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Invite the world into the presence of Jesus

Rev’d Peter Balabanski

Epiphany – Isa 60 1-6 Ps 72 1-7 10-14 Eph 3.1-12 Mt 2.1-12

Visiting a different church one day, I was particularly struck by a welcome note on their bulletin. All baptized Christians, regardless of their denomination, church affiliation or irregular or non-attendance, are welcomed, invited, and encouraged to receive Communion with us or to come forward for a blessing. One of the most important things God calls us to do is to welcome visitors of all kinds to belong as completely as they can in the Church community. It’s a challenge to all churches.

It’s a particular challenge at the feast of the Epiphany; the day when we remember the baby Jesus hosting outsiders; astrologers whose practice is frowned on by many parts of the Church and Judaism. Are there limits to Christ’s welcome? Epiphany marks the day when representatives of the known world were received into the presence of Christ. Let’s consider who was received at Bethlehem; was there anyone Jesus might have left out?

First, of course, there are his parents. We’re told in chapter 1 that Joseph and Mary aren’t married yet. If you don’t think Matthew’s trying to make a point of this, look at Matthew’s record of Jesus’s family tree in that chapter. Four other women named there were illegal or unclean according to Hebrew Scripture (Tamar – incest, Rahab – prostitution, Ruth – forbidden inter-racial marriage and Bathsheba – adultery).

If what we’re seeing in today’s Gospel is a first Christian gathering, it predicts a very broad-minded Church indeed. And it doesn’t stop with just this scandal. We heard from Luke at Christmas that Mary and Joseph had to use a manger, an animal-feed trough, as Jesus’s first bed. The earliest Church began in a cave at the back of the house; the space where the animals lived. The traditional story gives us a donkey, cattle and sheep as Jesus’s fellow tenants; doubtless accompanied by their attendant insects and parasites. So our Church is yet more open.

Then there are shepherds; again from Luke’s account. Shepherds in the Middle East are still mostly children – kids aged between 5 and 11. So the earliest congregation included little urchins too. And of course they’d have brought their sheep and goats with them. So there’s the inaugural service of the blessing of the animals.

Then there’s the star and its attendant Magi. A Magus is a magician; Deut. 18 declares such a person abhorrent. So it seems that abhorrent people are welcome too; and Matthew placidly records their coming. How much more broad minded do you want to get!?

Finally, there are angels in their thousands. I think we can safely say they enjoy universal approval. But what a gathering! Parents of dubious status from a very questionable pedigree; the animal, vegetable, insect, mineral and heavenly kingdoms all represented; and strange foreigners who seek a king – and risk the baby’s life by telling Herod about him! That’s as broad-minded a church as you could want, isn’t it. And the infant Jesus is there in the middle of this wild diversity of angels, people and creatures all gathered under one rocky roof. They were all invited, or else co-opted as hosts. This was no accident.

Is what we’ve imagined so far about God’s welcome – about Jesus’s inclusivity – consistent with the rest of Scripture? The psalm today reminds us of God’s special concern for the poor, the needy, the helpless, the oppressed and the violated. The reading from Isaiah joyfully proclaims the gathering in of a scattered family, all guided by the brightness of God’s light. And the epistle is a prayer for God’s wisdom to be revealed throughout Earth, and indeed beyond it.

That’s quite all-inclusive. And Matthew points us in two further directions – one at the beginning and the other at the end of this gospel. Matthew begins with Jesus’s genealogy. He begins it with Abraham. The most important moment in Abraham’s story is when God promises that through him, all families of Earth will be blessed; not only believers; not just all humans; all families. Gen 12.1-4 The tableau we finally have before us in the crib today shows us this blessing embodied.

We find the other direction Matthew points us in right at the end of the gospel. Jesus commits his followers to work to fulfil God’s desire – Go…and make disciples of all nations. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.

The tableau before us at Epiphany is a call to us to recognise what God truly desires – universal blessing; grace and peace. It’s a call to recognise God’s desire for all to be gathered in the divine presence, and having recognised God’s desire, it’s a call to us to choose to work for it together with Jesus.

Epiphany calls us to that mission; to invite the world into the presence of Jesus – all families of Earth. He’s hardly intimidating.

Epiphany also challenges us to ask how wide we can open our door; how wide we can open our hearts. As wide as we can open them, Epiphany challenges us to open our hearts wider still – to risk what we can’t yet cope with. Epiphany also challenges us to go outside; to go to the other and trust that Jesus goes with us – goes with us to whatever family of Earth he leads us to. Amen

God with us

Rev’d Peter Balabanski

Christmas Day 2023

I think all of us will remember a time when we’ve asked the “big question”: If there is a loving God of the universe, why is suffering allowed to happen? That’s the “big question”. People have always asked it, ever since we were told that God loves us. If there is a loving God of the universe, why is suffering allowed to happen?

We’re not the first to ask the big question. The Hebrew people had plenty of reasons to ask it. Years of slavery, countless wars, famines, colonization, exile. They asked the big question, and all through Advent, we’ve been reading about the answer they received. It was a promise that they heard again and again; God would raise up someone extraordinary who would set things right; the anointed one – the Messiah. The Hebrews had huge expectations of this Messiah. They waited for this prince of peace to be born; they waited and waited. They waited so long that they started to ask another question; “How long!” Hab 1.2 They had huge expectations. But I don’t think they ever imagined who would eventually come.

