All posts by Judy

The Emmaus Walk; a new way of seeing

Rev’d Peter Balabanski

Easter 3  Emmaus Walk Luke 24.13-49

Children: The Horse and his Boy: CS Lewis; Ch 11 p.157f ‘The unwelcome fellow traveller’

The Emmaus Walk is a journey that means something different to each of us. For some, it’s a treasured eyewitness account of the risen Jesus; Jesus actually eating with the two disciples is a witness to his physical resurrection. Other people hear of the disciples’ hearts set afire by Jesus’ teaching and it resonates with the way the study of scripture has opened life up in a new way for them.

The Emmaus Road is a journey of the lost being found; the directionless being given a renewed sense of purpose and hope. It’s the journey all of us travel again and again through life – from childhood to adolescence, to adulthood, to parenthood, to retirement, to dependence. These changes often see the end of central relationships. Every change begins with a mixture of loss, emptiness and fear. But later on, by God’s grace, we will look back and see blessing in it with God’s own perspective. Philip Newell captures this in a lovely prayer.

Like an infant’s open-eyed wonder

and the insights of a wise grandmother,

like a young man’s vision for justice

and the vitality that shines in a girl’s face,

like tears that flow in a friend bereaved

and laughter in a lover’s eyes,

you have given me ways of seeing, O God,

you have endowed me with sight like your own.

let these be alive in me this day,

let these be alive in me.                     J Philip Newell Sounds of the Eternal

The Emmaus Walk begins as the journey of dejection; of farewell to old certainties where hope seems to abandon us. We trudge without purpose; we stumble blindly. But just when the emptiness threatens to swallow us entirely, we are found, we are given ourselves. And then in hindsight we can see that our new self is in clear continuity with everyone we’ve ever been.

Billions of people around the world today feel like we are caught up in the first stage of the Emmaus Journey. A tiny virus has smashed down all our certainties and priorities. We’ve been sucked up suddenly into some sort of a vacuum – set adrift on a directionless journey. But today’s Gospel reminds us that we will have a companion on this journey – it’s someone we might not recognise at first, but this lovely companion will be with us. So let’s trust; let’s step out together and see where the Emmaus Journey might lead.

The Emmaus story represents the human journey beautifully. Just as we seem to be driven away from all we believe is most real – when it feels like hope and truth have entirely abandoned us – we will be given a new way of seeing which is utterly transformative. Suddenly, we are new-made, and amazingly, that newness seems given to us simply by the way we can now see everything.

It may seem strange that a healthy faith should necessarily involve times in the wilderness, despondent and sad, with cherished certainties torn away. But it does. Sometimes, the old, fading truth we’re clinging to can seem impossible to let go – far too precious. But unless we can do it, we cannot be reborn. We’ll be like a chrysalis who never becomes a butterfly.

We see this in today’s story. What were Cleopas and his friend talking about so sadly? – the greatest hope of their lives; the political redemption of Israel. But it all depended utterly on Jesus living on in the way they thought they knew him. That hope had been dashed. Anywhere they went now was away; away from that lost joyful hope. But Jesus came to accompany them – gently to teach them again – to prise open those wounded hearts and eyes to reveal a deeper hope; a hope so deep in them that they hardly recognised it. But they could feel it. Talking about it later, they said their hearts had been set on fire by his words.

There was nothing inherently bad about their old hopes and dreams. But they couldn’t contain the bigger picture that Jesus’ death and resurrection opened up. Walking sadly away from Jerusalem was part of their journey – away from their limited vision, and on to where Jesus would meet them and give them what their hearts needed. Then they could go back and give new heart to the others – and now to us. The Emmaus Walk isn’t just for personal healing; it’s the way God begins the transformation of communities – through you and me.

Another thing; you’d think spiritual renewal / redemption / revelation might only come to those who actively seek it. But what we see here is that this new life comes looking for those who least expect it – and it comes in a way that is different altogether from what we’d normally imagine possible.

A funny thing is that the exact location of Emmaus isn’t known. So Emmaus may be anywhere. Hearts burning and eyes opening aren’t confined to just one place, either geographical or spiritual; nor is spirituality confined to one way of doing things. Emmaus comes into view wherever a path has led us into communion with God; whenever we recognize that the risen Christ has been among us. That’s just like the Holy Spirit; you can never quite catch her, but you can always tell where she’s been.

Three questions for silent meditation, or for discussion.

Have you had an Emmaus Walk?

Has Jesus come to travel with you when you least expected him to?

Did he tell you something that you should run back and tell us?

You can post your answers now if you like. Post them as a story or a prayer.

Footsteps in The Sand

One night I had a dream.

I dreamed I was walking along the beach with the Lord.

Across the sky flashed scenes from my life.

For each scene, I noticed two sets of footprints in the sand:

one belonging to me, and the other to the Lord.

When the last scene of my life flashed before me

I looked back, at the footprints in the sand.

I noticed that many times along the path of my life

there was only one set of footprints.

I also noticed that it happened at the very lowest and saddest times of my life.

This really bothered me and I questioned the Lord about it:

“Lord, you said that once I decided to follow you,

you’d walk with me all the way.

But I have noticed that during the most troublesome times in my life

there’s only one set of footprints.

I don’t understand why, when I needed you most, you would leave me.”

The Lord replied:

“My precious child, I love you and I would never leave you.

