Rev’d Peter Balabanski

Pentecost + 9A –  Mt 14 13-21

He was totally wrung out. But you see it in all caring professions. Like a nurse who’s been most of the night looking after someone who’s dying – and not just looking after the patient – caring for their family and visitors too. They’ve all been suffering terribly. This patient and their loved ones have become your friends over the past days. You can’t care for people so intensely and not get close to them. So at the end, this becomes your time of loss too. You’ve held it together; you had to. But finally, at the end, it’s time for you to leave them there together and crawl off to a quiet place on your own. But just then, the call bell rings; room 14 this time, and you think, ‘I’ve got nothing more to give; what can I possibly offer!?’

Today we meet Jesus at a time just like this. Recently, his ministry has been an uphill struggle in his home town. And just now he’s received the shocking news of his cousin, John the Baptist, beheaded at a public banquet by King Herod. John; was probably the only other person who’d really understood Jesus’ mission. Now he’s gone, and Jesus wants to be alone. So we just read –

¹³ …when Jesus heard that Herod had beheaded John, he withdrew from there in a boat to a deserted place by himself. … The crowds heard it [and] followed him on foot from the towns. ¹⁴ [So] when he went ashore, he saw a great crowd;

A great crowd! Just what he needs! Should he push off again and sail away to a place where they can’t find him. He doesn’t; he won’t turn his back on these poor, hopeful souls. … He had compassion for them and cured their sick … so many of them – people who’d walked so far; waited so long. … His work resumes.

Finally, ¹⁵ when it was evening, the disciples came to him and said, “This is a deserted place, and it’s late; send the crowds away so that they may go into the villages and buy food for themselves.” If he wouldn’t do the self-care thing, they’d have to take matters into their own hands. But this is a compassion story; Jesus, having shown compassion, expects the same of his disciples.  ¹⁶ … “They need not go away; you give them something to eat.”

So many people!? Like I would, the disciples focus on the problem. Looking out over that sea of people, thinking of the now exhausted supplies they’d brought with them, ¹⁷ They replied, “We have nothing here but five loaves and two fish.” They focus on the problem; we have nothing … well, something. But it won’t be enough.

How many of us back out of a challenge with that excuse? ‘What can I do; leave it to the experts. They really ought to do something about it! It should never’ve been allowed to get to this point.’ … We take our passion about something and hand it over to someone else so they can act; not us. ‘What I have won’t be enough.’ Jesus challenges us. Nothing but five loaves and two fish? ¹⁸ Bring them here to me.

Every Saturday night for over 30 years, a parish or a school in this diocese has provided food for a three-course meal to be served at St Mary Mag’s church. And most Saturday nights, this feeds about 150 needy people. Imagine if one day those parishioners and school families said, ‘My casserole’s only enough for four people; that won’t be any use.’ If that’s what they decided, then last night, those 150 people would have wrapped themselves in their old blankets under shop awnings or trees in the parklands and tried to sleep with no food inside to help keep them warm.

Bringing what little we have to Jesus changes everything. Every Saturday, people all over this diocese in our parishes and schools bring their little bit to Jesus, and every Saturday night, he comes out of under a tree or awning and sits down at St Mary Mag’s to eat a beautiful, hot three-course meal that any restaurant would be proud to serve. It’s a regular miracle that’s been happening now for decades.

People bringing what little we have, he blesses it and makes it enough. And he blesses us – he won’t transform our gift without transforming us too. You give them something to eat; he continues to challenge us today.

We live in a world with millions of desperately needy people. When we pray that Jesus might help them, or maybe send them to someone who can meet their needs, and he replies, ‘You give them something to eat,’ that’s us he’s talking to.

Sr Joan Chittister writes ‘Prayer is not meant to be a magic act that cajoles and coaxes God to act. Prayer is meant to change us so that we will then change the world.’ We’ve been bold to pray so far; and we’ve been transformed. Can that encourage us to step out yet further, and pray; ‘Jesus, please keep taking our offering and bless it and bless us’?

This makes me think about the way we affirm two things here each week; that we are the body of Christ, and that his Spirit is with us. The logical upshot of this is that when we ask Jesus to act, we should expect him to act through us; we should take our identity as the body of Christ seriously; we should expect that it has a practical outworking.

We are the body of Christ; Teresa of Avila understood this to mean that Christ has no body now but ours; that if the world is to have practical experience of the love of Christ, it has to be through what we do – through what the Church gives.

In her 2008 book, The Mystic Way of Evangelism, Elaine Heath makes it clear that it’s only when the Church is spending itself for others – not spending money on ourselves, but spending ourselves for others – it’s only then that we’re recognisable as the body of Christ ^{(eg p.123)} – it’s only when the Church is spending itself for others that we’re recognisable as the one who truly loves the needy and the persecuted; it’s only when the Church is spending itself for others that we’re recognisable as the healer, the provider.

