Rev’d Peter Balabanski

Season of Creation 4A River Sunday – Rev 22 1-5, Mt 28 1-10

…the angel showed me the river of the water of life

Whenever I’m out walking with anyone and our path crosses a river, there’s something important we have to do. As we get to the bridge, we each have to find a small wooden stick. Then we go to the upstream side of the bridge, above the middle of the current, lean out as far as we can, and let our sticks drop. Then, for a slow river, we amble across to the downstream side, or for a fast one, we rush over to watch for our sticks to appear again.

Sometimes we treat it all superficially, as if it’s just a race; whose stick’s going to appear first? But deeper down, we share a hope. We hope the sticks we dropped at the upstream side will actually appear at the downstream side; that the unseen bit of the river will flow freely; that there aren’t any hidden snags. Sometimes it can take ages. All sorts of obstacles or eddies you can’t see might be lurking under that bridge. But we wait together in hope. Pooh-Sticks trains us in hope.

Another thing Pooh-Sticks teaches us – and yes, that is the official name of this spiritual exercise in the English-speaking world – another lesson of Pooh-Sticks is that upstream, our relationship with the river is quite different from what it is when we’re downstream. It’s as though we become different people. Upstream, once we’ve dropped our stick, our part of the job is over. We must trust the river to do the rest. All the fun and none of the responsibility – as grandparents sometimes say.

But for downstreamers, there are deeper questions of commitment. When our sticks do come into view, will we still be like the people we were upstream? As the stick appears, do we just smile, and then relieved, turn and walk on our way? Or do we stay to watch them out of sight? If we just turn and walk away, we haven’t grown; we’re still upstream people. But staying to watch – or even better, taking to the river bank and tracking alongside our sticks – we commit ourselves to the down-stream adventure the river calls from us; we commit to a relationship with the river.

We South Australians know well what it means to be downstream people. We’re conscious of our vulnerability. But perhaps we’re not always conscious of the miraculous, intricate web of life that’s also sustained by our river system, which in its turn looks after the health of the rivers themselves. This land is like a living body and the rivers are like its bloodstream. I read recently how the 30,000 Murray Darling Basin (MDB) wetlands don’t just sustain the land’s unique plant and wildlife. They’re like the rivers’ kidneys. They absorb nutrients, filter out pollutants and regulate flow so that they manage the rivers’ ‘flood-pressure’.

We know this is all in grave danger – particularly if the MDB plan is completely mutilated by the politics of greed. Over 80% of the waterbirds we had in 1987 have disappeared. And that seemingly limitless supply of red-gum firewood trucked in from NSW each winter; it’s a frightening local image of the holocaust in the MDB.

So while we hope and trust that those upstream will give us some thought, we must also remember the web of life which the rivers are less and less able to sustain. Are we and the upstreamers willing to be stewards of all this, or are we just another of the introduced pests; self-appointed top predators in a food-chain which we allow to serve only our own interests? What we throw in or take out of the river is a matter of life and death for a vast area of this land and all its ecosystems. Will our legacy be that of life-restoring custodians of the rivers, or the ones who finally killed them?

In Rev 22.1, we heard these words; the angel showed me the river of the water of life. These words echo the story we read three weeks ago in Gen 2 about a stream rising from the Earth – a river flowing out from Eden to water the garden. At the centre of that garden grew the tree of life. The river flowed out and branched into four rivers which brought life to the known Earth. But then we read how the humans behaved like up-stream people. We did what we felt like doing, and the world downstream was cursed to weather the consequences of our selfishness.

Today, hearing the final chapter of the book of Revelation, by the Grace of God, we’re given a call to recommit to being downstream people. And the stream is again the River of the Water of Life. This time, it flows towards us from the Throne of God, past the tree of life, again offering year-round fruit, and now also providing desperately-needed healing to the nations. It’s a clear message for us!

Both the people who wrote the early chapters of Genesis, and John of Patmos who gave us the book of Revelation, were writing at a time of community crisis. Each of their communities was crushed by a powerful, upstream empire; Babylon and Rome respectively. Each community was looking for God to help them with the terrible suffering they were enduring. Their misery was caused by the same thing; the selfish abuse of power by a ruling elite; people of the great cities who sucked up all the goods, and ultimately even the lives of the people of the lands they colonised.

The first river flowed out of Eden to water the garden. People were placed in this garden which was able to provide for everyone’s needs. Yet some wanted more, and they took it, bringing a curse on the ground, our Mother. Human development has been a curse on the land ever since. And yet in Revelation, at the end, God is offering the River of the Water of Life again. This time, very surprisingly, it’s coming from a city to bring healing to the lands; to a renewed Earth, not a new one.

