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We see God through the cross or not at all

May 13, 2022

Easter 5 – 2022
John 13:31-35
Marian Free

In the name of God who confronts and overturns the values and expectations of the world and opens our eyes to new possibilities, new ways of being. Amen.

A couple of weeks ago I shared the reflections of Scott Hoetze that there are really very few accounts of the resurrection – hardly enough to account for the forty days between Easter Day and Ascension Day. That may be why our Lectionary only spends three of the seven Sundays of Easter focussed on the gospel accounts of the resurrection – there are simply not very many! Last week, Easter 4, used the gospel reading from John chapter 10 which took us back to the middle of Jesus’ earthly ministry. The next two weeks will begin to focus on the Holy Spirit which leads us to Pentecost. This morning we are looking at a small section of chapter 13 which, in turn, is a very small part of Jesus’ discourse during the Last Supper.

I’m not entirely sure if it is still the case but when I began to study the gospel of John scholars were in general agreement that Jesus’ farewell speech – the five chapters from John 13-17 represented Jesus’ post-resurrection teaching. That is, these chapters refer to what Jesus revealed to the disciples after he was raised from the dead which would mean that today’s gospel, and that of the next two weeks do fit neatly into the post-Easter resurrection experiences. Certainly, this view would appear to make sense of Jesus’ use of the past tense in today’s gospel in which he declares: “Now the Son of Man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in him”. A post-resurrection Jesus would indeed have been glorified.

However, seen in context, Jesus makes that statement after Judas has “gone out” to betray him. Associating Jesus’ glorification with Judas’ betrayal does not immediately make sense unless we understand John’s use of the word “glory” and the way in which it subverts both the honour/shame culture of the 1st century Mediterranean and the power structures of the Roman Empire. Like Paul in the first letter to the Corinthians, John makes it clear that the cross is central to redemption – not so much as sacrifice, but as a deliberate act – challenging conventional wisdom and forcing believers to re-evaluate their ideas about God. According to Paul, the cross undermines smugness and self-satisfaction. It is a reminder of the unfathomable nature of God and of our limited ability to understand God. Both John and Paul face head on the apparent absurdity of worshipping a crucified man, demonstrating how something – apparently shameful and senseless – is in fact God’s way of redeeming the world.

John doesn’t focus on the contradiction of the cross as does Paul. Instead, he shows how the cross is the pivotal event in the story, the moment at which Jesus is glorified and at which his purpose is accomplished (19:30). The significance of the cross in this gospel is evident almost from the beginning when, in conversation with Nicodemus, Jesus makes the claim that: “the Son of Man must be lifted up” (code in John for the crucifixion), “(so) that whoever believes in him may have eternal life” (3:14). (This is in contrast to Moses’ lifting up the snake in the desert which gave life to those who looked at it, but which did not give eternal life.) Jesus further asserts that the Jews will “realise that I am he” when they have lifted up the Son of Man (8:28) and that when he (Jesus) is lifted up he will “draw all people to himself” (12:32). Finally, when Jesus is praying in the garden before his arrest, he prays that the Father may glorify him that he in turn may glorify God (17:1-5). Glory and cross are inextricably linked in this gospel.

From the outset, the author of John makes it clear that Jesus’ glorification – the point at which people will recognise him for who he is, and the point at which all people will be drawn to him – occurs on the cross and not at the resurrection. The act of self-sacrifice and shame is given more weight here than is the triumphalism of the resurrection. It is the unexpected that is important. God does not behave in the way that we expect God to behave. God’s anointed (Jesus) did not enter the world to the sound of trumpets and his early life was so insignificant that it was not considered worth recording. Jesus did not impose his will on others or lord it over them, but acted as a servant to them, he didn’t lead nations or armies but unobtrusively shared the message of God’s love.

In John’s gospel, Jesus’ glorification occurs on the cross not in the resurrection because it is here that Jesus shows most clearly what God’s love for the world looks like and it is through the cross that the blinkers will be removed from our eyes so that we may be freed to see God – unfettered by our preconceptions.

Over the centuries we have sanitised the scandal of the cross – to the point where it has almost lost its meaning. We have become so used to it as a symbol that adorns our churches and hangs around our necks that we can overlook the horror and shame, the ugliness and the brutality, and the violence and bloodiness that it represents. In so doing we deny its power to undermine our preconceived notions of who and what God is and how it is that God acts in the world. We refuse to allow the cross to defy our cosy and comfortable relationship with God and we reject its purpose which is to confound and startle us.

Jesus can announce his glorification in connection with Judas’ betrayal precisely because he is clear sighted about his role, about his relationship with God and about God’s action in the world.

Jesus, through John, wants us to know that we see God through the cross or not at all.

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Christ active in the world

May 7, 2022

Easter 4 – 2022 (Good Shepherd Sunday)
John 10:22-30
Marian Free

In the name of God, Earth-Maker, Pain-Bearer, Life-Giver. Amen.

During the week I came across an interesting article titled: “Local carpenter spreads disinformation”. The piece imagined a newspaper article written around the time of Jesus that was seeking to discredit him and to stem the damage created by the misinformation that he was spreading. It suggested that readers head to their local synagogues to check their facts. While the article was written ‘tongue in cheek’ it does address a significant question – If a radical, disreputable person begins (convincingly) to teach things that are contradictory to the current position of the church how can the ordinary person determine what is true? This is a particularly difficult issue when the boundaries between synagogue/church and society are blurred, and when societal conventions get confused with church tradition and vice versa. It can be hard in such circumstances to determine what is culturally determined and what is determined by religious tradition.