I’m struck, in today’s story, by the fact that the only source all that extra food could have come from was Christ’s own body. And that challenges me and all of us to look at our priorities; to be clear with each other and with our Maker how we are to resource our mission as the Body of Christ – healer, provider, and lover of all.

Amen

Rev’d Peter Balabanski

Pentecost + 8A – Rom 8 26-39 

When you pray, where is God for you? Up in heaven? Maybe kneeling beside you? Is God in front of you? Or is God right inside you? Where would you like God to be when you pray?

Paul tells us in Romans 8 that God is very close when we pray; closer than beside us or right in front of us. Paul tells us that God, the Holy Spirit is so close to our hearts that when we pray, it’s not necessarily just our voice praying. It’s quite likely that the Holy Spirit is praying on our behalf. And it’s not necessarily a prayer made up of words, because sometimes words aren’t enough to articulate our grief, our joy, our pain, our relief, our need or our gratitude. Paul reminds us that such prayers are often expressed not in words, but in sighs and groans, because these prayers are just too deep for words.

We heard Paul tell us how the Holy Spirit is inside us, crying out to the Father on our behalf. This is the intimacy of God’s care of us. God, the Holy Spirit, is offering our deepest prayers when we can’t find words to pray, even when we don’t notice the need to pray at all. The Spirit searches our hearts. The Spirit knows what’s really going on in there, so the Spirit prays for us the prayers we don’t know how to pray; prays for us in sighs and groans, too deep for words.

We might think we aren’t really praying if we don’t tell God of our fear or sadness, or our hopes or our thanks – if all we can sense coming from us is a helpless groaning. But it’s the deepest prayer of all. Paul is telling us that’s the voice of the Spirit who intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. I’d say we’ve all heard that prayer whether we recognised it as prayer or not.

²⁷ … God, who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.

God wants this to happen. God is barracking for us; crying out for us with support, with understanding, with compassion.

If we are distressed or joyful, fearful or grateful, God is right in the thick of it with us; our closest friend and champion.  And God hears our prayers, even when they seem to us just to be inarticulate groans. We know that God the Son – Jesus – prayed and struggled in just this way. So we can be sure that God really does know our prayer from the inside. That’s the depth of God’s care for us; Emmanuel God is with us. It’s very important that we understand this; the Cross tells us that the care God actually wants us to receive is absolute solidarity – care that risks entering our pain to be with us in it. That’s what the Spirit is doing groaning from within us; that’s the Jesus we see on the Cross. This is God’s love for us.

³¹ What then are we to say about these things? If God is for us, who is against us? ³² He who did not withhold his own Son, but gave him up for all of us, will he not with him also give us everything else? ³³ Who will bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. ³⁴ Who is to condemn? It is Christ Jesus, who died, yes, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us.

This is Good News of a most wonderful hope. Along with the Spirit praying on our behalf, here we see Jesus, who could by rights be the counsel for the prosecution, but he’s standing pleading on our behalf to a judge who is absolutely biased in our favour. So what can separate us from the love of Christ? Paul lists the possible obstacles. He starts with death; it’s dogged us since chapter 5. But this is its last appearance in Romans! Death, life, angels, rulers, the present, the future, powers, heights, depths – the things of the end times, the marks of an enslaved creation; they are barriers no more.

Nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. And the love of Jesus for us is one and the same as the love of God for us. God’s commitment to us in Christ is central and final. This is the heart of Paul’s theology; it’s the heart of the Gospel. This is our salvation. Thanks be to God!

Amen

Rev’d Peter Balabanski

Pentecost + 6A – Mt 13 1-9, 18-23

A public figure says something that gets them in trouble. Next day they tell us that their words were taken out of context. Often, they’re right. In a media world of ten-second sound grabs, a few words without context can easily be replayed in a way that gives exactly the opposite message. We need to remember that when we study scripture; context is always important if we want to understand its true message.

At first glance, the parable of the sower seems to be a self-contained story with a straightforward message. God or Jesus scatters the seeds of the Kingdom – words of truth which can take root in our hearts and minds – and under the right conditions, these words produce abundant life.  The parable seems to challenge us to ask if our hearts and minds are soil worthy of the seeds Jesus plants. Am I like those unproductive places: the path, compacted hard by the passing of many feet; the rocky ground, where no scattered seed will survive; the thorny ground where there’s too much competition? Or, like the good soil, could my life nourish others?

