Love and forgiveness seem to go hand in hand. We love because we know we are forgiven. But remember Jesus is saying these words to his disciples before his crucifixion, long before they would have any understanding of the forgiveness that comes from the cross of Jesus. So why is Jesus asking his followers to be loving and forgiving? And why give them the Golden Rule (do unto others as you would have them do to you) if they will not be able to live as loving and forgiving people? Because we choose to love and we choose to forgive or we choose to hate and we choose to be unforgiving. Biblical love is a command, not an option. It is not like romantic love, driven by feelings, but is much more pragmatic and realistic. Forgiveness is much the same. If we love, we forgive, but we do not have to forget. Unwillingness to forgive leads to all sorts of problems. Breakdown of relationships, avoidance, resentment, anger, rage, acting out, violence. The list is endless. And the damage is often greatest to the one who will not forgive. Whereas forgiveness enables us to love, an unwillingness to forgive damages our loving, isolates us and produces bitterness and resentment. It actually diminishes us.

 POINT 3:

These themes of love and forgiveness are really well illustrated in the reading from Genesis we heard earlier. Let me set the scene for you. Joseph is the youngest of 12 brothers. His father is Jacob. Jacob is very fond of Joseph and his brothers become jealous. They are also put out because Joseph has dreams which they don’t like. So the brothers’ resentment boils over to rage and they decide to kill Joseph when he seeks them out in a field. But one brother feels guilty about their plan and suggests not to kill him, just to throw him in a well. Joseph is then taken out of the well and sold to some travellers. But the brothers take his coat and stain it with animal blood so that Jacob, his father, thinks that Joseph has been killed. Instead Joseph ends up in Egypt, in the court of Pharaoh. Pharaoh has some dreams that need interpreting and Joseph is the only one able to correctly interpret these dreams. This leads to Joseph being chosen to oversee the management of Egypt during 7 years of plenty, followed by 7 years of famine. And this takes us to our reading today which sees the brothers coming to Egypt again for food, because of the severity of the famine. But they never recognised Joseph, even though he recognised them from the very start. So here he is saying “I am Joseph. Is my father still alive?” But his brothers could not answer him, so dismayed were they at his presence. Then Joseph said to his brothers, “Come closer to me.” And they came closer. He said,  “I am your brother, Joseph, whom you sold into Egypt. And now do not be distressed or angry with yourselves, because you sold me here; for God sent me before you to preserve life. So Joseph instructs his brothers to go to his father Jacob and move their entire family to the land of Goshen, so that they can survive the famine. And this is my favourite part of the story. And he kissed all his brothers and wept upon them; and after that his brothers talked with him.

CONCLUSION:

Both the Gospel reading and the Genesis reading remind us that love and forgiveness are intricately related. An unwillingness to forgive leads to all sorts of unhappiness, isolation, bitterness, resentment. In other words to all sorts of problems. It diminishes us as people and means that we are not loving the way Jesus would like us to love and live.

Just think of how much better life would be on this earth if people could forgive, if countries could forgive, if political leaders could forgive. No wonder Jesus said from the cross, in Luke’s gospel, “Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.”  

 

 

Rev’d Dr Elizabeth McWhae

6th Sunday after Epiphany – Jeremiah 17:5-16, Psalm 1, 1 Corinthians 15:12-20, Luke 6:17-26

INTRODUCTION:

Sometimes I think that if Jesus suddenly walked into our Sunday service and started talking, we would be taken aback and shocked at what he had to say. Today’s gospel reading from Luke 6:17-26 is a good example of what I am talking about. What if Jesus said to us, “Woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation. Woe to you who are full now, for you will be hungry. Woe to you who are laughing now, for you will mourn and weep. Woe to you when all speak well of you, for that is what their ancestors did to the false prophets.” These are hard words for us to hear. That’s why they are rarely preached about in a sermon. But we can’t just pick the teaching of Jesus we feel comfortable with. We have got to deal with this hard stuff. So here goes.

POINT 1:

A little context to start with. These verses from Luke’s gospel are referred to as the sermon on the plain. There are similar verses in Matthew’s gospel referred to as the sermon on the mount which we are more familiar with. Matthew’s Jesus talks about 9 blessings and 0 woes. Luke’s Jesus talks about 4 blessings and 4 woes.

This plain was somewhere in northern Israel, near the sea of Galilee. There are 3 distinct groups of people present: the 12 apostles, a large group of disciples, and then a group of people who just came out to hear Jesus, some were Jews and some were Gentiles. After Jesus had healed those who needed healing and cast out unclean spirits, he directed this teaching to his disciples, that is the 12 apostles and the larger group of his followers.

