Canon Bill Goodes

Epiphany – Isaiah 60:1-6, Psalm 72:1-2,10-24, Ephesians 3:1 – 12, Matthew 2:1 – 12

“Of this gospel I have become a servant according to the gift of God’s grace.” (Ephesians 3:7). The Feast of the Epiphany has for some years now been a rather ambiguous one for me — I went to Perth in January 1987 to become Rector of the parish of Mosman Park, and arrived on the train on Epiphany. We went to the Cathedral, and the Dean’s sermon began, “We in Perth have always been suspicious of wise men from the east!” I took this rather personally, and was only a little mollified when after the service he assured me that I was really from the Middle East!

I’m sure you have heard lots of sermons which have explored the notion of kingship — and how kings in our day are very different from kings in New Testament times, and so terms like “the Kingdom of God” or “Christ the King” require a fair bit of unpacking!. And in spite of the “we three kings” aspects of this feast of the Epiphany, I don’t intend to go into that contrast, but rather to explore the ambiguities of the idea of “servant” — that expression in the letter to the Ephesians really stood out for me when I looked at today’s readings.

So, what does it mean for Paul to say he is ‘a servant of the gospel‘ — and is it a term that we should try to apply to ourselves? There are two Greek words that are commonly translated as “servant” — one is δουλος which is also translated “slave”. This word speaks particularly of the subservient role of the servant, owned by the master. In some Roman households, and indeed in some of the Gospel parables, slaves were given considerable responsibility, but always there is the “at the master’s pleasure” undertone to their position. Remember the unworthy slave in the parable consigned “to outer darkness, where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth”!

The other word frequently translated as “servant” is the one used in today’s passage from Ephesians 3 — the word διακονος which comes into English as “deacon”. This word is also translated as “minister”, and so it has two directions — one of “being under authority”, and the other of ministering to others. So, the apostle in this passage is stating that he is both under the authority of the Gospel, and also responsible for ministering the Gospel to others.

This ministering involves both the transmission of the Good news, and its living out in practical terms. If this is true of the apostle, it is true also of the apostolic Church — we are both under the authority of the Gospel, and also responsible for its transmission and its day-to-day expression.

Incidentally, this two-fold nature of the servant, the minister, has its echoes in other places — when we describe a personas an ordained minister, we acknowledge that that person is both under the authority of the Church, and also responsible for transmitting the Church’s message and living it out in daily life. In our tradition, this is symbolised by the granting of the Bishop’s licence to minister in a particular pastoral situation. And when we style someone say, “Minister for health” or even “Prime Minister”, we are saying that they act under authority — nominally of the Crown, but also of the Australian Constitution — so they are sworn in as “ministers” by the King’s representative before they are permitted to undertake their task of transmitting the Australian way and living it out day by day. I loved the story of the man who ended his letter to a government minister, “You have the honour to remain, sir, my humble and obedient servant…”

Now we are servants, ministers of the Gospel — but I’m afraid that we don’t always act as though we were under the authority of the Gospel — we often behave rather as though the gospel was under our authority — our authority to determine its content and decide how it is to be expressed in daily life. Certainly there is a need in each generation to express the Good News of Jesus in ways that are appropriate to the time and its way of thinking and speaking, but our diaconal nature as “servants of the gospel” does not allow us to choose which bits we like and which we can neglect! We are under authority!

The writer in this passage that we read this morning speaks of the gospel in terms of the revealing of a “mystery” — and there will always be more to the Gospel than our limited understanding can fathom. “Servants of the Gospel” should always be open to the revealing of deeper understanding of God’s gracious will for us.

For those to whom the letter to the Ephesians was written, one deeper thing that was being revealed to them by the apostle was about the inclusion of Gentiles in the loving purposes of God. When Matthew includes the story of the wise ones from the east visiting the infant Jesus in his account of the story of Jesus he has that same purpose. Gentiles were to be included in the faith community along with the faithful members of God’s Old Covenant people. This feast of Epiphany is all about inclusion! So, as ministers of this Gospel, we have to be all about inclusion: Jews and Gentiles share in the good purposes of God — share in the company of God’s chosen people.

In the material for last year’s Lambeth Conference of Bishops, it was highlighted that the typical Anglican today is an evangelical African aged in their 30s — I can’t remember whether it was a man or a woman! In spite of the fact that a significant number of African Bishops could not or chose not to attend the Lambeth Conference, it was clear that the African Churches represent a growing majority of the Anglican Communion. Are white English-speaking Anglo Saxons now “the Gentiles”? Are we being invited to rejoice that we are included?

But putting aside that revolutionary thought, how are we to transmit this good news of God’s radical inclusion? Can we enter more deeply into this aspect of the mystery of the gospel? Have another look at your Mission Action Plan and identify some of the ways that you have committed yourselves to stand for this inclusion. This parish has a long history of ministering this aspect of the Gospel in word and action. Your notice board regularly placards God’s gracious will that all can participate in his work.

Your work with Saint John’s Youth Services and your charity shop try to express in action this good purpose for all people. Your welcome to people of varied backgrounds into your services speaks of this ministering of the Gospel.

As “servants of the Gospel” we are invited to bring to the Christ-child our treasures — what the wise ones brought in their gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh, and to recognize what the apostle describes as the “wisdom of God in all its rich variety” that God’s church is to make known to the world, to the authorities, and even to the “heavenly places”.