They’re good questions for us to ask. But these questions come from our context where we’re battered daily by questions of productivity. Do workers really earn their wages? Do people on welfare really deserve the support they receive? But this parable has its own context. It’s more than a parable about different soil qualities or efficient farming practices. We find this out when we look at the parable’s own context. The chapters leading up to this parable describe what happens earlier on the same day. Jesus’ ministry is joyfully welcomed by some people but bitterly opposed and rejected by others who traps to catch him out. And then there were his disciples being trained for a life of ministry in this conflicted context. The Parable of the Sower is Jesus’ way to help his followers deal with rejection; not to be discouraged by it. Can you see the difference between our contextual reading and this one? We, of the productivity generation read it as a sort of judgement or warning; we think it’s sorting us into good and bad soils.

But in Matthew’s Gospel setting, we followers of Jesus can hear it as training in dealing with real dangers; not hypothetical worries. Jesus faced rejection on a daily basis; but that doesn’t mean God wasn’t active in his ministry*. The Church community who gave us this Gospel also faced rejection on a daily basis*. And Christians today still face this sort of vehement rejection and criticism*. In this parable, Jesus provides a way to help us understand and weather rejection.

The mixed crowd that day by the lake embody the soils the parable names. Some hear and receive the gift, but they can’t share it. Why did Jesus bother teaching them anything? Others lie in wait to snatch the teaching away before it can show its potential for blessing. Why on earth teach them? Then there are the people who handed it all down to us. Aha – that’s why.

So what can we learn? Some people are struck by how wasteful the sower is. That’s exactly what Jesus was doing that day at Lake Galilee. He taught indiscriminately: there were people who wouldn’t receive his teaching, but he taught regardless.

We – the productivity generation – need to forget our way of reading this parable. If we could proclaim Jesus, but we hold back because we think our listeners won’t be able to receive it productively, we should think again. That’s giving in to discouragement. Jesus told everyone. Some people rejected his teaching. He knew they would; but that didn’t stop him. And he teaches us to be like him. And why wouldn’t we; we can look back at the countless harvest over the centuries and only wonder at God’s power to transform.

And that’s the final message of this parable – for today at least. The power to transform life – to give life; to bring life into being – the power is in the seed, not in our judgement of how it will be received. The sower in this parable scatters the grain extravagantly; as though it will never run out. And it’s true; it never will run out. The power for its germination lies with God; not with us. Ours is but to sow the seed; God will call forth its life; God always has. Amen

Rev’d Peter Balabanski

Pentecost +5A – Mt 11.14-30 – Healing Sunday

Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. ^{Mt 11.28-30}

We carry terrible burdens in our lives. It never fails to shock me – the size of the burdens people stagger along under. It doesn’t matter how rich, how successful, how clever, how attractive, how good or how blessed a person is, there will often be a burden. It might be a terrible memory, a disabling sickness or injury, a poisoned relationship, a terrifying decision, a festering resentment, an unresolved sadness or guilt, a deep fear, a tormenting grief or regret – you name it. Each one is a burden, and each burden, carried alone and unrelieved, can cripple us in time.

Jesus says bring those burdens to him and he will give us the rest we long for. We lay them at the foot of his Cross and in return, he offers us his yoke. A yoke is a long piece of wood we sling over our shoulders with a heavy load swung from each end. Maybe this offer of a yoke doesn’t sound all that attractive at first glance.

One of my images of the yoke Jesus offers us is his arm around our shoulder. His skin bears the chafing with ours: his shoulder bear the weight with ours. He faces in the same direction we do; we don’t have to face our challenges alone.

I find this image encouraging because quite often, someone in pain gradually ends up alone. Their pain makes other people feel uncomfortable – maybe even guilty about not being able to help. And so, far from helping, sometimes people will even lash out with something illogical and cruel, writing sufferers off with cop-outs like They must have brought it on themselves. That’s what the Hindu / Buddhist doctrine of Karma works like. The suffering person must have done something to bring on their misfortune. Rape victims often suffer this too: ‘asking for it!’ And poor people in the developing world apparently ‘shouldn’t have had so many children’.

Followers of Christ are needed to help the world see things differently. Christ sees burdens and suffering through the eyes of compassion – through the eyes of a fellow sufferer: and so do the followers of Jesus. If Jesus, who was so good, could suffer the way he did, who’s to assume that bad things that happens to people could only be their own fault, or that their suffering is God’s judgement? The Cross shows me the opposite: that suffering is actually a place where God draws nearest to us. God chooses to be here in solidarity with us in our pain.

Jesus didn’t make his followers invulnerable. He was vulnerable himself. He became entirely one of us. He came to help us discover his freedom in our weakness; to give us peace with who we are. Jesus accepts our reality: our being human; mortal; and he loves us for it. Being mortal is a condition which means that suffering is inevitable for us. But into our mortality, Jesus brings healing – not an end to suffering; not a change in our being; not a cure – but healing. He puts an arm around our shoulder, and faces our pain with us. Healing. I once saw on a poster in a hospital; ‘Suffering is inevitable; misery is optional’.