The blessings are directed to those who are poor, hungry, mourning, and hated,  excluded, reviled and defamed. Why? Because their circumstances will change drastically. The poor will receive the kingdom of God, the hungry will be filled, those who are weeping will laugh. And those who were hated and excluded will rejoice for their reward is great in heaven.

POINT 2:

Now let’s look at the woes. These are directed to people like many of us, the rich, the well-fed, the laughing, and those who are spoken well of. These people Jesus says, have received their consolation. They will be hungry, they will mourn and weep, they are like the false prophets. What does this mean?

Essentially Jesus is identifying those who, whether disciples in the crowd, or living today are determined to satisfy themselves and their needs and status above all else. The poor, the hungry, the excluded and reviled are not their concern really. Someone else can worry about them.

  POINT 3:

So, the woes are addressed to those who have not truly understood what I am going to call the upside down kingdom of God. Those who have not comprehended the real message of the gospel of Jesus. And what is that message? It is a theme that pervades all the gospels. The last shall be first, and the first shall be last. The prodigal son is the one rewarded. Or as Mary puts it, My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord, my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has looked with favour on his lowly servant……. He has mercy on those who fear him in every generation. He has shown the strength of his arm, he has scattered the proud in their conceit, he has cast down the mighty from their thrones, and has lifted up the lowly. He has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent away empty……

You get the drift of what I am saying. The kingdom of God is designed to welcome all, but most especially those who are misunderstood, outcast, poor, hungry, dispossessed, sick and lost.

And here is the catch. Isn’t this all of us at some point in our lives.  And so these blessings and woes apply not to 2 groups of people, but to all of us at different times of our lives. For some of us, life is not a struggle, for others it is. But circumstances can change in an instant. We may win the lottery or the stock market may crash. We can feel perfectly well, and then be told we have a devastating illness. We can be looking forward to the birth of a child and then that baby is stillborn. We can be living in the Gaza strip 3 years ago or we can be living in it now.

CONCLUSION:

So what is Jesus trying to teach his disciples, and us, by his sermon on the plain. Why does he include the woes as well as the blessings? Does it have something to do with his listeners, some of whom would have been poor and hungry and others who would have been rich and well fed? I’m not entirely sure. But I do know this much, Jesus is warning those who seem to have a comfortable life that their priorities may be affected by their lifestyle and the influence of God in their lives may become diminished.

So we need to be careful that this does not happen to us, because let’s face it, compared to many in the world today we are the rich and the well fed and those who are laughing and well spoken of. But it is when we are poor, and hungry, and weeping and not well spoken of that we begin to understand what Jesus is talking about.

 

Rev’d  Dr Elizabeth McWhae

5th Sunday after Epiphany – Isaiah 6:1-8, Psalm 138, Luke 5:1-11, 1 Corinthians 15:1-11

INTRODUCTION:

Before I prepare to write a sermon, I always sit with the readings and see what ideas and themes emerge. This sermon was no exception, but what was unexpected was how quickly the themes presented themselves to me. It was as though they jumped off the page. So let’s see where they take us. I am going to label these themes as 1) sinfulness/brokenness 2) forgiveness/conversion and 3) evangelism/working for God.

POINT 1:

The first reading from Isaiah is a record of his vocational calling as a prophet of Israel. It goes like this. “Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips; yet my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!” Then one of the seraphs flew to me, holding a live coal that had been taken from the altar with a pair of tongs. The seraph touched my mouth with it and said:” Now that this has touched your lips, your guilt has departed and your sin is blotted out.” Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” And I said, “Here am I, send me!”

The second reading from 1 Corinthians, is also a record of Paul’s vocational calling as an apostle of Christ. He says this. “Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared to me. For I am the least of the apostles, unfit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me has not been in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them – though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me.”

 And finally, the third reading we have Is another vocational calling story, this time from Luke’s gospel, and it involves Simon Peter. Jesus said to Simon, “Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch.” Simon answered, “Master, we have worked all night long and have caught nothing. Yet if you say so, I will let down the nets. When they had done this, they caught so many fish that their nets were beginning to break. But when Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, “Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!” Then Jesus said to Simon. “Do not be afraid, from now on you will be catching people.”

POINT 2:

Have you noticed there is a clear pattern in these 3 calling stories. And I think they are important to notice, because they tell us something about the Christian journey.

The first experience that Isaiah, Paul and Peter have in their calling stories is one of sinfulness or brokenness. In a profound way, God’s presence somehow makes them realise they are damaged human beings, as in fact we all are. And this experience for all 3 of them is utterly overwhelming. It isn’t something superficial; it is a realisation that hits them hard to the core of their being.

