Canon Bill Goodes

Fourth Sunday after Pentecost  2022  II Kings 5:1-14,  Psalm 30, Galatians 6:7 – 18,, Luke 10:1 – 12, 17 – 24

“Cure the sick who are there, and say to them ‘The Kingdom of God has come near’”  (Luke 10:9)

One of the buzz words of the Church today is that we should all be involved in Mission Action Planning, and last month your Parish Council spent some time putting together some preliminary ideas about such a plan for this parish.   The Anglican Consultative Council has identified five “Marks” of mission for the Anglican Communion —

1. To proclaim the Good News of the Kingdom
2. To teach, baptise and nurture new believers
3. To respond to human need by loving service
4. To transform unjust structures of society, to challenge violence of every kind and pursue peace and reconciliation
5. To strive to safeguard the integrity of creation, and sustain and renew the life of the earth

These marks may give a wider picture of “mission” than we have traditionally used, but each depends on the others for completeness.  Our Mission Action Plan is to be aligned to these “marks”, and the whole congregation will have the opportunity to contribute to the formulation of this Plan, as well as being responsible for its implementation!

We noted last Sunday that Jesus had earlier sent the twelve apostles on his mission, and now, after their return, as Jesus’ face is “set to go to Jerusalem”, he expands the mission work-force to involve “seventy others”.  Some have seen this expansion to such a large number of “missioners”, as a sign that mission is the responsibility of the widest possible group of Jesus’ followers.  The whole congregation perhaps?   What do his instructions to the Seventy suggest about our responsibility?

First, it seems, we are to be bearers of a message of peace:  “first say ‘peace to this house!’”  “Peace”, for those who schooled in the Hebrew language, was a greeting that carried with it a richness which is much deeper than the absence of warfare — shalom meant more a total well-being, with everything in its proper place, and a fulness of life.  Our mission, Jesus’ mission, always has that as its primary characteristic — we want everyone to enjoy this richness of peace, and to have that fullness of life that Jesus came to bring.

Then there is an interesting little sidelight there about justice — “eating and drinking whatever they provide,  for the labourer deserves to be paid”.    This refers not only to our responsibility to provide for  suitable living arrangements for people like our parish priests, but also the wider responsibility for ensuring that there is a just recompense for all who work.   The present cost of living concern in our society makes the question of what workers are paid an urgent issue for our community and its leaders to wrestle with.

But there’s the other side of that clause, too: the missioners are to be “eating and drinking whatever they provide”.   There is a responsibility of the guest towards the hosts, the responsibility of identifying with the hosts’ culture, and not imposing foreign values on them.  One of the most encouraging aspects of much of the Church’s mission today is that it tries to value the culture of those to whom it takes the good news of Jesus, not forcing people to abandon their culture and ways (language even!) to conform to foreign customs  before they become Christians.  Those photos of aboriginal children on mission stations dressed in western clothes and forbidden to use their own language, still makes me profoundly uncomfortable!

One of the qualities valued by those who follow a Benedictine spirituality, is Stability.  This has its basis in the instruction Jesus gives his missioners, “Remain in the same house…do not move about from house to house”.   This can speak to us in two directions: the first is about the base for mission.  This parish has been the base for mission for generations of people who have called it “home”.  One of the principal tasks of the parish is to provide a stable basis for people to continue the mission of Christ’s disciples.  We need to remember that stability, and to ensure that the parish provides a consistent encouragement to all its members to continue in mission.  That consistency is greatly strengthened by our regular attendance at worship and other activities.  The whole “two by two” direction to missioners speaks of this mutual encouragement that Jesus saw as fundamental to the task.

The stability works in the other direction as well — in the “targets” of our mission.  Mission requires a commitment and a perseverance with those to whom we take the good news of Jesus.  No flitting about from target to target!

When we listen to Jesus’ instruction to his missioners in the context of our “Healing Sunday” service, of course we will focus on the “cure the sick who are there” direction.  Our care in prayer and loving concern for our sisters and brothers who are dis-eased in any way is fundamental to our mission.  Sometimes we will see improvements in the physical, mental, or spiritual well-being of those whose cure we are seeking, and perhaps there should be more prominence given to our thanksgiving for these improvements.  I like to think of us wanting our friends to experience “wholeness” — after all, that is the word that first became “hale” (as in “hale and hearty”), and then became “healthy”.  Such wholeness (health) has physical, mental and spiritual aspects to its description of a person’s complete well-being, and any move closer to such wholeness can be seen as “healing” and greeted with thanksgiving.

But notice the twice-repeated “the kingdom of God has come near” message that accompanies the curing of the sick who are there.  For the mission that we are involved in is all about the kingdom of God, and the later section of the long Gospel reading today sets out that wider context most clearly.  Jesus’ prayer “I thank you Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent, and revealed them to infants; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will.”   For the Mission that we are planning into action is not our mission — it is God’s mission, and God graciously reveals to us, infants that we are in so many ways, what this mission is, and how we might co-operate with God in it.  God bless us in our Mission Action Planning, and in our pursuit of that mission

Canon Bill Goodes

Third Sunday after Pentecost – II Kings 2:1-2, 6-14,  Psalm 77:1-2, 10-20, Galatians 51,13 – 25, Luke 9:51 – 62

“Live by the Spirit, I say, and do not gratify the desires of the flesh.”  (Galatians 5:16)

For something like the next 20 weeks, we will be observing the so-called “Sundays after Pentecost”, which we began last week.   This sequence will be interrupted only by the Church’s Dedication Festival, and the month of the Season of Creation.   During these weeks, we follow three independent series of readings:  the first will be the ones from the Old Testament (properly now referred to as “the Hebrew scriptures”), and these will focus on the work of the prophets — this series began last week with the prophet Elijah, and today introduces his successor, Elisha.   The Psalm that is set each Sunday is meant to pick up some part of the theme of the first reading.   Today’s is a lament in which the Psalmist comes to question what God is up to making him suffer like he is — but then he goes on to a confident recital of God’s past actions.