And that’s where we can fit into the picture. Some women who’d lost partners to workplace accidents started visiting work-places where people had died. They went to help the survivors move towards healing and wholeness. They did it by staying with them in their time of suffering. That’s not easy, but they knew it’s what was needed to bring healing. These women ministered out of their own experience of suffering. They had true compassion, for they knew what that suffering felt like.

So if anyone with a sad past thinks they’re too damaged to give pastoral care, think again. In the way of Jesus, our pain is a qualification as one of His healers. Today can we see in our own arms the arms of Christ – just as we find his arms in the arms of the dear ones who help us. We’re called to follow the Healer; to help carry each other’s burdens; to be ready to shoulder them at times when they’re too heavy and they need to be handed over. That’s what it is to be the body of Christ. Amen

Rev’d Peter Balabanski

Pentecost + 5A –  Gen 22 1-14 –

The Aqedah and the Pandemic
Abraham bound his son Isaac … Then he reached out his hand and took the knife to kill his son (22:9-10).

Christians call this story “the sacrifice of Isaac” and Jews call it “the Aqedah” (the “binding” of Isaac). It’s always scandalised us. Is it a story of an abusive God? Of a deluded Abraham? Of religious violence at its worst? Or is it about God helping Abraham to discover grace? Many scholars say it’s essentially a tale of the shift from human sacrifice to animal sacrifice. That’s because of the mention of Mount Moriah, named elsewhere only in 2 Chr 3.1 as the mountain where Solomon built the Temple. So the sacrifice of the ram instead of Isaac at Moriah is for Jews the prototype of all the animal sacrifices to happen on the Temple Mount – Mt Moriah.
For very early Christians, Abraham’s obedience – being ready to sacrifice his son – was one of the greatest examples of his faith: (Heb 11:17, 19) By faith Abraham, when put to the test, offered up Isaac … He considered the fact that God is able even to raise someone from the dead. In Romans 4, Paul sees Abraham’s obedience as a model of faith against all odds, (Rom 4.32). And of course there’s the sense for Christians that this story foreshadows God’s self-giving in Jesus Christ.

God promises Abraham that he’ll be the father of a great nation. Yet he and Sarah endure long years of waiting. So they contrive the just-in-case birth of Ishmael with the servant woman Hagar. But at long last, the impossible happens; Sarah and Abraham rejoice in the birth of a boy they call Isaac [laughter]. But today, we see God demand a most horrible thing: “Take your son, your only son, whom you love, Isaac, and go to the land of Moriah and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains that I will show you” (22:2).
We know the end of the story, thank heaven – we’ve just heard it. But what do we do with this story? I believe it can help us explore and address the difficulties confronting the people of the world at the moment. Let me explain.

For better or worse, not so long ago, we Australians lived in a world which seemed safe and predictable. Then came the fires and life’s certainties were rocked. With no time to recover, just as we were gathering resources to help, floods came. The word unprecedented was run up every masthead again. But in the background, like a growing storm-cloud, news was gathering about a new virus. In far distant places, we saw lockdowns, hospitals on life-support as staff went under, fear-crazed panic buying, normal freedoms axed, gatherings limited, then suddenly prohibited.

When that storm finally broke over us, our nation shut down; even churches had to close. Our predictable world – our old certainties, our plans, our security – none of them were safe. This catastrophe is mirrored for us in today’s shocking story of the binding of Isaac. Abraham’s hopes for a future – for a life with any meaning – were abruptly replaced by a vision of bitter emptiness. We felt these fears and confusion when we had to shut ourselves off from friends and family; from this parish family. Would we ever see each other again? Would we ever hold our loved ones again?

And yet here we are today, praise God, gathered again. At first I was shocked that this story was the one set for us to read on this day of joyful reunion. But on reflection, given the end of the story, it’s the right one for today. Our comfortable rhythm, for so many years, of predictability, of peaceful enjoyment of each other’s love and support has been shaken; threatened. We’ve learnt that it can’t be taken for granted – that it’s a fragile treasure which God has sustained and continued to bless for the 4,000 years since the gift of laughter was given back to Abraham and Sarah.

We rejoice today that we have also been given back that gift. I thank God that we are back here safe. We know what a treasure it is we’ve been given back, and I ask that our prayers and thanksgiving might bear practical fruit which can help poorer communities survive unimaginable threats in the coming days. ‘Whoever gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones in the name of a disciple – truly I tell you, none of these will lose their reward.’ Mt 10.42 Amen

Rev’d Peter Balabanski

Pentecost +3A – Mt 10 24-39

Faith can unite families and friends – it can also divide us. It can be a costly commitment. Today’s Gospel calls us to explore the cost. Jesus tells his followers they must expect persecution and hardship as they follow his Way. Some of their families will divide because one member accepts and another rejects the Gospel. It won’t be easy to bear. But the importance of the mission is so great that all this must be faced and endured. Where does all this come from, and what is it to us?