The second thing that happens to Isaiah, Paul and Peter follows on from their acknowledgement of their sinfulness/brokenness. They mysteriously feel that God has forgiven them. God’s grace has somehow altered them so that they think, feel and see things differently. This for them is an experience of overwhelming forgiveness that could also be understood as their point of conversion if you like. So I am calling this a pattern of forgiveness that leads to conversion to God, to Jesus. It is an awareness that has opened their eyes.

The third pattern I see in Isaiah, Paul and Peter is what I am going to call evangelism or working for God.  Each one of them has a radical change in the direction of their lives. Isaiah becomes a prophet. Paul stops persecuting the early christians and instead becomes one himself. And Peter stops being a fisherman and becomes an itinerant preacher and disciple of Jesus. These were not minor changes in their lives, but really significant moves.

POINT 3:

So what can we learn from the experience of Isaiah, Paul and Peter and what can it tell us for our faith journey, as individuals and as a community of faith?

Well, I think we can learn that this pattern of acknowledging our sinfulness/brokenness, which then leads on to forgiveness and conversion to Christ, and is worked out through evangelism and working for God is not optional  for our faith journey. Rather it is what our journey is all about. This is what is essential to being a christian. And I don’t think this is a once only pattern. I think we constantly need to examine our brokenness, be continually forgiven and converted and work for God in many different ways.

CONCLUSION:

It is not easy being a christian these days or a community of faith, especially one that doesn’t have a whole lot of young people, and hip music  and black and white ways of understanding the faith. Nevertheless, we are what we are. Recall that Peter was the disciple who denied Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane and Paul, before his Damascus road experience, was present at the stoning of Stephen. But they both went on to become foundational members of the christian community. So we have no excuses.

The radical change God made in their lives God wants to make in ours. It doesn’t matter if we are young or old. God is not fussed as long as we go on this journey and help to make this world a better place to live in.

Archbishop Geoffrey Smith

Malachi 3.1-4, Hebrews 2.14-18, Luke 2.22-40

The account of Jesus being presented to God in the temple, which was read as the gospel reading today, is a beautiful story of devotion. When I read the story in preparation for today, I was struck by how moving it is.

There are Mary and Joseph totally committed to God, ‘fulfilling everything required by the law of the Lord’, including presenting Jesus to the Lord. Jesus, as the first-born male child, was first consecrated to God, and then redeemed or bought back through the offering of a pair of turtle doves or two young pigeons.

And, then there are the other two beautiful characters-Simeon and Anna. They are wonderful examples of people who are so close to God through constant prayer, worship and study. So devout, that they were sensitive to God and so able to recognise in Jesus the promised one.

In many respects Simeon and Anna are the key characters in this event. They had remained expectant that God would fulfil his promise and send the Messiah. They had remained attentive, looking for the promise to be fulfilled, watchful for the activity of God even in an environment of foreign occupation, where God’s prophets had been silent for many years.

Simeon and Anna kept turning up. Coming to the temple and spending time at the temple, steeping their lives in the worshipping activities of the temple. Living righteously. Remaining full of trust and hope and ready to respond to God’s action.

I think Simeon and Anna’s example can offer valuable lessons for us as we begin a new year. In some ways, the new year always holds a great deal of promise, but as a church and a society, we are in a time of significant change.

Decline in church attendance in Australia while certainly not universal is very common and is overall our current reality.  It’s clear that we are moving from one situation to another.

Part of the increased detachment from Christianity has been a rise in the number of people who say they have no religion. Now up to 39% of the Australian population.

The current era has been described as a liminal time, a liminal space where the future for the church in Australia is not clear, and that can be a difficult and anxious place to inhabit.

And it’s not just the church where anxiety is found. Our society as a whole is more and more anxious.

Across the globe there seem to be complex and intractable conflicts. No easy solution can be found for the situation in the Middle East, which has led to suffering for Palestinians and Israelis. Or the civil war in Sudan, or the military junta in Myanmar. There are many, many people suffering. It’s hard to see how these conflicts will end and how peace will come.

So what might Simeon and Anna have to say to us as we start a new year in an anxious context both locally and globally?

First of all, Simeon and Anna were people of faith and trust in God. They trusted, really trusted, that God would fulfill his promises, and they held on to that trust even in the face of evidence to the contrary. After all, at the time, Palestine was occupied by troops of the Roman Empire. There had been no prophet in Israel for many years. God seemed silent. God seemed not to hear the prayers of his people.