A case in point is the debate around the ordination of women. As long ago as 1917 the Lambeth Conference affirmed that there were no theological objections to the ordination of women (which implies that there were discussions around this issue well before that time). It took another sixty years of fiercely argued debate before the first women were ordained (illegally in the United States) and legally in New Zealand and elsewhere. In Australia it was to take more than seventy years before women were made priests in 1992. People do not like change, and they certainly do not like their long-cherished ideas to be challenged. A great deal of the argument against ordaining women was irrational, based as much on societal norms as it was on theological or biblical teaching.

Congregations who had only recently allowed women to be on Parish Council, or even to act as Sides people, simply could not envisage a woman in the Sanctuary, let alone a woman as a Presider and Preacher. Faithful churchgoers were afraid that the church that they loved would be irrevocably changed if women were ordained and they resisted fiercely. (A live and contemporary issue that will be debated at this General Synod is the place of LGBTQI+ community within our churches, and in particular whether blessings of civl marriages can be conducted by our clergy.)

We can sympathise then, with the people in today’s gospel. To them Jesus was unsettling and unconventional. He was challenging accepted ways of interpreting the scriptures and he was questioning the religious establishment. He was suggesting that just because something had always been done in a particular way, it did not need to be that way forever. He demonstrated in word and deed that some things – intended to be liberating – had, over time become restrictive and even destructive.

If it took the Anglican Church 60-100 years to make up its mind about the ordination of women, it is hardly surprising that three years were not nearly enough time for Jesus’ contemporaries to adjust to his teaching! For all his miraculous acts Jesus was, to all intents and purposes, a troublemaker and a lawbreaker. He might have given sight to the man born blind, but he did so on the Sabbath showing no regard for the law or scriptures! That Jesus was divisive is indicated by the verses just prior to today’s gospel. “The Jews were divided because of these words. Many of them were saying, ‘He has a demon and is out of his mind. Why listen to him?’ Others were saying, ‘These are not the words of one who has a demon. Can a demon open the eyes of the blind?’”

Jesus has truly put the cat among the pigeons. Some among the crowds have a sense that he is someone out of the ordinary, but others find him disturbing – dangerous even. It is no wonder that they plead with him to put them out of their misery, to give them some certainty. “How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Christ, tell us plainly,” they beg.

It is human nature to want certainty, just as it is human nature to resist change. It is relatively easy to believe static things like scriptures, history and tradition. It is much more difficult to discern if and how God is working in the present. If only we could be sure that God was speaking, that God was endorsing change!

The crowds in today’s gospel want assurance. Despite everything they have seen and heard, they cannot allow themselves to submit to belief. They want Jesus to lay to rest all their questions and fears. But this is something that Jesus cannot do. He can’t force them to believe; a word from him will not automatically quell all their anxieties and doubts. They need to come halfway, they need to be sufficiently open to God’s presence in the world that they identify Jesus. Faith (knowing) is as much a choice, an act of will as it is a passive capitulation.

As Chelsea Harmon points out “belonging” in this passage is an action. Jesus’ sheep do not belong simply because they are somehow special, predestined to belong; “their belonging is an active belonging: hearing, following, being known (i.e., having experiences of Jesus), and being given eternal life.” Faith is not one-sided – as if God’s almighty power captures and pens the gullible and easily led. Faith is an active engagement with the living Christ who continues to erupt into our lives and expects that we will be able to discern the signs by hearing, following and allowing ourselves to experience the risen Jesus now.

This short but obscure gospel is filled with meaning. It is not about who is in and who is out as some might assume, rather it is about being open to God’s working in the present even if it is strange and new, even if the one preaching change doesn’t fit our expectations and asks us to change what we think and how we behave.

Christ is risen! Christ is active in the world today. May our belonging to the shepherd be an active belonging so that habit, suspicion, and tradition do not keep us from seeing what new thing Christ is doing in the world today. May our active belonging and openness to the risen Christ give us a willingness to follow wherever Christ is leading us however new and strange that may seem.

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Looking for God in all the wrong places

April 30, 2022

Easter 3 – 2022
John 21:1-19
Marian Free

In the name of God who is made known as much in the still, small voice as in the mighty thunderclap. Amen.

It is so easy to overlook the little things.

It is easy to measure how much someone loves us by the grand gestures – extravagant gifts, beautiful flowers, heroic acts, romantic dinners, and overt displays of affection – rather than by the little, everyday signs of love – the washing of dishes, the cup of tea at just the right time, the taking over the childcare when one is frazzled. Some young people brought up on fairy stories (in the good old days) or on TV soap operas (more likely today) tend to get a very distorted view of love and of relationships. To create the right amount of drama and to heighten the tension in TV shows, displays of love and of disappointing behaviours are vastly exaggerated. This can lead the less worldly and more vulnerable to develop very unrealistic views about what it means to be loved and what constitutes an ideal relationship. Partners who do not match what is an impossible ideal are nagged and criticized in the hope that they can be molded into shape. Alternately they are discarded for not meeting expectations. The problem with this quest for a perfect lover is the failure to see is what is in front of them, the treasure that they already have – loyalty, acceptance, consideration and dependability.

As the song says: “They are looking in all the wrong places.”

