Rev’d Peter Balabanski

Easter 6A –John 14.15-21

In times as disturbing as these, we don’t have to look far to see how sudden, drastic changes can upend people’s lives. These surprises jump out at us with no warning. It makes a big difference if we can access the inner strength to weather a sudden change. If so, then we can be inwardly prepared to accept what might come, and also offer that strength to others. This is what today’s gospel is about.

So how can we prepare for sudden, unexpected change? The key we’re offered today is to nurture deep relationships that are so filled with trust and love and hope that they help us survive anything. That’s what Jesus offers us, his fellow travellers. In last week’s gospel, we gathered with him and his closest disciples in the upper room. And in today’s gospel, we’re still there with them. This was the time when Jesus was preparing his friends for the change they’d soon face when he’d no longer be physically with them. He’s telling them about the supports he’ll send them.

In this resurrection season of Easter, you may wonder why our readings take us back to the time before Jesus’ crucifixion. I suspect we’re being given these passages to prepare us for the feast of Christ’s Ascension … and then for Pentecost.

Last week, we heard Jesus tell his friends he was going away. He said he’d go to prepare a place for them, then come back to take them to himself. For us, that feels like a preparation for his Ascension. But for John’s community, that would have been a very raw memory. It’s probably why they specifically remembered those lovely words we heard today: ¹⁸ I won’t leave you orphaned; I am coming to you.

Many of us know what it is to lose somebody central to our life. If we’re lucky enough, and we know early that it’s going to happen, in that last little bit of time we have together, often our loved ones do what they can to prepare us for life without them. They can never prepare us enough. Yet, something they can’t control does happen. Something of them stays in us quite tangibly. We often find ourselves having an inner conversation with them when we’re faced with big decisions. I think this experience is a tiny echo of what we heard Jesus promise today. The Father will give you another Advocate, to be with you for ever … the Spirit of Truth whom … the world neither sees nor knows, [but] you know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you. Hear Jesus say that Spirit already lives in them!

The disciples in the upper room are soon going to lose Jesus. When that dawns on them, they may feel like fledglings not yet ready to leave the nest; inadequate; scared. But we just heard Jesus tell us the Spirit of Truth lives within them/us now.

So there’s no reason to fear; they’ll be alright. And that’s because it all hinges on the one thing that comes most easily to them. If you love me … says Jesus. It’s not a condition they must attain. Of course they love him! This is not a question he’s asking them. It’s a statement of fact, with its logical consequence. Better said, Given that you all love me, you’ll love each other too, as I’ve loved you. So there’s nothing to fear.

But how’s that meant to help? The love is what makes it hurt so much in the first place! How are we meant to do that? His answer is Love one another as I have loved you. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another. Love one another as I have loved you. How’s anyone who’s grieving and feeling left behind going to find the strength to love – to bear witness to Jesus?

How? Well how did Jesus love them? The foot washing shows us. Put yourself out for your neighbour; not just for your family; not just for those you’re obliged to serve. It’s much wider than that. Do it randomly, like Jesus did. Then everyone will know that you are my disciples. So their chosen identity as his followers continues in random acts of service and care. Where do we find the strength to do that?

Jesus says I’m going to ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate (helper) to be with you for ever. Advocate. The Greek word translated here is Paraclete. In the New Testament, it refers exclusively to the Holy Spirit and to Jesus. So by saying another Advocate, Jesus is saying that they won’t experience his absence like you would other absences. Another Advocate says that the very same Jesus will be right inside them; inside us; the Spirit of Truth. Just think of hearing the teacher and guarantor of your own integrity and belonging speaking to you from inside your own heart. In two weeks, at Pentecost, we’ll see this begin.

Jesus has told them about his own relationship with God the Father. Now this will be what his friends experience, and so also us. ²⁰On that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. A beautiful Celtic knot! The lovely unity Jesus shares with his Father means that he reveals God’s love most perfectly. Jesus shares that unity of love with us so we will always be in him and he in us, and by his grace, reveal him in a broken world that desperately needs his love.

And just like he did, we’ll reveal that love through service; service like the washing of feet. It’s not an essential service. It’s a sign of love – something people can’t earn. In life, there are chores needing prompt attention just so life’s routines can go on. Doing them keeps tensions at bay. But what really turns community into a joyful experience is loving service; like foot washing. And the word gets out! Amen

Rev’d Peter Balabanski

Easter 5A &John – Apostle and Evangelist– John 14 1-14

The Gospel we just heard comes from what scholars call St John’s Book of Glory. It’s where Jesus is preparing his inner circle of disciples for a future without him physically present with them. The Book of Glory begins with the beautiful passage in ch 13 that we read on Maundy Thursday. That’s where Jesus washes his disciples’ feet to teach about servant leadership, where he gives the meal that we call Holy Communion, and where he teaches the new commandment – to love as he did – so everyone will recognise him in us.