Let us rejoice in the authority under which we serve, and minister this wonder both in our message to the world, and the way in which we live.

Rev’d Elizabeth McWhae

4th Sunday after Epiphany – Micah 5:1-8, Psalm 15, 1 Corinthians 1:18-31, Matthew 5:1-12

INTRODUCTION:

As I have reflected upon the readings for today I have been struck by the question. How does God want us to live? I think our readings from Micah, 1 Corinthians, and Matthew can shed some light on this question, as I hope to show you. So let’s get started.

POINT 1:

Let’s consider Micah first. He lived in a small town about 23 miles southwest of Jerusalem. He was a contemporary of Isaiah and Hosea. He prophesied during the precarious period of the fall of Israel to the Assyrians, around 722 BC. During this time both Israel and Judah were kingdoms suffering tumults within and without. Micah’s words had two main focuses. The judgment and fall of Israel and Judah and a future restoration of God’s people.

The reading we have today is set in the context of a metaphorical court-room scene. God has a controversy with his people. Charges are being brought against them. God is saying, after all I have done for you people of Israel, you still are wondering how I want you to live?

And the people ask, With what shall I come before the Lord…..shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? But God is not interested in what sacrifices the people will offer, the things they offer. God is interested in the people themselves, what they will do. So the answer to the question how does God want us to live is not, bring more sacrificial offerings to appease God but this, He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God.

POINT 2:

Many centuries later when Jesus appeared on the scene, he became the living example of what it meant to do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with your God. And he called disciples and expected them to live like this as well. And he calls us to live the same way today. This is where our reading from Matthew is relevant. The Beatitudes, as they are called, are essentially a description of what doing justice, loving kindness and walking humbly with God are all about. They are a blueprint that answers the question, how does God want us to live?

The difficulty is that the beatitudes are not an easy blueprint for the world that we live in. They are asking us to live in a way that is almost diametrically opposed to our culture and often our nature as human beings. Let me give you an example of what I am talking about. In our world we do not applaud the meek. We think they are weak. We applaud those who are strong. Those who get ahead. Those who are important. Those who hunger and thirst for righteousness are often regarded as religious zealots and mocked. Those who are merciful are regarded as the exception, rather than the rule. .And who are the pure in heart? What does this even mean to us? Blessed are the peacemakers, as the war continues in Ukraine, and the world refugee crisis continues to escalate. And who wants to be persecuted for righteousness’ sake or reviled because of their allegiance to Jesus Christ? Not many of us, I am guessing.

My point is that to actually live the beatitudes is very countercultural for us, and yet if we are to do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with our God, this is what we are being asked to do.

POINT 3:

Let me add that I do not think we are the only people to struggle with living Micah’s way or the way of the beatitudes. I think the church at Corinth had exactly the same issues as us. Let me remind you that they would not have had the luxury we have of Matthew’s record of the beatitudes. Paul’s letter to the Corinthians was written roughly 30 or 40 years before the Gospel of Matthew was compiled. They just had the Old Testament and Paul’s letters to work with. So how does Paul convince them to be followers of Jesus and understand how they should live. His answer is to talk about the cross of Jesus. For Paul the crucifixion was the epitome of what it meant to do justice, love kindness and to walk humbly with God. He says to the people at Corinth, the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God. Paul is saying to the Corinthians, in order to be saved you need to be broken, as Jesus was broken on the cross. You will embrace God when there are no other options, when all is lost. That is when the cross will stop seeming foolishness and will start to make sense to you.

CONCLUSION:

We should not kid ourselves. To live justly, kindly, and humbly is not easy, and it never has been. The model Jesus set for his followers led to a cross remember. By the world’s standards of fame, the cult of celebrity, social media influencers, wealth, superficiality, cybercrime, phone addiction, food waste, body image obsession and the list goes on, Micah and Jesus hardly get a look in. But, the cross of Jesus and his way of life have not disappeared. They are still the gold standard for those who identify as Christians.

How do we as individuals and as a community live out Micah’s call to justice, loving-kindness, and humility or Matthew’s words of the Beatitudes? That’s what we need to figure out, living in a society and a world that does think the cross of Jesus is foolish or just irrelevant?

 But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are, so that no one might boast in the presence of God. He is the source of your life in Christ Jesus, who became for us the wisdom of God, and righteousness and sanctification and redemption……

The Rev’d Susan F. Straub

Introduction
Happy New Year, one and all! New Year’s Day doesn’t fall on a Sunday all that often but does the round of the days of the week. Speaking of rounds, it happens every year. Yet each year we look back on the events that happened during the previous year and our experiences, and feel a sense of … what exactly? Again! That went fast! Of renewal? Of progression, a moving forward? Maybe a fresh start as we look at the year stretching before us like an untrodden path but with some known milestones and landmarks. Bit like the view of parenthood seen for the first time even though we know that it was similar for our parents, their parents, and our ancestors. Similar, but not exactly the same in an ever-changing world. No wonder Hebrew thought saw time like a spiral!

