The Nations shall see God’s salvation

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The Rev’d Susan F. Straub

Isa 60:1-6; Ps 72:1-7,10-14; Ephesians 3:1-12; Matthew 2:1-12

Introduction

Today we celebrate Epiphany. It’s the 3rd January 2021: a fact and we have to believe it!  Time is leading us further and further into the twenty-first century with new wonders of human endeavours in science and technology confronting us every day: “A vaccine for CoVID-19? Don’t hold your breath!” they said. Bit of a sick pun. But the doubters were wrong! Those who saw the star and travelled faithfully towards it’s light found what was thought improbable, and have shared this disease-preventive with the world.

We’re at a time when more of us than ever before are aware of the vulnerability of all life on Earth, and the preciousness of life. When more of us than ever before are aware of the damage human populations can do to planet Earth. When more of us than ever before, are aware of the dangers to life on Earth, not only from ourselves, but from external events, such as a pandemic, or a collision with an asteroid. No wonder those who think about such things become anxious.

Matthew 2: 1-12

In this season of epiphany, we remember that our soul’s travel, like the souls of the wise men, begins with seeking the Christ-child. The magi found him in an unexpectedly ordinary place, but saw him for who he was and is for us: Son of God, the promised Messiah of Judaism, king above all worldly kings and rulers.

St. Matthew shows us that awe and humility are not attributes solely of the poor and lowly. The shepherds in St. Luke’s gospel saw wonders in the heavens, came to the place where Jesus lay, and worshipped. Likewise, those magi, kings and spiritual authorities in their own lands, came and worshipped, just as Queen Elizabeth will do in the chapel royal on Wednesday, the 6th of January, the actual feast day. As we know, her family motto is ‘Ich dien’, ‘I serve’.  The magi too bowed their heads and were able to bring gifts from their material wealth: gold, frankincense and myrrh.

We find ways of bringing our gifts to the Christ-child. Each of us is in a sense a king, in that we make our own decisions, yet each of has at some point voluntarily decided to come to the Christ-child. I remember coming to church as a thirty-something wife and mother, and wondering: I know about Jesus, but how is he Son of God?  Each of us has come to face him and brought whatever it was that we thought identified us, the kind of people, group, tribe, category even, to whom we felt we belonged.

Like the wise men, once we’ve seen and experienced for ourselves the saving love of Christ, God helps us to keep him alive and guard him from the Herods of our age.

When I was Chaplain and Student Counsellor at St. Mark’s College, a residence and community of university students, an exchange student who’d grown up in Eastern Germany under Soviet communism told me: “When I was thirteen, I wanted very much to be confirmed. I had to choose. Confirmation in my church meant I would not be allowed to go to university at the end of secondary school.  I chose to be confirmed. In 1989, the Berlin wall came down and things started to change.”  And there she was in the mid- nineties, a university exchange-student.

A woman in her 50s was quoted in a newspaper last weekend (Weekend Australian, 26-27th December 2020) of how her she was guided to find Jesus, the anointed king of Christians’ hearts, minds, and wills: “I was 16 when my classmate shared the Gospel with me. She invited me to join a small Christian fellowship. I found that God was touching my heart and found a peace with Jesus which is hard to express.” Christians are forbidden to share the gospel. As of early this year (2020), it is illegal for those under 18 years to attend church in China.

Back in 2010, to enter China on a holiday visa in 2010, I had to sign a declaration that I would not proselytize while I was there, as the missionaries had many years ago. However, a market stall-holder told a friend and me of his faith and experience as a Chinese Christian. How it was that because he and his wife acted in faith to keep their second child, he lost his prized government job and became a stall-holder for his artist-wife.

Why the Herods’ calculating, sometimes murderous fury?   The love of God cannot be controlled.

From the Christ-child we celebrate today shines forth the both the creative and redeeming power of love.  His mother, Mary said ‘Yes’ to God in faith, even though she would have realised the predicament she would bring to herself and her family. Both St. Luke and St. Matthew are at great pains to show by genealogy that Jesus was not only of good family, something greatly prized in the Middle Eastern culture of his day, but indeed royal, in the line of King David, no less. Since she was betrothed to Joseph, in a marriage contract that would have required divorce to dissolve, some might have accused her of adultery, others might have blamed her father for not protecting her.  The situation was a mess. It was Joseph’s love of God, which went against his self-interest, that redeemed her, bestowed the righteousness of the law on her as his wife. Together they presented Jesus at the Temple as their first-born son, thus sealing the legitimacy of Jesus.  Mary’s love and Joseph’s love united in Jesus.  The grace of love and the requirements of law reconciled.  Heaven and earth united in the Christ-child.

There he lay under the gaze of men who had travelled far from lands east of Judah. It was from lands of the east that powerful kings had conquered Israel, destroyed the Temple, taken the people into exile, and eventually restored them. Wise men of the eastern nations to whom Israel had been forced to pay tribute and homage brought their tribute and paid homage in true humility to this child. Here was another reconciliation. The magi protected Jesus by not returning to Herod.  They knew that he understood, loved, and served only one thing: his power.  The power of loving kindness and mercy, repentance, forgiveness and reconciliation were beyond him. Such power gives light to the world: makes a kinder, gentler world.