It could be said that the same is true of our relationship with God. There are so many instances of God’s dramatic intervention in the world, or God’s appearances to the prophets and other historical figures of faith, that we come to expect that this is how we will know God’s presence. God appeared to Moses in a burning bush, spoke to the people of Israel from the cloud, provided Isaiah with a heavenly vision and spoke to Jesus in a voice that sounded like thunder. It is easy to draw the conclusion that is how we will recognise God in the world. So too with Jesus. Jesus healed the sick, raised the dead, spoke with such authority that crowds followed him everywhere. If only Jesus’ presence could be so obvious in our lives!

Indeed, given the extraordinary character of Jesus’ life and the attention that he attracted, it is puzzling that Jesus’ continued presence is not more dramatic. From the start, the encounters between the risen Christ and the disciples (not to mention the wider public) were disappointing. Surely the resurrection was an event that Jesus could (and should) have capitalized on! Jerusalem was filled with pilgrims who had gathered for the Passover and who would have heard of the events surrounding Jesus’ arrest and crucifixion. This would seem to be Jesus’ opportunity to prove once and for all that he was sent by God and that his message came from God. Jesus could perhaps have indulged in a little: “I told you so” to all the sceptics. He could have confronted the religious and political leaders with both the futility of their actions but also with their ignorance and blindness. Could he not at least have appeared to the crowds so that they would not need to be convinced that he was alive? If nothing else, surely Jesus could have continued the good work of healing and preaching.

What a waste of an opportunity! How much simpler everything would have been if only there was more evidence that Jesus had been raised from the dead, if the religious and political leaders had come to faith, if those who howled for his crucifixion had been convinced of their error! Then again, perhaps this is what the resurrection appearances are all about. Jesus did not make a song and dance about the resurrection, because as in life, so in life after death, Jesus was not a stunt man. Jesus never was looking for millions of followers (his response to the tempter in the desert tells us that). Jesus’ goal was to open the eyes of the people of Israel. His role was to confront and undermine false theologies of the church leaders and to challenge the institution that seemed to be separating the people from a personal relationship with God and demanding that they adhere to codes of behaviour that did not reflect the unconditional love of God.

It is perhaps for this reason that Jesus did not make a song and dance about the resurrection and the gospel writers, who could have embellished the story, do not do so.

In Mark Jesus appears to the women at the tomb, but they say nothing to anyone because they are afraid, and we are left with silence. Matthew has a little more detail. Again, the women meet Jesus, but this time they do tell the disciples. Jesus also appears to the disciples. As instructed, the disciples go to Galilee where Jesus meets them and commissions them to make disciples and to baptise. Luke’s account includes a meeting with two disciples on their way home from Jerusalem. In this gospel, Jesus takes the two through the scriptures so that they are able to understand all that has happened. Then appears to the disciples gathered in Jerusalem (to whom he also explains the scriptures). Finally, the disciples are present when Jesus ascends into heaven.

If, as Luke tells us, Jesus hangs around for 40 days before his ascension, then there is very little evidence that he did anything at all during that time.

This is what makes the events in today’s gospel so distinctive. It gives us a glimpse into what Jesus might have been doing and why no one thought to record it. Breakfast on the beach is so mundane and so ordinary that it barely rates a mention. Is this what Jesus has been up to? enjoying simple, everyday moments with the disciples while he still can?

Perhaps this is the point. The risen Christ, the Christ whom we know, is to be found in the everyday. We, you and I, will come across Jesus in unexpected places and at unexpected times. We may meet Jesus in dramatic and momentous times in our lives, but mostly we will find Jesus in the everyday – inviting us to breakfast, supporting us through grief and trauma and bringing joy through the love of a spouse, a friend or a child. Miracles may and will burst through into our lives, but what we need to know is that day in, day out, Jesus is with us. All we need to do is pay attention and recognise his presence here and now in the mundane incidents of our existence.

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God whispers our name

April 16, 2022

Easter Day -2022
John 20:1-18
Marian Free

In the name of God who meets us where we are and who whispers our name. Amen.

I usually embrace Easter with great enthusiasm and confidence. ‘Christ is risen! He is risen indeed!’ I joyfully proclaim with all the Church. Powerful stories of that call and response fuel my assurance in the power of the resurrection.

This year I find myself more hesitant. How to proclaim that new life starts now when atrocities are being perpetrated in and against Ukraine (an endeavour encouraged by the Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church), when the people of Sri Lanka are facing unprecedented shortages of food, fuel and medical supplies, when the people who can least afford it have been devastated by flood – here, in South Africa and in South Sudan, when there is a housing crisis in this nation because no one government (of any political party) has the will to fix it and when, on a daily basis, we are squandering the opportunity to save our planet before it is too, too late. Is there even a glimmer of hope in the world today that points to the resurrection?

Of course there is or I would not be here today. Against all evidence to the contrary, I continue to believe that God does shine a light in the darkness and can turn death to life. I see it in the extraordinary generosity of ordinary people of Poland and elsewhere who are welcoming Ukrainian refugees into their homes : ‘for as long as it takes”; in the selfless work of volunteers, churches and charitable organisations who have rallied to bring some relief to the victims of the floods, in the voices that continue to call for a more humane response to the refugees who reach our shores, in the companies that are investing in clean energy and in the countless ‘ordinary’ people who, in a variety of ways make a difference in the world around them.

I am impatient though. I am exhausted by the suffering that I see in the world, frustrated by the unwillingness of people to live in peace and harmony, angry that voters – here and elsewhere – want largely to protect their interests and wealth, rather than to create a society that ensures that all have access to housing, education, and healthcare.