Entering the Book of Glory feels like going on retreat after the drama of earlier chapters where Jesus’ ministry is constantly opposed. Now, he’s in the upper room with his friends as they gain their first inkling that he won’t be with them for much longer. Unlike his earlier challenges to his detractors, his words here are words of comfort for his friends; words of hope. Do not let your hearts be troubled. … I go to prepare a place for you … so that where I am, there you may be also.

Here, Jesus is speaking to his closest followers; people on the Way with him. They’re not the people we met in previous chapters who seek to cancel Jesus and damage his reputation. It’s important to bear in mind who he’s speaking to because when we get to verse 6, some people who read today’s passage see it as very challenging; very exclusive. Jesus says, I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

No one comes to the Father except through me. I’m stressing this issue of context and audience because I meet people who hear these words as Jesus shutting them out. (I don’t know him, so I must be out) I also meet people who assume that Jesus is letting only them – true believers – and people like them into God’s presence. They assume everyone else is out – even other Christians they disagree with. Both these people hear Jesus drawing a line in the sand to exclude most of the world’s people. But I’m sure John the Evangelist did not think Jesus was saying that.

In that room with his friends, and in John’s gospel overall, Jesus is always found stretching that line in the sand into an ever larger circle to bring the whole world in. How often can you remember him talking and eating with outsiders, touching diseased people? He’s breaking down barriers. He wants these people to see their way open to God’s presence. He’s offering hope. That’s the Jesus our patron John wants us to encounter. In the opening verses of John’s Gospel, we read, All things came into being through Him, and without Him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in Him was life, and the life was the light of all people. ^1:3-5 The closest parallel to this statement I can think of is that Jesus is our parent – and we simply can’t ever stop being our parents’ children. It’s who we are.

John is presenting Jesus to us as the source of our being, and that’s a total embrace. I can’t imagine Jesus wanting to exclude anyone. He became one of us to show us how intimately we are identified with him. He became one of us to reveal to the whole world the Way to the Father. Of course there are also verses in John’s Gospel which say that a person’s faith, belief and trust in Jesus are required. But there’s a clear vision for the salvation of the whole world in this Gospel. And the Gospels are written in the context of the Abrahamic faith which tells us that through Abraham and Sarah’s descendants, all families of the earth would be blessed. ^{Gen 12.1-4.} And Christians believe Jesus is the direct descendant of Abraham and Sarah by whom that promise is fulfilled.

So personal, informed faith, or Jesus does it all anyway? What do I preach?

I often find myself choosing the Jesus does it all – message. At funerals, the Gospel is usually John 14.1-6. Often we’re farewelling someone I don’t know, and their grieving family can’t tell me about the faith of their loved one with any confidence. Their faith is now known to God alone. My choice then is to publicly commend them to God in the Christian hope that Jesus came to bring them to the Father too.

I think it’s legitimate for me to do that because in John 14, we see that even Jesus’s closest friends suffer from spiritual blindness and doubt. Thomas wonders where Jesus might be leading them and Philip hasn’t worked out who Jesus truly is. But Jesus is gentle with them both. Both of them are seeking God; both of them feel out of their depth. But Jesus holds them fast. So whoever we are, I believe we can also trust Jesus, the light of all people, to be gentle with each of us – and with everyone.

So I preach the Christian hope at funerals of people whose faith is known to God alone. I do this because I know God showed his love for the whole world – before any world-wide faith was formally articulated – by giving us Jesus. ^{Jn 3.16} I do it because throughout his ministry, Jesus was open to people outside his own faith and nation. He had time for traitors, liars, immoral people, criminals and stupid people. And even if they walked away from him, he kept loving them. I know that through personal experience; it’s as though he has a finger through your belt loop and his arm extends endlessly.

I am the way, and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. I believe Jesus came to make a Way for the world to come to the Father who loves the world, so I will proclaim that hope. We can all proclaim that hope. We’re all embraced here – not excluded. Not only are Jesus and the Father one, but if we seek the Father – if we see our life as a spiritual journey to unity with God, here Jesus reveals himself not only as our travelling companion, but also as the very road he travels with us, and our destination. He is the WAY.

No one comes to the Father except through me? Of course not – but Jesus and the Father are one. And in Jesus, the Father has come to us; come for us. I don’t think anyone or anything can stand in their WAY. Amen

Rev’d Peter Balabanski

John 10.1-10, Acts 2.42-47, Psalm 23, 1 Peter 2.1-10

I used to take a bus from Jerusalem down to Jericho twice a week to teach in one of the refugee camps. On the way down, the bus would stop to pick up Bedouin children who were going to school. There was no bus stop; just a few kids waiting by the roadside. After school, they’d be dropped back there – in the middle of nowhere, it seemed.