If Matthew and Luke knew the story of his birth, Jesus must have known. It begs the question:  could he who knew that his being was the will of God, God’s Word to the world, could he have gone against his divine nature when the time came for him to choose between God’s will and self-interest? We who know the rest of his life-story know that he chose to face peacefully those who caused his suffering and death. However, enough for us to celebrate today the Christ-child, Prince of Peace: God’s gift to us.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Trust and hold fast to what God has set before us

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Rev’d Peter Balabanski

Christmas 1 – 27-12-2020 – Luke 2 22-40

Early in today’s Gospel reading, Luke reminds us of two Jewish customs of his time. First, for the forty days after a Hebrew woman gave birth to a boy, she was viewed as being ritually unclean. At the end of that time, Jewish Law Lev 12 required that she present an offering for her purification. …The other custom looked back to the escape from Egypt. In Exodus 13, we read that every firstborn of the Hebrews was to be dedicated to God. This law softened as the ordained service of God came to be the province of tribe of Levi alone, so parents belonging to the other tribes could dedicate their firstborn, but also redeem them. At the temple, they’d make an offering which ritually bought back their firstborn from God.

So today, Luke shows the Holy Family coming to the temple for purification and for this ritual acknowledgement of God’s first call on their child. But Simeon and Anna appear and declare that despite the ritual buy-back, they’ve been waiting there to hand on God’s call from themselves to this family. Simeon’s lovely words embody this sense of handing on the baton as he takes the little Jesus in his arms:

29 Master, now you are dismissing your servant in peace, according to your word; 30 for my eyes have seen your salvation, 31 which you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, 32 a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel.

A light for revelation to the Gentiles – the light of God’s glory offered to everyone. What it means is that everything which the temple had embodied now lies cradled in the arms of Simeon, a faithful old man who held on to the truth. And then the ancient prophet Anna, who also came at that moment began to praise God and to speak about the child to all who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem.

Simeon and Anna had lived very long lives of faithful service to God. They saw God as prophets do; they see in real time what God is doing. They saw God handing on the Glory which had dwelt in the temple, and entrusting it to a six-week old baby who would shine with that glory for the whole world to see. For Simeon and for Anna, this was at once a moment of exultation and one of release. They could let go; they could die in peace; someone else would carry the load from now.

This Song of Simeon is called the night-prayer of his life and remains the Church’s night-prayer of handing over to God the troubles of each day.

Of course, the message to those who cradled the new temple of God’s Glory was not all rosy. Simeon blessed them and said to his mother Mary, ‘This child is destined for the falling and the rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed 35 so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed – and a sword will pierce your own soul too.’ This story holds a special place in part of the Church’s year where we find ourselves right now. The seasons of Christmas and Epiphany are visible, firstly in the Child, and also in the promised revelation to all peoples. But even now, the suffering of the Cross begins to come into distant focus.

The falling and the rising, the opposition, the exposure and the agony that Simeon foresees for Mary – these are very much part of our experience of holding on to faith too; they describe our predicament and our blessing. Yet Simeon and Anna, knowing this about life, nevertheless proclaim revelation and understanding.

Our own parish embodies everything we read in this story. We have faithful seers and servants who have been holding on to the faith here for a very long time. You each received the faith from your forebears, and by God’s grace, you have borne the light aloft here for many years. We who now share the burden with you faithful mothers and fathers of our church must go on holding the light aloft in an ever-different world. What do you see ahead of us? What can you tell us?

As you hand on the faith to us, and we to succeeding generations, we make Simeon’s song a prayer for ourselves. And we pray that when we hand over the light of faith to those who come after us, we hand it over to people whom we’ve enabled to hold it aloft too; by God’s grace, people whom we’ve enabled to hold aloft the light of faith for a long and complex lifetime.

Little people like you and me – we’re involved in God’s purposes, and no matter if we don’t see results sometimes for many years, we shouldn’t be discouraged. Things might seem out of control at a national or international level, but God still works through us little people to bring about grace, love, peace, hope, joy, justice, mercy and faith. Our part in this is to trust and hold fast to what God has set before us; practise the faith, do justly, rejoice, exult in God. For as the earth brings forth its shoots, and as a garden causes what is sown in it to spring up, so the Lord God will cause righteousness and praise to spring up before all the nations. Isa 61.11 Amen

The Christmas Message

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Rev’d Peter Balabanski

Christmas 2020

What’s a Christmas message that might make sense in a year shaped by so much tragedy? There’ve been wars, persecuted minorities, extremist violence, political chaos, that terrible explosion, and the huge and ever-growing refugee crisis. And it’s also a year where a series of natural catastrophes have hurt so many – mega-bushfires, mega-storms, earthquakes, floods, a volcanic eruption, rising sea levels, drought and heat waves. And on top of the human cost, there’ve been billions of wild and domestic creatures lost to our fires, and human-caused global extinction.

And of course there’s the pandemic – families separated, accustomed freedoms withheld, livelihoods destroyed, and so many loved ones killed by that insidious virus – 1.7 m and counting. As one person put it, this isn’t a year that any of us are going to be sorry to see the back of; challenging, unpredictable and just plain tough – there’s been an awful lot about it not to like.

So at Christmas, in all this mess, where do we look for the hope, the good will, the peace and joy that we usually gather to celebrate at this time? Can we possibly find this sort of Christmas message speaking to us in a credible form right now?

The Gospel we’ve just heard tells us the ancient Christmas story, and as ever, it holds out a message of hope – and paradoxically, it does so especially in a time of strange and terrible experiences. That’s because for us citizens of the lucky country, the strange world we’ve suddenly found ourselves living in over this past year bears remarkable similarities to the world of our Gospel Christmas story.

The world Jesus was born into was also a world where ordinary, innocent people experienced political leaders dividing families and countries by decree, deprivation of liberties, checkpoints; worries about where the next meal might come from. Good health and a reasonable life span were by no means to be expected. The main ones who experience these trials as normal hereabouts are Aboriginal Australians.

But this year, for the first time since WW II, we’ve all had a personal taste of it.