During your times of trial and suffering,

when you see only one set of footprints, it was then that I carried you.”

Mary Stevenson, 1936

An invitation to trust

Vicky Balabanski

Doubt. It’s interesting that doubt is part of the Easter season. It’s only a week ago that we were celebrating the triumph of Easter. But today, we follow the lead of John’s Gospel, and welcome doubt into our midst.

We have the little gem of a story about Thomas – often called doubting Thomas, though we’re not going to call him that today. We’ll think up some different names as we go along.

Doubt. It’s part of the Easter season in John’s Gospel – and it’s part of the Easter story in Matthew as well.

NRS Matthew 28:17 When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted.

So doubt is part of the Easter story – it sits alongside faith, and alongside worship.

Is it the opposite of faith?

Is it the pathway to faith?

A spiritual ‘growing pain’?

Or is it faith’s companion?

Before we try and answer that question, let’s think a bit more about Thomas.

 Thomas is mentioned in all the lists of disciples in Matthew, Mark and Luke and also in Acts. He’s in the middle of the group, number 7 or 8, not at the top of the list with Peter, James John and Andrew, nor at the bottom with Judas Iscariot, but in the middle. If these lists were a team photo, Thomas would be in the second row —  definitely there, but tucked away and a little bit blurry. (Matthew 10:3 Mark 3:18  Luke 6:15  Acts 1:13).

The Thomas we meet in John’s Gospel is much more prominent. Here he has a much clearer character.

We first meet him in John 11:16, when Jesus makes the dangerous decision to go back to Jerusalem to be with Lazarus’ family.

Thomas, who was called the Twin, said to his fellow disciples, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.”

Clearly, Thomas grasps what’s at stake here straight away. Going back to Jerusalem at this point puts Jesus’ life in danger, and all his followers in danger as well.

But Thomas doesn’t try to persuade Jesus not to go – he speaks up in support of this decision. I’d call that a brave, clear-sighted and faithful response. So we might call him Thomas the brave, or Thomas the clear-sighted on the basis of this passage.

The next time we meet him is during the Last Supper. Jesus is teaching the disciples that he is about to go away and prepare a place for them, assuring them that they will join him there.

 John 14:5 Thomas said to him, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?”

So Thomas here is a spokesperson for the others. Again, he’s rather brave to try to clarify things, but he’s also a bit out of his depth.

If this is a plan for a strategic withdrawal, he needs to hear it spelled out a bit more clearly. He’s not backwards in calling a spade a spade. We might call him Thomas the straight talker.

The third and final time that we meet Thomas is in our passage today, where he is not going to take anyone’s word without proof:

“Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.”

Thomas is still brave, though in a different way now. He still calls a spade a spade. Here he might be called the patron saint of scientific method: he stipulates that he requires visual and tactile sensory data to draw the same conclusions as his colleagues. Good on him! We might want to drop the nickname doubting Thomas altogether, and instead call him Thomas the proto-scientist!

In the event, of course, when Thomas actually encounters Jesus, he doesn’t do so with his scientist’s hat on, and subject Jesus to a series of experiments. Jesus invites him to do so, saying “Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side.” But we are not told that Thomas does those things.

Then Jesus says, literally, Do not continue to be unbelieving but believing.”

The Greek word for believing – pistis – also means trusting. To believe is not a set of prescribed ideas that you sign up to, but a posture of trust. When Jesus says these words, it means ‘trust me’.

Trust me. Thomas had trusted Jesus in being willing to come back with him to Jerusalem, maybe to die. He had trusted Jesus enough to ask the question: How can we know the way? He needed to decide to trust Jesus standing before him.

And that’s what Thomas did – he entrusted himself to Jesus whom even the ugliest of deaths did not silence – to the Risen Jesus who was still his friend and now clearly more than just a friend. He simply says ‘My Lord and my God.’

What does entrusting ourselves to Jesus as our Lord and God mean in this time of pandemic?

Clearly it doesn’t mean assuming that we are immune to suffering. Jesus wasn’t immune to the infectious hate that put him to death. But it does mean entrusting ourselves to God’s goodness, knowing that we are part of a bigger picture, and that God is bringing about healing and wholeness, even in the midst of suffering and death.

The story of Thomas doesn’t end there. There are other writings – The Gospel of Thomas, the Book of Thomas and the Acts of Thomas, and there’s the tomb of Thomas in India, in Chennai, which Peter and I visited when we worked for the Diocese of Madras. If you are interested in reading more about the Thomas traditions, I would be happy to lend you this book called Resurrection Reconsidered by Gregory Riley, or a copy of the Gospel of Thomas.

Doubt is part of the Easter story. For some it’s a pathway or growing pain, for others it’s a long-term companion; for some it feels like a closed door. But the Easter story is an invitation to trust – to risk a posture of trusting that God might just be like Jesus of Nazareth – loving, generous, good.

Our friend Thomas, the brave, clear-sighted, proto-scientific disciple decides to trust Jesus as his Lord and his God.

My prayer is that we might do so too.

 

 

Easter Day: “Go: Tell them I am alive.”

Rev’d Peter Balabanski

Easter Day: John 20.1-18

Early – so early that it was still dark

Early – so early that it’s still dark – Mary Magdalene comes to the tomb. In the early-morning darkness, Mary sees that massive, solid wheel of a stone in the wrong place; it’s been rolled back from the entrance. And in the darkness of her pain, she can only imagine one reason; the violation of his precious body must have continued. It must have been grave robbers.