I want the tomb of grief and anguish to burst open to reveal a more just and compassionate world. I want God to step in and push the Russian forces back. I want politicians who seek to create an equitable future (which might be more popular than they seem to think). I want to see a humankind that reflects its creation in the image of God. More than ever, I want this year, to proclaim that “Christ is risen!” that there are signs of new life in the world, that there is evidence that God, working through us, is bringing about change here and now.

So it was that I found the following reflection by Miriam-Rose Ungunmerr-Baumann helpful. She speaks about Dadirri – Inner Deep Listening and Quiet Still Awareness and writes:

“What I want to talk about is a…special quality of my people. I believe it is the most important. It is our most unique gift. It is perhaps the greatest gift we can give to our fellow Australians. In our language this quality is called dadirri. It is inner, deep listening and quiet, still awareness. Dadirri recognises the deep spring that is inside us. We call on it and it calls to us. This is the gift that Australia is thirsting for. It is something like … “contemplation”… We cannot hurry the river. We have to move with its current and understand its ways… We wait on God, too. His time is the right time. We wait for him to make his Word clear to us. We don’t worry. We know that in time and in the spirit of dadirri (that deep listening and quiet stillness) his way will be clear… All persons matter. All of us belong…

“’The time for re-birth is now,’ said the Holy Father to us. Jesus comes to fulfil, not to destroy. If our culture is alive and strong and respected, it will grow. It will not die. And our spirit will not die. And I believe that the spirit of dadirri that we have to offer will blossom and grow, not just within ourselves, but in our whole nation.’”

“We cannot hurry the river”, Miriam says as she reminds me to wait on God. With the indigenous people of this land, I will have to learn to be patient, to remember that while Jesus remained in the tomb for only three days, there are millions in this world (including indigenous Australians) for whom the experience of the tomb lasts for months, years, if not a lifetime.

On Friday I spoke of God nailed to the cross – naked, bruised and bleeding – who stands with suffering humanity, deeply immersed in the horrors and tragedies of this world, willing us to let go of all that separates us from each other and from God.

That same God, the risen Christ, greets us in the garden in the midst of our desolation and grief and whispers our name – “Mary” (Marian, John, Sarah, Robert – insert your own name) – and reminds us that God is with us now – whatever our circumstances – as the one who knows what it is to suffer and as the one who wants to draw us (and the whole world) into newness of life. This is message I will take away this Easter – Christ risen from the dead is with us and with the world in all our life’s experiences. That is the resurrection hope.

There will be moments of transformation, there will be dramatic and wondrous signs of new life after tragedy, there will be resurrection moments when tragedy turns a corner to hope, but above all there will be those barely noticed whisperings: ‘Insert your name’ as Jesus joins us where we are and reminds us that maybe not now, but sometime, we will smile again. In the meantime – “Christ is risen” and the risen Christ is with us through all of life’s experiences the exhilarating and the devastating.

Those whispers will be our everyday moments of resurrection.

“Christ is risen!” “Christ is risen indeed! Allellua!”

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Love without question

April 14, 2022

Maundy Thursday – 2022
John 13:1-the 17, 31b-35
Marian Free

In the name of God whose heedless, extravagant love draws us to love extravagantly, heedlessly. Amen.

“Jesus got up from the table, took off his outer robe, and tied a towel around himself. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel that was tied around him.” Sound familiar? Or perhaps you have never made the link. Just six days ago (Johanine time) Jesus was at a dinner party with his friends when Mary got up from the table and took a pound of pure nard, anointed Jesus’ feet and wiped them with her hair. Loving farewell actions – Mary apparently preparing Jesus for his burial and Jesus preparing the disciples for his departure.

On this night, we focus on Jesus’ actions, but it is important to remember that they were pre-figured by those of Mary. Mary’s action was extravagant, dramatic (wiping Jesus’ feet with her hair!), generous and almost certainly impetuous. In contrast, Jesus’ action appears to be considered and careful. Neither actor seemed at all concerned by how others might react to their actions – actions which contravened the cultural norms of the time. Neither seemed to give a moment’s thought to the offense that they might cause and the censure that they might receive. They were in the moment, totally heedless of the consequences for themselves. Perhaps the presence of death moves them to do what they otherwise might not have done.

Love (extravagant in Mary’s case, absolutely unconditional in Jesus’ case) determines their behaviour. It matters not to Mary that she should not touch Jesus, or that wiping his feet with her hair is something so intimate and sexual that (even today) is quite beyond the bounds of proper behaviour. If she anything does go through her mind it might be: “Let them think of me what they will!”

We already know that Jesus doesn’t care about the social norms of his day. After all he has spoken to a woman from Samaria, a woman rejected by her own society and he has taken refreshment from her hand. He has healed on the Sabbath Day and he has allowed Mary to touch him in the most familiar and public way. If he thinks anything at all it is likely to be that living out God’s will and demonstrating God’s unconditional love overrides any concern about what people might think of him.

Jesus takes on the role a servant and washes the feet of all the disciples, even those of Judas who would hand him over, Peter who would deny him and the others who would abandon him. In so doing he provides a model for all who would claim to follow him. We are to love – heedlessly, extravagantly, selflessly, with no thought for the cost, no consideration of what others might think of us and no judgement about the frailties and faults of the other.

If only we could love as Jesus’ loved, if only we could love as God loves, the world would be healed.

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A matter of life and death

April 2, 2022

Lent 5 – 2022
John 12:1-8
Marian Free

May I speak in the name of our extravagant, spendthrift, wastrel God. Amen.