This may just be a unique opportunity for us to experience how deep is the Christmas message of hope, goodwill, peace and joy that we sing about so blithely. For the first time in my life, Australians generally have freely given up our lucky country entitlements. We’ve given up precious liberties we’ve taken for granted, and done so for the sake of others we don’t even know. We’ve seen ourselves in the people of the bushfires, drought and floods, in the caregivers and their patients, and we’ve responded by pulling our heads in. Compassion and generosity have awakened in us as a community. We’ve seen our leaders embrace a wisdom and unity and generosity of spirit that only a time of general catastrophe inspires.

There are limits to the good we’ve done. Refugees and foreign students are still left to charities and philanthropic chefs to make sure they don’t starve on our watch. But even there, the tide is turning. Good will is stirring in even the coldest hearts.

The baby we celebrate at Christmas is the model for all of us to give up our sense of entitlement for the sake of others. God freely gives up divine power and freedom to embrace our need and our danger. God, born at Bethlehem, chooses illegitimate birth to displaced parents who must depend on the charity of strangers; and all for our sake. Jesus grows to be a model for all of us by sticking to that poverty, to that itinerancy, to that dependency in order that we might inherit what he gave up for us.

We always talk about needing to become more like Christ. Well this year, a lot of people have done just that. And it’s begun to make this country a much better place – a place where we might be poorer, where we might be less self-confident, where we might be less forceful about asserting our rights and privileges, because we’re so conscious of others who can’t even breathe without help. This has been a year where it’s been on show for all to see. So many have given up freedoms, rights and privileges for the sake of others that it’s been impossible to miss. In this year and the years to come, I pray that we may cherish this practical experience of what it is that God did in giving up freedom and power to become Earthbound for the sake of Earth. Hope, goodwill, peace, joy; we are wildly rich if we have these! Amen

Mary’s song – the Magnificat

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Rev’d Peter Balabanski

Advent 4 – Luke 1 26ff – Annunciation, Journey, Magnificat

Lots of us here are of an age to remember the protest singers of the ‘60s and ‘70s – people like Pete Seeger, Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, Aretha Franklin. They protested against the Vietnam war, against materialism, racism, sexism and slavery. They were songs of a new generation crying out against the wrongs of their society.

New wars have kept breaking out; materialism, racism, sexism, slavery and injustice have taken on ever more insidious forms. But thankfully, new songs keep being written, calling out the evil and naming it clearly for what it is. In this land, I think of Yothu Yindi, Helen Reddy and many others. Missy Higgins is one of our current champions on the climate crisis. She says, ‘At the moment I’m really into political music because I think that is the bravest thing of all in this climate today. More and more people are less inclined to speak out for fear of being cut down on social media … just music that isn’t afraid to be torn down, isn’t afraid to be judged, declares what it’s there for.’ https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-10-18/missy-higgins-apocalpyse-and-climate-change-inspire-new-music/9059168

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

This is not a new phenomenon. This morning, we shared a very old protest song; Mary’s song – the Magnificat. The heart of Mary’s song is protest, and it has terrified powerful elites down the ages.

The Lord has shown strength with his arm and scattered the proud in their conceit, casting down the mighty from their thrones and lifting up the lowly. God has filled the hungry with good things and sent the rich away empty.

Meek little Mary; gentle, sweet, compliant teenage Mary? Yeah, right.

Mary fills the shoes of the great women protest singers of her tradition – Miriam (Ex 15:20-21) Deborah (Judg 5:1-31) Judith (Jdt 16:1-17) and Hannah (1 Sam 2:1-10).

The Magnificat is such a powerful protest song that several illegitimate regimes have banned its public use. And I’m not talking about the places you’d normally expect.

When a the famous missionary priest and linguist, Henry Martyn, arrived in India in April 1806 he found that it was forbidden to recite the Magnificat at Evensong in case the idea of ‘putting down the mighty from their seats’ was taken too literally. https://sayitstraight.co.uk/local-history/biographies/henry-martyn-1781-1812/

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

So what’s this all got to do with Advent? Advent is the time when we remember that we’re waiting for someone to come; someone who expects to see wrongs set right. And we people who are waiting – like Mary, like John the Baptist, like the prophets awaiting Jesus’ first coming – we are meant to be vocal, mindful that the one we’re waiting for expects us to be public poets singing hymns of justice – just like our expectant forbears did.

Mary reminds us today to sing very feisty protest songs;

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

And why should people of the Church concern ourselves with these things? Isn’t that the realm of politics? Listen to Mary again. The Lord has … scattered the proud in their conceit, casting down the mighty from their thrones and lifting up the lowly. God has filled the hungry with good things and sent the rich away empty. Mary is clearly saying politics is God’s business.

So let’s sing it out. To quote Arlo Guthrie, ‘If you want to end war and stuff you’ve got to sing loud.’               Amen.

The Call to a New life

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Rev’d Peter Balabanski

Advent 3 b – The Sunday of the Baptist – Ps 126, Jn 16-8, 19-28

When the Lord turned again the fortunes of Zion: then were we like those restored to life. Today’s Psalm began as the song of returned exiles. We joined their joyful song; celebrated their home-coming from a far-away country. They sang how proud they were that other nations saw how much God cared for them. But the Psalm suddenly became more worrying; the people are in the Promised Land, yet they ask God to restore them again. Turn again our fortunes, O Lord: as the streams return to the dry south. They pray for spiritual water to bless their drought-stricken lives,

What’s gone wrong? The joyful song celebrating freedom suddenly became a sad prayer to be restored from exile again; this time, from a different type of exile. This time, they’re caught in a spiritual drought. Is God still with them?