The river at the beginning of our Scriptures and the river at their end both bring life. They are one and the same river. They’re a beautiful image of God coming to us both from our past and from our future along the stream of eternal life. One of the most amazing things about God’s relationship with us is that God approaches us in all time. God comes from our past as we saw in Genesis, and in today’s vision from Revelation, we also see God coming to us from our future. And all the while, God is with us here and now. Do we choose to be upstreamers, entitled and detached, or downstreamers, Earth’s grateful servants and committed protectors?   Amen

Rev’d Peter Balabanski

Season of Creation 3A Outback–Wilderness Sunday-Joel 1 8-10, 17-20 Ps 18 6-19 Rom 8 18-27 Mt 3 13–4 2

In my last parish, we did something the Archbishop’s requiring all parishes to do again now; we worked together to develop a Mission Action Plan – a MAP. This parish well knows that a mission’s something you’re sent to accomplish. Anyway, we prayed, thought and discussed what God might want us to do. Eventually, it became clear that God’s mission for us was to work alongside Aboriginal people. We did this in several ways over following years. One of the upshots of that mission is that Vicky, the girls and I have been adopted into a central desert family in Papunya NT, and one of their daughters in particular is now also our daughter.

When Shekayla came to do her schooling here, Adelaide was quite bewildering for her. We confronted her with a strange wilderness filled with rules and regulations about time, money, strange manners and customs, and endless bureaucracy. Her home languages don’t need words for time or number, let alone words to translate our crazy form-filling language; Centrelink, Medicare, bank account applications, and forms for work-experience and school excursions. We’re raised in this jungle of expectations and rules. It was all a painful, steep learning curve for Shekayla.

The shoe was on the other foot when we went to visit Papunya with a bunch of young people. Shekayla wanted to show us a rock-hole where Papunya’s kids like to swim. We drove out towards the nearby ranges, then the track gave out. So we climbed out onto a very stony, slippery landscape. We had sturdy shoes on, which was good; the stones on the ground slipped and moved under us, and they were ferociously hot from the sun. But Shekayla and her cousin Tobias didn’t bother with shoes. They skipped off ahead of us, absolutely at home in this pathless wilderness, laughing and calling out to each other in the beautiful, bubbly language the Land had given her people over tens of thousands of years. It was a precious vision. We saw children who were fully themselves and completely at one with their ancestral lands; kids we love and care for, but whom we really hardly knew.

The Land and its people in harmony; it’s a belonging we’re trying to recover during this Season of Creation. Genesis portrays our common origin with all life – Earth as Mother of all living – and also our tragic loss of that belonging. Today St Paul takes the image of Earth our Mother to a new level in Romans 8. Creation is groaning in labour pains, and we’re there in the birthing centre with her; yet at the same time, we’re in the birth canal – we are to be part of the anticipated, renewed Creation.

Paul reminded us today of the curse which God declared would befall Earth as a consequence of human recklessness. We’d already heard this over the past two weeks in Genesis. Paul goes on to name that curse as creation’s bondage to decay. We resonate with the truth of his words as we did with Genesis.

Because we’re seeing this curse in action right now, and at a catastrophic level. If we hadn’t been plundering the wilderness and making its wild creatures our food, this pandemic and several other of our recent plagues may never have happened.

So we groan with Earth as she endures this abuse. Yet as we’ve just noticed, Paul hears these groans as something more than the sounds of undeserved agony. When he says they’re the cries of Creation in labour, he injects a wonderful hope into the pain. The story’s not headed for inevitable tragedy; God doesn’t want it to be like that. New life is summoned from death; new life is revealed as old life reborn to goodness and health. Somehow, as we see in today’s Gospel, that’s connected with a willingness to endure the isolation and fear of wilderness; a wilderness of unknowing fear, and fearful hope, of hunger and isolation.

It was a good start for us to enter the risky wilderness out beyond Papunya. And it’ll probably be better if, next time we’re there, we go out one at a time; alone. Being alone with Creation, we discover connections with our deepest selves – and with our Maker. We might even learn to hear the groanings Paul describes: Creation groaning in labour pains; our own groaning as we wait to be born into the fulness of a redeemed, renewed Creation; and the groaning of the Holy Spirit, helping us in our weakness; interceding for us with sighs too deep for words.

Celia Kemp writes, When I first left the big cities for Australia’s north someone said ‘that’s great, you can stay for a year and it will look excellent on your CV’. [The implication was that] successful folk can’t spend too long out of the main game. Anywhere else is to be travelled through briefly to mine for experiences that can be used to benefit us back in the real world. ‘A packaged tour of the absolute’, to steal Annie Dillard’s term. … However if we duck the tour bus mentality and spend long enough in the desert the seemingly unchanging surroundings force a massive change in us. We let go of the illusion that we are somehow more special than others.

Surprisingly, one day, we are even glad to be rid of it. For we are free like we have never been before. Celia Kemp: Into the desert. Day 40
So much about our settled, city lives cuts us off from this. And the support systems we require to keep our ever-more-demanding cities alive are the engine room of the destruction we are wreaking on our world.