Matthew’s record of the missionary teachings of Jesus – the Mission Discourse – was written down years after his ministry among us. It speaks out of a community struggling with the traumatic side of their missionary activities; family breakdowns, contempt from the mainstream community – accusations being misguided by some, and downright evil sect by others. The religious and civil authorities were united in their persecution of what they saw as a dangerous pop-up religion. They’d go for a believer’s family if it meant quickly wiping out the group. Power still protects itself like that today.

We might find it hard to imagine some of the words in this passage ever having crossed the lips of gentle Jesus. Yet they’re the sayings the community remembered when they were facing times of extreme stress. Many considered renouncing their faith altogether, apostasy. But it would have destroyed the morale of their little persecuted community. So they recalled and recorded the sayings in today’s Gospel to galvanise their courage; sayings which helped them remember what Jesus himself had gone through to bring them the message of the Kingdom.

They were disciples of the crucified one, they would follow his example. A disciple is not above the teacher, nor a slave above the master; … if they’ve called the master of the house Beelzebul, how much more will they malign those of his household! … Followers of Jesus can live quiet, safe lives – not rock the boat; be left in peace to make our way. Or we can choose a life which responds to the extraordinary demands of Jesus’ teaching and his lived example.

That’s a life where we choose to love, to forgive, to heal, and to set captives free. Setting captives free is something daily more important as the number and misery of refugees around the world inexorably grows. Following Jesus is a life where we choose at every moment to be like him, confronting violence with peace, standing up for justice, mercy and faith, and by doing that, giving people a living, breathing introduction to the teachings of Jesus. Jesus calls us to answer to his authority; not that of our popular culture. Obeying him will mean a life of confrontation and danger both for us and our loved ones. Jesus calls us to risk this; to trust him.

²⁶ … have no fear of them; [he says] for nothing is covered up that will not be uncovered, and nothing secret that will not become known. ²⁷ What I say to you in the dark, tell in the light; and what you hear whispered, proclaim from the housetops. ²⁸ Don’t fear those who kill the body but can’t kill the soul; rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.

That may sound like living for a heavenly reward. But following Jesus is about the now; not just the hereafter. For Jesus’ disciples to have betrayed the discovery they had made about him – to have gone silent about him – would’ve been unthinkable.

³² “Everyone therefore who acknowledges me before others, I also will acknowledge before my Father in heaven; ³³ but whoever denies me before others, I also will deny before my Father in heaven.

Not to have told the world that in this Jesus, they’d met their loving maker, they’d experienced the certainty of God’s love for them – they’d have denied others the chance to know the freedom that belonging to Jesus meant to them.

During the ministry of Jesus, he gave a huge focus to care for the outcast and the untouchable. These people are still with us in ever greater numbers; displaced people, refugees and homeless people. Much of today’s gospel resonates with these people’s experience? They’re sayings Matthew’s community remembered when they were facing times of extreme stress. Can we imagine discussing these words with someone in such a predicament? If that prospect chills us, can we ask ourselves what that’s about? And maybe can we consider directing our charitable giving this year to include support for people who are persecuted for their faith.

Rev’d Dr John Beiers

50th Anniversary of Priestly Ordination

My journey to ordination on 11 th June, 1070

I am grateful to Fr. Peter for the opportunity to celebrate a thanksgiving Eucharist here this morning, in gratitude to God for my 50 years as a priest in the Church of God. On St. Barnabas’ Day, 1970, I was ordained priest in St. John’s Cathedral, Brisbane, by the Archbishop, Philip Strong. I want to tell you something of God’s graciousness in revealing His purpose to me, and some of the journey towards ordination. People have often asked me how I recognised God’s call, so I will recount it today, not for any reason of self glorification, but in recognition of God’s greatness, kindness, patience and love.

As a child, I lived in a very small village near Maryborough in Queensland, called Mungar Junction. My father asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, and, of course, I said “Engine Driver”, because a favourite pastime of us kids was to stand in the white steam that the engine blew out when the train was standing at the Mungar station. He asked what the second option was. “School teacher”, I replied, because dad was a teacher, and I admired him. “Not on your life,” he said, “the Education Department has had me here for 15 years, with no transfer.” I mulled over this.