Streams of living water are a frequent theme in scripture. So it’s no accident that the last prophet sent to Israel in answer to this prayer is John the Baptiser. God called John to tackle the people’s spiritual exile – their spiritual dryness – and John chose to use water very imaginatively to get the job done; very particular water. We read in today’s gospel that John was baptising in Bethany on the other side of the Jordan. It’s a pointed reminder that this is the river the people of the Exodus crossed when they followed Joshua into the land of promise. This is the river the people crossed a second time when they finally returned from exile in Babylon.

John has gone down to that river – to the other side of that river – because if you’re coming back from being an exile – a slave – you have to cross that river. John went to the other side of that river and called people there with him to learn how God provides for returning exiles – for the lost. They had to leave the land yet again, and ask for the grace to return as people who are given a fresh start in life. John calls people caught in spiritual drought to come down to the other side of that river. He placed himself physically right where the people were spiritually. He called them to that place, to feel with their senses what had happened deep in their souls.

They were a people called to be a light to the nations. They were meant to be a people ready to greet the coming one. John came to turn them back to the light; to prepare them for the coming of Jesus. When John called the people of Judea and Jerusalem to baptism, it was complete renewal he was calling them to. The Psalmist asked for God to send the stream. John used it to drown the exile out of them; that’s the symbol he gave us in a baptism of repentance. When a person crossed the river with him, back into the Land, the one who arose from that river was a new person.

Lots of symbols. There’s the symbol of leaving their own land – their birthright – and there’s the symbol of the dead people of God becoming the living people of God again. And that’s on top of the two older memories of the Exodus and the Exile. John’s baptism was an enormously powerful symbolic action. Accepting his baptism meant owning ourselves to be enslaved to someone else – to something else – an exile, someone who has turned our back on God; somebody who needs to be made completely new, and acknowledging all that, turning back to God.

It’s a tremendous gift that John has given to the church. Even though you or I may be facing into deep shadow; even though we may be at absolute rock bottom; even though we may feel totally disconnected from God, John’s baptism shines a light in the darkness, and guides God’s people back from the deepest place on the face of the Earth to life again. John’s baptism is at once a call from God, and a gift from God which enables us to respond to that call; to accept it. The miracle is God’s.

Our collect prayer reminds us that we are called to share in this ministry with John. Eternal God, you sent John the Baptist to prepare the way for the coming of your Son: grant us wisdom to see your purpose, and openness to hear your will, that we too may prepare the way for Christ. It’s an awesome responsibility, and my prayer is that we, as a community, can engage with this calling like John did – with imagination, with forthrightness and clarity, for there are many in and out of the Church who sense a spiritual exile, but are yet to hear the call to new life. Amen.

Reach out to the hands that are stretching out to us.

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Rev’d Peter Balabanski

Advent B 2020 -Isa 40.1-11; Mk 1.1-8

A friend and I talked about some of the less obvious questions of Christian healing. We didn’t talk about healing of body or mind, but about repentance and being welcomed back by God. Advent has a lot in it about repentance and forgiveness. They’re the time-honoured way we’re restored to fellowship with our God, with the source of our being. So they’re our means of the deepest healing possible; they’re about being made whole again when we’ve been broken. Let’s think about this.

Today, we heard Isaiah proclaim a healing re-union with God to a broken, exiled people. They’re lost. Between them and their home is a vast desert they can never hope to cross in their own strength. But Isaiah proclaims that a highway is being built to rescue them, beginning in Jerusalem, and crossing the desert without a bend. It’s a construction of such vast scale that any mountain or valley in its path will be levelled to make way for it. The wilderness will no longer be a barrier to their home-coming; to being re-united with their God.

God will to cross the desert from distant Jerusalem, and gather them in gentle, strong arms. Their home-coming is assured. They need no longer despair over their exile; no longer is their life defined by where they can’t be. The mountains and chasms of their despair are dissolved when they turn to watch in hope for their rescuer. They only need to turn and see that God will come to bring them home.

This is the Gospel, isn’t it. People trapped by circumstances beyond their control, dominated by a powerful enemy, cut off from God, and suddenly, good news – Gospel – breaks into their despair. God is doing what we cannot – God is coming to gather us up and bring us safely home. Home is the place where we can be whole people again; healed people. How utterly different from being in exile! As slaves in exile, all you have of yourself is the leftovers that your captor leaves after they’ve seized what they want from you. You’re not a whole person; you’re just a leftover. ‘Be comforted,’ cries Isaiah. Good news! Look for wholeness!

So how does this happen? Mark’s Gospel begins by reminding us of what we heard in Isaiah (40.3) – a highway will roll across the wilderness, and God will travel it to come and rescue us.

Mark tells us these prophecies are fulfilled in John the Baptist; the promised messenger in the wilderness – and we’re only four verses into the Gospel! He tells the story of John calling people out to the wilderness to discover the wilderness inside them; how they are a lost people in need of wholeness; lost and lonely, and needing to be found. John calls them out to him; calls them to remember their ancestors’ exile, and like their ancestors, to repent – to turn and face God.

In baptism, John washes them in water to consecrate their bodies as fit dwellings for the Holy Spirit. And the one to come will wash them in that very Spirit; the Spirit of God – the very source of being. We will be whole in a way we couldn’t have imagined; restored in a way we have always needed, but may never have known we could be. Whatever keeps us from that wholeness – even a mountain of despair, or a chasm of fear – it will be levelled by the one who’s so determined to come to us that nothing will stand in the way. The coming one is Jesus, the Christ.