Plunge into the [wilderness] beyond your own comprehension … Bewilderment is the true comprehension. Not to know where you are going is the true knowledge. … That’s the way of the cross. You can’t find it yourself, so you must let [God] lead you as though you were a blind person. It’s not you, no person, no living creature, but God, who instructs you by word and Spirit in the way you should go. Martin Luther quoted in Bonhoeffer Nachfolge 83 Which way do you hear God calling us? Which wilderness?

Rev’d Peter Balabanski

Land Sunday – Gen 3 14-19 & 4 8-16, Ps 139 7-12, Rom 5 12-17, Mt 12 38-40

My Mum has very, very green thumbs. When we were small, she transformed our garden from a sandy waste into a lush jungle. And she didn’t stop at our garden. When neighbours moved out anywhere up or down our street, before the next people arrived, she and a friend would duck in and plant things in those gardens too. So as I grew up, I watched our street slowly turn green. Mum’s every spare moment was spent in the garden, shadowed by a Labrador, several bantams waiting for her to lift the next pot and reveal the slaters beneath, and Andrew, our bluetongue lizard, ready for Mum to hand over each juicy snail she found.

Once Mum fell seriously ill – a very bad reaction to a cholera shot. Nothing seemed to help, and it wasn’t certain she’d survive. After days of anxiety, she whispered to Dad that if she could only get her hands back in the soil; she was sure it’d help her get better. Moments later, Dad was back with a bucketful of dirt. Her hands went straight into it, and almost immediately her recovery began. Soil bacteria have amazing healing properties – even for depressive illness.1. We come from the soil, we living things. Soil and us, we have a symbiotic relationship.

Today, Land Sunday, we focus on that connection; particularly how we’re looking after our relationship with the ground; looking after the health of the soils we depend on. Today’s two episodes from the early chapters of Genesis address our relationship with the land. They’re not very pleasant reading. We came in at the moment where Adam and Eve were banished from the garden because they’d betrayed God’s trust. Then we moved on to the story of a cold-blooded murder; Cain killed his brother Abel. These are early episodes in a series of catastrophes described in Gen 3–11 which Christian tradition knows as ‘the fall’; terrible choices which lock humanity out of paradise and alienate us from each other and from God.

We normally focus on the way ‘the fall’ alienated humanity from God. But today is Land Sunday, so we’re also reminded to look at the impact of ‘the fall’ both on Earth herself, and on our relationship with the soil. Significant when you think, only last week, we named soil our Mother; Earth, the Mother of all living things.
In the first episode we heard today – the expulsion from paradise – something odd happened. As well as suffering the consequences of our folly – one of which was the curse of patriarchy – God declared that the ground was cursed because of what we’d done. It’s like that story of The Portrait of Dorian Grey. The effects of the shocking things a man did were only visible in his portrait – something outside him, which he hid from others. That’s very like what we see in today’s world. Here in Australia, where land is still being clear-felled, the soil soon degrades or disappears in dust storms. It’s lost its living protection from erosion. But the perpetrators are nowhere in sight; we’re off stage left doing the same thing somewhere else. It’s clearly happening, but today yet another government is gutting the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act. But more on that another day.

The second episode we read in Genesis today saw Cain murder his brother Abel. Cain is earlier identified as a tiller of the land; a settled farmer growing crops. Abel is a keeper of sheep; a nomadic shepherd. I can’t think of a time or a country where these two ways of life have not been in conflict, and nomads / subsistence farmers are always the losers. Right now in the Amazon, the Arctic, Mongolia, Indonesia the Philippines, and PNG, they’re still being evicted and murdered by people who replace their way of life with the settled agriculture our insatiable cities demand.

The American biblical scholar, Ched Myers, believes these stories in Genesis preserve the perspective of ancient indigenous peoples towards the ‘curse’ of aggressive, colonising civilisations.2. Today’s chapters were probably written by exiled Israelites trying to tell the story and the lesson of their abuse – in code, of course – first the extortion they endured from their own kings, and now from Babylon who had carried them off into slavery. These chapters describe the early days in ‘the longest war in history, in which relentlessly expanding civilizations conquer and exploit the Earth and all who live symbiotically with her. It continues to our day.’ Myers p. 90. And of course, it’s happening here too; the insatiable demands of our so-called civilization continue systematically to ruin traditional ways of life.

So what’s a faithful response? Our collect prayer reminded me of a poem by W.H. Auden; ‘In memory of W.B. Yeats’. Auden wrote, Earth receive an honoured guest, William Yeats is laid to rest. Our prayer of the day says something like that about us. We are sojourners passing through Creation. May we be gracious guests and mindful stewards … of your good world.

I confess I haven’t lived my waking life thinking ‘I’m a guest on Earth’; but I am. And when I do stop to think about it, it means that ideas I take for granted – like property ownership or citizenship – these ideas suddenly lose their solidity. They’re not real things; just agreed figments of our communal imagination. No I’m a guest; a steward; not an owner. Guests and stewards have obligations. And as we were reminded last week our first vocation is as servants and protectors of what is God’s.