Later, when I was 13 years old, I was given a copy of “Les Miserables” written by Victor Hugo in 1862. I was entranced by the story, especially The Bishop’s Candlesticks, well known now, but not in1950. In this early part of the novel, a starving ex-convict called Jean Valjean is given a meal and a bed overnight at a country bishop’s palace. He rises before dawn, takes all of the silver cutlery in his bag, and runs away. When he is caught and brought before the old bishop by the police, the bishop takes two beautiful silver candlesticks from the shelf over the fireplace, gives them to Valjean, and says, “You forgot these, which I also gave to you.” When the police leave, he says to the thief, “Jean Valjean, my brother, you no longer belong to evil, but to God. I have bought your soul of you. I withdraw it from dark thoughts and the spirit of perdition, and give it to God.” With these words, the bishop saved Valjean from being sentenced to the rest of his life in the galleys, where he had already spent 19 years for initially stealing a loaf of bread to feed his sister’s starving children. With these words also, my heart was caught by the godly goodness of the bishop, and I wanted to be a priest like him. I told dad, who said, “No way, you will have a life of poverty, like Father Glazier”, our visiting priest. And that was that.

But somehow, my Father God had caught me, and I did not even know at the time. High school and University days passed in a haze of sport and study, and I gained a Bachelor degree in Mining Engineering. Then, in 1960 I settled down to post-graduate research at the University of Queensland, in, of all things, the reduction of noise in pneumatic percussive machines such as rock drills and pavement breakers. In the ensuing four years, my parents died, and I found myself living alone in the family home, in a big high set Queenslander house in Brisbane. I had nearly completed the experimental work for the degree, but I ran out of money. Meals were frugal and highly planned, down to the last baked bean.

And it was then that God started to take care of me in a noticeable way. Firstly, my aunt rang me, and enquired whether I needed a cash loan, which I quickly accepted. Secondly, a fellow student’s mother offered me an evening meal each day. Thirdly, I should have been grief stricken over the death of my parents, but I experienced a quiet peace until the thesis was written, and then the sorrow really hit me, at a time when I could manage it.

However, during this period, I was never content with the amount of work I was achieving each day, but I had become aware of God’s love providing all my daily needs, so I decided to start off each day with Matins, or Morning Prayer from the Prayer Book, as a sort of thank-you, before I began work. At that time, my work consisted of analysing all the experimental results that I had accumulated over the years. This required a clear head and no distractions. I found that this was now happening, so I started to pray Evensong, or Evening Prayer as a thank-you before going to bed, A wonderful thing happened. Whereas before giving this time to God, I had never been able to accomplish the amount of work I would set myself each day, now I was achieving even more. Wow! So I began to pause at midday, and to say the Midday Office as I ate my little can of tuna and a slice of bread.

You need to understand that this was all so unexpected that it could only be the hand of God. I was experiencing at first hand, in my own life, the great love of God that other Christians talked about, but until then it had been only theory for me. I started to see that God was clearing the path for me, for something that He was planning. I wondered what tangible thing I could do to say thank-you, and the idea of being a priest once again popped into my head. I went to the selection Committee of St. Francis’ College in Brisbane and had a talk with them. I was accepted, but I set the entrance date at two years in the future. You see, I had my degree in Mining Engineering, but two years practical experience underground were required,
and a Pass Degree in Mining Law was necessary before I could qualify as a mine manager. I felt that I needed to complete so much previous study by going the full course. Then I went to Broken Hill to New Broken Hill Consolidated, where I was accepted. The Mine Manager was a practising Anglican. I confided in him my plans to go to Theological College, and he understood completely.

Like the convict, Jean Valjean, God had got me. For all the 50 years since then, I thank God that I have had His unconditional love, whether I was within His will, or disobedient. He has never failed me, and the recollection of all His past love to me is what sustains me, comforts me, and leads me forward.

Rev’d Peter Balabanski

Pentecost 2020

In the story from Acts 2, we heard the story of the first Christian Pentecost; the birthday of the Church. And we saw that the distinguishing mark of both the Judaism of the time, and of the Church at its birth was diversity. There were devout Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem. At [the sound of the disciples speaking in the various languages] the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each.

I’m struck by the fact that it was this diversity that the Holy Spirit chose to highlight as our inheritance from Judaism on the day she brought the Church to birth. It speaks to me – like forests and people do – of the special delight God takes in diversity. The Psalm set for this morning says it too. “Lord, how various are your works … you rejoice in [them]”. ^{Ps 104.26, 33}

But in all the diversity of this first Pentecost, one unified message went out. Everyone heard about God’s deeds of power. Everyone heard this message in their own language. They were hearing of the power of the God of all nations.

This passage from Acts reminds us of a story from the OT where there were also a lot of languages – the story of the tower of Babel in Genesis 11. That’s the story of a time when the people of the earth all had one language. They gathered and decided to build a tower with its top in the heavens in order to make a name for themselves – to take God’s place. God stopped this, confusing their language and scattering them abroad. Some people call this the story of the curse of Babel. And they say that in today’s story from Acts, the curse of Babel is reversed.