Suddenly, there is something she can do for Jesus. I have to get the others! Together, we can try to get his body back from the grave-robbers; lay him to rest again – but this time somewhere safe; somewhere secret. We couldn’t stop his torture and death, but at least we can protect him in death.

When the others arrive, they discover strange things; the linen wrappings are lying on the body-bench in the tomb, but the cloth that had been on Jesus’ head is in another place. Would grave robbers leave these valuable cloths behind? Nothing makes sense! One of the disciples sees this and ‘believes’, but we’re not told more; it doesn’t send him dancing in the streets. We’re just told the two men go home.

Mary’s alone again in her deep grief weeping outside the tomb. She bends down to look inside and sees two angels sitting on either end of Jesus’ body bench. They ask her why she’s weeping. She tells them her new grief, but then turns to find him standing there. But she doesn’t recognise him.

He also asks her why she’s weeping, and taking him to be the grave-yard curator, she asks him if he’s removed Jesus’ body. There are other times in the Gospels after Jesus has risen where his closest friends don’t immediately recognise him. So it seems to be something about Jesus himself; he’s at once very different, yet at the same time, still very much their friend who was crucified.

Mary Magdalene is the first one to confront this bewildering change; something neither she nor any of the others expected.

She’s drowning in deep grief, and then he calls her by her name. Next thing, he’s trying to manage her joy; ‘stop holding on to me’. It’s clear that this means holding on physically; you can just about see him trying to prise her loose. For so many people, I pray for the day they know this joy too – and I praise God for this day when such lovely hope is born. When everyone can hug their loved ones again.

It all starts very early – so early that it’s still dark. For Mary Magdalene, the shadow parts at this moment. The agony is over. It’s hearing her name that does it; hearing her name spoken again by the one who knows her and loves her.

Jesus gives her a mission. She’s entrusted with the most wonderful message of all – Go and tell the others; tell them I’m ascending to … my God and your God.

Tell the others of a physical resurrection – she’s the only one with direct experience of this, remember. She has to let him go before she can look out the others.

Go and tell the others; tell them I’m ascending to … my God and your God. Her message effectively means – Go; tell them I’m alive. Tell them I’m taking mortal life with me into the presence of my God and your God; tell them I’m connecting all things living directly with the source of our being – my God; your God!

my God and your God … we’re directly connected with God; directly connected with Jesus. While that means we’re not going to be saved from dying – Jesus wasn’t – it does mean we can be set free from the despair that imagines anything stops at death. As descendants of Mary Magdalene and the other first witnesses, we are also called to bear this message to a world which needs to hear it so urgently right now. Death is not the last word; we are free to act in love. Jesus offers it as a free gift.

Easter is the time we focus on this gift. To take hold of it, we have to be ready to let go of it; like Jesus was. And you can see what becomes of death when he lets go of it. That’s the freedom he intends for us; for our loved ones; for all. I believe that I shall see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Ps 27.13     Amen.

Good Friday : At the heart of the Christian faith is a tragedy

Vicki Balabanski

Good Friday 2020

At the heart of the Christian faith is a tragedy – the tragic, unjust, shameful death of an innocent sufferer.

It’s a tragedy that anyone has to endure pain, anguish, and do so in isolation.

It’s a tragedy that is compounded when that person is also vilified, scapegoated, told that they deserve it.

It’s a tragedy when the systems of justice fail.

At the heart of the Christian faith is this tragedy – the tragic, unjust, shameful death of Jesus of Nazareth.

We are at a moment in history when a similar tragedy is being played out in so many places across the world – innocent sufferers are enduring tragic deaths, many in isolation from their loved ones. There’s no justice to it.

It’s also a time when some people are being vilified and scapegoated, simply by being part of a medical crew or because of their race. It’s a time when some people are afraid that the social network is failing them, and they fear for their future.

We remember the tragedy of Good Friday, because at the heart of our faith is the affirmation that God is not quarantined from the human condition – from pain, from shame, from isolation and injustice. God knows those things from the inside. In Jesus Christ, God endures those things with us and for us. God’s compassion is first-hand.

In Jesus, God is with us, and with every person and every creature that sufferers. Tragedy is real – today with the pandemic, for so many families across the world, tragedy is more real than ever before.

But the tragedy of Jesus’ death on Good Friday tells us that suffering and death don’t have the last word.

God’s compassion, God’s faithful love, is stronger even than death. Thanks be to God.

 

 

 

 

Maundy Thursday: The servant leader

Rev’d Peter Balabanski

Maundy Thursday 2020

Tonight, we’ve heard again how four of our ancient, sacred traditions began – the Feast of the Passover, the Lord’s Supper, the Christian principle of Servant Leadership – shown by washing each other’s feet, and the New Commandment – to love each other as Jesus loves us.

From Exodus, we heard the story of the first Passover – the final rescue of the Hebrew people from slavery in Egypt began with a meal where people ate standing up and dressed for travel – ready to flee at a moment’s notice. It’s called Passover for a strange reason. Before this meal, each household had to sacrifice a perfect, unblemished lamb and roast it over a fire. They had to daub their front door frames with blood from this lamb. The blood would be a sign to protect the household. God was sending the angel of death on Egypt to kill all the first-born in every household. But if the front door frame of a house was marked with the blood of a lamb, the angel of death would pass over without killing anyone there. A short time later, the Hebrew people were delivered from slavery through the Red Sea.