Luke 2:15-21
On this our healing Sunday, we celebrate the naming and circumcision of our Lord, Jesus Christ. People everywhere are aware that names convey meaning and usually choose a name for their little one with care. At Christmastide, we celebrate the birth of the one named before his conception. The Archangel Gabriel spoke his name to Mary, his mother elect. His name was confirmed, post-conception, with its meaning and messianic purpose to the understandably troubled Joseph. Jesus, the one who saves his people from their sins (Matthew 21), the one foretold by the prophet Isaiah. Thus, Scripture too testified to the faith God had in Israel and has ultimately in humanity. It was the joy, wonder, and witness of the shepherds that made real for Mary God’s faith in her and Joseph, a treasure. God came in Jesus to be Emmanuel, God embodied like us to be with us, ever-present. This was the fulfilment of seeing and understanding God as desiring to be in a living relationship with us. That desire is part of the wonders of the faith which we Christians inherited from our Judaic religious forebears and share with them today.

As people of faith, we are signs of God in the world, just as were Jesus and his male, female, Jewish, Greek, Roman, fishermen, Pharisee, tax collector disciples; as were Mary and Joseph, and all those right back to Abraham and Sarah. Let’s begin at the very beginning just like the song in the ’Sound of Music’, the doh-ray-me of faith: call and promise!

At the call of God and in faith, Abram and Sarai journeyed to the Promised Land, settled, and prospered, except they remained childless. Now Abram means ‘exalted father’, and Sarai, ‘princess’. Just as we use ‘princess’ today, Sarai has the meaning of an exalted, noble one or of a contentious, self-entitled, or bitter one. It was Sarai who contended that Abram should follow a custom for otherwise prosperous couples with no heir. Abram was to father a child for Sarai with her maidservant, Hagar. But the adoption of Ishmael as her son brought neither happiness to Sarai and Abram nor, as can sometimes happen, did it bring Sarai a child. Yet God had promised Abram that they would have many descendants and that their descendants would become a great nation. It seemed that their increasing age was making a mockery of God’s promise and of their faith in that promise.

Then, God appeared to Abram again, saying “I am God Almighty (El Shaddai), walk in my ways and be blameless, and I will make you exceedingly numerous.” To underline the promise, God said “No longer shall your name be Abram, but your name shall be Abraham”. The addition of the syllable, in Hebrew ‘heh’ changed the name from ‘exalted father’ to ‘father of many’, a multitude of nations. Likewise, Sarai was named Sarah meaning ‘my princess’, one blessed. Thus, Abraham and Sarah each had one of the ‘heh’ sounds of the unspoken name of God ‘Yahweh’. Their names now conveyed the meaning of a close relationship with God, a mutual belonging.

As an everlasting physical sign of this belonging and of the covenant with God, Abraham obeyed God and every male of his household was circumcised. It was following Abraham’s own circumcision that Sarah conceived and bore Isaac. Circumcision among the nations around them was a rite of passage at puberty signifying entry into manhood and fertility. But every following generation of male babies born in Abraham’s household was to be circumcised eight days after birth. What was the full meaning, then, of circumcision for Mary and Joseph when they brought Jesus to the priest at eight days old?

For Mary and Joseph, circumcision clearly had no association with a male fertility rite. The significance of the eighth day is found in Leviticus. There is the prohibition: “When an ox or a sheep or a goat is born, it shall remain seven days with its mother, and from the eighth day on it shall be acceptable as the Lord’s offering by fire.” (Leviticus 22:27). No animal was to be removed from its mother for sacrifice to God within its first seven days of life. God’s prerogative was deferred out of respect for the intensity of the mother-child relationship. Circumcision on the eighth day signified the very first time that a male infant might be dedicated to the service of God symbolically. The rite renewed the covenant between God and Israel, in continuity with Abraham, and Sarah. The mark became a lifelong external sign of apartness. A baby was considered almost an extension of his mother until the eighth day, when it became clearer that the child would live and could enter into partnership with God. The giving of the name at this time highlighted the infant’s transition to individuality and responsibility to live according to God’s law.

This holy day points us in the direction of another innovation of God and his people: The baptism by John in the Jordan to return the wayward but would-be-faithful to their inheritance by the washing away of sin. In his way of living and dying, Jesus was, and is today, also the sign pointing beyond facts and events to his meaning for humanity. Jesus saves his people from their sins (Matthew 21). Jesus fulfilled the meaning of his name. Yet there is more, there is always more. Jesus inspired his church to the fulfilment of his circumcision. Whatever constitutes our worldly identity, we have a higher one. We are set apart at baptism as those who walk our life-path in the way of faith, who belong to Christ, and are Abraham’s offspring (Gal. 3:28-29). For the ultimate reality of faith in Jesus, Son of God, in God the progenitor, Father of all that is, and the Holy Spirit whose loving-kindness in us reaches out to heal and bless – the reality of faith is this: This God and we belong together. God is not against us. God is with us.

Rev’d Peter Balabanski

Advent 4, Mary’s song – Waiting for Jesus

Today, we lit the candle for Mary, the mother of Our Lord. But today’s Gospel was all about Joseph. But you might remember that last week, in place of a Psalm, we had the Magnificat, Mary’s song. Our third hymn today is based on that song. It comes in the part of Luke’s Gospel where Mary, a young woman engaged to be married, was visited by an angel; just like Joseph was today. The angel told Mary she’d have a special baby who was to be called Jesus. Mary’s immediate response was to say, I am the Lord’s servant, … may it be to me as you have said.’ Lk 1. 38

That’s an amazing reaction; and there’s more, too. When Gabriel told Mary she’d soon be Jesus’ mother, he also said her elderly cousin, Elizabeth, was also expecting a baby in a few months. Mary may already have known that. But the way Gabriel gave both bits of information together clearly linked the two babies’ destinies. Mary twigged to this, and she headed off to visit Elizabeth in Judea; about a 100 km journey! It’s a decisive beginning to her discipleship, setting out to visit Elizabeth. … Mary’s obedience…I am the Lord’s servant… and immediately acting on Gabriel’s message is vindicated when she reaches Elizabeth’s house. 41 filled with the Holy Spirit …42 [Elizabeth] exclaimed: “Blessed (eulogemene – praised by people) are you among women, and blessed (eulogemenos) is the child you will bear!”