The Gospel readings this year are mainly from the Gospel of Luke and we come today to a turning point in the story that that Gospel portrays of Jesus’ ministry — the point in his ministry where he “sets his face to go to Jerusalem”.   John’s Gospel has Jesus in Jerusalem on a number of occasions before his final time there, but the other three see his move from Galilee to Jerusalem as something that only happens once — as the time of Jesus’ death approaches.   These writers are not so much interested in a kind of Google Timeline, which tracks Jesus’ movements in diary form:  rather they construct their telling of the story in a way that helps the reader to see the logic of Jesus’ ministry, rather than its calendar.

It is interesting, too, to see that Luke places this ‘turning to Jerusalem’ rather earlier in the story than do Matthew and Mark.   The first three chapters in Luke are taken up with the birth stories of Jesus and John Baptist, and then Jesus’ Baptism and Testing. This rite of commissioning and direction-setting  leads to a confident, popular ministry of healing, exorcising, teaching, feeding in the region of Galilee.    He is assisted in this ministry by his twelve apostles.   It is when they return from their mission of preaching the kingdom that Jesus reaches the turning point in his ministry in the crucial events recorded in chapter 9 — in that chapter we have the story where Peter acknowledges Jesus as Son of God, and then Jesus takes Peter, James and John to a mountain where he is transfigured in their sight.   And now, he “sets his face to go to Jerusalem”, because “the days drew near for him to be taken up”.   Over the next Sundays we will follow this journey, with stories of success and threat, until, ten chapters later, Jesus enters Jerusalem and the story of Holy Week begins.    As Luke tells the story, throughout this period “his face is set towards Jerusalem”, and what follows his entry into Jerusalem cannot be avoided:  it is who Jesus is!

The other series of readings is from the letters of Paul — beginning with the earliest of them, the letter to the Galatians.   Each of these letters tries to address particular situations in the life of the various congregations.  They do so by focussing on the person of Jesus, and on the appropriate way of life for followers of Jesus.   Today’s reading is a particularly significant one in describing that way of life — it lists the results of living a life only concerned with what our physical instincts and desires direct, and contrasts that with the fruits of living “in the Spirit”.

One of the principal situations that Paul addresses in this letter is that some people are telling the Galatian Christians they must follow the Jewish Law — and Paul’s experience of that Law is that it imposes a virtual slavery on people:  he contrasts this experience with the gift of freedom which life in Jesus brings:  “For freedom Christ has set us free…do not submit again to a yoke of slavery!” today’s reading began.   However, this very freedom, fundamental to the life in Christ, carries with it a danger:  is the Christian disciple so “free” that there are no boundaries to the disciple’s behaviour?  “you were called to freedom…only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for self-indulgence”.

To make quite clear what he means, Paul then goes on to contrast “gratifying the desires of the flesh” with “living by the Spirit”.    Now this contrast between “flesh” and “spirit” raises some questions for us, because we have grown up being told that “flesh is good” —  our bodies are beautiful, objects of delight, God-given, to be cherished and valued.    Hating the body is thought of as “Victorian”, and out of touch with who we really  are.   The Greek word used for flesh is sarx, which comes into English in words like “sarcoma” or “sarcophagus” , and in Latin this becomes “carnis”, which gives rise  in English to both “carnal” and “incarnation” — perhaps giving an idea of just how revolutionary Christ’s coming “in the flesh” really is!

When I am guiding school-children on a tour of the Cathedral, I often ask them to look at the outside of the building, and ask them which way it points.   While some would say immediately “it points to heaven”, I have to try to steer away from that crude geography, and talk of “higher things” or “pointing away from those concerns that are only to be found in the earthly”.   I don’t know how much that takes root in their understandings, but it is the same contrast that Paul is addressing. For Paul here is using the term “flesh” in the sense of a direction of life governed only by carnal desires, those desires that deal only with the satisfaction of my wants — with no relation to other people or to God.

When we live “according to the flesh”, he says, it results in fifteen types of anti-social and destructive behaviours — these are the obvious ones, and there are others like them.   When we live by the Spirit, are guided by the Spirit, instead we show the fruits of “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.”

This list of “fruits” comes with its challenge to our personal ways of working with one another:  do we always demonstrate these in our relationships in family, neighbourhood, political life, or even in our world-wide considerations?   But what about our Church relationships?   I am afraid that too often we see congregations demonstrating the “works of the flesh” that Paul is talking about — things like “enmities, strife, quarrels, dissensions, factions”.   Wouldn’t it be wonderful if, in researching the story of this Parish, this Diocese, the Anglican Communion, historians were able to look at our story as demonstrating “kindness, generosity, love, self-control”   I don’t know why the compilers of our lectionary left out the final verse of this chapter — perhaps it was too close to the bone even then:  it says “Let us not become conceited, competing against one another, envying one another”!

“Live by the Spirit, I say, and do not gratify the desires of the flesh.”

Canon Bill Goodes

Second Sunday after Pentecost  2022  I Kings 19:1-4., 8-15a,  Psalm 42, Galatians 3:10 – 14, 23 – 29, Luke 8:26 – 39:

“What are you doing here, Elijah?”  (I Kings 19:9, 13)

Well, there’s a challenge for you!  It was a challenge for Elijah, and it is just as much a challenge for us.  “What are you doing here?

It came to Elijah who was feeling pretty depressed, Queen Jezebel, in all her power and deviousness, had made a public statement, on oath, that Elijah’s head was for the block!   Having a contract put on you by such a person would justify anyone fleeing for their life.  And Elijah had run for six weeks from Israel and finished up at Mount Sinai, the mountain of God.

We can feel a certain sympathy with the prophet here, as he answers the voice of God by saying “I have been very zealous for the Lord of hosts, for the Israelites have forsaken your covenant…killed your prophets…I alone am left, and they are seeking my life!”  When we think of how things used to be, and how this occasion would see the Church filled with parishioners and members of the Great Priory and their families and friends, we might well be feeling “I alone am left…!”  For that’s not how things are today:   we look around at who we are, all too conscious of our age and our many infirmities, and feel very much with the prophet.  And God says to us “What are you doing here?”

God responds to the prophet in two ways.  First, he shows Elijah something of God’s nature, and goes on to speak of God’s continuing call for the prophet.