I got to know some of these Bedouin families. Their camp in the Judean wilderness, was tucked into a wadi – a dry river bed – not far from the Jericho road. Bedouin families live in rambling, flat-roofed tents – tents made of goatskins. Several families live in an area, so there are quite a few tents. And each family has its own flock of sheep and goats, which are the family’s bank, deli, clothing and housing material. During the day, the younger children lead the flocks about the countryside to look after them as they graze. There are no fences. But at night, the various families’ flocks are brought home, and all penned together in a sort of stockade.

In the camp I knew, the families had built a thorny fence across the entrance to a blind gully that opened into their wadi. It provided a secure stockade for everyone’s flocks. With tall rocky walls on three sides and the thorn fence across the opening, only one person was needed to guard it at night – sleeping across the gate to guard everyone’s flocks from wild animals and thieves. Jesus called himself that gate. … In the morning each family would send their children to the stockade. The guard would open the gate, and the children would each call out to their family’s sheep and goats who’d come out to them. The boys and girls called, and from the huddle of mixed flocks, their family’s animals came out to them. They knew their shepherds’ voices. And the children would stay with their flock throughout the day.

I remember that when I read what Jesus said, The shepherds call their own sheep by name and lead them out. 4When they’ve brought out all their own, they go ahead of them, and the sheep follow because they know their voices. It’s such a rich image! I wish we could come up with its equal for our time. But I can’t think of anything that speaks so eloquently to these people’s – or our – life experience.

So let’s stay with the original. We know who the Good Shepherd is, and we know who we are. God has sent Jesus, his Son, to call us out of the blind gully. No food there, so a sort of valley of the shadow of death. As we follow his call, he leads us out to the life-giving places, green pastures, still waters. The Bedouin people, living so much like they did in biblical times, embody the beauty of this image with their good, strong community; one marked by co-operation; mutual support, trust, and of course, extraordinarily generous hospitality – you spread a table before me.

This Easter season reminds us as Christians that the bad shepherds Jesus warns us against don’t have the final say. Not even death could stop our Shepherd rising up to call us from the shadows and nurture us. And these Bedouin families – now so dreadfully oppressed across the Middle East and North Africa – are living witness to the fact that people do choose to live as Good Shepherd communities no matter what. It’s wonderful what such good, kind people still achieve against all odds.

This teaching speaks to us directly. It addresses our prayer. In our collect prayer today, we all asked God to send us as shepherds to rescue the lost, to heal the injured and to feed one another. It’s a prayer that expresses God’s heart for all his little ones. We can trust that God will honour this prayer. And we can also be quite sure that we who’ve prayed it will be called to be the instruments of God’s answer. At our baptism, our call is clear. Jesus hands are now our hands; hands to rescue the lost, to heal the injured and feed one another. We are Christ’s body now.

We saw this erupt today in the earliest Christian Church. We read about it in Acts. 44All who believed were together and had all things in common; 45they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need. 46Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread [from house to house] and ate their food with glad and generous hearts, 47praising God and having the goodwill of all the people. And day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.

How hard is it to sell things – sheep and goats and the sort of stuff one accumulates – sell it and use it to look after strangers? No more now than it was then. That’s what the earliest disciples did, and they transformed lives – transformed their world. We all asked God to send us as shepherds to rescue the lost, to heal the injured and to feed one another. Doing this more than almost anything else binds people together in bonds of love; crossing racial and cultural divides.

Jesus said I am the gate for the sheep … Whoever enters by me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture. What does that mean for us now? Where do we fit in? It seems pretty clear that we – we who each Sunday call ourselves the Body of Christ in this present time – that we are called to embody the roles he names in this teaching. We are any and all of these at different times – shepherd, guard, sheep and goats, the lost, the injured, the hungry, the gate of safety.

Jesus has entrusted you and me with all this – work, growth, compassion, courage, and responsibility. He’s shown us the cost of all this, and yet in the hope his rising inspires in us, we’ve asked to be part of it all. He will honour our prayer.

May Jesus in his kindness strengthen us to be his Body in this, our time. Amen

Rev’d Peter Balabanski

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Rev’d Balabanski

Easter 2A – John 20.19-31

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I think a helpful answer was given by Rowan Williams.

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

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

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

Rev’d Balabanski

Easter reflection

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Rev’d Balabanski

Maundy Thursday reflection – Exodus 12, John 13

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

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

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

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

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

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

Rev’d Peter Balabanski

Lent 5A – John 11.1-45

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Rev’d Peter Balabanski

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Rev’d Peter Balabanski

Lent 3A – John 4 5-42

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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