Mary responded to God’s prompting by going to see Elizabeth. Elizabeth also responded to the prompting of the Spirit. She prophesied that Mary was blessed by people because of what was happening to her, but she was blessed in God’s sight because she believed (v.45 where she uses the word makaria- receiving God’s favour) ‘blessed is she that believed…’ Mary responded to Elizabeth’s prophecy with the joyous canticle of praise we shared last week. Mary’s words and actions model what to do as we wait for Jesus; the song of the prophet Mary models the way we should pray as we wait.

We are commanded to pray and to proclaim the kingdom; Mary’s Song is a model of prayer and testimony. (Memory aid, our 3rd hymn TiS 173) It begins with an impulsive outburst of Mary’s wonder and delight. ‘My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord: and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour…’ Soul and spirit are the deepest level of Mary’s being. She’s saying there’s nothing more important in her life than her relationship with God. So too with us: this is the absolute heart of prayer.

Then Mary gives her testimony. The most miraculous discovery of all for anyone getting to know God better in prayer can often be the realization that God actually cares deeply for us. That’s often obscured by personal tragedies, but it’s true.
Like Mary, the moment we sense the love of the God who created and sustains the whole universe—that God loves us—we’re overcome with awe, and we break out into joyful praise. Mary declares that she will be known for ever as one who’s received God’s favour (makaria); she’s been called to join in God’s work.
Prayer and testimony; it’s vital for us to pray and proclaim, because both open us up to God’s perspective, and bring that to others. That’s what Mary does—she chooses to open herself to God’s perspective by praying the way she does. She does this by dwelling on three things about God. God is the Mighty One; God is Holy; and God is Merciful. This is the God she knows; this is the God we know too.

Mary cries out about God the mighty one in relationship to herself—[who ‘has done great things for me’]—proclaims God’s holiness—proclaims God’s love and care for all of humanity in all time. This links the personal, loving God that Mary knows with the God of Israel; the God she’s learnt to know as the merciful and just ruler over all. With this perspective, Mary teaches us about prayer, and about our relationship with God. We don’t just relax in God’s embrace, trust to his love, and ignore the rest of humanity. No, Mary sees God’s concern for people everywhere, and teaches us by word and obedience that God’s concerns must be ours too.

The God we meet in Mary’s song is a God who is involved—a God who acts with mercy and with justice. God is described time and again the same way through the Hebrew Scriptures. God’s acts are at once vigorous, political and tender. God is a fire cleansing us of petty conceits; God is disgusted by oppression and determined to oppose it; God is passionate for the welfare of the lowly, and longs for the starving to be fed. We open our hearts to this perspective when we pray Mary’s song. And with such a transformed perspective, we proclaim it fearlessly and, as God’s servants, we model transformative justice and compassion in our own lives.

Mary declares in the final part of her song that God is trustworthy; God doesn’t change. The promises God made to people millennia ago remain true for all their descendants forever. Where we see the Church formed of praying, proclaiming, responsive disciples waiting and preparing for Jesus to come again, we see all the marvellous things about God that Mary proclaimed happening amongst us.

Mary’s prophetic song is a wonderful model for us of prayer and proclamation. Acting on what God says, giving testimony, praying a prayer that resonates with God’s heart—these were the right things for Mary to do while she was waiting for Jesus. They’re also the right things for us to do as we wait for him to come again.

Rev’d Peter Balabanski

Advent 3 A  –Isa 35 1-10, Mt 11 2-11.  Baptism of Sasha Obi

Sustain us, O God, with the power of your love on our journey to meet the One who is coming.

 Our collect prayer and scriptures speak of a journey we’re on to meet Jesus who’s coming to us. Isaiah ^35.8 says we’re on a highway called the Holy Way. James ^5.8 says the coming of the Lord is near. And the Gospel ^{(quoting Mal 3.1 in Matt 11.10)} speaks of John preparing our way for that journey.

So today, we’re on a journey with little Sasha to meet Jesus. He’s coming from the other direction to meet us. But Sasha will find, as we have found, that he’s also walking alongside us. We don’t ever travel the journey alone. If we fell and couldn’t go on, the One who’s walking with us would help us carry on and meet the One who’s coming. It’s tricky, but lovely, isn’t it. In Advent, we think about what that companionship and that journey are like. On this 3^rd Sunday in Advent, we think about it with the example of John the Baptist to learn from.

John’s life was shaped by the way he understood his journey to meet Jesus. And that understanding was shaped by the way he read the prophets. For John, the prophets said wrath and judgment would clear away evildoers. And then blessings would come to the faithful remnant. So John – a prophet himself, also preached that judgement preceded blessing. And he preached it without fear or favour. Remember his confronting words to religious leaders; You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?