God’s nature?  “Stand on the mountain before the Lord”  Then came the tempestuous wind, ripping the countryside to shreds — “but the Lord was not in the wind”.  Then came the trembling of the foundations as the earth rocked — “but the Lord was not in the earthquake”.  Then came a wild-fire, fearsome  and destructive in its intensity — “but the Lord was not in the fire”.  After the fire, “a sound of sheer silence” or “a mere whisper” — the older translations spoke of “a still small voice.”  Elijah then covered his face, stood outside the cave, and heard again the challenging voice “What are you doing here, Elijah?” I wonder whether his carefully rehearsed response might have been delivered a little more hesitantly in the face of this display of God’s presence (and God’s absence!).

There are some very loud voices in our experience, sounding like wind, earthquake, fire:  these voices clamour for our attention, saying “This is where the power is — you’ve got to listen to us!  Listen to our message of wars and rumours of wars, of broken-down systems, of terrible behaviour by people who ought to know better and yet who are in positions of authority themselves.  Listen to our message that says there is no reality other than the material world around us.  Listen to our message that says there is nothing that you can do.”  God’s message to the prophet comes in the quiet which the desert is so capable of — a silence in which one might hear God’s message, God’s challenge, God’s call, God’s reassurance.

God’s call comes to Elijah in two parts:  first he is to go and anoint some new leaders — in Aram, Syria, that power which is the greatest threat to Israel’s peace.  The passage goes on after the part we read, to speak of Israel, anointing Jehu to be king — which means that Jezebel is to get her come-uppance at the hands of one “who drives furiously”.  Then, in the prophetic field, Elisha is to take over from Elijah himself, for Elijah is about to come to the end of the ministry in which he has been so loyal.   And the call has a reassurance at the end of it, “Yet I will leave seven thousand in Israel” who have remained steadfast in their loyalty to the Lord God.  Elijah is not the only one left!

What is God’s call to us, as we put those loud voices behind us, and listen to God in the sound of sheer silence?  Do we look for new leaders, even if we know that they will “drive furiously”?  Do we anticipate our own dying, the ending of things as we know them, so that another may come in our place?  But whatever lies ahead of us, God’s assurance remains, “there are still seven thousand in Israel” — we are not alone in our loyalty to the Lord, the God of hosts”, in spite of how few and how weak we seem to be.

The question “What are you doing here?” comes with a challenge, not only to Elijah, but also to us.  And there is another challenge in today’s readings.  Jesus comes to the Gerasene man, clearly in need of healing, and Jesus is greeted with the challenge, “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God?”  That challenge continues, after the man is healed, and appears “clothed and in his right mind”, when the villagers come out to see what has happened.  Faced not only with the healed man, but also the loss of a herd of pigs, they “asked Jesus to leave them”.  The man wants to go with Jesus, but is told, “Return home, and tell how much God has done for you.”

Even in our loyalty to the Lord of Hosts, we too are tempted to challenge Jesus with the same message, “What have you to do with me?”  Somehow we find Jesus’ presence even more confronting than the still small voice with which God can speak with us.  We have our ways of “asking him to leave” — I remember when our present Archbishop came to this Church for the first time, one of the comments someone made was “Too much mention of Jesus!”  Perhaps it is because of the kind of challenge that  Jesus gave the Gerasene man,and confronts us as well — “Return to your home and tell how much God has done for you”.

“What are you doing here?”

“What have you to do with me?”

And perhaps for us, nearly as challenging are the words of Paul to the Church in Galatia, “There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female, for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.”  Can we make this real in our particular circumstances?

Canon Bill Goodes

Trinity Sunday 2022  Proverbs 8:1 -4, 22-31, Psalm 8, Romans 5:1 – 5, John 16:12-15

“…we have peace with God through our Lord, Jesus Christ…God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who  has been given to us”   (Romans 5:1, 5)

You may have noticed that we have included in the order of service today the Nicene Creed, which we normally omit on the Sunday we offer the Healing ministry in our more formal way.   But of course it is Trinity Sunday, and our readings focus on the different “persons” of our God,.   So it is important for us on this day to recite together this expanded form of the doctrine of the Trinity that was agreed to at the Councils of Nicaea and Chalcedon in the 4th and 5th centuries.

What are we doing when we recite a creed?   In a few weeks we will have a Baptism at this service, and those who are bringing the baby for Baptism will be asked to answer on the child’s behalf, “Do you believe in God the Father?…Do you believe in God the Son?…Do you believe in the Holy Spirit?”   And in each case they will answer with the appropriate  paragraph from the so-called “Apostles Creed”.   After this all of us will be challenged,  “This is the faith of the Church” and we will respond, “This is our faith, We believe in one God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.”   “the Faith of the Church”;  “our faith” — what does it mean?

When we use the Nicene Creed nowadays, we use the original beginning, “We believe…”   The Apostles Creed has always been a statement of personal faith  “I believe…”   But how does it relate to my own understanding of God’s action and God’s nature?   I grew up in the Methodist Church, and in a tradition which was always rather suspicious of the Roman Catholic Church, so I remember struggling as a young man with the phrase in the Apostles Creed “I believe in …the holy Catholic Church” — could I really say that with integrity?   In fact the Methodist Communion service amended this expression to “the holy Christian Church”.

On Trinity Sunday in days gone by, the Prayer Book ordered that instead of either of these creeds, we should recite “the confession of faith known as the Athanasian creed”.   This is still printed in A Prayer Book for Australia, right up the back, but it is a long time since I have heard it used in public.   It begins in an uncompromising way, “Whosoever will be saved, before all things it is necessary that he hold the Catholick Faith.  Which Faith except every one do keep whole and undefiled, without doubt he shall perish everlastingly”.   It then goes on in complex philosophical language to make statements about what God’s nature is and what it is not.   This statement of right belief sets our “believing” in the context of everlasting salvation, and affirms that this salvation depends on our accepting as right belief all that this statement sets out.