Australians, those of us privileged to live in well-treed areas, are not inclined to think of possums (the brush-tail variety) with affection. They eat our vegetables, destroy our rose buds and worse, they live in our roofs from which they are notoriously difficult to remove. Once removed, they will frantically claw at the wire-covered entry point hoping to find a point of weakness that will allow them ingress. If allowed to remain in the roof they will disturb our sleep, urinate, and defecate and worst of all, they will die – something that only becomes obvious when the unmistakable stench of decay will tell us that the ceiling must be removed somehow, and the carcass retrieved and disposed of.

The aroma of death hangs in the air in John chapter 12. Lazarus, one of those present at the meal has very recently been sick, dead and entombed for four days. When Jesus (finally) arrives and calls him to come out of the tomb, his sister, Martha objects: “There is already a stench.” Now, six days before the Passover, we the readers are very aware that Jesus’ crucifixion looms near. The danger to Jesus, and even to Lazarus hangs in the air. Indeed, Jesus has been under the sentence of death since chapter seven when he did not want to attend the Festival of Booths, because the leaders of the Jews in Judea “were looking for an opportunity to kill him.” The menace has intensified since Jesus raised Lazarus. As Jesus’ popularity with the crowds increased, so too did the antagonism of the Jewish leaders who were anxious that his renown would draw the attention of the Romans who would, in turn, “destroy the nation”. (Lazarus too is now a threat to the authorities’ sense of well-being, because he is an object of curiosity, and a sign of what Jesus can do.)

The ”stench” of death fills the home of Martha, Mary and Lazurus, the “stench” of pure nard. I say “stench” because even though the Greek words are different, both the smell of Lazarus’ dead body and the aroma of Mary’s ointment can be translated by the English word “stench” (a strong and unpleasant smell). Whether or not the overpowering odour of a pound of nard is unpleasant is irrelevant. What is important here is that the odour of death hangs in the air. So, whether at the tomb or in the house, death pervades the atmosphere, hovering around the little family and their friend.

In the West, death has become somewhat sanitized and distanced from life. Indeed, we cannot even use the language of death. Today people, even people of faith, refer to someone’s having “passed”, as if death were not a definite and finite end to earthly existence. We might make a great deal of fuss about being with a loved one while and when they die, few of us tenderly wash the body of the deceased or prepare them for the grave. Unless it is part of our religious or cultural practice, we do not sit with the corpse for days, praying and processing the event. We do not wail (or employ others to wail for us) or tear out our hair in the face of death. In our culture overt displays of grief are considered unseemly. In public we tend to be restrained if not stoic.

Not only do we keep death at an emotional distance, collectively we do everything we can to prolong life and to avoid death. Advances in medical science mean that we can expect to be cured of most things and to escape most others.

Those who lived in the first century knew no such luxury as medical science. For rich and poor alike, death was a daily reality that could not be ignored. Women (rich and poor) died in childbirth, a large percentage of children (rich and poor) died before their fifth birthday and the life-expectancy of the average male was 29 years.

Those at the little dinner party depicted by John know all too well that death is part and parcel of life. He might be alive today, but the trauma of Lazarus’ death is still very raw. Death and the threat of death hover in the atmosphere. Mary knows as well as anyone does that death is always at the door. It is unpredictable and not at all choosy. No wonder she seizes the moment – if not now when? There is no point saving her precious ointment for some unknown time and place in the future. It is meant to be used, not squirreled away. Jesus is here, now and she can do this one thing for him. Who knows if there will be another opportunity?

Too many of us live tentative, timid lives, storing things up against an unknown future, hesitant to take risks because we are fearful of what might happen, and unwilling to give ourselves freely in case we will be hurt. Our cautious fails to take into account the reality that life is finite and that in the final analysis we cannot control life, nor can we escape death. Accepting death (ours and that of those whom we love) as part and parcel of life, helps us to live each day as it comes, to embrace life in all its complexity, and to live generously, spontaneously and audaciously.

In her poem The Summer Day Mary Oliver speaks of a day spent watching a grasshopper and she asks: “Tell me, what else should I have done? Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon? Tell me what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”

Everything and everyone does die at last so – what is it that you plan to do with your one wild and precious life? Will you hold on or let go? Be frugal or generous? Timid and cautious or adventurous and outrageous? Mary seized the moment – Can we?

What is it that you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?

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A trivial miracle?

January 15, 2022

Epiphany- 2022
John 2:1-11
Marian Free

In the name of God who can be found in the ordinary as well as the extraordinary. Amen.

A hymn that I had not heard or sung for over twenty years has been doing the rounds of Facebook this year. Jim Strathdee adapted a poem by Howard Thurman. The first verse reads:

‘When the song of the angels is stilled,
When the star in the sky is gone,
When the kings and the shepherds have found their way home
The work of Christmas is begun.’

‘When the kings and the shepherds have found their way home, the work of Christmas is begun.’

The miracle of Jesus’ birth and the wonders that attended it are only a small part of the story of the Incarnation. It is important to realise that if we remain fixated on the extraordinariness of the event, if our attention is focussed only on signs and wonders then we miss the unexceptional presence of God in the everyday. The very ordinariness of the Incarnation – a child born to an unexceptional couple in an obscure part of the world, a boy like any other boy and an adult with needs and fears common to every human being – can get lost if we are more interested in the dramatic and the showy – in the stars, the angels, the wise ones and the gifts. Indeed, the Incarnation is robbed of its meaning unless we understand that Jesus’ life was filled with the mundane, everyday business of living that is common to all human beings.