I believe the faithful response that today’s scriptures call from us is a change of perspective. A change of perspective can change things dramatically. The land provides us guests and stewards with our life. Our deluded notions of ownership and entitlement underpin the destructiveness of our ‘advanced civilisation’. They’re an affront to the hospitality of Earth, and to God who made us to be her servants and protectors. Let’s turn from the curses; enmity, pain, endless toil and patriarchy.

This week, let’s focus our prayers on a simple change in perspective; I’m a guest, a steward; not an owner. Let’s remember the stories which tell how God is always calling us back from the dangers of jealousy and arrogance. Let’s go home today, stick our fingers in some soil, and remember that it’s God’s gift of life. Amen.

1 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306452207001510
2 In N.C. Habel, D. Rhoads, & H.P. Santmire (Eds.), The Season of Creation: A Preaching Commentary p.88

Rev’d Peter Balabanski

Forest Sunday – Gen 2 4b-22, Ps 139 13-16, Acts 17 22-28, John 3 1-16

Early on in my time as a Buddhist-leaning uni student, the local campus evangelist was on my case. He talked me into a few days away at a Christian retreat in the hills east of Melbourne. That was a tricky time for me; I was the only one there who wasn’t a Christian. To be polite, I tried to be as open-minded as possible. So at one point, I even headed off by myself into the nearby forest to give God an afternoon to let me know if there really was anyone there.

If I expected a divine voice, I was disappointed. God doesn’t cave in to that sort of pressure. But I’ve never forgotten the impact of being alone in that forest. A mountain ash forest is very good at making you feel small, yet exultant. The great trees soar up ramrod straight for 60 or 70 metres or more. Sitting alone with your back against one of these forest giants for a few hours is a rare experience for a child of the city. I was a visitor that the forest didn’t seem to notice. I was concentrating on the possibility of any word I might hear from God. So I missed what was really going on. But the smells of that day, the sounds, the living damp and the sense of being alive and insignificant have never left me.

Why go looking for God in a forest? परिव्रजका वनम गच्छत्ति The mendicant goes to the forest. Something deep inside me said it was a good place to look. Our reading from Genesis backs that up. In v. 7, God makes the first human ^(adam) from the dust of the ground. ^(adamah) And we read in vv. 9 and 19 that from this very same soil, God causes all the trees, every animal of the field, and every bird of the air to emerge. All of us – God forms us all from the Earth. So I was there with my ancient family that day. We’re connected with all life by the very nature we share with each other; we are all beings born from Earth. So in a forest, we’re with our family – with those fellow Earth creatures who connect us to our deep beginnings.

And there’s more. In this story, there’s a special element named in our kinship with the natural order. In v. 15, the first vocation we are given is to serve as protectors of the garden – the biosphere. This is before any command about law or loving God or neighbour. So we aren’t just connected to the plant and animal kingdoms by our shared provenance from Earth; we humans are connected to forests by our vocation.

In Hebrew, God declares that the human being is put in the garden to serve עָבַד and protect שָׁמַר it. Yet in fifty-one of fifty-two English translations, instead of the word serve, the translators choose to write that God put the first human into the garden ‘to till it (variants are tend, dress, cultivate, work, farm, or take care of it). And instead of protect, forty-nine of those fifty-two translations say we are to keep the garden’ (variants are care for, look after, maintain or watch over).

Only one of the fifty-two English translations says serve; and only three of them say guard. ^{And French, German, Spanish and Italian translations are the same.} Till and keep. Can you see how our translations subtly put us in charge of the garden – suggest that our work somehow earns us a right to it, as if the garden is there for us? The Hebrew is an important corrective. We’re here to serve the garden and protect it for God. It’s not ours; the garden is God’s gift to all life. Our work doesn’t earn us the right to take it over just for ourselves. The trees are there for much more than their value or utility to just us humans. Look at v. 9; Out of the ground the Lord God made to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The beauty of trees is their first quality, then their gift of food. There’s nothing there about value or utility to humans alone. Precious in themselves, trees proclaim God’s beauty and kindness.

Serve and protect the natural order; it’s our first vocation. Yet we’re doing the exact opposite. The effect on Earth of humanity’s blind greed for ever-increasing wealth, control and power is horrifying. The effect on the Earth community of our sin of arrogance – our selfish abuse of our fellow creatures and even poor and vulnerable fellow humans is monstrous. We were made to be much better than this.

The worldwide Church marks the Season of Creation so we can pray and learn to change; to learn what our tradition teaches us about our relationship with creation. Today we’ve seen how scripture says clearly what that relationship should be. So it also exposes how distorted that relationship is now. As God’s Church, it’s our duty to speak and act prophetically – to speak God’s mind on the great issues of our time, and to live accordingly. The great issue right now is human industrial-scale desecration of Earth’s sacred forests, rivers, oceans, soil, atmosphere and wildlife.