One problem is that each of these “creeds” — “I believe”s — is couched in the language of its time, along with the philosophical background of that language.    However, this language does not always reveal or express the truth of God in terms that people of a different age might use.   But rather than have each generation write a new statement, we continue to use these historical statements and say, in effect, “I want to assert that I belong to the same faith community that developed this statement.”   We remember, too, that the statements were developed in the context of controversy about what was genuine, authentic Christian belief — a belief that would place its believers in the ambit of  the saving, reconciling work of Jesus.   And because the agreed statements were meant to address the ideas that were thought inauthentic, they place what we would see as a rather unbalanced stress on certain aspects of their statements — all that “God from God, Light from Light, …begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father” all contradict particular aspects of what they saw as false beliefs.

But this whole concept of “right belief” or “orthodoxy” or “Catholick Faith” is used to exclude rather than include — Nicaea asserted that those who are “in” say that Jesus is “of the same nature” as God, and any who would dare say Jesus is “of a similar nature” to God are “out”.    The whole approach which divides people into those who are “in” and those who are “out” is one which has a long and deeply biblical background.   It took a revolution for Jewish people to accept that God’s purposes were not simply for them but for the whole of the created order.   There were hints of this wider reference from time to time, but the dominant theme was one of separation, of being chosen,  favoured, entitled.  (A bit like the attitudes of some of the British settlers to the indigenous people in our own land!)  The early Christians struggled mightily with the question of whether following Christ demanded becoming an observant Jew first.   Christian history, too, is full of stories of people who were not simply excluded, but even killed because their beliefs and practices were not those of the dominant group — carefully expressed in terms of orthodoxy of belief, but often underlying that were questions of power — “I have the power here;  you will believe what I believe, or else!”

When we recite a creed today, though, our aim is not so much to exclude people as to assert our unity with those who have held the faith of Jesus Christ down the ages.   Today we are wanting to say that we are “in”, while at the same time not wanting to claim that everyone else is “out”.   We are prepared to recognize that  truth can be expressed in many ways, and that a person’s integrity carries more weight than their stated beliefs.   And this, of course, is in line with the predominant philosophy of our age!   We have been able to find support for this way of working in the biblical record, although this interpretation is still contested by some.   Many of us find comfort in the words in this morning’s Gospel reading, “When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth…”   We have come to understand that this process of “guiding” has stretched out over the centuries, and we believe that some of the things that Jesus has had to say to us have taken a long time for us to “bear”!

So, on this Trinity Sunday, let us give thanks to the God of grace for calling us into the fellowship of “the Spirit of truth”, and that this Spirit has continued to guide us closer to the fulness of the truth.

Rev’d Susan F. Straub

‘Waiting on God in the Eucharist’

Introduction

Today is the Sunday after the Ascension: Thursday was Ascension Day. The forty days from Jesus’ crucifixion was ended. In that time. a transformative time, he continued to be seen by his disciples. Now the disciples enter a time of transition. They wait for promised power from on high: a wait of expectation. The gospel passage we’ve just heard is Jesus’ parting prayer for them and for us. Yes, for us. “I ask not only on behalf of these (the disciples with him at the time), but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word” and his prayer was that we may all be one. Not as a one solid lump, as all ‘one in solidarity’  would imply, but as individuals of every time and place, each with our peculiarities, united by the love and worship of Jesus Christ – relating to each other in brotherly, sisterly love.

In remembering and showing love and thankfulness for one person, whether the occasion is Mothers’ or Fathers’ Day, or a birthday, a family maintains, or sometimes even renews contact, strengthens the ties that bind families together and, where those families can physically gather, a celebratory meal is part of the day.

Jesus’ not only prayed for our unity, our belonging together, but also gave us the means of experiencing it, maintaining it and strengthening it: the very act that we’ve gathered together to do, the eucharist. This is the joyful meal in which as brothers and sisters, we remember and show love and thankfulness for our one God: God, our father, God, our eldest brother, and God, who binds us together.

John 17:20-26

Jesus prayed: ‘As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us.’ In the eucharist we’re united with God as we eat the bread of Christ’s body and drink the wine of his blood.

The bread and wine, fruit of human hands, are transformed for us through the power of the Holy Spirit into the Body and Blood of Christ. They become a pledge of the ‘new heaven and new earth’ (Rev 21:1). For Christ died not only for those who loved and love him, but for all. The reality of God’s gift of salvation can be seen, heard, tasted, touched, and smelled in the eucharist. Then we’re sent into the world. The more we are nourished by Him, the more we understand that we have a missionary task, in other words, what we experience is too good to keep to ourselves. We are to be ‘acceptable as an offering, made holy by the Holy Spirit’ (Romans 15:16) in order to be more and more ‘one, in heart and mind’ (Acts 4:32), in unity with God and each other. Why? So we can be witnesses and ambassadors of his love wherever we find ourselves, to tell of his love, to speak and act as he would, that is, in his name, so that others can experience God’s love

Unity is not an extra: it’s essential to what it means to be Christian. Did Jesus pray that we could all be equal to each other or that we should all be like each other, Jesus-clones, or even that we should like each other all the time?  No, but that we should love one another. To come together to celebrate, whether we’re here physically or joining on-line, leaving our differences at the door of this sacred place rather than our shoes! United in love, our mission, our meaning and purpose, is to show the way of Jesus, an alternative to evil, and to combat its acts of obvious or insidious harm. To show a love that doesn’t demand or expect reciprocity, ‘karma’, tit-for-tat.

We are all, however we come, whoever we are, the body of Christ. We celebrate the Eucharist together as a sign of our unity, joining with others all over the world. We belong to Christ and each other. We rejoice together as children of God the Father.

Canon Bill Goodes

Easter 5C 2022 -Acts 11:1 – 18, Psalm 148, Rev 21:1 – 6, John 13:31-35  Sunday 15 May 2022

“I give you a new commandment, that you love one another:  just as I have loved you, you also should love one another”   (John 13:34)

How do you deal with new things? I understand that there are people who are so keen on new things that they will adopt them uncritically, and champion them to everyone else. However, my experience is that many of us treat new things with a certain amount of suspicion — even hostility!   Has the COVID pandemic made us more accepting of the new situations that have dogged our steps over these last two years? Or have the constant changes to regulations made us want to hang on even more religiously to our past practices than we used to?

It is interesting to hear this message about the new things, in the context of last week’s meeting of the General Synod of our Church — was embracing the new the focal point of their discussions?