Today, we meet John after he’s taken this to another level. He’s confronted the ruler Herod Antipas over his irregular marriage to his sister-in-law. You don’t get off lightly if you do that, so today we meet John in prison. There, he has time to ponder his life-long understanding of the coming Reign of God.

In his prison cell, John hears stories about the ministry of ‘Jesus the Messiah’ – the one he baptised; the one he said was the One who is to come. But apparently there’s been no final judgement yet. This makes no sense! Can he be the One? John sends some of his own disciples to ask Jesus: ^3. Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?

⁴ Jesus answered them, ‘Go and tell John what you hear and see: ⁵ the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them.’ ^{Matt 11.4 – referring to the prophecy in Isaiah 35.5-6}

John believed he’d been sent by God to call people to repent so they’d be fit to survive a fiery judgement. That was how he understood his vocation to prepare the way for the Reign of God.

But the message Jesus sent him effectively said the Reign of God had already arrived, and without the judgement. This left John confused. How can the blessing of citizenship in God’s Kingdom be given before it’s even been established who deserves to belong? How can the immutable sequence of justice before reward suddenly get subverted like that?!

For John himself – in his preaching and baptising work – nothing much had really changed after his meeting with Jesus down at the Jordan River. John had kept on proclaiming the fiery judgement that he’d been preaching all along. He didn’t seem to register the fact that Jesus was doing something totally different.

The point of meeting Jesus is that it challenges us to become disciples of Jesus. But John the Baptist met Jesus, and he didn’t become his disciple. He kept on preaching fire and brimstone. He missed the astonishing fact that while we people were not yet good enough, Jesus shared all the blessings of God’s Realm with us. John didn’t get/understand blessings without judgement; didn’t get Grace – which is forgiveness and inclusion before an apology has even been thought of. How could John have missed this; John of all people. It’s a tragedy. It’s as sad as Moses seeing the Promised Land to which he’d led God’s people, but never entering it himself. ^{(Deut 34)}

In prison, John sounds like someone who’s thinking about joining a church, but waiting ‘till he finds one that’s good enough. We mustn’t get into that prison with him.

The Gospel is this: God didn’t wait until we were good enough before blessing us in Jesus. We must return the compliment: we mustn’t get ourselves so tied up in our preconceptions that we can’t accept the call of Jesus. Ours is a gospel of Grace, not perfectionism. Love is our rule, not safety. We are not called to an obsessive fixation on other people’s worthiness – or our own. We are called to see and tell that Jesus loves us all already. Transformation is needed, sure. But it’s his love that does that transforming through the Holy Spirit’s work in our lives.

We’re on the way with Sasha to meet a special person – a wonderful person – our Lord Jesus. When we look back on our own lives, we’ll see that Jesus has travelled the whole way with us. He was beside us even before we knew about him. That’s a joy we can share with Sasha and with anyone else who needs to know it.                                           God… open blind eyes to the dawning of your kingdom, so that our hearts may rejoice as we behold the majesty of our God. ^{Collect prayer – Advent 3A}

Rev’d Peter Balabanski

Advent 2 – Matt 3.1-12

There’s an apocryphal story of a journalist asking the Archbishop of Canterbury what he’d do if he learned that Jesus was coming in the next half hour.

The answer: ‘I’d look busy.’ Do you think it would help?

John the Baptist called his people to Prepare the way of the Lord. He challenged people to do it through repentance – and by that, he meant a complete change of direction in life; a complete transformation.

Dictionary: μετάνοια (metanoia) ‘repentance’ – change of mind, the state of changing any or all of the elements composing one’s life: attitude, thoughts, and behaviours concerning the demands of God for right living; this state can refer to the foundational salvation event in Christ, or to on-going repentance in the Christian life.

Prepare the way of the Lord. Advent is far more than getting ready for a one-off event or a casual visit – we’re not rolling out a red carpet for a VIP’s whistle-stop. No, God’s coming to the world is much more than a single event. It changes everything; everything changes for ever; everything; for ever.

John the Baptist tells us that the way to prepare for God’s coming is to repent: to turn from the priorities we serve – especially any greed or selfishness or apathy – and to live as genuine citizens of God’s realm; to make God’s priorities our own,  and live them out.

For Christians, repentance is ongoing because it means taking on a life-long commitment to following the example of Jesus – to live a courageous life committed to justice, mercy and faithfulness (the weightier matters of the Law that he referred to in Mt 23.23). Jesus took on that risky, radical lifestyle and it led to his crucifixion. That’s his example to us; his challenge to us. Are we that serious? Are justice, mercy and faithfulness important enough to us that we’d risk everything for them – life included?

But that was Jesus; what about … people? Let’s look at how John the Baptist walked that walk. He also walked it to the end. How could he do that? Was he some sort of rebel with a cause? Two weeks ago, the Song of Zechariah was our Psalm. It’s stayed with me. Zechariah was John the Baptist’s Dad. Telling the children, the story behind his song reminded us that Zechariah was a priest working in the Temple in Jerusalem. ^{Lk 1.5-25, 57-80} So John the Baptist was a PK – a priest’s kid. The Aaronic priesthood was hereditary; but John never took his father’s place in the Temple.