Like Isaiah’s divine shepherd who crossed the desert to rescue God’s people from exile, Jesus comes to accompany us through a wilderness. Each Advent we renew our commitment to this journey – our commitment to be ready to meet this one who has come, and is coming again, this Jesus. We renew our commitment to go with him wherever he leads. Part of that commitment includes a willingness for life in the desert – for learning what it can teach us, and seeing its lessons as being of God. You can find the desert in prayer, in being alone, or even in simply stopping for a time; choosing stillness. It can also come uninvited.

These desert times help us find that trusting in God is possible because in the desert, we see ourself for who we really are. We face our demons, and we learn where our trust really belongs.

We discover where our life has been heading. We own our part in responsibility for it. We’re ready to turn from a life filled with the clutter of things we once treasured. We’re ready to drop all that, and to reach out empty-handed to the hands that are stretching out to us. They stretch out across the mountains and canyons of the wilderness. We take those hands, and we know we’re welcomed home; forgiven; healed; free; suddenly light; miraculously … whole. It’s a different sort of healing from what we normally think about. But this is Advent.                                Amen

Christ the King Sunday

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Rev’d Dr. Elizabeth McWhae

Christ the King Sunday – Ezekiel 34:11-1, Psalm 100, Ephesians 1:15-23, Matthew 25:31-46

INTRODUCTION:

This Sunday is called Christ the King Sunday because it marks the last Sunday of

Pentecost. Put simply this means that we have come to the end of the Christian Year A. Next Sunday will be the beginning of Advent and the start of Year B. More importantly, though, this is a day of endings. That is why the Gospel reading for today focuses on the final judgment. In it Jesus determines who is acceptable and unacceptable in the kingdom of God

There is also another ending we can consider today. The ending of our feeling of relative safety and possible assumption that those of us living in SA are safe from the dreaded coronavirus. We are not. That insidious virus is still among us, as the last few days have shown. And so is the panic and anxiety that accompanies it. Which just goes to show that not far under the surface of our lives we harbour fear and uncertainty. In a way it is like a trauma, a community trauma.  So, where is God lurking in all this?

POINT 1:

I want to look at our Gospel reading from Matthew, because It has something to tell us about where God and Jesus are to be found. And that surely is where we want to be.

Firstly a bit of context about this section of Matthew’s Gospel. These verses form part of an eschatological discourse Jesus is having. Eschatology is a fancy word for the last things, or the end times. Prior to these verses Jesus has told 3 parables: the faithful and unfaithful servants (24:45-51), the 10 virgins (25:1-13) and the talents (25:14-30).The theme of these parables is watchfulness, being prepared and diligent with one’s talents, so that one is prepared for the final judgment. The verses we are considering today are that final judgment.

So what do we have? We start off with a grand vision of the Son of Man, who is Jesus, seated on his glorious throne. All the nations are gathered before him, so this is expansive and all inclusive. The sorting begins and as a shepherd sorts the sheep and goats, so Jesus sorts some into the sheep group and others into the goat group. It has the feel of a parable at this stage. Generally in the Old Testament the right hand of God is the good side to be on, so we have a hint that the sheep will be better off. The goats, however, are on the left hand of God, which is never a good place to be.

How does the king decide who is a sheep and who is a goat? Solely by the way that they have lived their lives. To the sheep he says, Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me. ​The sheep appear confused and ask when did we do these things. They seem to be taking things too literally .And the king answers Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.

As you know the goats get the opposite treatment. Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.

POINT 2:

What can we learn from this final judgment scene? Well, surprisingly we learn that being a church goer is not a prerequisite to being with the sheep. And even being a person of faith is not a prerequisite. What​ counts is the orientation of a person’s life towards others. Is it open to helping those less fortunate and most vulnerable or not? If your focus is one preserving yourself and overlooking the needs of others, you are a goat. If you are concerned for the vulnerable and weak you are a sheep.

Does this answer the age old question about those who belong to other faiths or who don’t know Christ but live an exemplary life? Go figure.

For me, the biggest question that these verses raise is why is Jesus biased to the poor. And by the poor I mean those in most need; the hungry, the thirsty, the stranger, the naked, the sick, those in prison. And the answer that always comes to me is that these are the people who are the most traumatised. This is not to downplay the fact that we all have big and little traumas in our lives. But some are worse than others.

The difference between the sheep and the goats in this Gospel reading is that the sheep were not afraid to engage in the trauma of other people’s lives, whereas the goats were concerned with their lives and wanted to avoid the trauma of others. Ironically though the goats avoidance of trauma only lands them in more trauma.

POINT 3:

I believe Matthew is trying to make a point here about the way Jesus looked at life. It is a theological point. And it is about trauma. Jesus is saying in this final judgment that traumatic events happen to us all. Trauma is a part of life. Trauma was the defining event of Jesus’ earthly life. How else could you describe the process of his passion and crucifixion. Trauma led to his death. But trauma did not have the last word. Life, love and resurrection did.

We are made in the image of God and so if Jesus knew trauma, we most certainly will too. This is why the cross of Jesus is so compelling. Because we can relate to his trauma from the experience of trauma in our own lives. This is what compassion and empathy are all about. Feeling the pain of others and trying to help. The big and small traumas of our lives push us towards a God who in Jesus says to us engage with these traumas and they will reveal God to you in new and unexpected ways. This is why Jesus said when you attend to the most vulnerable ie. the hungry, thirsty, stranger, sick, prisoner, you are in fact attending to me. This form of spirituality is well understood in Catholic Christianity, but not so much in evangelical and

Protestant Christianity, where the focus is more on right belief than right action.

CONCLUSION:

This final judgment scene from Matthew”s Gospel illustrates that Jesus Is primarily concerned with our outlook towards others. Are we people who are concerned for the well-being of others or are we always thinking of ourselves first? This is what determines if one is grouped amongst the sheep or the goats.