I must say I wondered about that phrase at the end of the reading from Acts 11 that we heard this morning. You remember “They were silenced:  they praised God, saying, Then God has given to the Gentiles the repentance that leads to life” The General Synod decision on same-sex marriage was greeted by threats of division, rather than by accepting that this was the direction of the Holy Spirit! I wonder whether our Parish Council meeting this morning will find such ready and complete agreement to some account of the introduction of a new practice!

For what was being defended by Peter in the face of his interrogation by the Jewish Christians was a complete novelty — for the first time the Christian message of Good News was being offered to people who were uncircumcised non-Jews — a Roman centurion to boot! Unheard of, because all of the apostles, and all of those who heard the word and were baptized on the Day of Pentecost were Jews — it had always been so!   And here was Peter with his strange story of a sheet-full of all sorts of creepy-crawlies being let down from heaven and offered to him as good food. How could this possibly be? Perhaps Luke had forgotten, by the time he wrote this account, or had even chosen to ignore, the hesitations, the heart-searching, the denial that customarily go with making revolutionary decisions!

In both the Revelation reading and the Gospel, the word “new” lies at the heart of the message their writers are putting before us. Here were Christians under threat or actual experience of persecution. The writer of the Revelation, near the end of his words of encouragement to them, sees something radically new.  The old order of heaven and earth has passed clean away, and the new Holy City has come down from God. Every tear wiped away, death and the accompanying mourning done away with. All the limitations that prevent us from enjoying the fulness of life are gone.   Words of living hope are given here not only for these early Christians, but for those living in our part of the world, and in our time in history,  “I will give water from the spring of eternal life”. This is a complete re-writing of our story — the old has passed away, and the new is adorned, radiant, like a bride.

Then there’s the Gospel reading. The commandment that Jesus gives his disciples is very familiar to us — “love one another”, and “this is how people will know you are my disciples.” All very well-known — but sometimes we skip over the “new” part of the story:  “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another” — or the “just as” part:  “Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another”. The love that Jesus’ followers are being urged to show to one another is “of the same nature” as that shown in the love that Jesus has for them. Recognizing that this is set in John in the context of the Last Supper, with all its emphasis on the coming death of Jesus, suggests that our love for one another is of a particularly sacrificial and all-embracing kind! Jesus loves us, and shows that love by dying for us — our love for one another  is to be of the same quality!

And it is interesting that the “new commandment” is given to the twelve — just after Judas has gone out. Now it specifically does not say : “love all those that agree with you”, but “love one another — as I have loved you”!   It was interesting in the shadow of the General Synod debate that I was asked by a Year 12 student doing Religious Studies for her SACE, a number of questions regarding our Church’s attitude(s) to same sex marriage. She wanted to know the biblical background, and whether our church had “adapted to the change” in state legislation regarding marriage.   After outlining my own understanding, and that which I believe to be representing the range of views in this congregation, I also felt obliged to refer her to representatives of other traditions in the Anglican Church locally! I certainly saw that as an expression of the love for one another that is enjoined upon us!

But it is not only towards those we agree with, or even those we disagree with — this love for one another has an even wider application. In his presidential address to open the General Synod, our Archbishop, as Primate, asked the members of the Synod first to consider the widest scope of the context in which the Synod is meeting, and the need to be reconciled to those who “have something against us”. He also asked his hearers to consider the widest possible application of the church’s mission to follow Christ’s “new commandment”. He quoted from a book called “Imagining Mission with John V Taylor”, which asks its readers “imagine that church is not the point of church, rather church exists to participate in the healing of all things- the world, its people, the planet itself. Church is God’s people participating in that liberation, a communion in mission. Church is Christ’s body prolonging the logic of the mission and ministry of Jesus Christ in the world”. The book also suggests “that mission is a longing to see all things renewed – our relationship with God and with one another, with our environment and species, with our societies, our world, and our cosmos. It is the healing and redemption of all things under the lordship of Christ”.

For this “new commandment” that Jesus put before his followers, goes even beyond the newness embraced (finally) by the Church in Jerusalem in response to Peter’s plea:  it is to extend even beyond people of other religious traditions, or of none, beyond that of “our neighbours” or even “our enemies” — all of which is difficult enough! It extends to our love for the whole creation and the God who made it. It is this love that will enable “all things to become new”, and that will have us enter the radical new life inaugurated by the resurrection, to have our fundamental thirst slaked by water from the spring of the water of life.

Canon Bill Goodes

Easter 4C – Acts 9:36 – 43, Psalm 23, Rev 7:9 – 17, John 10:22 – 30

“Jesus said, ‘I am the Good Shepherd…My sheep hear my voice.  I know them, and they follow me’”  (John 10:11, 27)

I’m sure you have all seen pictures of Jesus as the Good Shepherd. It is a widely-used image displayed in many churches in windows, on banners, and on prayer cards — the shepherd, crook in hand, is cradling in his arms a loveable lamb. It is a very still, settled image, and one which might have inspired poetry of the romantic age — or even hymns like “loving shepherd of thy sheep”. The famous “shepherd” psalm that we read this morning sets the shepherd and his flock  “beside still waters”,  “in green pastures” and speaks of “goodness and mercy following all our days”.   Even the shepherds who “ran to Bethlehem straightway the Son of God to find” felt secure enough to “leave their flock a-feeding in tempest storm and wind”.

So, it was something of a shock to me when we spent a weekend with our family a couple of weeks ago on a mohair goat farm in Western Victoria.   After Church on Sunday morning, our hosts took us into their shearing shed to talk about their journey as shepherds. From the time that they decided to run these special goats, they have faced so many challenges.    There must have been constant temptations to give up and do something a bit more predictable! They faced entrenched monopolies, refusal to share blood-stock, droughts that turned the river water they used for  their goats into a toxic drink that killed them. The market for their wool has had wild fluctuations, and some of those who sold it had taken short cuts which gave mohair garments a bad name. They had great trouble finding someone who would deal with the hides of the animals they sold for meat. The goats grow wool which has no lubricant in it, and their wool grows all over the animal, which makes shearing goats a greater challenge than shearing sheep.