We met John preaching today not in the Temple, but in the wilderness. Instead of rich Temple vestments, John wore what the desert provided; the hair of moulting camels tied on with a skin belt – like Elijah did before him ^{2 Kgs 1:8}. And like Elijah, he ate what the desert provided ^{1 Kgs 17:4}; wild honey and locusts. He was very alternative. John answered God’s call to be the itinerant radical preacher we meet in the Gospel. When his Dad’s colleagues, the Pharisees and Sadducees came out to him, he confronted them with the threat that after Christ’s baptism, there’d be nothing left of them. Through his asceticism, John lived out his call to turn from all the finery and lavish lifestyle that had displaced the justice, mercy and faithfulness God wanted of religious leaders.

What of us? I’ve said before that the baptism John called people to was very counter cultural. Baptism back then was normally part of conversion; leaving your birth religion behind to embrace Judaism. So, the people who came from Judea and Jerusalem to John at the Jordan technically didn’t need baptism. But John was saying that cradle Jews or not, they needed it anyway. They needed to wash, and cleansed, turn back to faithful living. Their heritage as Abraham’s children was not of itself all that God required of them.

And that’s the challenge of today’s Gospel for us – whether we’re cradle Christians or new converts. Have we been tranquillised by a faith that proclaims comfort and security, a cousin of the health and wealth gospel?

Martin Luther King caricatured that as our being seduced by popular preachers delivering soothing sermons on How to Be Happy and How to Relax. Some have been tempted to revise Jesus’ command to read, “Go ye into all the world, keep your blood pressure down, and lo, I will make you a well-adjusted personality.” ^{A knock at midnight Lk 11.5 ff – 11 6-67 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=460_76M6y7E}  God wants better than that; we are better than that. God wants our true selves to shine out. Our faith should bear the fruit of the repentance that John called for – justice, mercy and faithfulness.

Advent is our opportunity to identify the things which keep us spiritually dormant and to turn away from them. When we want to know how to do that, remember John the Baptist; remember Jesus. Let’s test our own inclinations above the Bunsen burners of justice, mercy and faithfulness. When we see dross rise to the surface, we are to skim it off and bin it. What remains in the crucible will be the self that Jesus wants us to continue giving to our work in the Kingdom. Who will that be, that self? In the healing prayer now, we might want to come forward and offer our search for that self to God’s anointing.   Amen.

Rev’d Peter Balabanski

Advent Sunday A – Isa 2.1-5

Kids: Puddleglum’s farewell to the underworld. The Silver Chair CS Lewis – Ch 12.

* Anyone confident that all is right with the world? Everything’s in good hands? World peace just round the corner? Hunger, injustice and inequality all but under control? Wise, decent leadership at every level of our societies? What might make us confident?

The call of Advent is that we should actively look forward to these good things – peace, shared resources, justice, equality, wise and decent leadership. The call of Advent is that we confidently hope for them; that God’s people truly hope to see God’s Kingdom come; a reign of justice, peace, joy and love. Advent 1 is called the Sunday of the promise. It’s also often celebrated as the Sunday of hope. That’s what we remembered in the prayer of the day: * Faithful God, whose promises stand unshaken through all generations: renew us in hope, that we may be awake and alert.

The focus of this hope in Isaiah is hope for peace. It’s the great Advent hope; that we look for one who will come to us bringing peace on Earth and good will among all people.

It’s clear that this universal peace and good will is not our present experience. But it’s especially important in times of difficulty that we can keep ourselves alive to the promise – the hope – of God’s kingdom. When things have looked grim, confidence that the future belongs to God has always given hope in the present. And we know hope changes the way we behave; but it changes more than we know. Hope has seen oppressed people overcome terrible evils over the centuries. And every generation needs hope that the powers of the world do not ultimately determine the future.

Is this choosing a pipe dream – a willful self-deception? It may be. But even then, does that make it worse than not dreaming? Look at the possibilities Isaiah opens up for us. When Isaiah was given today’s vision, Jerusalem was facing terrible danger. Israel and Damascus had tried to force the southern kingdom of Judah to join them in opposing the all-powerful Assyrian Empire. It was a foolish move. The Assyrians laid siege to Jerusalem, and the king turned to the prophet Isaiah for advice and assurance.

Isaiah offered today’s vision of promise. No matter where the power seemed to lie right now, the day was coming when God’s reign would be established for all the Earth to see. And he showed it graphically in a vision of all the nations streaming to Jerusalem to learn the ways of God – to learn to walk in God’s ways.

Isaiah saw the wisdom of God coming from Mt Zion – from the Temple. The Temple on Mount Zion in Jerusalem was far more than a matter of local geography. It represented God’s presence in the midst of God’s people.

So Isaiah’s vision of Zion as the focus of pilgrimage by all peoples was not a political claim; it was a spiritual claim: God’s presence is the true center to which all nations will eventually flow. When I think that this vision was given to the Judean king while the army of the mighty Assyrian empire surrounded Jerusalem, I’m tempted to think it was at best unrealistic. Yet as I read both the Biblical and the Assyrian accounts of this siege and both agree that this huge army failed to capture Jerusalem, I have to think again.

Isaiah didn’t just tell his king that they’d survive the siege. He’d been given a far greater vision. All the nations shall stream to [God’s presence]. Many peoples shall come and say, “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths.” [The Lord] shall judge between the nations, and shall arbitrate for many peoples; they shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more. ^{(= Micah 4.1-3)}

Learning God’s ways; walking in God’s paths, the nations would accept God’s way of determining what is just and right, and as a practical outworking, war would end. Killing people would be replaced with feeding them.