Of course, this is hardly a surprising outcome. Even in the Old Testament, the first commandment was to love God and then to love your neighbour as yourself. So those who attended to the hungry, thirsty, stranger, naked, sick or imprisoned were those who loved God and their neighbour.Those who didin”t attend to the hungry, thirsty, stranger, naked, sick, or imprisoned didn’t love God or their neighbour.

After the week that we have all had, of not knowing what is going to happen next, it is good to know that Jesus’ judgment of us is based upon our love for and of each other. I must say that I have been impressed as a community how we responded to the very abrupt shutdown that was forced upon us. And now that restrictions are easing again let us rejoice that this communal trauma will serve as a reminder to us again that we are called to be sheep that love and not goats who always think of themselves first.

When was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you? I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me. So​ this is where God and Jesus are lurking in our lives and longing to reveal themselves. We need look no further than our everyday encounters with those in need.

Remembrance Sunday: Finding Home

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Bishop Greg Thompson

Remembrance Sunday: Finding Home  – John 15

Recognise me as Herbie’s grandpa – thank you to Fr Peter for inviting me to preach on this service of remembrance.

We reflect today on the impact of war and peacemaking in Australia’s experience and hold in prayer those who still carry the physical, mental and spiritual wounds of conflict in the defence of our nation and in the service of those who needed defending. The enormous loss of Australian 62,000 lives in WW1, the 160,000 injured and the extraordinary grief and loss across our communities led to communities and churches building memorials and creating public and private rituals to help with the grief and trauma. Historian Jay Winter wrote “it is not an exaggeration to suggest that every family was in mourning: most for a relative – a father, a son, a brother, a husband – others for a friend, a colleague, a lover, a companion.” Jay Winter Sites of Memory, Sites of Mourning: the Great War in European cultural history 1995. Compounding with the arrival of the Spanish Flu 1919, the nation was traumatised and had to find a way to grieve and recover by remembering the fallen and those who sacrificed their lives. – ‘Lest we forget’.

In Newcastle Cathedral where I served as bishop there is a golden book with all the names of the those who died in the first world war from the region. Not unlike the books found in most churches throughout Australia.  Uniquely the golden book of Newcastle Cathedral had its beautiful gold cover made from the melted down wedding and engagement rings of the women who lost partners. The gold chosen to underscore how precious the people within it and how profound the sorrow that was endured by those who read them.

Trauma leaves its mark in the memory of people and in the landscape. This is the human experience of nations and individuals. It is in the experience of conflict and of great loss as people come to terms with a disorientation of what they knew as home and safe harbour and face internal and external threats.

Remembrance Day and Anzac Day alongside other public days of remembering well are significant days of trying to make sense of trauma and allow the community to support the traumatised. Therapist and writer Bessell van der Kolk in his book ‘the Body keeps the score: Mind, brain and body in the transformation of trauma’ 2014; “After trauma the world becomes sharply divided between those who know and those who don’t. People who have not shared the traumatic experience cannot be trusted, because they cannot understand it.”

Such trauma is not only carried by survivors of war, but within communities where there has been radical loss to a way of life and to individuals who have had their safety taken from them. Susan Brison a survivor of rape and attempted murder writes ; “it is only by remembering and narrating the past – telling our stories and listening to others – that we can participate in an ongoing, active construction of a narrative of liberation, not one that confines us to a limiting past, but one that forms a background from which a freely imagined – and desired future can emerge.” Aftermath: Violence and the remaking of Self 2002.

Is this not what we are doing in the reading of ancient scriptures, the rituals of eucharist and prayer? Retelling our stories of faith and failure, to remember well who we are and where our home is? And so to make space for healing and grace for our wounds.

As we mark Naidoc week with the theme ‘always was, always will be’  we can support and stand with first peoples the acknowledgement of the trauma upon their culture and peoples and stand with them as they remember their history and relationship to this land we call Australia. As they retell their pain and loss this is not a threat to our history or identity but an invitation to have understanding and be in companionship as they re imagine a better future. This will make us a nation that attends to its wounds and finds a way to celebrate the past without denying its shadows. To truly make it our home for all who were born here and who have come to our shores.

Kerry and I have lived and ministered in the NT over 4 decades – as a youth worker, later priest, army padre, and then as bishop. We had the privilege of working with Indigenous people. Over 40 years ago I met with a traditional indigenous owner of Kakadu – Old Bill. Some of you would know of Ubirr rock in Kakadu national park. It is a very large monolith rising above the flood plains where many tourists visit for the view and the extraordinary Aboriginal rock gallery of art for over 40,000 years.

This is the place in the wet season that is above the floodwaters where traditional people gather to tell stories, conduct ritual and thrive around fires above the floods. As water rises on the flood plains indigenous people locate to higher ground – and so do the animals. The paintings are of the animals and ancestors. This is a place of dreaming. And the generations of paintings tell of the hopes and hazards, the law and the community that is in the hearts of people. Old Bill took me to this place and showed me some of the paintings sharing a little of the significance of ancient visions that sustained a people. One set of paintings was particularly important to him. There was a large ochre coloured outline of a hand, and a little child’s hand alongside it. He said this was his father’s hand and his own small child hand alongside it. I was moved by the tenderness and the history of that dreaming place.

And I wondered where my dreaming place was is in this ancient landscape. For I am a sojourner, traveling and living in many places among many people, whose ancestors came from distant lands sometimes without a choice and as someone who has been traumatised through my early years and has had to attend to the trauma of child abuse in the church.