Jesus was greater than the prophets ever expected. And yet he didn’t come in power as some invincible tribal warrior. He came in the most scandalous, defenceless way imaginable. Just before he was born, his unmarried parents had to beg for lodgings one hundred kilometres from home. Jesus’ first bed was a farm animal’s feed trough. The first visitors to come and witness his arrival were scruffy strangers; shepherds. Apparently they turned up in the middle of the night. And shortly, this baby’s family would be on the road again as refugees.

Why in the world must any family endure such humiliation? If this baby is God’s answer to the “big question”, then that question needs to go under the microscope. If there is a loving God of the universe, why is suffering allowed to happen? This question has a built in assumption; that we expect a loving God should prevent tragedies. Is this true? And if it is, how should a loving God do this?

Should a loving God stop all wars; turn all weapons into farming tools? Would that fix relations between nations? Well, no. Should a loving God fuse the world’s tectonic plates together; stop all storms; get rid of mosquitoes? Would that make Earth a suffering-free zone? Well, no. Should a loving God abolish all disease and injury; even our mortality? Well, no. Should a loving God put a force-field round all vulnerable people; make every bully behave? Would all that stop us suffering? No; that wouldn’t address the human heart.  …  So what’s a loving God to do?

God did something beyond all expectation. One day, the God of the universe was born a tiny, helpless baby; vulnerable to all the hazards of this dangerous world.

Jesus was born one of the colonised, bullied people – so oppressed peoples of this and every land have God with them. Jesus was born one of the people who’d have to depend on the kindness of others just to survive – so today 114 million displaced persons have God with them. Jesus was born among animals and insects in a stable – so non-human beings have God with them. Shepherds were the ancient world’s equivalent of street people. So they have God with them. Jesus grew up to love and care for any people he met who were sick in mind or body, or hungry. So they have God with them. Jesus was arrested, tried and executed by the state. So prisoners and those on death row have God with them. All these outsiders can be told with confidence that Jesus is their Emmanuel – God with them. And the rest of us? God was born, a living, mortal organism on planet Earth. So every creature, the air we breathe and the land we walk on, we all have God with us. In every place, Jesus revealed God; he was – he is – God with us.

And the question of suffering? It hasn’t been forgotten. At the end of his ministry, Jesus would take it all to the Cross – he’d willingly have all wrong and all evil crucified in his own body, and he’d take it to the grave where it belongs. And on the third day after his death, when he rose, alive again from the grave, all the suffering of the world – even death itself – lay defeated at his feet.

Yes, we still experience suffering. We’re still not at the end times. But the Good News is that while suffering has an end, we do not. Just as Jesus came to be with us in our suffering, he promises that when we die, he will come and take us to be with him. Jn 14 And we’re also promised that after the last days, in a renewed heaven and earth, God will again make a home with us and wipe every tear from our eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more. Rev 21

One day, the God of the universe was born a tiny, helpless baby; vulnerable to all the hazards of a dangerous world. He came to give meaning to our life, to rescue us all, good and bad, and to let us know we have God with us in every moment. Amen

In Jesus – God born a child of Earth

Rev’d Peter Balabanski

Christmas Eve 2023 – Isa 9 2-7  Ps 96  Titus 2 11-14  Lk 2 1-14

You’d never think so, but the Gospel we’ve just heard was written by people who’d been through something quite catastrophic. In the year 70 CE the Roman colonial power had responded to a Jewish rebellion by besieging and then utterly destroying Jerusalem, burning the Temple, and killing most of the remaining inhabitants. Luke wrote this hope-filled Gospel only a decade or two later, with Rome still supreme, still controlling its subjects on pain of death – and Emperor Augustus called himself son of God. Where could Luke find reason to hope in such conditions?

Luke looked back past the catastrophe to tell us of a story of extraordinary hope. Luke wanted us all to share in this hope. The birth of Jesus kindled this hope in the shepherds. And our great hope is founded on this child we’ve just heard was born; this child we’ve joined with the shepherds and angels to see tonight.

We heard Isaiah say a child was coming – a child who would ultimately bring endless peace. This child’s birth would signal the beginning of the end of the oppressors’ yoke. The soldiers’ boots and their blood-soaked garments would be burned. A just and righteous government would be established, and everyone could hope to live in peace. The psalmist says that even the trees of the forest would sing out for joy because of this child’s coming! God knows we need this hope today!

Luke tells us that the child of Mary and Joseph is the one Isaiah foretold; the one anointed to reveal God’s glory, and to bring peace on Earth. What convinced Luke of this was what he saw this child grow up to be and do – Luke had studied the life and ministry of Jesus – and his Gospel goes on to tell us that story.

In Jesus, Luke saw all the love and strength and justice and kindness and goodness of God. In Jesus’ life and ministry, and in his death and resurrection, Luke saw God perfectly revealed. Even the subsequent horrors of Jerusalem’s sacking and all the ongoing pain of colonial rule couldn’t filter out Luke’s conviction that the story of Jesus meant ultimate freedom and joy.

How do we hear this story? For us, it’s filtered through more than two millennia of romanticism, fanaticism and tradition. So what holy family do we see? Do we see super-humans, especially protected by God? Do we see people who survive this sort of celebrity pressure intact? Do we imagine that they weren’t touched by the loneliness of travellers; the vulnerability of travel whilst pregnant – and in a traditional society like theirs, of being unmarried into the bargain.