We’ve read this story tonight because it connects with our Christian story. Ours tells of the blood of a perfect man willingly offered being the means of our rescue from slavery to death. We remember this every week at Holy Communion.

Passover meals are happening this week too. Jewish people celebrate their rescue from slavery and thank God. They drink three cups of wine at this feast: the cup of sanctification celebrates the special bond they have with God; the cup of praise celebrates God rescuing them from captivity; and the cup of redemption celebrates God redeeming them so they are no longer slaves. Sanctification, praise and redemption; they are all themes of the three days we embark on this evening.

In this evening’s Psalm, we read about yet another cup; the cup of salvation. The Psalmist wants to offer it as a new sacrifice – a sacrifice of thanksgiving, offered by someone who knows the freedom of belonging to God.

Paul links the imagery of Exodus and the Psalm to describe the Last Supper that Jesus shared with his disciples. For him, Jesus is the sacrificial lamb and his blood is our protection. And Paul claims fourth cup – salvation – for remembrance of the death which was its price, and the hope which is ours: at communion, we proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.

In the Gospel Jesus adds something else – our relationship with each other. During the meal, he takes off his outer robe. Now, clothed only in a loincloth, he ties a towel around his waist. So he’s dressed as a slave, and he takes on a slave’s role; he washes everyone’s feet. Then he says, “… if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have set you an example; that you also should do as I have done to you.”

This is the definitive picture of Christian ministry: the leader is always a servant, and service is always given as a sign of love. It’s also definitive of Christian relationships. It’s summed up in the New Commandment. We care for others like Jesus does as a sign to all people. This is why we’ve been set free – it’s the reason God’s people were freed from slavery in Egypt, and it’s the reason we’ve been set free; free from slavery to futility and despair; free so people might learn from us that God loves them.

I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.

This night, we remember his blood which is daubed around the doorframe of our lives; his blood which protects us from the angel of death. We remember that he is the Lamb who gave himself to be sacrificed for us; to free us from slavery; to lead us into a community of freedom and love; to build us up into a people privileged to shine in the world’s night, like a bonfire of hope, burning on a mountaintop, guiding lost travellers to safety, to welcome, to love, to home – to Jesus.

Grant, Lord, that we who receive the holy sacrament of the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, may be the means by which the work of his incarnation shall go forward. Take, consecrate, break and distribute us, to be for others a means of your grace, and vessels of your eternal love; through Jesus Christ our Lord.    Amen.

הוֹשִׁ֘יעָ֥ה נָּ֑א Hosanna!—Save us; grant us victory: Palm/Passion Sunday 2020

Rev’d Peter Balabanski

For the Liturgy of the Palms: Mt 21.1-11

Passion Sunday Readings: Isa 50.4-9a, Ps 31.9-18, Phil 2.5-11, Mt 27.11-54

In Papunya, a remote community in the Northern Territory, there’s a very special donkey. Its body is a big metal drum and it has steel tubing legs that go down to a platform with wheels for it to roll on. I think its neck is a car spring, and it’s got a metal head with ears. This donkey lives for most of the year outside the Papunya church – usually lying on its side near the bell tower. But I hope and trust that this morning, the donkey at the Papunya church will be having its moment of glory.

I wonder who will be riding it – being Jesus. I wonder which Hosanna song Pastor Graham is going to get everyone to sing; what sort of branches they’ll be waving – mulga? And I wonder how many people it will take to help that donkey and its rider across the deep red sand on its journey into the church. It’ll be a wild, wonderful time for everyone there.

I remember as a small child how very special Palm Sunday was. I can’t think of a bigger day in the church during my childhood. It was gloriously, delightfully, noisily out of control. And when I first saw the Papunya Church donkey, it all flooded back to me – how we used to celebrate this day.

I imagine it felt like the first Palm Sunday did for the children when Jesus rode down the Mount of Olives towards Jerusalem; all those wildly hopeful people – people who had no idea of Good Friday or Easter. They were living in the hope and joy of the moment, just like I used to, those many Palm Sundays ago. I was too young to make the sad connection with the coming tragedy. And in my first church, we didn’t go inside and read the Passion Gospel as we have today. So there was no nasty shock of being suddenly dragged down from the glorious hope of triumph one moment to the utter tragedy of the Cross the next. Palm Sunday stood alone.

But things are different now. In the past several minutes, we’ve all had a preview of the tragic fall from ecstasy to agony that Jesus and his loved ones would endure over the coming week. And the way we’ve just read it, joining in to say the most dreadful parts, we’ve owned that we’re all connected with this tragedy. We number among the people who cried Hosanna – save us, we pray; grant us victory! – yet just now, we’re still part of the same crowd; but our cry has turned to Crucify him!

This is bewildering – and it has to be. We are the Palm Sunday crowd who cry out to be saved – cry out to be led to victory over whatever enslaves us – cry out to the best looking hope in any given time. But we’re also a crowd who turns against any leader that looks like they’re falling from favour. Perhaps we’re even a crowd who is capable of crucifying such a fallen leader.