Our experience of Covid-19 should be a wake-up call. It shows us the risk of rejecting the life-principle of co-existence. Anyone who disregards their duty of service עָבַד and protection שָׁמַר of their community puts that whole community in grave danger. Can we see how this mirrors the danger of our abuse of the Earth-community’s fundamental interdependence? God is committed to the poor and the vulnerable, and to all our fellow creatures. Yet our daily news carries stories of the systematic destruction of forests and the people and creatures who live in them, all in the blind service of our insatiable consumerist lifestyle.

Nothing, no-one can live without forests – eucalypt, mixed, conifer or kelp. Today we read of our first vocation; to serve and protect the world’s forests as our family. Forests are screaming out to us; we must hear them and act. Churches must declare and model the fact that humans are to serve and protect forests; not destroy them. We answer to God for the forests and all the creatures they sustain. This must shape the social action of the whole Church, and of all individual Christians.       Amen

Rev’d Peter Balabanski

Pentecost + 13A – Ex 3 Rm 12 Mt 16

Jesus said …, If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves, take up their cross and follow me. ^{Matt 16.24–25}

There’s a remarkable story in the book of Jeremiah that’s never read in our worship services – for reasons which will become obvious. Jeremiah’s ministry had bits he’d rather have avoided. This time, ^{(Ch 13)} he had to buy a loincloth and preach in it for a long time without washing it. Then God told him to go and bury it in a cleft in the rock by the Euphrates River. Much later, God sent him back to the river to dig up his loincloth and resume preaching in it. We can only imagine how he looked.

First impressions make or break a person’s image. God wanted to show Israel and Judah how their way of living gave everybody a shocking first impression of God. As a people called to showcase the goodness of God to the nations, they were a disgrace. God says ^{V. 11} ‘… as the loincloth clings to one’s loins, so I made … Israel and … Judah cling to me as the Lord, in order that they might be for me a people, a name, a praise, and a glory, but they would not listen.’

We’ve been thinking about our identity as the Body of Christ. We are like Christ’s clothing; the first impression people get of Jesus. As a community, being Jesus here and now is our true identity; our calling is to be living icons of Christ in our time and place. In the language of Jeremiah’s prophetic action, we’re the intimate clothing Christ wears; the first impression people get of what Jesus might be like.

Identity is partly nature, partly nurture, partly choice. And God’s people are able to make astounding choices. Last week, we heard the voices of Muslim people in Aotearoa/NZ. One voice struck me particularly; Janna Ezat’s. Her son Hussein was murdered at Al Noor Mosque. In court, she told the gunman “I decided to forgive you … In our Muslim faith we say . . . we are able to forgive. I forgive you. Damage was done and Hussein will never be here so I have only one choice to forgive you.”

God’s people can choose to show what God is truly like. Mostly, it means choosing the way of giving things up; choosing the more vulnerable way, as this mother did.

It goes against the grain to choose this way; we saw it in today’s scriptures; Peter’s allergic reaction to Jesus speaking about his coming passion, death and resurrection – Peter rebukes Jesus for talking like that; he calls on God to prohibit such a path. And Moses is hardly a model of enthusiasm when God tells him what his mission is. The way of – is it weakness, or is it trust? Whichever we call it, it doesn’t come naturally; it’s almost always a deliberate choice. But when we choose to accept this way – this pilgrimage – God is revealed. This will happen in a time and manner of God’s choosing. But we must know that I AM has called us – I AM sends us.

Last Sunday, I spoke briefly of a conversation where we discussed working on three aspects of our life as a parish to develop our ongoing mission as disciples of Jesus; those three things are Sanctuary, Community and Pilgrimage. Last week, our scriptures got us exploring Community – St John’s’ identity as the Body of Christ in this part of the city. Today the scriptures draw our focus to Pilgrimage. Moses is embarking on the Exodus – the perilous journey out of slavery for God’s people. And in the gospel, Jesus is inviting his disciples to the daunting Way of the Cross.

I believe that as a pilgrim people, the choices we make as we travel alongside others have the potential to reveal the companionship and the ways of God. Paul obviously thought this way when he wrote to the Christians in Rome. He portrayed those choices as revealing the love of God through our choices for love for others.

Let love be genuine; … show honour. ^… Rejoice in hope, be patient in suffering, persevere in prayer. Give to saints and strangers. Bless those who persecute you; don’t curse them. Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Live in harmony … don’t be haughty, associate with the lowly. Don’t repay anyone evil for evil, but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all. So far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Never avenge yourselves; no, ‘if your enemies are hungry, feed them; if they are thirsty, give them something to drink. Don’t be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

As street directory for walking in the footsteps of Jesus, this is crystal clear. When people choose to accept this path – this pilgrimage – Christ is revealed to our fellow travellers. When we decide on a new mission, these are clear directions for helping us find our way, and for welcoming fellow travellers to come with us. Amen

Rev’d Peter Balabanski

Pentecost + 12a – Ex 18-2.10, Ps 124, Rm 12 1-8, Mt 16 13-20

Our readings today invite us to think about identity. Moses’ identity, Jesus’ identity, Peter’s identity and our own identity. This question of identity matters; if we’re not clear about who we are, how can we expect others to know who we are? Vicky’s just shown us about how someone can go from one identity to another; Moses moved from being a slave to a prince of Egypt, but without losing his connection with his family of origin. The Gospel today talks about a similar move. Peter goes from being just himself to being the Rock of the Church, and having the identity of Christ. He is still himself, but he has taken on a broader identity.