No, instead we see ordinary, vulnerable people; people like us. God didn’t rig things to make his journey towards becoming mortal any easier. The God who came to us in this little baby came already bearing real human burdens; the misery of the colonised, the vulnerability of the traveller, the defencelessness of the newborn; the violation of not being safe in your own Land.

We usually tend to focus on the true humanity and vulnerability of Jesus in the story of his Passion and crucifixion. But we see tonight that it started well before he was born. God’s solidarity with the most vulnerable is total. This night, we bear witness to God becoming fully and vulnerably human. It could have been you; it could have been me. That’s how strong God’s solidarity is with all who need hope.

When we moved towards (looked at) the crib tonight, who did we think we’d find there? Luke saw in the infant Jesus – in the person he grew up to be, in the things he did and said – Luke saw God calling us to trust him – to become imitators of Jesus; people of hope and justice, people of kindness, peace and love, and in particular for Luke, people of hospitality. From the very beginning, Jesus welcomed people at the bottom of the pile; starting with those shepherds.

Hope, justice, kindness, peace, love and hospitality – these are the gifts which can transform situations of dehumanising misery and danger into places where at least a glimpse of God’s love for us brings back hope. And in Jesus – God born a child of Earth – and in imitating Jesus, those gifts can be brought to birth in us. Then we can continue to bring his hope. May this hope be our Christmas message? Amen.

Magnificat

Rev’d Peter Balabanski

Advent 4 B –  Luke 1 26ff

Lots of us here are of an age to remember the protest singers of the ‘60s and ‘70s –Eric Bogle, Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, Aretha Franklin – they protested against the Vietnam war, against materialism, racism, sexism and slavery. Theirs were songs of a new generation crying out against the wrongs of their societies. But wars haven’t stopped, and materialism, racism, sexism, slavery and injustice are still mainstream. Thankfully, new songs keep being written, calling out the injustices and naming them clearly for what they are. In this land, I think of Yothu Yindi, Helen Reddy, Uncle Archie and many others. Missy Higgins is one of our current champions on the climate crisis. She says, ‘At the moment I’m really into political music because I think that is the bravest thing of all … today. People are less inclined to speak out for fear of being cut down on social media … [we need] music that isn’t afraid to be torn down, isn’t afraid to be judged, declares what it’s there for.’ https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-10-18/missy-higgins-apocalpyse-and-climate-change-inspire-new-music/9059168

When something really outrageous is happening – something completely unjust and apparently unstoppable – if someone sings a protest song, naming the wrong that’s being done to the many by a powerful few, suddenly, hurt and oppressed people out there hear that they’re not alone. And these songs terrify their oppressors. Authorities ban them if they can – they try to shut down the social media platforms and the broadcasters that play them. But the songs won’t be silenced.

This is not a new phenomenon. This morning, we shared a very old protest song; Mary’s song – The Magnificat. The heart of Mary’s song is protest, and it has terrified powerful elites ever since. The Lord has shown strength with his arm and scattered the proud in their conceit, casting down the mighty from their thrones and lifting up the lowly. God has filled the hungry with good things and sent the rich away empty. Meek little Mary? Gentle, sweet, compliant teenage Mary? Yeah, right. Mary fills the shoes of the great women protest singers of her tradition – Miriam (Ex 15:20-21) Deborah (Judg 5:1-31) Judith (Jdt 16:1-17) and Hannah (1 Sam 2:1-10).

The Magnificat is such a powerful protest song that several illegitimate regimes have banned its public use; and not always in places you’d normally expect. When the famous missionary priest and linguist, Henry Martyn, arrived in India in April 1806 he found that it was forbidden to recite the Magnificat at Evensong in case the idea of ‘putting down the mighty from their seats’ was taken too literally. https://sayitstraight.co.uk/local-history/biographies/henry-martyn-1781-1812/

That might sound absurd, but it’s true. And the Magnificat has been banned in more recent times too. In Argentina after the ‘dirty war’ of the ‘70s, it was banned when the mothers of the disappeared used it to call for non-violent resistance to the government. And in the ‘80s the government of Guatemala is also reported to have banned its public recitation.

So what’s this all got to do with Advent? Advent is the time when we remember that we’re waiting for someone to come; someone we expect to set wrong things to right. And we who wait now – like Mary, like John the Baptist, like the prophets who awaited Jesus’ first coming – we who wait for his coming again – we are meant to be vocal; mindful that the one we’re waiting for expects us to be public poets; singing living hymns of justice – just like our Mary and others have done.

Mary reminds us today to sing very feisty protest songs;

  • songs to name greed, injustice, oppression and prejudice;
  • songs to assure perpetrators and their victims alike that justice will come;
  • songs to name what is good and right – to make sure it stays clearly in view;
  • songs to tell colonised peoples, refugees, women and children that their cries for safety, dignity, respect, restitution, treaty, justice, truth-telling and freedom are just and sacred, and what they ask for will be given them no matter how confident their abusers may feel now;
  • songs to expose and challenge the war we’re waging on Earth, our common home
  • songs to summon us to humility, to repentance, to renounce our greed and our delusional religion of consumptive economic growth

We got an anonymous letter under the door saying people of the Church shouldn’t concern ourselves with these things; that this was the realm of politics. Let’s hear Mary again. The Lord has … scattered the proud in their conceit, casting down the mighty from their thrones and lifting up the lowly. God has filled the hungry with good things and sent the rich away empty. Mary knew politics is God’s business, and the child she carried knew that as well. Last week, we heard a passage from Isaiah 61 that Jesus chose to read out to his home synagogue. They threw him out for it. Lk 4.18 The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, 19 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour. With a mother like his, how could he be otherwise?  Amen.