Would it have been different if we were the custodians of the Jerusalem temple? What would we have done in their shoes, watching from atop the walls as the slow, jubilant procession came down the Mount of Olives and crossed the Kidron Valley into our sphere of influence; into our power? Maybe the same as they did?

But surely we’re not like them – or are we? During Lent, maybe we’ve realised we’re not as pure as we might imagine. We all carry baggage.

If we let Holy Week do its work in us, we’ll realise we can’t carry our burdens alone; we’ll come face to face with our deepest needs. And in the middle of that realisation, we’ll find Jesus at once reaching out to us with his beautiful, compassionate love – and yet calling us to keep walking with him, no matter where he leads. We’ll be challenged personally, but not individually. We’re in this together; and most of all, we are with Jesus. To imagine that Holy Week is just about individual soul-searching is to miss the fact that it’s about relationship; how we are loved by God, and how we love God, and love our neighbour as our self. That’s personal, but it’s not individual; we are not islands; we belong.

So Holy Week confronts us with our failings and presents us with challenges we may never have known about. But Holy Week also enables us to meet these challenges, reminding us that we’ve been entrusted with priceless gifts for doing so. If we can receive these gifts, we will walk with Jesus. These gifts; what are they?

The first is the one we remember today. Jesus made the crucial decision to enter Jerusalem – to set this week in motion – and he did this for you and me before our people were ever dreamt of. He gave himself into the hands of the hateful jealousy and anger and fear that might consume us; he entered their deadly jaws in our place – with the purpose of freeing us from their power. His gift is freedom – ours for the taking.

On Maundy Thursday, we are entrusted with three more priceless gifts:

  • the gift of Holy Communion which shows we are bound forever in love to Jesus and to each other,
  • the gift of Servant Leadership … each of us can show the love of Jesus in the humble act of washing each other’s feet; having neighbours wash our feet,
  • and the gift of the New Commandment – Love one another as I have loved you – the gift which shows how we’re called to belong to everyone by loving like Jesus does.

And on Good Friday, we’ll remember how we’ve received the most precious gift of all: the life of Jesus Christ, offered in sheer love, to make possible the salvation – the redemption – the rescue – the liberation – the divine embrace – the belonging – the new life – of you, of me, and of the whole creation.

On this day, we turn humbly, helplessly, to receive these gifts together; gifts which God has graciously offered through Jesus to make us whole. Amen

Lazarus, come out at this time of Covid 19!

Rev’d Peter Balabanski

Lent 5 A.   Jn 11.1-45

In these strange times, the readings set for today have an unusual poignancy –perhaps a completely new force – for us in the so-called ‘developed’ world. We’re not used to sickness and death being an immediate threat – not to us, and certainly not to absolutely everyone. We’ve never seen our wonderful health systems confronted with anything so overwhelming as this Covid 19 virus, nor so many people reacting out of fear and grief and confusion on anything like this scale.

Most of our younger people have grown up thoroughly insulated from death and mortality. But we’re all being woken up to a reality that’s always been a conscious part of life for most of the world’s people – the majority world – where the smell of decomposition is a normal part of life. There, questions of death and what comes next, questions of spirituality, questions of where God is in the midst of really challenging existences – these questions are quite literally in the air most people breathe there.  And suddenly they’re everyone’s questions here too.

In our ‘developed-world’ lifestyle of materialistic choices and first-world problems, we’ve been largely unconscious of these life and death questions. We’re being woken up. So I wonder if we Christians of the developed world might hear today’s gospel in a new way; this story and the ones we’ll hear on Passion Sunday and then on through Holy Week and Easter. They’re all stories about death and resurrection. What new insights might we, the developed, sophisticated, deodorised people of the 21st century, learn to hear in this story?

In our vernacular, the story of the raising of Lazarus is usually the province of political and sports commentary – X has made the greatest comeback since Lazarus. There’s much more to this miracle than a comeback.

The power of death is confronted by the Lord of Life. And we are confronted by him too.

Let’s join Martha and Mary. They send Jesus a message. It is a prayer; a deep, simple prayer – ‘Lord, [our brother Lazarus] he whom you love is ill.’ The message doesn’t say what they expect Jesus to do, yet their grief and fear and hope are all palpable. But significantly for us, the first response they receive is the same response most of us feel like we receive when we pray for help; a long, bewildering silence. At least we know Martha and Mary’s prayer has been heard.

It’s painful to follow what ensues because of the delayed response. John’s gospel tells how Jesus demands a discipleship from people which they find very challenging. John’s lesson about discipleship is that it means learning to grow in the way we understand and follow Jesus – living more and more into his love. And that involves us changing and growing, because that’s what life is. 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.

So instead of being straightforward and practical, in John’s gospel, Jesus turns every prayer and every question people put to him into the starting point of a new and unnerving journey of change and growth in discipleship.

Today, we are uncharacteristically preoccupied with the frailty of our own physical life. We’re dwelling on the loss of everything that seems normal – possibly even of ourselves. Where is God in this; where is Jesus in this?

Jesus knew what was going on for Lazarus; he told his disciples that Lazarus had died. But he wanted to turn Martha and Mary’s prayer into an opportunity for their growth in discipleship. And he did just that. He took Martha from complaint to confession of him as Messiah – one of the greatest confessions in Scripture. And he took Lazarus from irreversible corruption to new life when he called him by name.