Again, imagine the people of besieged Jerusalem hearing Isaiah proclaim this vision. The Hebrew for crazy is מְשֻׁגָּע, and I’m sure it would have been muttered pretty freely about the city – until it was clear they’d been spared.

Isaiah was a prophet who could hope. In one of Jerusalem’s most frightening times, he could proclaim a vision of all nations – all peoples – drawn to good, decent living; world peace based on justice. Jerusalem desperately needed this person of hope.

It’s about 2,745 years since Isaiah gave this vision to a terrified, besieged city. The same obsessions with wealth, power and control which caused their danger still threaten all life today. And every new generation of idealists and peaceniks seizes on Isaiah’s image of swords into ploughshares and spears into pruning hooks and they ask very serious questions of those who would settle matters by the use of force – those who would produce and peddle armaments while poor people starve.

And though these idealists might be rubbished for living in fairyland – lost in wilful self-deception – they remind me of someone else who apparently lost track of pragmatic, political realities; someone who risked everything rather than live by the sword. We celebrated him as our King last Sunday, enthroned on the Cross. And we wait for his coming now – coming as a King born in a stable; coming as a King who will usher in a reign of peace on Earth and good will among all on Earth. * Amen

Rev’d Peter Balabanski

Christ the King Sunday C – Jrm 23.1f, Song Zech (Lk 1.68f), Col 1.11f, Lk 23.33f

I wonder what you’d think about a king who goes about among his people disguised as an ordinary person. That’s just what King Abdullah II of Jordan does. Every now and then in the Jordanian newspapers, a new article will pop-up to say that today, their carefully disguised king joined the queue at a taxation office or a hospital, or he spent the day driving a taxi. While he’s in a queue or driving, he talks with people about how they’re being treated; what sort of service they’re getting. People confide in taxi drivers.

This is King Abdullah’s way of finding out for himself what sort of experience his people have of his government. So people who work behind hospital desks and tax office front-counters must always wonder if the next face they see hidden behind the beard of a shabby old man might actually be that of their King. Maybe they behave now as if everyone is their king – just in case. Wouldn’t that improve things!

King Abdullah does this because he cares for his people. He wants to find out what he needs to do to make life better for everyone. It’s an unusual king who does something like that, and today is all about the King who’s done this for all of us. The Servant King Jesus came in solidarity with people on the bottom rung, the ones he loves; to be one of us; to save us. No-one is beneath this King’s notice!

Today, we’re told about God’s commitment to his little ones. In our reading from Jeremiah, we’re told that bad shepherds will be dealt with, and God will take their place. Bad shepherds wreck lives; they betray trust and fracture the community of God’s people. They publicly disgrace the name of God. Jeremiah said this would change. The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch, [who] shall reign as king and deal wisely, and [who] shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. ^{Jrm 23.5} So expectations were huge; people waited and hoped.

In our canticle this morning, Zechariah’s Song, we sang with an old man who’d waited all his life for this prophecy to be fulfilled. His son, John, would finally get God’s people ready for the coming of that righteous king. ^{Lk 1.17} Finally, Zechariah held his child in his arms: John the Baptist, harbinger of the Messiah. And Zechariah sang, you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High; for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways,    to give knowledge of salvation to his people by the forgiveness of their sins. ^{Lk 1:76-77}

This is a glorious preparation. You expect so much; hope so deeply; all that cripples us will change. What a wonderful King this will be. But nothing prepares us for the moment of that King’s revealing: the one we see today; our King, dying on the Cross. He didn’t just come disguised as a vulnerable person like King Abdullah does; he actually became one. He didn’t just come for a quick, harmless experience of people’s inconvenience before being whisked off in a motorcade back to the palace. He suffered what oppressed people do; he died the way the most ill-treated victims of tyranny do; by government-sanctioned murder.

Jeremiah says God will demonstrate solidarity with such people by replacing bad shepherds with a good one. But then what? Even if you replace a bad shepherd, they leave such a terrible legacy: suffering, confusion, hopelessness, bitterness and betrayal – no clear sense of right and wrong any more. Jesus takes this terrible legacy to the Cross so it can die with him once and for all, and in its place he offers healing forgiveness.

Before Jesus dies, leaders, soldiers, even one of the condemned hanging beside him—each taunt him with the same demand: Save yourself! But he’s not in it for himself. He’s not a false shepherd; not a false King. If there’s a cost to be borne, he will bear it, because ultimately, he’s the only one who really can. He doesn’t save himself; he’s determined to save us all. And as Zechariah sang, he does it through forgiveness. ^{v. 77} He bears the cost himself – the spread of the disease stops with him.

Listen to Jesus, as much a victim of evil as anyone can be; listen, as he asks God to forgive his persecutors. Father, forgive them; for they don’t know what they’re doing! Suddenly, the legacy of pain and suffering, confusion and hopelessness, betrayal and bitterness, of no clear sense of right and wrong – suddenly that legacy, and even the power of death itself – all of it is defused. That King – not seated on a throne, but hanging before us on a senseless, violent instrument of tyranny – that King is both the good shepherd who has come to us, and the embodiment of the new realm where we now live forever.