 

“Faith: use it or lose it”?

Rev’d Peter Balabanski

Advent 3 B – The Sunday of the Baptist – Ps 126, Jn 1.6-8, 19-28

We might wonder why each Advent, year in, year out, we Christians are tasked with getting ready again for the coming of Jesus. We did it last year and the year before – over and over. But don’t we already have our faith? Shouldn’t we be telling this to people of no faith? Yes indeed. But that doesn’t let us off the hook.

The reason we have this annual call to readiness, to wakefulness, is that any person of faith can easily lose the plot, or just go to sleep. Autopilot-faith switches on and we switch off. We stop being open to the on-going transformation that’s part of a living, growing faith. We regress. Our world shrinks inexorably to a self-interested bubble. And not just individuals. Entire nations can forget the heart of their faith and its values. Justice, mercy and faithfulness go out the window, to be replaced by judgment and a dehumanising fearful mistrust of the other. So this year, we see helpless, abused communities being demonised and attacked; here in Australia too.

All this tells us that the Advent call is an essential reminder; that prevention is much better than a cure. Today’s Psalm shows how Advent works. It starts as a joyful song of people rescued from exile. But it’s a memory, and memories only carry our faith so far. The second half of the Psalm is a prayer that God will keep at it. Please bring the usual rain clouds to our drought-stricken lives, so we, who are planting seeds in hope now, will shout with joy at the harvest. Will God do it again? They sound confident. Remembering regularly where our hope is founded is a healthy thing.

We read in today’s Gospel that John the Baptiser was doing something similar to the psalmist; reminding a faith community to own their faith. Today’s Gospel tells that John was baptising in someone else’s country on the other side of the Jordan. This is the river the people crossed when, finally, they arrived home from exile in Babylon; it’s the joyful escape that the psalmist celebrates. Today we see John the Baptiser call them back over that river, back out of their land again. Because that’s where spiritually lost people can be physically reminded: this was where God led the exiles, their lost ancestors, home. You don’t forget muscle memory in a hurry.

Like the Psalm does, the Gospel reminds us that this gift of being restored is one that’s offered to those who already are God’s people. We may feel lost; we may wonder if God’s still with us. But the exiles were called home. The Psalm asks can that grace still be available to their descendants. The Gospel says that John the Baptiser has been sent to the river to answer yes! Yes to you and me as well.

John calls people caught in a spiritual drought to come down to the life-giving waters of the river; to come and cross it again. He calls them to the other side of the river. He stands physically where these people have got to spiritually. He calls them across to show with their bodies what has happened in their lives. He calls them there, and charges them to be again the people they’re intended to be; a light to the nations; to be again a people who are ready to greet the one who is to come.

When John the Baptiser called the people of Judea and Jerusalem to baptism, he was saying they needed complete renewal. His calling was to see that each person he led through the river and back into the Land emerged from that water into a new life. John’s baptism was one of the most powerful symbolic actions I can think of in any religion. Accepting his baptism meant owning yourself to be someone with your back to God; lost and broken; someone who needed to be made completely new. And knowing all that, you had to trust enough that with John’s help, you could turn back whole-heartedly to God.

It’s a tremendous gift that John has given to the church. Even though we may be facing into impenetrable shadow; even though we may be at absolute rock bottom; even though we may believe ourselves totally disconnected from God, John’s baptism teaches us that our faith is not defined by our feelings. Our faith is turning back from death to life. And it’s not just a one-off event; it involves on-going growth and transformation. Faith is a living, growing thing, like our bodies are.

Different churches have their own ways of helping people’s faith to be renewed like today’s Scriptures have shown us happening. These rituals help to nurture in us the on-going transformation that’s part of a living, growing faith. Many churches observe the season of Advent with its focus on waking up and getting ready. The Methodist tradition has an annual covenanting service where people re-commit themselves as followers of Jesus. At the Easter Vigil, Anglicans, Lutherans and Catholics renew our baptismal promises.

Can you remember any time in your faith life when you have made such a re-commitment? Has anybody called you from a state of spiritual drought – called you down to the river? Did they turn you around, did it turn your life around? It is a life-and-death matter. Around the world today, we are seeing people of faith at war with each other – people whose faiths call us to be peaceful, just and merciful. I pray that we all open ourselves to the regular renewal of these faith values. Amen

Jesus will come for us – bridging eternity and mortality

Rev’d Peter Balabanski

Advent 2 B – Isa 40.1-11; Mk 1.1-8

Mark begins with the words, The beginning of the Gospel. We know what comes next – what Gospel means to us – because we know the story. It’s an old story to us. But it’s not an old story for Mark’s first hearers. So what would they have thought when they heard The beginning of the Gospel. In Mark’s time, the word euangelion (Gospel) had a more general use. It meant an announcement of any sort of good news – like a town crier calling out good news about the end of a battle, or that the harvest had been plentiful. It was an effective way to start.

In fact, the whole of Mark’s Gospel is utterly direct, and beautifully crafted. It starts with these words, The beginning of the Gospel, so everyone who first hears it will immediately expect news about something that is going to delight them and be good for them. They’ll turn and listen to find out what this good news is. And Mark doesn’t waste a word getting to the point. The beginning of the Good News of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. We turn; we listen; and immediately, there is Jesus.