At each stage, I was impressed by the way they approached the new situation and were prepared to try new approaches that would enable them to continue their committed love and care for these animals, and to do so in ways that are sustainable, both for the animals and their shepherds!

I was surprised at this tale of adaptability and commitment, but on reflection I realised that even biblical shepherds had their challenges!   Remember the lost sheep! That lamb on the shepherd’s shoulder in the stained-glass window was one that had been lost, had to be found and pulled out of the brambles with the crook! The passages about the Good Shepherd in the earlier part John 10 spoke of the wolves coming to ravage the flock, and the tendency of the hireling to leave the sheep to their fate when the wolves came. Or remember how Jacob suffered from the machinations of an unscrupulous landlord when Jacob had the responsibility of caring for the landlord’s flock (and marrying his daughters!) His inventive ways of managing the breeding programme (of the sheep!) enabled him to thwart the landlord’s schemes.

So, a shepherd’s lot is “not a happy one” in many respects, and when we speak of Jesus as “the Good Shepherd” we need to take into consideration the negative aspects of the job as well as the “green pastures and still waters” ones.

It seems to me that what our goat-shepherds showed me was first of all a commitment to the animals and the vision of caring for them. But that commitment was not simply a dogged “carrying on in the face of difficulties” — remember Dobbin in “Animal Farm” :  “I will work harder!” No, there had to be a considerable flexibility and a willingness to try new directions to take account of what was happening, events largely outside of their control.

And, you know, that is just what God is like! God’s commitment to his covenant relationship first with the Jewish nation, and then with the Christian community is absolute:  his nature as chesed —  steadfast love expresses that commitment:  “God so loved…”

But the way that commitment was expressed varied over time, as God’s people in their various ways frustrated his purposes. God’s commitment to his covenant is absolute and unchanging, but the way it works out seems to be almost infinitely variable! God’s people in slavery in Egypt cry out to God for deliverance, and God hears their voice. The writers of the story make it look as though God knows beforehand all that will take place, and that God “hardened Pharaoh’s heart so that he would not let the people go”, but perhaps there is another way of looking at it:  isn’t it just as possible that Pharaoh and his advisers changed their minds, went back on their pre-election promises, and then God’s steadfast love for his people made new provisions which took account of these changes of heart. Then when they were on their journey to the Promised Land, the provision of the bread substitute, meat, potable water, and safe travel were all provided in response to particular situations. Again and again throughout their history the Old Covenant people upset the direction of God’s purposes, and God sent prophets and other agents to work from the new situation that the people had caused, to re-establish the working out of God’s loving purpose.

The Gospel writers normally referred to Judas Iscariot as “Judas who became the traitor”, and so gave the impression that this was always the plan — as though Jesus chose him as a disciple knowing, or even willing that he would be the traitor. But of course, these accounts were written well after the event, and perhaps this description simply expressed the writers’ incredulity that anyone could be a close follower of Jesus, and yet betray him.

We also have the capacity to make decisions which are not what God would choose for us, as he wills that we should enjoy fulness of life, and for us to make the best use of our abilities and potential — but we make wrong decisions, and, rather than write us off with a “well if that’s how you’re going to behave” sort of comment and leave us to our fate, the committed loving God is flexible in his dealings with us, and acts to make the best of the situation into which we have dropped ourselves.

So in the picture of Jesus as the Good Shepherd, we may see ourselves as the lost sheep. From time to time we experience the end of the crook around our necks, trying to drag us, kicking and bleating, out of the delicious-looking thorn-bush into which we have pushed our way! The Good Shepherd knows us, loves us, and puts himself into danger to rescue us. And, once there, no one can snatch us from his hand.  Thanks be to God.

Canon Bill Goodes

Easter 3C 2022  Acts 9:1 – 16, Rev 5:6 – 14, John 21:1 – 19

There once was a man who fell down a well, and, as he fell towards the inky-black, death-dealing water, he called out to the Risen Christ, “save me!” Miraculously, his overalls caught on a spike that was protruding from the well’s wall, his descent was arrested, and he was able to find other such spikes at strategic intervals, and to climb out. “Thank you, Jesus; I’ll always be your missionary!”, he exclaimed, and spent the rest of his life pushing people down wells.

Today’s three readings point to a different truth, because they show three different ways that particular people have come into relationship with the Risen Christ. Each of these different ways is seen to be a genuine path, and none may be played down as of less importance than others. Two of the stories are so familiar that we may not have noticed this significant thread running through them – Saint Paul’s Conversion, and the Restoration of Peter are rarely set next to one another – even on the Feast of Saints Peter and Paul. Then, the vision in Revelation 5 seems so removed from our realities that we can easily discount it altogether, but it too has a story to tell about relationship with the Risen Jesus.

Saint Paul’s relationship with the Risen Jesus is in this story one of “claiming”. Paul had been running around on the edge of Jesus’ community, harrying it. Perhaps he was seeing it as a threat to his established way of understanding life. In keeping with his “hands-on” approach to things, he held the coats of the people who were stoning Stephen, he saw to the arrest and condemnation of those who were following what people at that time referred to as “The Way” and then even following them to foreign places in order to see that this global threat was being controlled, even destroyed. A relationship of a sort, but not calculated to bear much fruit for the Risen Jesus. So, on the road to Damascus, Jesus said to him, “You may not recognize me, but I am Jesus whom you are persecuting! I claim you for my own!” Does this story resonate with your own walk in faith? Has the Risen Lord placed a hand on you and said, “I claim you for my own!”?  Certainly Saul of Tarsus, Saint Paul as he became, is not the only one down the ages who has experienced the Risen Jesus in this life-changing way.

Saint Peter’s relationship with the Risen Jesus took a different path.   He had become a leading figure in the community of Jesus’ followers during his earthly ministry. He had been in the inner circle of three among the twelve known as apostles. But spectacularly he had lost that position, three times denying that he even knew Jesus, or had kept company with him.  Deeply troubled, in the uncertain times which immediately followed news of the resurrection, he decided to “go fishing”. Perhaps it was in case Peter might be going to follow in the footsteps of that other betrayer, and harm himself, his companions said, “We will come with you!” And Jesus, in that lovely story, alluding to Peter’s three times denial, three times had Peter assert his continuing love for Jesus. Peter’s story could be spoken of as “forgiving” or “restoring”. Does that shed light on your relationship with the Risen One? Certainly there have been many others down the Christian ages, who have related to Jesus in this way.