I want to suggest something different. Certainly there was a gathering for the Jewish festival of Pentecost – a gathering that reverses at least the scattering that happened at Babel. But in the Acts story, the languages remain diverse, don’t they. The Holy Spirit didn’t give the gift of a single language that everyone could use at the birthday of the Church. No; she publicly affirmed diversity by giving those Galileans the gift of many languages. So what happened at Babel wasn’t reversed at Pentecost; I’d say it was healed. And this healing preserved the diversity. There is no spiritual gift of uniformity – of sameness – to be found in the Bible.

What are the implications of that for us? What does it mean that God started us off as a multi-cultural body? It means God doesn’t mind our differences in the worldwide Church, or the differences between churches in our area. God nowhere demands that we standardise our language, our liturgy or our cultural values.

Our story tells us that the God of love created diversity; that our God loves diversity. Nature tells us the same thing. Whenever we standardise or ‘rationalise’ as we say these days, I believe we oppose the very heart of God; we shun the birthright we inherited at the first Christian Pentecost. The Church as a body is far more diverse that we imagine, and God loves that diversity.

In this combined week of prayer for Christian unity and prayer for reconciliation, let’s make a couple of resolutions.

Firstly, let’s resolve to accept that what we might not experience or wish for in our own midst is nevertheless experienced as God-given and life-giving among people of other churches.

Secondly, let’s resolve that each year at Pentecost – starting this year – we will ask the Spirit what new things she might wish to bring to birth amongst us – and commit to nurture that new life.

And as you and I grow in Christian maturity, let’s wonder what gift God might give us that we could offer in the Church for the common good?    Amen

Rev’d Peter Balabanski

Ascension – Acts 1 1-11  Ps 47  Mt 28 16-20

A colleague of mine was out at a local community event. A stranger noticed her collar and asked if she had a moment to chat with him privately. As they moved away from the crowd, he said, ‘I don’t have anything to do with the Church, but I have a couple of questions.’ He was very churned up. A good friend of his had died recently. And now, with a growing sense of emptiness and loneliness, two questions kept plaguing him. His tears started when he asked his questions out loud. ‘Where is she now? Is it okay that I keep talking to her?’

They’re really important questions. Probably every one of us will ask them one day. It’s a terribly painful place to be; Where is s/he? Will s/he hear me if I talk to her/him? None of us can say for certain. And our un-knowing clouds our peace; it unsettles our happiness. We could wish that before Jesus’ Ascension he might have shone a definite light on our questions. But no, the light’s blocked by a cloud of unknowing; a barrier they say only Love can pierce.

Jesus’ friends thought they’d lost him forever on Good Friday. But he rose to life again on Easter Day. It was so unexpected that some friends didn’t even recognise him until he said their name, or broke bread with them. Today we watched with them as Jesus disappeared into the cloud of all our unknowing. Jesus, the only one who knows the answer to our hearts’ most agonized questions – dead on Friday, alive again on Sunday – he leaves us without answering.

Does that mean our questions have failed us? No; I don’t think so. They’ve drawn us to Jesus. They’ve drawn us to this gathering where we strain to see where it is he does go. We concentrate on that last glimpse – will we see what others have missed – his trajectory? Our questions must be answered. But maybe we concentrate so hard on our questions that we miss what Jesus has actually said.

Let’s face it; our priorities and questions often aren’t that important. Apart from times when we have lost someone precious or when someone we love is deathly ill, our questions can be amazingly trivial – tomorrow’s shopping plans; our favourite team; dinner tonight; the details of some scandal in the news. His disciples were like that too. They had their resurrected Lord with them … and they asked him about … his politics. Now that you’ve risen from the dead, will you restore the kingdom to Israel – by which they meant, will you get rid of the Romans?

But even if they had asked him the Big Questions – the life and death questions – I think his answer would have been the same as his answer to the political question. Jesus replied, ‘It’s not for you to know the times or seasons that the Father has set by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.’ ^{Acts 1.7-8}

Poor question: but what an answer! As I said, our questions don’t fail us. Deep or trivial, they’ve drawn us to this place where Jesus is. And then Jesus calls us to journey on with him. And on that journey, we’re not given answers to our questions; we’re set free from them. We can leave them safely and respectfully at the foot of the Cross. Then, in place of our heavy load of questions, we’re given a calling. We are entrusted with a purpose for our lives that is utterly breathtaking.

Our calling is nothing less than the ministry of Jesus himself. We are invited to put on his sandals, to journey out, and to bless the world. We heard that majestic call in today’s Gospel.

All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. ¹⁹Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, ²⁰and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you… . ^{Mt 28.18b-20a}   

It’s not that our questions have been ignored. Our Lord Jesus does know the pain of our questions. He’s lived and died them – he’s dealt with them first hand. No, our questions did their job. They brought us to the foot of the Cross There we can leave them and follow Jesus, baptizing and teaching as he commanded.