Mark sets out the story with breathless speed. The word immediately makes frequent appearances. Today Mark reminds us of God’s promise that we just heard from Isaiah; that God would send a messenger to prepare the way of the Lord Isaiah 40.1-8 – see also Malachi 3.1, Mark says the promised messenger is John the Baptiser; John is the prophesied messenger in the wilderness. And we’re only four verses in!

Mark tells the story of John calling us out to the wilderness so we can recognise the wilderness inside us; to recognise that we are people in need of wholeness; that we’re lost and lonely.

In another Gospel that we’ll hear next Sunday, John 1.28 we learn that John the Baptiser called people to the other side of the Jordan River to receive his baptism – to be like the people Isaiah wrote to – the people of the exile – crossing back to Judea. To do this would make them like the returning exiles, reclaiming their birthright as God’s people, in the land promised to their ancestors in the faith.

John the Baptiser calls us from the other side of the Jordan; calls us to symbolically re-live those ancestors’ exile. To repent – to turn around and face a different direction in life. As it did for them, it means for us to leave our current lives behind – go to the other side of the river to confess our sins like the Judeans and people of Jerusalem did with John. v.5 Then we can turn back to face God, to cross the river back to God again, this time in baptism, washing off what we had to confess and rising fresh and new from the water – fit for a new life which honours God’s call on us.

This a humbling call – the call to repentance . But if that’s not daunting enough, John the Baptiser tells us that the one who will come – the one he’s preparing us to meet is so great that even he, John, isn’t worthy to untie the strap of his sandals. If John’s daunted by him, what will meeting him be like for us?

John’s baptism washes us in water – washes away whatever it is we’ve confessed – in order to consecrate our bodies and make them fit for that meeting; fit to dwell in God’s Land. Then he calls us to watch with him; to wait for the one who will come. And that is our task in this season of Advent.

John the Baptiser says the one who is coming will wash us in the fire of the Spirit of God. We will become whole in a way we couldn’t have imagined; restored in a way we’ve always needed, but may never have believed we could be. Mark confronts us with the prophecy of Isaiah who says that whatever exile we experience, whatever keeps us from that promised wholeness – be it as tall as a mountain or as wide as a desert – it will be no barrier to the one who’s determined to come to us. And the Baptiser tells identifies the one who is coming as Jesus the Christ, the Messiah, the anointed one; the Son of God.

Like Isaiah’s divine shepherd who would cross the desert to rescue God’s people from exile, Jesus will come for us – bridging eternity and mortality. He will accompany us in our wilderness, and take us to wholeness. On our journey to that promise, we will explore together our own lost-ness; our own brokenness. Each Advent we renew our commitment to this journey – our commitment to getting ready to meet this Jesus; the one who has come, and who is coming again. And in particular, we renew our commitment to follow him wherever he leads.

Part of that commitment includes a willingness for life in the desert – for learning what God wants it to teach us. We experience the desert in being alone, in choosing stillness. It can also come uninvited in unanswered prayer or unexpected loss. These desert times help us grow in reliance on God. In the desert, we can also learn to be at peace with ourselves. That’s a challenge, because in the desert, we see ourselves for who we really are. We face our demons, and gradually, we learn to whom our trust really belongs.

We discover where our life has been heading. We own our part in responsibility for it. We become ready to turn from a life filled with the clutter of things we once treasured. We’re ready to drop all that, and to reach out empty-handed to the hands that are stretching out to us. Those hands stretch across the mountains and canyons of brokenness – wilderness. We let ourselves be taken in them, and we know we are welcomed home; forgiven; healed; free; suddenly buoyant; and miraculously … whole.       Amen.

Our Advent wakefulness campaign

Rev’d Peter Balabansky

Advent Sunday Year B – Isa 64 1-9 – Mk 13 24-37

The first few verses of today’s Gospel with the stars falling from heaven remind me of a spiritual that The Seekers used to sing – My Lord, what a morning x3, when the stars begin to fall. When I looked it up, I discovered the original composers of this spiritual – slaves – used to spell morning differently. They meant mourning! It makes it an entirely different song doesn’t it? Much more in keeping with the apocalypse which unfolding in this chapter 13 of mark’s Gospel. Jesus is speaking of the last judgement – where everyone is aware that their end is near. The slaves knew what it was like to have everything they knew turned upside down – to lose entire families and communities. The perspective of that grief – the mourning for so much death – guides what I’ll try to convey in today’s sermon.

I remember seeing people in the city who wore sandwich boards and carried placards that said ‘Repent! The end is near!’ Michael Leunig had a bit of a different angle on this. He drew a cartoon showing a rather disappointed-looking man walking around a city holding a placard which said, The end of the world is nowhere in sight. His message wasn’t so much in the sign as the look on his face. He was lost. His sign was no message at all. If he’d had something to say that might galvanise people into changing our lives, then his sign-bearing life, his vocation would have had a purpose. He needed a purpose and a goal. Those things help you recognise the gift of what you’ve got and where you are. They can give you a change of perspective, and that changes everything.

How does your perspective change? Mark has taken us to look at the end of our lives, so let’s look at that – how being near death might change our perspective. Approaching the end of our life is a time when perspective does change utterly. It’s a time when extraordinary healing and blessing can come. It’s a time when thoughts and feelings that have been pushed to one side, or left behind, finally catch up. As each of those returning thoughts and feelings arrive – they get inspected, weighed up, maybe polished a bit and admired. They are held compassionately – it’s like a last meeting with old acquaintances.