Our gospels are written ‘in order that we might believe’ but even so they cannot entirely obscure the fact that God in Jesus became fully human. There was no pretense. Jesus/God ate and drank, slept and worked like the rest of us. He had the same bodily needs and functions as all of humankind. Perhaps the greatest miracle of all is not Jesus’ birth, or dare I say it, Jesus’ resurrection, not Jesus’ teaching or his healing power, but the very fact of God’s becoming human – God’s extraordingary decision to enter into the earthy, fleshy, ordinariness of being part of the created world.

Perhaps this is why John begins his account of Jesus’ life with a wedding – a festive gathering of friends – rather than the more dramatic, showy and more obviously divine action of healing or exorcism with which Mark begins. John doesn’t surround Jesus with crowds of people whom he can impress – just the opposite. The action of this miracle not only takes place behind closed doors as it were, but in the presence of a few (servants who may not have been believed had they told their story). Having begun the gospel with the Christ hymn in which John proclaims an exalted Jesus who is pre-existent with God, the author of the fourth gospel brings us right back down to earth, setting Jesus’ first miracle in a private domestic scene – a family wedding.

The Word made flesh begins his ministry with a very fleshy deed – turning water into wine – meeting a very basic human need. One might go so far as to say that this first miracle is a superficial extravagance. How can turning water into wine – albeit to save the pride of the host family – compare with giving sight to the blind, freeing an enslaved person from their demons, healing the lame or raising the dead? What does such an action achieve in the wider scheme of bringing the community to faith? Indeed, what is the point if no one knows about the miracle except the servants who fill the water jars. (No one but Mary appears to know that the wine has run out. Even the steward is unaware that there is a problem and Jesus does not know until his mother tells him.) From the point of view of making Jesus’ presence and ministry known to the world at large, the changing of water into wine is something of a non-event. It will not draw the crowds or make his powers known and it seems too trivial a miracle to be repeated over and over again as some sort of party trick when there is no end to the more serious needs for healing and exorcism.

John, it appears, wishes to begin by demonstrating that Jesus is firmly embedded within the community in which he finds himself and that the Incarnation – God’s dwelling among us – is absolutely authentic not simply a matter of God’s lauding it over us, or of God’s trying to make us feel insignificant. Rather the Incarnation, the Word made flesh is God’s fully engaging with our experience, and this includes enjoying a good party.

That this might be the case becomes even more evident when we consider that the Gospel of John consists of what is known as a book of signs or miracle stories to which the Passion narrative has been added . These ‘signs’ are designed to convince people to believe that Jesus is the Christ. As the gospel is written the signs become more and more astounding until we come to the last – the raising of Lazarus – which presages Jesus’ own resurrection, but which also heralds his crucifixion. In this context, turning water into wine seems out of place especially when it it not accompanied with a discourse or a dialogue to explain it as are the others.

In juxtaposition with the Christ hymn, the wedding at Cana brings us back down to earth. Before we can become too wound up in the divine Logos we are confronted with the Word made flesh engaging in a very fleshy activity and performing a very fleshy miracle.

The wedding at Cana, serves as a reminder to us not to exalt Jesus to the point at which we can no longer see his humanity and so deprive the Incarnation of its true power and meaning.

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Whose light is it anyway?

January 1, 2022

Christmas 2 – 2022
John 1:1-18

In the name of God, whose radiant light will not be overcome by darkness. Amen.

“A candle says ‘no’ to the darkness.”

I have heard that in the dark days of apartheid in South Africa many people would place candles in their windows as a sign of solidarity and of hope. A candle, though the smallest of lights was an act of defiance, daring the darkness to win and declaring that no matter how difficult things were, how much opposition the people were facing or how resistant authorities were to change, the desire for justice and peace could not be extinguished and that despite violence, oppression and injustice right would win in the end. The candle, to those who lit it and to those saw it, was a sign, a reminder that their situation could not last forever and that no matter how oppressive or how brutal their current circumstances, they would (eventually) come to an end. The light was an assertion that evil could not and would not prevail.

John’s gospel begins, not with a birth narrative, but with a declaration that Jesus is the light of all people and that: “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.” It is an assertion that God has not abandoned God’s people and that no matter what the evidence to the contrary, evil will never triumph over good, and that light will always defeat the darkness. In Jesus, the light of God has entered the world

To a greater or lesser extent, the last two years have been a time of gloom for many of us, but they are nothing compared to the conditions which millions of people endure day after day, year after year. Our daily news reports are filled with stories of people risking life and limb to flee violence and injustice, of children and adults forced to make a “living” in conditions which are not only dangerous, but which will shorten their lives, of whole peoples enslaved and incarcerated, and of those enduring famine, war and civil strife.

Even in the wealthiest countries of the world there are thousands who are underpaid and overworked and who, no matter what, will never be able to escape the circumstances – over which they have no control – in which they find themselves. Here in Australia we know that women are trafficked into the sex industry and men are lured to work on farms and then are kept in conditions of near slavery. Hidden amongst us are thousands more who live lives of quiet desperation – carers who do not have enough income or support to have a life of their own, women (and men) caught up in domestic violence, and those who for whatever reason (lack of education, poverty) are prevented from finding fulfilment and happiness.
Overcoming the evil and injustice in the world around us too often seems an impossible task. On our own we cannot take on traffickers or foreign powers. We cannot bring peace to the Middle East, ensure the fair distribution of the world’s resources or stop climate change. In the face of so much suffering and inequity, it is easy to feel impotent and from this position of powerlessness to do nothing.