That means our job – yours, mine, every one of ours – our job is to help people to get to know Jesus. But how?

Let’s bring this question to our risen, ascended Lord Jesus. ‘How do we do something like this when it’s going to take us so far out of our comfort zones?’ I think Jesus’ answer will be the same as it was at his Ascension: You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses … to the ends of the earth.

The Holy Spirit comes. Next Sunday is Pentecost – there we’ll hear again how the power of the Holy Spirit dissolved the boundaries of a frightened Church’s comfort zone and sent ordinary men and women to bring Christ’s freedom to their neighbours.

We experience this at Ascension in a particular way It’s the moment where we see Jesus leave behind the ‘here and now’ – the ‘there and then’ – to be revealed as the Christ we know as ‘everywhere and always’. This is the Christ we will experience within and around us because of Pentecost – because of the presence of the Holy Spirit within and among us –the One who emboldens and strengthens us.

Please pray this over the coming week – We pray Holy Spirit that we might be an effective witness to the love of Jesus; please help us to make, nurture and love new disciples.

Pray this please, and let’s see what happens at Pentecost.  Amen

Rev’d Peter Balabanski

Easter 6 A – Acts 17 22-31, Ps 66 7-19, Ist Pt 3 8-22, Jn 14 15-21

The story of the altar to the unknown God reminds me of the first thing you see when you go into Westminster Abbey. It’s one of the most striking of the 170 odd monuments that you can see there; the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

It’s just inside the west door, right in the middle, and surrounded by a tiny hedge of brilliant red poppies. The poppies set it apart, and so does the inscription – not just what it says, but also its brand new appearance. The lettering on this monument is as crisp as it was on the day it was unveiled – Armistice Day 1920. Many other tombs set in the floor of the abbey are barely legible; worn out by the feet of millions of pilgrims. But no-one walks on this one; ‘it’s so sacred’, somebody there told me, ‘that even Princess Diana’s funeral procession had to detour around it.’

I’m reminded of this today by Paul talking to the philosophers about an altar he’d discovered in Athens; an altar dedicated to ‘the unknown God’. There’s something especially sacred in this blending of the unknown with the ordinary, and it’s there in both the tomb of the Unknown Soldier and the altar to the unknown God. The Unknown Soldier represents an ordinary person – it could be you or me. The unknown God could be our God; somehow bound to us by the same sense of mixed familiarity and mystery. No arcane knowledge or ritual stands between us and the possibility that this God might just be our God – yours and mine.

The Unknown Soldier and the unknown God could be nothing to us, yet somehow they represent what is common to all of us. Somehow they are present to us, and apparently they are to everyone else too. In today’s gospel, Jesus touches on this commonality between us. He’s just told his friends that he’s going away. But two things will protect us from losing our connection with him; first, keeping his commandments – particularly the new commandment he had just given to love each other as he loves us – and second, the gift of the Holy Spirit. These two things will work together to see us embody and honour Jesus who will soon be invisible to us.

Our two monuments to Jesus are our love and our unity; they are sacred. The altar to the unknown God, and the tomb of the Unknown Soldier – express these sacred gifts in a similar way. They each speak of those who’ve been like Jesus for us; blessing and defending us even before we knew of them. They also say there’s something sacred about each of us; they assert our commonality through the mystery of our connection to a God and a person who are both unknown to us.

Undeserved grace is the name of this connection; the soldier, the unknown God, Jesus – they’ve taken us on trust; they’ve given us the benediction of their trust, and by doing that, they’ve somehow declared us to be their family, and they’ve called us to be that family for each other. Grace believes in us; grace takes us on trust.

Christians proclaim this grace to be perfectly expressed in Jesus. His acceptance and support were available to us before we’d ever been, and he still offers us free acceptance no matter how – or how often – we let his trust down. When someone trusts you to be a better person than you think you really are, it’s lovely! When you know there’s someone who always thinks the best of you, it makes you do just that little bit better. You want to vindicate their trust; make them glad they trusted you. Grace is something we experience as healing. It’s much more than physical healing. Something much deeper than what we ask is given to us. Grace can make us whole.

What do the unknown God and the Unknown Soldier have to do with all this? They’re unknown to us, but we know deep down that they’ve done something for us all the same. They’re a secret friend to us, and to everyone around us. These unknowns are pictures – symbols of a secret friend whose identity we discover through countless little meetings and experiences; a secret friend who, we ultimately discover, is with us – who is in us – just as Jesus said he would be.

Jn 14.¹⁸ “I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you.  ¹⁹ In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me; because I live, you also will live. ²⁰ On that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you.” Amen