Some of these thoughts and feelings need to be forgiven, before they’re put aside. For some of them a reunion is called for – someone must be invited to come. A depth of love or gratitude, or a grudge that’s never been properly resolved needs to be dealt with – they all suddenly come into sharp focus. You have to see that person; let them know.

Other returning thoughts and feelings just call for a wry smile, or a sigh, before they can be gently bade goodbye. And this changed perspective, I believe, is God’s gift. Suddenly with this perspective – acceptance now that the end is so close – it’s easy to deal with all these things. Why couldn’t I have done that before?

Some people are better prepared for this time than others – they can slip into the work of acceptance and compassion more easily than others. The season of Advent gives us time and encouragement to be like that; to learn this sort of perspective – to get acquainted with it and learn how to practise it; to spring-clean our souls; to keep our inventory of unfinished business short. That’s why the focus of our scripture readings for this first Sunday in Advent is not so much on the birth of Jesus, as on his second coming.

Commenting on today’s apocalyptic passage in Mark’s Gospel, the Jewish New Testament professor, Amy-Jill Levine says that for Jesus, the salient question is not the ‘when’ of the end time, but the ‘how’ of living with this expectation. A-J L Mark 114 Yes, Advent calls us to acknowledge that there really is an end, it challenges us to focus not on when it will happen, but on who we need to be if we are to be ready for it.

A major part of this focus in today’s reading from Isaiah is dealing with the pain of broken relationship. Our readings face that sort of pain in an entire people. Listen to Isaiah’s lament 64.7God, there’s no one who calls on your name, or attempts to take hold of you; for you’ve hidden your face from us, and you’ve delivered us into the hand of our iniquity.

Isaiah is crying out to an entire people who’ve somehow lost the God perspective – people who are living as though the end is nowhere in sight – that they are not responsible for their collective choices. How can they do this!? By this stage in the story, Isaiah is preaching to a people who have experienced exile, but then been returned, free, to Jerusalem. They’ve seen what the end could look like – they’ve lived it! But now, when they’ve got a second chance to rebuild what was lost – rebuild the city; rebuild relationship with God, they don’t get on with it. What can it mean that they’ve known such suffering and such grace, yet somehow switched off? Why weren’t they ready; why weren’t they awake?

Isaiah cries out – 64.7There’s no one who calls on your name, or attempts to take hold of you. It doesn’t take long for people to forget some types of suffering. And in a way, that’s a great blessing. But we do need to wake up to our mortal frailty, and our emotional and our spiritual selves. In the end – in the end – we can’t air-condition, or medicate or buy our way out of being mortal, emotional or spiritual. There’s work to be done, and there are no labour-saving devices to do that work for us. So in the Church, we set aside Advent each year for learning how to do that work – and for doing as much of it as we can. To learn how to be ready; to learn how to be awake.

With the end-of-year mania before Christmas and then the nation shutting down for January, we have pretty solid experience of a bizarre annual get-our-lives-in-order-before-it’s-all-too-late-time, don’t we. It’s like a parody of what Advent’s for. There’s so much expectation piled on to this time from so many different quarters – if you work, there are Christmas break-ups; if you’ve got kids or grandchildren, there are all the concerts and nativity plays; if you’re retired, you don’t have any time anyway. This is not what Advent is for.

With such a heap of expectations and deadlines, how do you get any time for the spiritual preparation; where’s the quiet time to take stock? It’ll be different for each of us, but it’s a habit we must cultivate. At its simplest level, it’s developing a habit of listening; listening intently to what people who love us are really saying to us; listening intently for the God who loves us. Maybe that’s where we can start our Advent wakefulness campaign for this week. Giving listening some regular scheduled time – and not letting anything else get in the way.

Let’s learn from being awake – cherish the moments that God’s given us, knowing that each has been a one-off, unique blessing. Let’s make Isaiah eat his words, or let’s change them to – There were some who called on God – who took hold of God – and became an inspiration to all who saw! Let’s make this our Advent job. Amen.

Christ the King

Rev’d Peter Balabanski

Christ the King A – Ezek 34 11-24 – Matt 25 31-46

These are the last instructions we see Jesus give to his disciples before the story of his passion begins. So these words carry great weight, telling of the last day when all nations will be judged. He starts with a brief parable about the nightly ritual of a shepherd dividing the sheep from the goats, and how the last judgement will be like that. vv. 32b–33 Then he continues with two ‘judgment dialogues’. vv. 34–40, 41–45

A fascinating detail in the parable is the division of sheep to the right, to inherit the Kingdom, and goats to the left, to be sent from the presence of the King. In the Hebrew Scriptures, the word עַתּוּד attud (male goat) sometimes refers to leaders. Isa 14.9, Zech 10. Ezekiel condemned Israel’s negligent shepherds at the beginning of today’s chapter. vv. 1-5 And we just heard him rage at the attud trampling the sheep’s food and fouling their water. vv. 17-19 Jesus did the same, denouncing the religious leaders of his time. His last words about them were – Truly I tell you, just as you didn’t offer care to one of the least of these, you didn’t do it to me.