Then, in the dream-like or even nightmare-like atmosphere of the reading from Revelation, there is a story of “worshipping”. In this passage, there is a gathering around the throne. Now in the previous chapter this throne is described as having one seated on it looking like jasper and carnelian and surrounded by a rainbow that looks like an emerald. Before this throne of God is placed the “lamb standing as though it had been slaughtered”. In the code language used in this document, carefully concealed from the authorities of the day, the slaughtered Lamb stands for the Risen Jesus, who sends out his Spirit in sevenfold form into the world. The “four living creatures” have traditionally been taken to refer to the four Gospel writers, and they have the form of a lion, an ox, a human, and an eagle — the usual symbols for Mark, Matthew, Luke and John.

Before these powerful symbols of the Divine Presence there seems to be happening a concelebrated pontifical High Mass – twenty-four described as “elders”, with golden mitres, multiple bowls of incense symbolising the prayers of the saints, a magnificent choir singing “Worthy is the Lamb”, and “Blessing and honour and glory and power are yours for ever and ever”.   These are the representative worshippers, but they represent before God “every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth”.

You notice how many references there are to what we are doing here this morning, with our more limited resources! The Gospel, the prayers, the singing, the words, the divine presence brought to us under different symbols. And we are invited into this worshipping to come into relationship with the Risen Jesus. I wonder how many have been drawn to Jesus by the experience of worship, with all that that represents?

How did you come into relationship with the Risen Jesus?  Here are three ways set out – claiming, restoring, worshipping – and each is set out as a legitimate way of coming into this relationship.

But did you also notice that each of these ways comes with a commission.   Saul is told, “Go into the city and you will be told what you are to do” — and we know that he was subsequently “told”; told that he was to be the apostle, the one sent out, to the Gentile world. Peter is restored, with the three-fold commission, “Feed my lambs, Feed my sheep, Tend my sheep”, and as a leading figure in the early Church he proclaimed and lived the gospel and cared for the flock. The great catch of fish taken at Jesus’ direction, was to be a sign of the abundance that might follow that restoration. Even the worshippers in Revelation are encouraged to take this good news into a hostile world, as the sealed scrolls of the revealing of God’s purposes were to be opened by the Lamb.

The Risen Jesus calls each of us into relationship with himself, each in our own different ways. This relationship is to be enjoyed both for its own sake, and also at the same time as a commission to bring others to him — not expecting that these others will come to him in the same way that we have experienced, but in ways that are appropriate for them, and to be celebrated. Of the four Gospel writers, Matthew most clearly puts the connection between our own relationship with Jesus, and our mission towards others. Remember that he concludes his account of the Good news by having Jesus say, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations…and remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

Father John Beiers

2nd Sunday of Easter, Year C

In the name of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.

Some time ago, a man brought his family from the state of New York, USA, to Australia to take advantage of a work opportunity here. Part of this man’s family was a handsome young son who had aspirations of joining the circus as a trapeze artist or becoming an actor. This young man, biding his time until a circus job or even one as a stagehand came along, worked at the local shipyards, which bordered on the worse part of town.

Walking home from work one evening the young man was attacked by five thugs who wanted to rob him. Instead of just giving up his money, the young fellow resisted. The thugs got the better of him easily and proceeded to beat his body brutally with clubs, leaving him for dead. When the police happened to find him lying in the road, he was so badly beaten that they assumed he was dead. Soon after though a police officer heard him gasp for air, and so they immediately took him to the emergency unit at the hospital.

When he was placed on a gurney, a nurse remarked, to her horror, that this young man no longer had a face. Each eye socket was smashed, his skull, legs, and arms fractured, his nose literally hanging from his face, all his teeth were gone, and his jaw was almost completely tom from his skull. Although his life was spared, he spent over a year in the hospital. When he finally left, his body may have healed but his face was disgusting to look at. He was no longer the handsome youth that everyone admired.

When the young man started to look for work, everyone, just because of the way he looked, turned him down. One potential employer suggested to him that he join the freak show at the circus as “The Man Who Had No Face.” He did this for a while. He was still rejected by everyone and no one wanted to be seen in his company. He had thoughts of suicide.

This went on for five years.

One day he passed a church and sought some solace there. Inside the church, he encountered a priest who had seen him sobbing while kneeling in a pew. The priest took pity on him and took him to the rectory where they talked at length. The priest was impressed with him to such a degree that he said that he would do everything possible for him that could be done to restore his dignity and life if the young man would promise to be the best Catholic he could be and trust in God’s mercy to free him from his torturous life. The young man went to Mass and communion everyday and after thanking God for saving his life, asked only that God give him peace of mind and the grace to be the best man he could ever be in His eyes.

The priest, through his personal contacts, was able to secure the services of the best plastic surgeon in Australia. There would be no cost to the young man because the doctor was the priest’s best friend. The doctor too was so impressed by the young man, whose outlook now on life, even though he had experienced the worst, was filled with good humour and love. The surgery was a miraculous success. All the best dental work was also done for him. And the young man became everything he promised God he would be. He was also blessed with a wonderful wife, children, and success in an industry which would have been the farthest thing from his mind as a career – if not for the goodness of God and the love of the people who cared for him. This he acknowledges publicly.

The young man was Mel Gibson. His life was the inspiration for his production of the movie “The Man Without A Face.” He is admired as a God-fearing man, a political and religious conservative, and an example to all of a true man of courage. “The Passion of the Christ” is in part Mel’s way of thanking God for his many blessings.

Do you believe this story? For myself, I am not sure. I received the story from what is probably a reliable source but part of me says that unless I see and hear it from somewhere indisputable, I won’t believe. How could all that be true?!? We have a healthy scepticism when faced with something like this. Parts of the story sound all too plausible, especially the way some people were quick to put another person down or shun them rather than accept someone so damaged. But … part of us asks “what is going on here?” and withholds our belief. We think “I am just not ready to believe that, … yet, without more information.”