In John’s gospel Jesus uses this word “to make a home” or abide with the history and hope of God’s abiding presence in the land and temple in mind. God’s abiding presence in the home of the temple is now located in Christ and that presence is being made real to his disciples. In John chapter 1 opening words – God pitched his tent among us, in the Word made flesh.

In John 15, Jesus teaches that our home it is not so much our efforts to find or make a home or temple, but home is what God does in our hearts. John 15:9 “As the Father loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love.” God is our heavenly homemaker who sets up camp in us.

For those who carry trauma hear Jesus’ words “Abide in my love.” (John 15:9). Finding ‘Sanctuary’  a place of rest and safety is a huge task for the traumatized. Church communities can embody sanctuary through church buildings and grounds, as places of prayer, oasis and renewal where people do not have to be on guard. However Jesus calls to us, to have a ‘sanctuary’ at the heart of our work and relationships. To nurture a spirituality with the help of a community to be nourished, so that our story may be heard and that we may belong.

In 1972, the Times magazine called Dr Robert Coles ‘the most influential living psychiatrist in the US’ His literary work ‘Children of Crisis’ series received a Pulitzer prize in 1973.

Coles began to distrust the trad psychiatric method, of an expert sitting at a desk listening to a patient and then choosing an appropriate treatment. He needed to cross the bridge between observer and observed. – ‘ to bring alive the innerness of those lives’. He did this by going among the most marginalised people in the US – the migrant, black and poor communities, and listening to their stories. He became the student and they the teacher. (P95-96 Yancey); In the 1960’s Ruby Bridges 6 yr old African American crossed the gauntlet of protest lines every day to attend school moving through white faces that shouted abuse and threatened her. Coles watched and studied this girl from the view point of how do children live with great stress. It took some time for him to earn the trust of her family as no white person had entered her house before. He thought he’d come to treat a disadvantaged person but the roles were reversed. Ruby became his teacher. 6 yr old Ruby prayed as she embarked on her school day, for herself, that she would be strong and unafraid, and for her enemies, that God would forgive them. ‘Jesus prayed on the cross’ she told Coles, ‘Forgive them, because they don’t know what they’re doing’.

….. I have known human beings who, in the face of unbearable daily stress, respond with resilience, even nobility. And I have known others who live in a comfortable, even luxurious environment and yet seem utterly lost. We have both sides in all of us, and that’s what the bible says, isn’t it? The bible shows us both hope and doom, the possibility and the betrayal. In its stories, sometimes the favourite becomes fatally tempted and sometimes the lowly and obscure one becomes an agent of hope if not salvation. I believe those stories are part of each of us.’ P112 P Yancey.

Jesus said; ‘And I appointed you to go and bear fruit.” (Jhn 15:16) ‘Sanctuary’ is always in relationship with ‘Pilgrimage’ in the spiritual life. We will be renewed only as we trust in God and choose to be open to the wonder of God’s love along the way. This means that the sanctuary does not need to be a fortress against the world, frightened of change but open to the call of Christ to follow him. Such an awareness leads us to times of refreshment we thought weren’t possible if we had stayed in the shelter of sanctuary only and not at the edges of life, bearing the fruit of love and faith. Such a ‘Pilgrimage’ is not a kind of tourism, passing through the world as if we are only observers – for we are children of God who are called to bear fruit as we companion the burden bearers of our time.

On this Remembrance Day as we companion the burden bearers of war and remember their loss. May we allow Christ to make his home in us so that we may become a sanctuary for the burdened and companion them in their restoration.

 

 

Life Eternal: Watch and Be Ready

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Rev’d Susan F. Straub

Introduction

The readings from Joshua and I Thessalonians today, hold God’s promise of life:  plenty of life, inexhaustible life, eternal life.  Abram was an old man, as good as dead, and God called him and promised to make through him a great nation.  Jesus died and God raised him and made through him a great people of faith. Is that the end? I don’t think so, life isn’t static is it, it flows on. Same with God’s promises.

What do we need to have in order for God to continue to fulfill this promise?  The lamp of Faith and the good oil so that the light which signals that God’s love is here, right where we happen to be, doesn’t go out in times of darkness.  Faith is simply believing in God, the work of Jesus on the cross, and his promise of eternal life. To make it personal, this means ME! That’s grasping the vision. As we step out to begin the life, we use the good oil of whatever goods we have, and crucially, keep walking and giving to the end of our days.

With new cases of CoVID-19 being found only among those arriving from overseas, it’s no wonder health and government officials are warning us of complacency.  It’s so easy to let our guard down when we’re thinking:  Well, it hasn’t happened yet, could be a while; or even, it might never happen!

Matthew 25:1-13 – The wise prepared and the foolish unprepared

The passage from the gospel according to Matthew this morning is about being prepared:  prepared for Christ’s coming to us, the end of our time on this earth, and our celebration with Christ. It’s about keeping in mind the vision so that the mission is fulfilled through wise stewardship: able to meet those things which are not necessarily hoped for, but which are possible.  Just as Matthew was writing for his church, who hoped for and expected Christ’s imminent return.

Verse 3, at the beginning of Chapter 24,  we read:  ‘When he (Jesus) was sitting on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately, saying, “Tell us, when will this be and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?’

In Matthew’s gospel, Jesus didn’t give them a date: nothing so certain. He did give a list of disasters: wars, conflict, famines and earthquakes. Unfortunately, disasters happen in every age.  At no time in history perhaps are we more aware of disasters around the globe. Our own age is one of almost instant transmission of information. Jesus also warned his disciples of disasters in their relationships with others: hatred, betrayal, being led astray by those whose word they trusted. Again, unfortunately, things that happen at some time in the lives of all of us to varying degrees.