Jesus called Lazarus from his tomb by his name. So Lazarus was still the same person after death as in life; still able to respond to his beloved friend’s call; his friend – who is now revealed as the Lord of life. For me, this means that the people who live in our hearts, but whose remains wait in our memorial gardens and graveyards are only as far from new life as their name is from the lips of our Saviour.

Jesus calls to life one in whom was no life. What does that call mean to us in this time of such confusion and fear?

I attend many funeral services. They all share a common tension with this story. Unless the person who died was a person rich in years, the grief always has an element in it which cries out to Jesus what Martha and Mary confronted him with; 21…‘Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died … if Jesus loves us – he couldn’t have meant this … why could this happen?

Into that tumult of feelings, at the beginning of each funeral service, Jesus’s words cry out to us from this very story of the raising of Lazarus: 25…‘I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, 26and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?’ He asks us all to trust, to entrust ourselves, to the One who is Lazarus’ friend; the One who loved Lazarus – the One who is our friend; the One who loves us. In these strange times, and in this once-immune society, let us entrust ourselves to the One who is the resurrection and the Life.  Amen

Everyone needs a chance to meet Jesus

Rev’d Peter Balabanski

Lent 4 A — Mothering Sunday. 1 Sam 16 1-13, Ps 23, Eph 5 8-14, Jn 9 1-41 

For the third week in a row, we’ve read an extended story from John’s Gospel. Each time, it’s been a story of someone meeting Jesus. And for each of them, it’s been a life-changing encounter: so important that they go and tell others about it. It’s as if we can hear them say, “I’ve met Jesus; he’s changed my life, and no matter what people say, I will share this. Everyone needs a chance to meet Jesus, and I want to help them do just that.”

Two weeks ago, it was a powerful leader of the Jewish religious establishment; a man called Nicodemus. He visited Jesus secretly at midnight (Jn 3.1-17). Remember how baffled he was by Jesus? Jesus told Nicodemus that if he wanted to see the kingdom of God, he must be born again—born from above. Nicodemus didn’t get it then, but later on, he was re-born. Later we’d see him abandon his prestige and security and become one of Jesus’ disciples. (Jn 7 & 19)

Last week, it was a Samaritan woman. She met Jesus at Jacob’s well. This meeting happened at midday. As they talked, she came to see her own life through Jesus’ eyes, and she was utterly transformed by the experience. She left her bucket at the well and hurried off to call everyone in her village to come and meet Jesus too.

Today, it’s the turn of a man blind from birth. We just heard how Jesus gave him his sight. The religious authorities feared Jesus. So they said they’d expel this man from their faith community unless he denounced Jesus as they did. But he refused to be walked over. And later, when he met Jesus again – and this second time, he could see him – he declared his belief in Jesus, and worshipped him.

So three people meet Jesus; three people who go out from that first meeting and tell others about Jesus—three people who try to help others meet Jesus – even when they’re under pressure to reject him.

Nicodemus stuck up for Jesus in the face of his brother Pharisees (Jn 7). The Samaritan woman ran back to her village and called everyone to meet Jesus (Jn 4). And today, the man born blind willingly chooses the life of an outcast if that’s what it will cost him to follow Jesus.

Each story challenges you and me to do the same – to say, “I’ve met Jesus; he’s changed my life, and no matter what people say, I will share this. Everyone needs a chance to meet Jesus, and I want to help them do just that.” Someone must have done that for you – someone who thought, “I’ve met Jesus; he’s changed my life, and no matter what people say, I will share this with you. Everyone needs a chance to meet Jesus, and I want to help you do just that.”  And they made sure you did meet Jesus, just like they had.

It’s really important that we do this too – that we get out and help people meet Jesus. Because people are shy. People who don’t know Jesus won’t necessarily come here and ask us to introduce them to Jesus.

That’s also got something to do with the things people say and think about the followers of Jesus. We’re variously called God botherers, flat-earthers and fanatics. It’s taken for granted that we want to ram religion down innocent people’s throats; it’s assumed that followers of Jesus want to interfere with other people’s personal relationships, and tell people who they can and can’t love. Apparently we’re obsessed. So why would anyone bother to come here?

But we know Jesus wasn’t moralistic or judgmental like that, and for the most part, neither are his followers. We follow his life-example – his way – not a set of rules. The way he gave us was love. And he taught that way mainly by example.

For the third week in a row now, we’ve gathered here and we’ve seen Jesus meet someone, and he hasn’t judged them or forced scripture down their throats. He’s given them his attention, his time, and his love, and he’s invited them to grow into the best people they could be. Nothing was forced, but it turned their lives around.

We’ve seen his example: John gave us a ringside seat each time – really close – so we could actually feel the tension then the joy as his love prised open the shells of legalism and exclusion they’d lived with all their lives. We saw all this so we could learn to do the same; to give people attention, time, love, and an invitation.

People do live with extraordinary stresses: people carry terrible burdens. We know Jesus sets people free from the tyranny of those burdens. He’s given us his gifts to offer, and his example of how it’s done –as he did for Nicodemus, for the Samaritan woman at the well, and for this man born blind.

Jesus offered them relief from their pain and a chance to start afresh – to be reborn. It’s happened for us. If we know all that, and we know lots of people struggle, will we consider inviting them to meet the real Jesus? The Samaritan woman did it after knowing Jesus for five minutes. The man born blind did it before he even knew what Jesus looked like.