The other criminal still asks him for a future hope: Jesus, remember me when you come into your Kingdom. What we witness here is the complete change from criminal to saint’ what we call repentance. He names what he has been, renounces it and turns to Jesus. He calls on Jesus’ name and asks to be remembered when Jesus comes into his kingdom.

And Jesus replies that the Kingdom is here now: Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise. Jesus receives him immediately – takes him at his word and receives him. Today you will be with me in paradise; restored to everything you might have hoped to be.

This is astonishing. The people Jesus keeps company with here show that none of us should ever imagine ourselves beyond the reach of his love; no-one should ever imagine themselves as beneath the notice of Christ our crucified, servant King. And most astonishing of all, this is all here now – today – here amongst us and within each one of us. Praise and Glory to Christ our King!    Amen

Rev’d Peter Balabanski

Pentecost 23 C – Remembrance Sunday – Isa 65 17-25, Isa 12 1-6, 2 Thess 3 7-12, Lk 21 5-19

Kids: We’re just about to hear some words from the prophet, Isaiah. He’s speaking to people who’ve had a terrible time – so terrible that you could hear weeping all over their city. (Weeping is the sort of crying that means you can’t do anything but cry. And when it stops, you’re so exhausted, you can’t do anything except sleep).

But Isaiah’s telling the people about a dream God’s given him – a dream that everything will be new and good again; so good there won’t be weeping any more.

God gave them a dream. What happens when you dream? Do you wake up and find your dream’s really happened? What do you think happens with God’s dreams? I think they happen – maybe not straight away, but I’m pretty sure God’s dreams happen.

Isaiah wanted people to dream God’s dream – to dream what God was dreaming. People who know how it feels to weep and weep have always understood what Isaiah means, and they’ve made songs so sad people can dream God’s dreams and give each other some hope. Here’s one of those songs – special today on Remembrance Sunday

Peace / love / joy is flowing like a river, flowing out through you and me; spreading out into the desert; setting all the captives free.

We might not see God’s dream happen straight away, but maybe some people who weep will hear us singing God’s dream for them. And that might just help.

And now it’s time for us to hear the readings.

Sermon: In Isaiah 65 this morning we heard glorious promises—new heavens and new Earth, gladness and rejoicing for ever, delight – and ‘the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind.’ Isaiah lists those former things that definitely won’t be in this glorious future. No more weeping or cries of distress or infant deaths; no more lives cut short. Poor people will no longer farm and build only to see the fruit of their work fall into other hands. People won’t work in vain any more. Their children won’t be born into a world where they lack prospects of good health or happiness. People won’t live in a world where they think God doesn’t hear them; doesn’t answer the prayers.

Why could they think like that? For people of Isaiah’s time, the future could seem pretty bleak. They lived in a little country which kept on being invaded by powerful armies. Both their ancient ancestors and their more recent ones had been slaves in foreign countries. They were near the bottom of the world’s pecking order. And yet, Isaiah, in our first reading, gave them a dream of a beautiful new future. And in Isaiah’s song, which we had as today’s Psalm, we heard that their vision for this beautiful future was not just for themselves, but for all the other nations as well.

Faith like that is a gift from God. It’s generous; outward looking; courageous and realistic. It’s not as though these people were oblivious to the mistreatment and injustices they suffered. It’s not as if they were oblivious to the pain of brief lives and premature deaths. They knew all about these things. But the gift of faith that God gave them set their hearts free to hope courageously and with outward generosity. Their hearts were set free to look to a future God held out to them and the whole cosmos.

This is the divinely-inspired realism, courage and generosity we heard Jesus call from his disciples today as he neared the end of his earthly ministry. It’s what he calls from us today in the ambiguity of our prayers for peace on Remembrance Sunday in a world where many on-going conflicts still poison millions of lives.

We might think that our prayers on this Remembrance Sunday are pretty feeble and ineffective. But Sister Maria Boulding writes about the significance of our listening to God through prayer in spite of such misgivings. She writes, ‘Your silent listening through prayer, through people and through events will be very personal; it may seem very solitary, but it is not. You are the answering readiness, the receptivity, without which even today God cannot give as he longs to give. Our noisy busy world has little time to listen and wait and – what is worse – it is starved of hope. So many hopes disappoint, and people are afraid of being disappointed yet again. It is when we reach the brink of despair that hope grounded in God has a chance, because there is nothing else left. The modern world can surely not be far from the brink. In the name of many other people, you can listen to the word that tells you you are unconditionally loved.’ ^{The Coming of God p. 7}

Cultivating this habit of listening helps us hear what Jesus tells us – his disciples – today. When we find ourselves up against seemingly impossible odds; when we know it will be very dangerous to express the values of justice, mercy, love and faith that he’s taught us, we won’t waste our strength planning our defensive strategies. If we’ve practised the ‘silent listening prayer’ that Sr Maria has described, then Christ’s words will come to us. We’ll speak words – we’ll embody a wisdom – that will silence voices of violence and conflict, the voices of greed and persecution; the voice of war will be silenced.

This Remembrance Sunday is a call to such prayer. Isaiah gives us a vision of what to pray for. And Jesus tells us that the power of prayer is the gift of prayer. We must recognise that it’s not our strength that means prayer is effective or not. Prayer is God at work; Christ at work; the Spirit at work through us.

When we receive that gift, all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well. And for that, we give God thanks and praise! Amen.