It’s important for us to understand that Jesus was speaking of these things not to the crowds, not to the Pharisees, but to his disciples, those close to him. One who learns a way of being and relating to the world from Jesus, is not guaranteed personal peace, prosperity, health or life being fair: the traditional blessings of the righteous. Again, Jesus turns things around. Rather than good deeds and a righteous life bringing blessings to the individual, being a disciple of Christ is do the work of bringing blessings to those who don’t have them:  his peace to those who don’t have it; prosperity to those who don’t have it; health to those who don’t have it; justice to those who don’t have it. Living the life of Christ, is to live the life of the Spirit: working to bring God’s promise of life to fulfillment. It is to live the life of giving life, and meaning in life, to others. It is to be wise in our stewardship of our resources.

The oil that keeps the lamps burning to light the way for Christ to come, is not only the spiritual oil of faith and vision, and other spiritual gifts, but also the material ‘good oil’. For many the light that allows them to see Christ – precedes his coming into their lives – is thrown by the oil of goods: of buildings and land such as cathedrals, churches, rectories, gardens; of great works of art and literature; newsletters and computers;  bread, cakes, wine and money.  All these are provision for our purpose: lighting the way of Christ.

Those who seek to bring Christ’s peace, prosperity, health, and justice get in the face (or up the nose) of those who have something to gain from their own way of thinking, and living. And sometimes we meet resounding indifference. At some time, too, we might be in need of peace, prosperity, health, and justice.  Disciples of Christ understand that we, as humanity, all share this common life.  Our Lord is God who came among us and shared the life we have in common (disasters unprecedented? Or ‘…there is nothing new under the sun’ ?).

Be that as it may, it’s important for us to recall that Jesus then went on to teach his disciples that whatever the circumstances, they must be constantly prepared to receive him, and to do what was necessary for him when he came. They were to give an account of themselves; not only ready but ABLE; not only with the lamp of faith, but with the ‘good oil’, the provision, to light the way of Christ as he came again. Those in the darkness of despair and hopelessness, may see, find faith in their lives, and stay for the celebration.

Whether he came earlier or later than the disciples expected, once he came, it would be too late to make up deficiencies:  “When was it that we saw you hungry, or thirsty, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not take care of you?”.  Such deficiencies Jesus told his disciples would exclude them from the celebration:  will exclude us.

The parable tells us that those who think it unnecessary to make provision for a lengthy period of waiting for Christ’s return to judge the living and the dead are foolish. They are rightly excluded from the joy of the feast.

Henri Nouwen wrote:  ‘celebrating means the affirmation of the present, which becomes fully possible only by remembering the past and expecting more to come in the future.   But celebrating in this sense very seldom takes place.  More often than not the present is denied, the past becomes a source of complaints, and the future is looked upon as a reason for despair or apathy. Nothing is as difficult as really accepting one’s own life.’ (Creative Ministry, p. 100).

This is not only true of individuals, but even of the church itself. So, as disciples of Christ, we are to see the future as a land of opportunity for the fulfillment of God’s promise of, not just existence, but never-ending life: eternal life – and joy in it!

All Souls – Passing from death to life

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Rev’d Peter Balabanski

All Souls 2020 – Job 14.1-15, Ps 90, Jn 5.19-29

You remember the light of the Christ candle at last Sunday’s baptism? It says that the resurrection of Jesus long ago is something we trust in so much that we pass its light on to our children. We look back through the lives of all our dead to the resurrection of Jesus, and that event transforms the meaning of those deaths from futility into hope. The baptismal candle says that resurrection is everyone’s gift.

Because of the resurrection of Jesus too, we can also turn to look into the future and see our own deaths not as capricious ends, but with the hope that they are a part of the way to a joy which cannot be snatched away. Hope; belief. Are they enough? We want certainty, but we’ll never be absolutely sure. And that’s not a bad thing.

We’re often tempted to assert something definite where we want to defy the sadness of loss; where we want to fight with God over the rights and wrongs of someone’s death. But in the end, our faith doesn’t deal in those certainties – doesn’t centre on a God who can be manipulated into indulging us. And that’s good; frustrating, but as it should be.

Job and the Psalmist speak realistically of the difficulties of being mortal. They’re clear about death being a part of life. They don’t pull any punches. They engage with God in very strong language, and ask the same ‘why’ questions that we ask. They know God has something to do with this.

What does our heritage offer us here? After worship in many churches, people will pray that the souls of the faithful departed may rest in peace and rise in glory. There are plaques here and in churches around the world asking that we ‘Pray for the Soul of … . Do we really expect things to change for the dead? Is that what all those plaques are calling for?

One way to think about it is to say that God, free from time’s constraints, is able to be present to us, and at the same time, present to those Souls we are praying for.

I suppose that could mean that just as we pray for the souls of the faithful departed, in God’s present, right now, our distant descendants might be praying for our souls. And while for them, we might be a plaque on a wall or in a churchyard somewhere, what they are praying in that distant future might, by God’s grace, have some influence over the way we choose to live now. I wonder.

Jesus, in today’s gospel, takes us deeper into this realm of fluid time, grace and choice, and so into the significance of such prayer. 24 Very truly, I tell you, anyone who hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life, and does not come under judgement, but has passed from death to life. 25 ‘Very truly, I tell you, the hour is coming, and is now here, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live.

Present, past and future all dissolve into grace without time. Death dissolves into a greater reality of life which is an answer to a call – a call from we know not when – but a call which we might dare to ask might be uttered.

For our loved ones, for us, no certainty – but there’s hope. For our loved ones, for us, no manipulating a system, but there’s prayer.

Hope and prayer are not bad options in a real world.

So let’s hope, and let’s pray.         Amen