The problem is that doing nothing is in fact doing something. If we do not call out injustice and oppression we are, by implication supporting the status quo. Turning a blind eye to evil allows evil to continue. Nor is ignorance an excuse – we live in a world more connected than ever before. If we read a newspaper, listen to the news or connect to the world in any other way, we cannot escape the horror and despair that abound.

“The light shines in the darkness and the darkness did not overcome it.”

John uses the imagery of light and dark to great effect throughout his gospel. Light reveals the presence of God and offers hope to those whose lives are filled with despair, but the light also exposes deceit, and evil, weakness and complicity. Light threatens those who prefer to act in the dark. Light shines into our very being and uncovers the secrets of our hearts – our timidity, our prejudices and our fears. The light reveals those parts of ourselves that excuse us from acting and prevent us from naming the darkness and gloom that surrounds us.

This week Archbishop Desmond Tutu was called home to God. For our generation he was a light in the darkness. He was never afraid to speak truth to power, to expose wickedness and vice and to stand with the oppressed and disenfranchised. Despite the danger to himself, he was clear about what was right and what was wrong and nothing would deter him from pursuing a path of righteousness – the path to which he believed that we are all called as children of God.

God in Jesus, immersed Godself fully in our broken world – choosing not to be protected by wealth and power, but identifying with the poor and dispossessed. God in Jesus could have conformed to the laws and customs of his day. He could have chosen silence over confrontation and in so doing he might have kept his life. But the light of the world sees the world as it is and longs to bring God’s healing balm to places of darkness and despair.

The light that shines in the darkness is not intended simply for you or for me – a sign of hope to sustain in the dark. It is, as the gospel says, for all people. May it shine in our hearts, revealing (and freeing us from) our inner darkness that we might in our turn be light to the world.

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Jesus our mother

August 28, 2021

Pentecost 13 – 2021
John 6:56-69
Marian Free

In the name of God who is always beyond our capacity to fully know. Amen.

On Friday I attended a virtual seminar titled “Speaking of Christ, Christa, Christx”. I imagine that for a great many, if not all of you, the presentations would have been challenging and confronting especially if you were being exposed to these ideas for the first time. Having begun my biblical studies at a time when feminism was beginning to make an impact on the ways in which theology and the bible were studied, I found the day stimulating and refreshing. As the title of the seminar suggests, the papers were based around the idea that just as God is genderless, so too is the Christ. That is, while it is undeniable that Jesus inhabited a male body, the second person of the Trinity represents all humanity, in all its expressions. We affirm this Sunday by Sunday in the words of the Nicene Creed when we say: “Jesus became truly human”.

The idea that Jesus can represent both the masculine and the feminine is not new, but was a view commonly held in the Middle Ages. At that time in history the focus of the church was on the fate of the individual at the point of death and in particular on judgement and hell. In both literature and the visual arts lurid depictions of hell included such things eternally burning fire, demons with pitchforks and screaming human beings.

In reaction to this emphasis on hell and therefore on a demanding, oppressive, and even cruel God a number of things happened.
• The idea of purgatory was developed – a place between heaven and hell in which the (imperfect) soul could be purified and so achieve the state of holiness required to enter heaven.
• Devotion to Mary grew. In Mary the general populace found a softer, feminine force who could intercede with a forbidding God on their behalf.
• It was not only Mary who represented the feminine. The second person of the Trinity came to characterise the feminine aspect of God. Julian of Norwich for example consistently spoke of Jesus as mother. She writes: “our true Mother Jesus, he alone bears us for joy and for endless life. So, he carries us within him in love. The mother can give her child to suck of her milk, but our precious Mother Jesus can feed us with himself.” In a similar vein Anselm of Canterbury wrote: “Jesus, as a mother you gather your people to you; you are gentle with us as a mother with her child.” (For the full version of this poem see p428 of your prayer book).

All these things I know from my study of Medieval History and Friday’s seminar did not revisit these concepts but explored new ideas relevant to our time and place in history. Something that particularly piqued my interest was a paper that claimed that the earliest images of Christ included the feminine. Of course, I have not had time to follow this up with my own research, but I should not have been surprised. The Christ hymn, with which John’s gospel begins speaks of Jesus as Word or wisdom/Sophia. We first come across Sophia in the book of Proverbs in which wisdom/Word/Sophia is unequivocally female. In Proverbs 1 we read: “Wisdom cries out in the street;
in the squares she raises her voice.
21 At the busiest corner she cries out;
at the entrance of the city gates she speaks (Proverbs 1:20,21). Wisdom is co-creator with God and exists from the beginning with God – language later appropriated in the Christ hymn.

What was new to me – and this is where the seminar meets today’s gospel – was the claim that the images that we find in John 6 of eating flesh and drinking blood were, in the earliest post-resurrection days, associated with breast feeding. While I would have to read more to confirm this, it fits with the imagery later used by Julian of Norwich who compares partaking of the sacrament with breast-feeding. Indeed, the imagery of idea of pregnancy and breast feeding is very compelling and much less offensive than that of consuming actual flesh and blood. In the womb the unborn child is sustained by the blood of the mother and after birth, the child feeds from the breast. A child exists because it feeds off the flesh and blood of its mother.