They met Jesus, and they invited other people to get to know him. Can we consider that? Introduce people to him – or put another way, will we bring people’s questions to the one we know has the time and attention and love to give them; bring them to the one who takes them seriously when they are crushed by fear and loneliness; bring them to the one who will spend their whole life with them?

Let’s help these people meet this Jesus – the one we’ve got to know in recent weeks. Let’s help these people meet the real Jesus who has time for people – let’s help these people meet the Jesus who offers unconditional attention, time and love; who told Nicodemus he hadn’t come to judge people. Let’s help people meet this Jesus and let his love do it’s healing, freeing work in their lives.

“I’ve met Jesus; he’s changed my life, and no matter what people say, I will share this. Everyone needs a chance to meet Jesus, and I want to help them do just that.”

Amen

 

Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well

Rev’d Peter Balabanski

Lent 3A. John 4 5-42 

We probably remember two other Samaritans connected with Jesus. There was the Good Samaritan of the parable (Lk 10), the only one of the ten Lepers Jesus healed who came back to thank him (Lk 17) and now there’s this woman. All very positive pictures.

Yet Samaritans were outsiders: Jews and Samaritans didn’t get on at all. Samaritans were very unorthodox Jews. Their Passover was celebrated on Mt Gerizim near Nablus / Shechem – not in Jerusalem. They had a different Bible; only the first five books of the Bible, and even so, their version had about 6,000 differences from the Jewish one. Samaritans were hated outsiders. Yet in the Gospels, these outsiders seem to recognise the truth about Jesus very clearly. So what are the gospel-writers looking to teach us through these portraits? To be tolerant, for sure. But is that all? What’s John trying to tell us through this story?

Today’s Gospel lesson is one that calls up very rich associations. We shouldn’t expect anything less of John’s Gospel. First, we’re told that the encounter happens at Jacob’s well in Samaria. Jacob also had something to do with another well. He met his future wife Rachel by a well in the land of the people of the East Gen 29. Samaritans are ethnically at least partly from the East. Back when Assyria defeated Israel, they forcibly populated it with settlers drawn from cities in an area we now call Iraq. So it’s no wonder the indigenous and settler populations had an ancient and deep hatred for each other. Samaria was effectively foreign soil for Jesus too.

So today’s gospel presents us with Jesus, a lone Jewish man in a foreign land meeting a lone foreign woman at a well named for Jacob; the woman will also provide water from the well for this Jewish man to drink. Marriage will again be a major topic of conversation. And seasoned listeners will know that the earlier well in Jacob’s story Gen 29 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. John evokes that ‘stone rolled away’ image deliberately; John always has lots of irons in the fire.

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. Today’s story happens in broad daylight. Jesus isn’t hiding his meeting with an outsider like Nicodemus did. Such a meeting would have caused great scandal among the Jews. (Compare Jn 8.48 where they accuse Jesus of being a Samaritan and having a demon). It certainly shocked his disciples!

So one focus of this story is Jesus’s ministry among people considered to be ‘outsiders’ – another Samaritan story about tolerance. Jesus crosses borders in this story. He enters Samaria; he initiates a conversation with an unaccompanied Samaritan woman, and finally, he even accepts two days’ hospitality from the Samaritan village. None of this was thinkable in decent Jewish society.

Jesus asks this woman for water. In today’s Psalm 95, it’s God who provides life-giving water. In today’s story, this ‘heretic’ woman gives water to Jesus. Later, she will take the water of life – the good news of Jesus – to her village. By 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. These are enormous changes.

And as a theologian, the Samaritan woman is no slouch. She misunderstands Jesus at first. But pretty well everyone in John’s gospel looks rather amateurish when they first do theology with Jesus. This woman makes much faster progress than most. 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.

and next 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 city to share the good news.

28 the woman left her water jar and went back to the city. She said to the people, 29 ‘Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?’

The really exciting thing about this story is that the most unexpected person can become the bearer of the greatest news of all – that the divine gift – living water; eternal life – is something an outsider can bear for the world. Scripture always reminds us that we’re all foreigners really. And yet Scripture also tells us that we outsiders can be the means by which people can discover what those Samaritans soon proclaimed: 42 ‘we know that this is truly the Saviour of the world.

The beginning is breaking down barriers – being open to laying aside our preconceptions and our certainties. As middle-of-the-road Anglicans, those preconceptions and certainties tend to be about our faith being a private matter – something we don’t discuss in polite society – and that mission is something that missionaries and missionary agencies do – not little old us. How does that attitude stack up with this story?

At the heart of our Lenten study series this year is the message of every-person mission; everybody joining in with the mission Jesus is doing. That’s a mission agency – ABM – telling us that we are more than involved in mission; we are committed to mission. And any one of us might discover our mission.

Let’s have a few moments of silence for that to sink in, then I’ll lead us in an anonymous prayer.

Five-finger prayer

This prayer can be a model for the children’s prayers. Have them draw around one hand on a sheet of plain paper.Go over what each finger can represent when they pray:

thumb – friends and family

index finger – people who help you learn about God and Jesus

middle finger – leaders in our community and the world

ring finger – people who help persons in need

little finger – ourselves

Have the children write these categories on the fingers. If time, pray together using the five-finger prayer.

O Jesus,
Image of the invisible God, Word made flesh, tired stranger, waiting in the noonday lull at Jacob’s well.