But Simeon and Anna didn’t give up. They kept trusting, and they kept praying, and they kept looking for what God was doing. Looking with expectation for God to move. Looking with expectation for God to fulfill his promise to send the Messiah. That’s why they were ready and able to spot what God was doing in this little newborn baby boy. There was nothing spectacular, northing noticeable about this baby called Jesus or his parents.

But Simeon and Anna were ready. They were ready to recognise what God was doing.

Rather than giving in to the anxiety of others, or even our own anxiety, we can be people who follow Simeon and Anna’s example of trust in God.

There are good reasons for us to trust God with hopefulness.

First of all, God’s character. God is faithful. We do not know exactly what will happen to the Anglican Church of Australia in the future. We do not know what will happen in the future with the perplexing problems the world is facing, or even the difficulties for Australia, but we do know that in Jesus, God has inaugurated his reign. We pray for God’s kingdom to come trusting that it will.

We trust that when Jesus said, ‘I will build my church and the gates of Hades will not overpower it’, he meant it, and he wasn’t crazy. We trust that the future of the world is not one of death and destruction but of life and new creation. Jesus’ resurrection guarantees that, and we can trust in it.

The second reason is what we see. We continue to see the light of God breaking into people’s lives. We see people coming to faith. We see people being healed. We see the forces of evil being pushed back even in the midst of so much suffering and pain and violence and intolerance in the world. We see the effect of God all over the place.

The third reason for trust in God’s promises is the experience of history. The church has had periods of decline before-many of them. In 1750 for instance, there were 16 people at the Easter service in St Paul’s Cathedral London. The Church of England was moribund. Then along came the Wesley’s. And the church was renewed. Who’d have guessed that would happen?

And in 1921 one of my predecessors in Adelaide, Arthur Nutter-Thomas said in his address to the annual synod, bemoaning poor church attendance- ‘Religion just isn’t fashionable anymore’. Then following the suffering of the great depression and World War 2 came a period of great regeneration in the church in the 1950’s leading to the highest percentage of the population regularly attending church in Australia ever. Who’d have guessed that would have happened looking forward from the 1920’s?

History tells us that while there have been periods of decline and very substantial change, God has continued to be faithful to his mission to the world through the church through the ups and the downs. We don’t know what is over the horizon, but God is trustworthy. We can put our trust in God.

And it’s not just the church. Who’d have guessed that for instance the Berlin wall would have come down when and how it did. That barrier of oppression came to an end. An event many, many people had been praying for since the wall was built.

One of the really beautiful things about Simeon and Anna was that they were expectant. They were there watching for God to move. Open to God fulfilling his promise.

As we think about our life as disciples of Christ trust in God is important, but so is expectancy and watchfulness. Expectancy that God will fulfil God’s promises. Expectancy that God will continue to bring people to faith in Jesus.

Expectancy that more and more Gods kingdom will be visible in our lives, in the life of the church and the life of the world.

It’s really important that this trust in and expectancy of God are not only within us but also seen in our actions and attitudes. Our internal attitudes are important because they determine whether we are in peace and also affect our actions.

This applies to us as congregations as well. It’s easy for congregations to be anxious about their future and the future of the church. It’s easy for congregations to just go through the motions and not expect God to do anything much at all.

But that’s not the Simeon and Anna way. Their way is to trust that God will fulfil God’s promises. Their way is to expect that God is and will act to bring about God’s reign.

And this is not a passive, do nothing approach. Simeon and Anna were not sitting by the pool drinking cocktails waiting for God to do Gods thing. Nor were they trying to solve the problems of Palestine. They were looking to God. They were trusting in God. And that was fuelled by their worship-they turned up and focussed on God. It was fuelled by their prayer and their study of the scriptures.

Simeon and Anne were immersed in a rich action of spirituality, and that fuelled their trust in God, their expectation of God and their ability to see what God was doing and joining in.

Following that example is so important for the church in the current era, in the world in which we live. We have everything we need to be people of hope, and right now hope is a great gift to enjoy and share.

At the start of 2025, the question for the people of St Johns Halifax Street is-how are you going to follow the example of Simeon and Anna? How are you going to soak in God, and so be ready to trust God, to expect God to act, to see what God is doing and join in?

These are live questions. This is not a theoretical discussion. The church and the world needs people of genuine hope. We need little and large communities of hope. Spots of light in the darkness that make a difference. Hope that is not wishful thinking but hope that is confidently based on God.

So as the year gets properly underway, what needs to change here at St Johns? Nothing? Praise the Lord. Keep on keeping on. But if change needs to happen so we can be more like Simeon and Anna, let’s have the courage to make the change. Because the world needs us. It might not know it does. But it does.

We have a God given vocation we must fulfill. Let us pray that we may have the courage to be Simeon’s and Anna’s and fulfill it.