In the Gospel reading, Jesus poses the question of his identity to his disciples, ‘Who do people say the Son of Man is?’ They tell him what they’ve overheard in the crowds. People say he’s one of their greatest prophets. But then Jesus asks, ‘[What about you]; Who do you say that I am?’, and Peter answers; ‘You’re the Messiah, the Son of the living God.’ … Is that what we would say?

Messiah and Son of God: those titles name the one God’s people have been waiting and hoping for; the mighty defender and rescuer; the one to restore liberty to slaves, the healer, provider, giver of life itself; the one whose love is the very love of God.

This is the true identity of Jesus. Once we’ve realized this, it says something about our own identity as Jesus’ followers. Imitating Jesus is our true identity and mission. Imitating Jesus shapes us, the Church, to be a body that is Christ to others. We are sent to offer his gifts of liberty, healing, compassion, generosity, hope, life, peace and love to all comers – rescue in the here and now; not just the afterlife. The world needs to meet Jesus in us; in followers of Jesus.

Our NT readings both say the imitation of Christ is our calling; that being Jesus is our true identity. Did you notice in the Gospel how, as soon as Peter could name the true identity of Jesus, Jesus responded with a true identity for Peter? He changed his name from Simon to Peter; named him as one of the living stones of the Church; mortals who bind evil and set captives free; living embodiments of Jesus the Messiah.

As we see, what is true for Jesus the Messiah is true for all his followers. We’re sent out from our baptism to provide people with the very gifts we see offered by Jesus himself; healing, hope for freedom, unconditional, loving acceptance, compassion, and practical support, freely given to all comers.

Paul tells the Christians in Rome essentially the same thing. Paul tells a community with a multitude of opinions about who they are that ^12.5 we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually we are members one of another. Paul uses the analogy of a body to describe the fact that our differences are simply functional, like the difference between eyes and ears, feet and hands. Our calling is to work together as a body with a common mission to offer spiritual insight, practical service, wisdom, encouragement, generosity, leadership and hope. That’s our collective identity; a Christ Body in this place, animated by the Holy Spirit. We are the Body of Christ in this place. That’s who we say we are.

Who do other people say we are? Let’s think about that for a minute. What people say is very much shaped by their experience of the Anglican Church. So if they’ve been hurt by the Church, they’re likely to say we’re judgmental hypocrites who protect our own; we protect our paedophiles, our wealth and our social prestige; that we tell people how to live and who they may love; that we’re cultural imperialists who’ve actively engaged in the genocides of original cultures in this and many other lands. Very severe stuff, yet understandable.

And people who have no connection with the Church? They’re likely to see us as just another club or society; part of the establishment; another brick in the wall.

What do we do about this? The question is, when people encounter us at St John’s, do they meet Jesus? If we’re the ones who showcase Jesus – his blessings of sanctuary, belonging and journeying together with him – are we introducing people to the authentic Jesus?

For anyone who’s browsing for an impression of God, what might they think of the goods we have on most prominent display? Are we what Jesus is really like? This is a question worth asking ourselves, both as individuals and as a community.

How we embody Christ – our Christian identity – is significant. Many people don’t read the Bible. They’re going to look at us, and on the basis of what they see, they’ll form their opinion of Jesus. Will people recognise that we are offering everyone and anyone the glorious freedom of the children of God – like Jesus?

For some weeks now, we’ve had the opportunity of reading through the National Church Life Survey results for this parish. We can see what we value most highly and also what we most want to give attention to. We have a number of people who are interested in supporting social action and aid, and ensuring that new people are included. These are special gifts of this parish; spiritual gifts that we’ve been given. They’re qualities which closely match the character of Jesus. But is that something that’s visible both in our gatherings and beyond them?

At the moment it’s not prominent on our website; I don’t see stories of our day-to-day parish life there. Just a statement; ‘St John’s is an open and welcoming Christian community’. I can imagine a net-surfer seeing that and wondering, Okay, that sounds good! But is there evidence in what they do?’

As we look closely at our NCLS results we need to look with the eyes of people who might ask startling questions, ‘Will I meet Jesus if I come to this community?’ Will I find a sanctuary there? Will I find a community offering me friendship? Are there companions there for my spiritual journey? A seeker might say, ‘I heard Jesus got out on the streets and loved people. Does this community come out to find people like that?’

Who do people say Jesus is? We who say we are the body of Christ – does the life we live as his body mean people will really meet Jesus among us? … I think so.

Who do people say Jesus is? We say we’re the body of Christ. Can we plan for a future where people will continue to meet Jesus among us? … I believe we can.