Are we all the woman with her water-jar, bent on the chore of the moment, angry memories in our bones, our thirst for God hidden in the business of the day?

Do you meet us gently too, hardly recognized, quietly leading our thoughts towards the deeper waters, where our souls find rest?

Probing too, uncovering secrets we would rather forget. “Lord, you have probed me, You know when I sit and when I stand, You know my thoughts from afar.”

Is the woman, sure and strong, our reflection: sure but unsure, strong but so weak, seeking but afraid to find our Saviour so close by?    Amen

Author unknown

Nicodemus – a visitor in the night

Rev’d Peter Balabanski

Lent 2A .  John 4 1-17, Gen 12 1-4a, Ps 121, Rm 4 1-17

We’ve heard stories of two people today who risk everything on the basis of an impossible challenge. There’s Abram/Abraham who leaves everything, trusting God, and Nicodemus, who visits Jesus in the night. Nicodemus is our subject today.

Like everyone else in Jerusalem, Nicodemus had seen the signs Jesus performed. He may well have been right there when Jesus cleared the Temple of the money changers and the people selling birds and animals for sacrifice. Fascinated by this man, he visits Jesus. But Nicodemus isn’t game to be publicly associated with Jesus. Imagine Jesus cleansing the Temple today. What he did would have been called a terrorist act these days – or the act of some fanatic from a religious fringe group. Nicodemus visits Jesus, but only secretly, at night.

Nicodemus is just like many people here – educated, committed and faithful, and with a respected position in the community. He has a reputation that he’s taken decades to earn. Who here would visit a revolutionary new spiritual teacher like this in broad daylight? Would you meet with a notorious troublemaker at Cibo’s for coffee after church? You might be noticed! What would they say?

So like we would, Nicodemus visits Jesus under cover of darkness. John’s Gospel makes a lot of the symbolism of light and darkness. In the verses after today’s gospel, Jesus says, ‘the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. 20For all who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light, so that their deeds may not be exposed. 21But those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God.’ Was Jesus is challenging Nicodemus: reminding him of the way he’d come to see him; not during the day; only by night?

Maybe he meant Nicodemus chose to come in from the darkness; into the light of Jesus. Whichever is right, Nicodemus got much more than he bargained for.

No sooner had he paid his respects to Jesus than he was utterly confounded by that saying about being born from above / born anew / born again. He took it literally. And who wouldn’t if you didn’t have a lifetime of Christian teaching about baptism. Jesus leads him to another understanding of being Nicodemus – about being a person who is not just born not of his mother, but also born of the Spirit. We don’t get to see if Nicodemus understands this.

Whether he and Jesus meet again, we’re not told. But we meet Nicodemus twice more. The first time, he risks his reputation, challenging his fellow Pharisees when they want to haul Jesus before a kangaroo court (ch 7). The next time, he joins Joseph of Arimathea burying Jesus’s body. And by doing so abandons his ritual purity (ch 19) so he won’t be able to participate in the Passover the next day. For a Pharisee to do that would be like one of us on Good Friday deciding not to celebrate Easter.

But by then, Nicodemus had given up as any pretence to secrecy. He’d become so deeply a follower of Jesus that even after the crucifixion – when most other disciples were running away and hiding in fear and doubt, particularly the men – Nicodemus abandoned whatever social standing he had to pay his last respects. The wind – the Spirit – had done just what Jesus said; breathed where she chose. And she chose Nicodemus. Nicodemus was born anew; born again; born from above.

But all that takes us several weeks down the road, doesn’t it. What about now? As we journey down that way? Does Nicodemus’s visit to Jesus in the night have something to say to us? We’re like him in so many ways that I think his story must speak to us.

It’s really tricky for us to have our faith identity and our social identity open to view at the same time. They don’t necessarily match. Where do we get our identity from: our family, our faith community, our nationality, our career, things we have, things we do with friends, our language, where we live, things that we’re passionate about, things we love about people and things we hope people love about us?

It can be quite a mixture, can’t it. And we protect these things; we don’t want them laughed at or called into question. An attack on the things that make us who we are is really threatening.

Sometimes our faith identity and personal identity can contradict each other. Look at how our national identity and the plight of fellow Australians who are Aboriginal are so deeply at odds. Our ABM studies over the years have given us the chance to hear stories from faithful Aboriginal Christians; to read the same scriptures as these sisters and brothers through their eyes. That sort of experience brings us all into the presence of Jesus together – whether we come by night, or if we’re bold enough to come in broad daylight.

But this coming together is the point. Jesus came for us all – for the whole world. Jesus calls all of us. We heard him say it this morning: 16 ‘God loved the world in this way: he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. 17 ‘Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.

No-one is left out of God’s love; God sent Jesus in order that the world might be saved. All of us.

Was it this insight which made Nicodemus choose to risk his identity – his career, his friendships, his social standing – to rethink his people’s whole reason for being?

This son of Abraham made the same choice as his ancient forbear. Like Abram / Abraham, Nicodemus left everything to follow God, even to unthinkable places –wherever the breath of the Spirit might lead him. God’s purpose was the same: that all families of the Earth – the whole world – might receive God’s blessing.

May we be courageous enough disciples to follow these very clear examples! It’s all about God’s Grace; God’s Love, that everyone needs it, and we are the chosen vessels. What will we do with this treasure that has been entrusted to us? Amen