On this Christ the King Sunday, ‘the King’ in this Gospel judgement story reminds us who our King is. The King is our judge. But at the same time, Jesus tells us that he’s anyone who needs our help. Four times, we’re told the King is anyone who’s hungry or thirsty, anyone who’s a stranger or a naked pauper, anyone who’s sick or a prisoner. The Peruvian liberation theologian Gustavo Gutiérrez says this means there’s no way to God that bypasses the ‘sacrament of our neighbor’, for love of God is unavoidably expressed through love of one’s neighbour. TLHPS 200

This passage is one of the most fascinating in the Gospels. It’s inspired great works of art and literature, like Caravaggio’s painting, the ‘seven works of mercy’ (the 7th work of mercy added later – burying the dead) https://www.caravaggio.org/the-seven-works-of-mercy.jsp Others tell in story or drama how we meet Christ in anyone who’s in need. There’s Leo Tolstoy’s famous story Where Love Is, There God Is Also. It’s about a grieving shoemaker Martyn Avdyeich who’d been promised he’d ‘meet Christ today’. As he waited at his front window for Christ to come, he helped three needy passers by. He read our Gospel that night, and then realised he had met Christ in those three needy people.

Playwrights, authors, philosophers: they’ve all tried to express the impact of these words of Jesus. One story inspired by today’s Gospel I find quite amazing. It tells of a ‘German Christian’ pastor in 1933 who follows the party line. He demands three times that the Jews in his congregation leave his church. Suddenly, there’s movement on the cross above the altar.

The crucified Jesus climbs down from his cross and leaves the church. And as he leaves, he speaks the words of Matt 25:45 – Truly I tell you, just as you didn’t offer care to one of the least of these, you didn’t do it to me. Luz, Mt 21-28, 269

This story takes our understanding a step further. It says we don’t just find Jesus our King in the sick and the needy. We find him in the outcast and the despised too. That’s why it’s so important for the Church to stand united with Aboriginal people, with refugees, with those who are dispossessed by the world’s unjust economic system; with everyone who suffers because of the conflicts raging around the world right now. They need to know our love. And we need to love them. Because it’s in that intersection of pain and love that all of us meet Christ our King. If we don’t love our neighbour, we won’t meet Him in them, and they won’t meet Him in us.

This way of reading the Gospel message – reading it to mean that Christ identifies with all the poor, the needy, the outcast and the despised of the world, regardless of colour, creed or ethnicity – it’s a relatively modern understanding. Before 1800, the Church understood the phrase the least of these who are members of my family to refer only to baptised Christians. And Matthew in a persecuted minority community may well have meant just that. But different circumstances call out new insights – and we’ve met some in the stories we’ve shared today.

There are Christian aid organisations who only focus on helping struggling Christians. In the Russo-Ukrainian war, that’s pretty straightforward because most of the affected people are Christians. But in the conflict in the Holy Land, it gets very muddy. Would we only send prayers and help to the Christians caught in that ghastly situation? I think we’re called to more than that.

I’ve always suggested that we support the Al-Ahli الأهلي Hospital in Gaza. Now it’s the only one still functioning in Gaza City. And like all the Anglican-run hospitals and schools in the Diocese of Jerusalem, it serves people of any and every faith and nationality. The Anglican Archbishop in Jerusalem, +Hosam Naoum has written this week, Although the Ahli’s buildings are heavily damaged … our devoted staff have partially re-opened the hospital. In doing this, they demonstrate the determination we have in the Diocese of Jerusalem to persevere in our Christian mission to serve others as though we were serving Christ himself. (Matt 25:31-46) https://www.abmission.org/appeals/emergency-appeals/al-ahli-hospital-emergency-appeal/

We’re about to enter the season of Advent; waiting to meet Jesus both as a helpless baby, and as our King and our Judge. How will we make ourselves ready? Amen

Joining with Jesus on his mission

Rev’d Peter Balabanski

Pentecost + 25a The Parable of the Talents – Matt 25 14-30

Australia’s got talent, Britain’s got talent – people say there’s a lot of virtue in putting your talents to use. I suspect that attitude has its cultural roots in years of preaching on today’s Parable of the Talents. It’s easy to assume that the meaning of this parable is to use your personal talents; your special abilities. But it’s not what Jesus meant. In Greek (τάλαντον the word we translate as ‘talent’), the literal meaning is a monetary unit – enough silver to pay a day labourer for 16 – 20 years.

So given the life expectancy back then, the slave entrusted with five talents had a few lifetimes’ worth of wages in his hands. What can so much money have to do with the Gospel? What can such riches possibly represent? A convincing reading of this parable is that it’s about Jesus entrusting the spread of the Gospel to the disciples after his resurrection. Matt 28.18-20 So the talents represent the inestimable treasure of the Gospel. The man’s return then represents Jesus’ second coming, and the disciples are measured by the fruits of their mission. (Barclay Matthew II 375ff)

Jesus told this parable to his disciples sitting on the Mount of Olives. (Matt 24.3) They’d have been looking out over the Temple which was controlled by the religious authorities? Not long before, Jesus had denounced the scribes and Pharisees for ‘locking people out of the Kingdom of heaven.’ (Mt 23.13) Is that what the third slave represents; taking the treasure of God’s trust and, like the scribes and Pharisees, fearfully burying it away to keep it safe and pure? Burying the Gospel deprives people who might be nourished and strengthened by it.