Please pray with me that, by God’s grace, we grow as a community that makes Christ visible to others.   Amen

Rev’d Peter Balabanski

Pentecost + 11a – Matthew 15 21-28

A sick child gets healed in an instant. But before that joyful instant, there are some shocking moments. If you found the story shocking, you’re not alone. It’s so unlike the Jesus we think we know. What’s happened to him? Actually quite a lot; there’s been the feeding of the 5000, yet another fight with religious leaders and again Jesus withdraws to take refuge from the crowds and critics. This time, he goes way up north in the region of Tyre and Sidon, in Lebanon. But his last debate with the Pharisees about who’s an insider and who’s not – that debate won’t get left behind.

No sooner does Jesus escape the Pharisees than he’s being hounded by a foreigner – a local woman who cries out to him constantly that her daughter’s being tormented by a demon. A Canaanite woman. Canaanite civilization was the one Joshua meant to wipe out 1500 years earlier. But Joshua didn’t succeed; Canaan still had a sophisticated artistic, commercial and religious life in the time of Jesus. There was a big temple in Sidon dedicated to the Canaanite god Eshmun, a god of healing. But this woman doesn’t go to Eshmun for her daughter’s healing; she goes to Jesus.

She appears out of nowhere, crying out loudly and continuously that her daughter is tormented by a demon. She uses words familiar to us; eleison-me Kyrie – have mercy on me Lord. She calls Jesus ‘Son of David’. She knows who this exhausted traveller really is. But Jesus’s response shocks us. He meets her anguished cries with silence. Then, musing to himself, or to his disciples, he mutters that his mission was only to the ‘lost sheep of the House of Israel’. That’s what he’d taught his disciples.^{cf 10:5-6} But the woman’s cries continue. She confronts him; blocks his path – ²⁵ she came and knelt before him, saying, ‘Lord, help me.’ ²⁶ He answered, ‘It’s not fair to take the children’s food and throw it [out] to the pet dogs.’

This shocks me. It’s insulting; racist; it devalues the woman’s humanity. It goes against all I proclaim Jesus to be. But then something unexpectedly cross-cultural happens. And it bridges the gulf between them. She accepts the insult – and it is an insult. She agrees with Jesus, but then uses his own dog image to contradict him.

Yes, Lord, yet even the pet dogs eat the crumbs that fall from the master’s table. Cross cultural? Jewish households of the time didn’t allow dogs inside. So even though the word Jesus uses is the one for pet dogs, not wild dogs, he’s saying that for him, taking a gift he’s brought for Israel and giving it to a foreigner would be like flinging it out the window. But in this woman’s community, pet dogs did come inside. They’d be near the table, ready for any scraps that came their way. (Contrasts like this still between Middle Eastern communities) This woman doesn’t see herself asking for the children’s bread; she’s just desperate for any crumbs that may fall. For her child’s sake, she accepts the insult, and Jesus is won over; Woman, your faith is great. Let it be to you as you wish. Her daughter was healed from that hour.

She’s audacious and unflinching, and Jesus is won over by her unshakable faithfulness to her child, and her belief in him. Woman, your faith is great. Let it be to you as you wish. And her daughter was healed from that hour.

This woman teaches us about faith. Faith doesn’t just mean belief in the way we think of it. The Old English word beleven meant ‘to love’. So the belief aspect of faith is not belief in, but commitment to. It’s an expression of trust; of faithfulness, of love. This woman’s love for her daughter, and her trust in Jesus took him part of the way from local mission to world mission. He would only fully declare himself as Messiah to the whole world, not just Israel, after his resurrection. ^28.16-20 She sensed the mercy of the Son of David. Somehow she knew that the heart of the mission of Jesus was not about who’s in or out; it was about grace; that ultimately, all are welcome in. That’s what Jesus came for, and I wonder if she helped him realise that.

Matthew’s community was based in this area, and this story flagged their mission as one to outsiders. It tells us about our mission too. Those unlooked for moments of distraction from the main game, when our mission seems to be hijacked by peripheral things and people – those very moments can be moments of insight which we must seize. We must also learn that peripheral people are not peripheral at all. We are all family. Jesus heard one call; he changed; he responded – and so must we. Amen

Rev’d Peter Balabanski

Pentecost+10A – Mt 14 22-36 Peter walks on water to Jesus, Gen 37 1-14, 12-28 Joseph to Egypt

Let’s look again for a moment at the prayer of the day.

Mighty God and ruler of all creation, give new strength to our faith, that we may recognise your presence even when all hope seems lost. Help us to face all trials with serenity as we walk with Christ through the stormy seas of life and come at the last to your eternal peace.

I’d like to bring some how questions to this prayer. How do I take hold of the new strength God gives my faith; … how will I know God’s there when things look hopeless, … how can I learn to face hard times serenely, … and when I find eternal peace, how will I settle into it? It’s a big prayer; it’s inspired by today’s readings about Joseph and Peter. We saw each of them today as they set off on hopeless looking journeys through the stormy seas of life – Peter quite literally.