Today we read the story of Thomas (John 20:19-31). He gets a fairly bad rap in the overall scheme of things. ‘Doubting Thomas’ is the label with which he has been stuck. The criticism for his failure to accept the story straight away is easily on our lips. Yet I wonder how any of us would have fared in the same situation. When something seems incredible to us, we may all respond with doubt, at least initially. Actually, I think we have a lot to thank Thomas for. What he presented was healthy scepticism. He recognised that there were gaps in the story. He wanted to be sure before he could trust himself and his reactions to a story that clearly made a huge difference to his life.

Certainly, John the writer of today’s Gospel knew that. Writing near the end of the first century, he was addressing people who had never seen or heard Jesus in the flesh. The stories they heard were second or even third hand. John’s problem, which is a continuing problem for the church, was how to encourage people in the faith when Jesus was no longer around to be seen and touched. The story of Thomas gave him an excellent way to do that. By focusing on the apostle’s doubt, John takes the words out of our mouths and puts them in Thomas’ instead, so that each of us has the opportunity to think about how we do, or do not come to believe.

In John Irvings novel, A Prayer for Owen Meany, the narrator John has a number of conversations with his friend Owen Meany about the meaning of belief. In one scene at the schoolyard, Owen illustrates his faith in God by pointing to a gray granite statue of Mary Magdalene as twilight falls. When it has become so dark that the statue is no longer visible, Owen asks John if he knows that the statue is still there. John says that of course he knows. Owen keeps pushing:

You have no doubt she’s there, Owen nagged at me.

“Of course, I have no doubt’’ I said.

“But you can’t see her’’ you could be wrong, he said.

“No, I’m not wrong she is there, I know she’s there!” I yelled at him.

“You absolutely know she’s there “even though you can’t see her?” He asked me.

“Yes” I screamed.

“Well, now you know how I feel about God”, said Owen Meany. “I can’t see him, but I absolutely know he is there!”. The character Owen Meany is a great example of the kind of faith that St. John celebrates in chapter 20 of his Gospel. Because Owen believes so fully and completely in God, he stakes his life on his conviction. He does not need to see signs and wonders; he believes and orients his whole life around this belief.

We have choices, always. We can let the gaps in our knowledge bog us down, or we can grasp the truth we can see and step forward with confidence, always being open to search further, to learn more, to be corrected and guided along the way as we search for clearer answers. With this confidence we can say, with Thomas, and with Mel Gibson, and with all who have learned to trust: Christ is risen. Alleluia: He is risen indeed. Alleluia’!

Rev’d Peter Balabanski

Lent 5 C –John 12 1-8

Those who sow in tears shall reap with shouts of joy! ^{Ps 126.6}

Mary’s gift of nard to Jesus is a wild extravagance. It’s not given to Jesus for him to keep and use. It’s squandered on his feet; neither he nor anyone else can ever use it again. It’s given as though none of them is going to see another day.

Like her sister Martha, Mary senses who Jesus is. Martha had declared to Jesus privately that he was the Messiah/anointed one. ^(11.27) Mary says the very same thing publicly by anointing Jesus. But by doing it the way she does, she evokes the anointing that has to do with the dead. Mary senses why he’s come to Jerusalem: it can only lead to his death. So she does what people do when a loved one might soon die. We do all we can to show how much they mean to us.

Mary of Bethany knows instinctively where Jesus is going, yet she doesn’t try to stop him. Watering the wheat today, we do something very similar to what Mary does when she anoints Jesus for his burial. We could grind and eat the wheat we have, but instead, we choose to give it up, and trust that God will bless our choice with a wonderful harvest: a resurrection. God’s abundance allows for death, but also, God’s story tells us to look for resurrection to a wonderful new life.

Mary’s gesture isn’t just extravagant; it’s prophetic. Firstly, it’s a proclamation of who Jesus is – God’s anointed one – the one God’s people had sought for over a thousand years. It’s also a well-wishing; ‘Godspeed the feet of the one embarking on this perilous journey.’ And finally, it’s a sign – the last in John’s book of signs – before Jesus’ providential entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday.

Why can’t Judas be like Mary of Bethany? For that matter, why don’t all Jesus’s followers pour ourselves out like Mary did? Maybe like Judas, our spiritual senses are blocked, and we struggle to accept a God whose extravagance is so great that it blocks out even the terror of death – never mind our savings for tomorrow.

Poor Judas is cut off from Mary’s sense of wonder – her sense of gratitude. He’s trapped by a choice for fear in his world of mistrust – where you keep more fuel in your tank than you’ll ever need – even to the point of pretending you’re doing it for someone else. But wonder of wonders; Jesus came for just such people as Judas. Judas belongs in this story just as firmly as Mary of Bethany does.

Even though he’s one of Jesus’ disciples, somehow Judas can’t see who Jesus is the way Mary and Martha can. Doubtless there are very good reasons for his mixed fear and zeal. But fear is no foundation to build on. The only foundation is Jesus’ love for us; love we could never deserve. Our faith is our response to that love. That’s what we see in Mary of Bethany today.

Mary’s gesture may have been her thanks for Jesus raising her brother Lazarus – outrageous grace and an outrageous response. Mary of Bethany tells us that the fear and suffering and misery of this world are not the defining realities of being. It’s so healing when we meet these reckless givers! They transform our world. The world needs more people to give confrontingly.

Our giving to the poor and needy, our prayers for the sick, for the sad and for the unloved; our care for those burdened with responsibilities they may have chosen, but which eat them alive – our gifts and prayers and care are not inputs for which we expect outcomes. More like grains of wheat that we have learned God will bless if we give them up. We set prayers and kindnesses loose in the world as fragrances which gently, beautifully alert sufferers to the existence of a different reality?

Gifts and prayers and care make perfect sense when they are seen for what they really are; a response to the Jesus who has met us, who has called us, and who leads us in the Way of self-giving, joyful abundant extravagance. We are to bless the world with our thanks for God’s grace to us. And we pray that through our thankfulness, a sense of that infectious extravagance might just reveal its source to all who need to know God’s endless love.  Amen