Is there support in the text for this interpretation? Yes. When we read about the first and second slaves, it says that they went and traded and made (ekerdesen) more talents. vv.16-17 The word, ekerdesen – translated here as ‘made’ – is used earlier in Matthew’s Gospel to speak of regaining or winning back a community member who sins against you 18:15. So yes, it’s reasonable to see this parable as emphasizing the proclamation of the Gospel to win people to Christ. Those Temple authorities over the valley hid God’s love behind purity laws. This parable says that’s crazy.

One commentator described the folly of their attitude pretty bluntly: Israel was charged to be a blessing, not a museum. (LC McGaughey in JBL 94 pp235-45) What we have in the Gospel is a treasure which grows when it is shared. It grows any who receive it. It’s the love of God for all families of Earth. That’s what the third slave hid away.

Jesus knows his time is nearly up, and in these final chapters, he gives his disciples a series of warnings, through prophecies and parables. He wants us to be ready for what’s to come. Anyone who stands for the things that Jesus stands for will risk the same persecution he suffered – but we are also promised the same rising! So in this parable, Matthew is challenging his community, and all who come after them, that we must not be as blind and fearful as that third slave was. We are to know enough of the character and hope of our Lord Jesus that we will take risks.

This parable is about joining with Jesus on his mission – continuing his mission. It’s about being God’s true people; about being the means of God blessing for every family of the earth. So what do we do next?

One thing this parable tells us is that we need to recognise the inestimable gift that God has entrusted to every individual in our community. That is the Good News of God’s intention to bless every family of Earth – first proclaimed in the call to Abraham and Sarah. Gen 12.1-4 This is why we read the scriptures together, over and over, generation after generation. It’s why we search their meaning and uncover the challenges they put before us. We are entrusted with an inestimable treasure, and what we do with that trust matters to Jesus, and it matters all families of the Earth.

What should the Church, entrusted with Christ’s Gospel as we are – what should we be doing with it? I think the passage which follows today’s parable – and which we’ll be reading next Sunday – gives us clear starting directions. It’s about the last judgement. Listen to what Jesus says: 34 Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; 35 for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, 36 I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.

Jesus sees everyone – particularly the hungry, the thirsty, the outsider, the naked and the imprisoned – Jesus sees himself in every one of these. It’s compassion; it’s the golden rule – do unto others. In this land at the moment, the opposite is raging, and we feel powerless to oppose it. But we’re not. The cost of hiding the treasure is there for all to see in this country’s ongoing crises: the plight of the poor, abuse of women, of Aboriginal people, of incarcerated children, of refugees, of our disappearing wildlife and their habitats. We hold the Good News of a totally different world. Tell it and face danger, but Jesus’ parable tells us to risk it. Amen

Who gets into the wedding feast?

Rev’d Peter Balabanski

Pentecost + 24a  Josh 24 1-3a, 14-25, Ps 78 1-7, 1 Thess 4 9-18, Matt 25 1-13

By any measure, this is a baffling parable. It talks about who gets into a wedding feast. And in parables, that means who gets to be with God. So it’s a wedding feast. But in this parable, the bride doesn’t even get mentioned, far less appear in the story. Ten young women go out to meet the bridegroom, but when he’s late, they’re kept waiting so long that they go to sleep. Where; out on the street at night?

And just as they hear the bridegroom is about to arrive, the ‘wise’ young women become harsh and selfish towards the ‘foolish’ ones and send them off to the shops. What ever happened to the golden rule? (Matt 7.12) And how are they meant to find an oil seller open after midnight? And what’s a wedding feast doing starting after midnight anyway? And the warning about keeping awake at the end; all ten women went to sleep, but the five wise ones weren’t locked out. So why even say that?

This parable baffles us because in the Gospels, the bridegroom always means Jesus. Yet he seems so unfair to these five young women, that we don’t recognise the Jesus we know. And yet he says he doesn’t know them. Do we assume that he leaves the door shut? What’s going on? How can this be Gospel – Good News?

There are other lockout situations in Matthew’s Gospel. Can they help us unlock the meaning of this one? There was Jesus rebuking the Pharisees for locking people out of the kingdom of heaven. 23.1-13 And then there were the chief priests and Pharisees arranging for a guard to stop people opening the tomb of Jesus. 27.60-66 Matthew also gives us Jesus speaking three times about the ‘outer darkness’ where you can be ‘cast out’, and where there’s ‘weeping and gnashing of teeth’. (8.12, 22.13, 25.30) The first is aimed at Israel for its lack of faith, the second at the guest without a wedding garment, and the last is aimed at the slave who hid the talent entrusted to him.

So that’s two where religious authorities are acting as gatekeepers, preventing people’s access to the kingdom, or to Jesus. And the other three are about people not pulling their weight and keeping faith. That reminds me of Paul’s instruction to the Thessalonians today to contribute practically to their community. 1 Thess 4.10-12

In today’s parable, I asked if we assume the bridegroom kept the door shut on the foolish young women. It doesn’t say he did. Matthew just says to keep awake. What if the door was quietly opened after all?

That’s what the last door in the Gospel makes me wonder; the stone door which sealed Jesus’ tomb. It didn’t stay shut in the night, despite the best efforts of the religious leaders and their guard of soldiers. Maybe that’s where the Good News can be found; not in what the story seems to tell us, but in our wider knowledge of the story that we bring to any part of it.

I’ve always thought that great musicians are great because wherever they are in a performance, they have the whole piece in their mind. So they can interpret rather than just perform.

Is Matthew asking us to do that with this parable today? Are you and I to open this door? Amen