The prayer set for today asks that our life’s journeys might also take us to a place of strong faith – take us to where we are conscious of God’s presence – take us to where we might face our trials with serenity – take us to a place of peace. But how? How is this possible? Is there a tried and trusty way?

Actually, yes. Let me tell you a story of one person who discovered a way. It started for a friend who, like so many today, suddenly and unexpectedly lost her job. It was very hard; it was spiritually crushing. Did anyone want her; would anyone? Who was she without a job? She just had to go, but with no idea where. It was totally new for her to be out of control like this. She had nowhere to go.

Someone invited her to try an ancient form of prayer – to walk a labyrinth. It was a way of praying she hadn’t tried before. But she decided to try it.
[There’s a difference between a labyrinth and a maze. As you see in the pictures below, the labyrinth (on the left) has no dead ends, but the maze (on the right) has them. So a maze is a puzzle set up with false paths to trick us. But a labyrinth has a path which we can trust. Walking a labyrinth is a journey of prayer – a metaphor for walking our journey of life towards God – the centre.]

Standing at the entrance to the labyrinth, she was about to look it over and get an idea of its layout; that’s what she’d normally have done – plan ahead. But something told her not to do that this time. So she set off, looking only at the path right at her feet. She took a first step, then another, and slowly went on.

She simply put one foot in front of the other. She had trouble keeping her balance; she was stressed. But gradually, she learnt to trust that the path would come to meet her. She let go of the worry; she stopped trying to be in control.

By the time she’d reached the centre – and she has no idea how long it took – she’d received a gift from the labyrinth. It was this; she knew by then that whatever her direction, whatever her feelings, the path would come to meet her. And more; regardless of the number of turnings or the amount of time she took, that path would lead her unerringly to the centre.

What a lesson about prayer! – that prayer is not about duty and planning, not determined by remorse or worry for the past. Rather, it’s God’s way of coming to us; of calling to us – to help us leave those burdens behind, outside, as one step at a time, we wend our way to the centre.

Her journey back out of the labyrinth was a very different experience from the inward journey. She’d entered the labyrinth carrying a heavy load of pain and worry. But by the time she’d reached the centre, she’d learned to let it go, and in return, she’d received a special gift for the outward journey. The gift was her new understanding that the path would always come to meet her, and regardless of all the changes in direction, it would lead her to the centre. Today’s readings speak of journeys like this one – journeys whose travellers take the next step on a path which will come to meet them. Joseph sets out to find his brothers not knowing that it’s the start of a journey which will take him bound as a slave to Egypt. Ultimately his journey will see him rescue his family from famine. Years later, his descendants will walk a labyrinth too; one that we call the Exodus.

Then there’s Peter; he steps out of his boat to walk on the water towards Jesus. A few faltering steps and he’s overcome by fear. He begins to sink and cries out to be saved. Jesus – the Way – comes and takes hold of him. It‘s his whole life-story glimpsed in a moment.
Throughout this week, let’s pray the prayer of the day. Let’s wonder – could the frightening how questions to be answered by a wordless prayer as uncluttered as walking a labyrinth, and seeing what comes to meet us; or who? Amen

Step by Step by Shirley A. Serviss
We enter the labyrinth – this sacred space –
not knowing our way, not knowing how the day
will unfold, what the outcome may be.
In the labyrinth we have nothing to fear;
the path will become clear as we take one step
after the other. All we need do is keep on going.
All we need ever do is continue to take
the next step to see where it takes us.

We are each on our own journey,
can take our own time, move at our own pace.
The only race we’re in is the human one.
We are kin to all who walk this way,
searching for guidance in place of uncertainty,
hope in place of despair. Namaste-
our spirits greet each other as we meet on the path.

In the labyrinth, we move in circles, but are not lost.
We find our way through what appears to be a maze,
learning patience as it twists and turns, seemingly
taking too long, taking us further from our goal,
before it doubles back around, finally bringing us
to a place where all becomes clear.

Now we prepare to re-enter: our work, our world,
our lives. We make progress, only to regress –
no straight road to follow. We take comfort in the walking:
the meditative meandering of the labyrinth,
the guidance of the lines, the reassurance
we will find our way through the challenges we face
as we continue to place one foot in front of the other.
© Shirley A. Serviss. Reproduced with the author’s permission.

For you, deep stillness by Julie Perrin
For you, deep stillness of the silent inland
for you, deep blue of the desert skies
for you, flame red of the rocks and stones,
for you, sweet water from hidden springs.
From the edges seek the heartlands
and when you’re burnt by the journey
may the cool winds of the hovering spirit
soothe and replenish you
in the name of Christ, in the name of Christ.

Rev’d Peter Balabanski

Pentecost + 9A –  Mt 14 13-21

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Amen

Rev’d Peter Balabanski

Pentecost + 8A – Rom 8 26-39 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Amen