However we understand Jesus’ imagery of eating flesh and drinking blood, it is quite clear that his audience found his language offensive. As I said last week, eating an animal with its blood was absolutely forbidden in Jewish law. Jesus’ language was so confronting that many of his disciples turned back. They could understand the miracle of the manna in the wilderness. That did not require any leap of the imagination. While it was not actual bread, the manna was edible, and it did sustain the Israelites through their long journey in the desert. What the people didn’t seem to understand was that while manna was physical and visible, its effects were temporary. Manna could sustain earthly existence, bodily flesh, what it could not do was feed the spirit or offer life beyond the grave. In his imagery of eating flesh and drinking blood, Jesus challenged his followers to consume those things that are spiritual and that prepare and equip a person for eternity.

I understand that the image of a genderless Christ may not speak to you. The point of my illustration is this, that whether we like them or not, we should never completely close ourselves to new ideas, to new ways of seeing. Many of those who followed Jesus simply could not embrace anything new. Their imaginations were limited to what they could see and feel and as a consequence, they turned away from a relationship with Jesus that we know to be life-giving and sustaining.

The lesson of today’s gospel is this: if we hold on to what we think we know, if confine our understanding to physical realities and if we hold on to earthly ways of thinking, we will be no different from those who turned away from Jesus and from Jesus’ difficult sayings. We will close the door on new possibilities for relationship and for being.

The unknowable God is constantly revealing God’s self to those who are willing expose themselves to new ideas, new ways of knowing God. Faith after all is a journey, not a destination. My prayer for all of us is that we will continue to deepen and to grow our relationship with the living God – Earth-Maker, Pain-Bearer, Life-Giver – however uncomfortable and challenging that may be.

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The offence of the Gospel

August 14, 2021

Pentecost 12 – 2021

John 6:51-58

Marian Free

In the name of God, Earth-Maker, Pain-Bearer, Life-Giver. Amen.

A recent post on Facebook directed me to an article written in September 2019 for Esquire by Shane Claibourne. He wrote: “To all my nonbelieving, sort-of-believing, and used-to-be-believing friends: I feel like I should begin with a confession. I am sorry that so often the biggest obstacle to God has been Christians. Christians who have had so much to say with our mouths and so little to show with our lives. I am sorry that so often we have forgotten the Christ of our Christianity. Forgive us. Forgive us for the embarrassing things we have done in the name of God.” It is quite a confronting statement. He goes on to quote a (then) recent study of the top three perceptions of Christians among young non-Christians in the United States. Their opinion of Christians in that nation was that they were anti-gay, judgement and hypocritical.

I understand and share Claibourne’s angst. It grieves me to observe that collectively, the church – at least in the western world – causes offense in all the wrong ways. Instead of being generally respected, the church today is often a source of scepticism, ridicule and even of anger. To take the most recent example, the churches are currently under attack for (possibly) making a profit out of Jobkeeper. We have lost our standing in the wider community and have become a target for criticism rather than for congratulation. Much of the great work that is undertaken by the church throuhg our welfare agencies goes unnoticed and our misdemeanours are writ large in the public eye.

There are a multitude of factors that have contributed to our fall in grace. These include the fact that we have promoted obedience to a set of rules rather than submission to a God of love and we have focussed on the afterlife (be it heaven or hell) rather than emphasising what faith has to offer in the present. Instead of being seen as promoting social justice, radical inclusion, and unconditional love the church as a whole is more likely to be identified with upholding conservative values, preaching exclusion, or preserving the status quo. In recent times we could have been accused of protecting our own self-interests (the Freedom of Religion Bill being one such example) and of making out that we are being persecuted. We might have been better to acknowledge to ourselves that our place in the public eye has changed considerably during our own lifetimes.

During this period our hypocrisy and lack of openness have been laid bare as the scandal of child sex abuse has been revealed and as high-profile church leaders have been exposed as having extra-marital affairs or having embezzled church funds. We can no longer hide behind a veil of respectability and nor can we afford to take the moral high ground.

Of course, I’m using a very broad brush here. The criticisms I’ve listed cannot be levelled at all churches, but the general public do not necessarily distinguish between the traditional churches and the more recent, more conservative non-denominational churches. In the minds of many we are all grouped together – the sins (or neglect) of one are attributed to us all. Publicly, the voice that receives the greatest attention tends to be the Australian Christian Lobby which, at best, tells us something about how quiet our voices now are or, at worst, how disinterested the public has become in what we, the mainline churches have to say.

These days, as I have said, the church seems to cause offense for all the wrong reasons. Yet there have been times in recent memory when the church caused offence for all the right reasons. For example, in the late 1980’s our voices were raised in support of legislation related to gun control and Anglicans across Australia signed petitions in favour of tougher gun ownership laws. When Bob Hawke’s promise that “no child would live in poverty by 1990” began to falter, mainline churches lobbied successive governments to try make that promise a reality. Nationally today Anglicare continues to argue for a living wage for all people, but that receives little media attention.

Today’s gospel centres around offense. Jesus makes the challenging statement that: “unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you”.  To his Jewish audience for whom the eating of blood was absolutely forbidden, this saying, taken at face-value, was utterly offensive. Despite this, and despite the fact that Jesus, and possibly the author of this gospel, were Jews, Jesus repeats this point at least six times – “eat my flesh, drink my blood, eat my flesh, drink my blood” over and over.

I hazard a guess that if we were hearing this for the first time we would be discomforted if not appalled.

No matter what he did, Jesus managed to cause offense in one quarter or another. Whether he was healing on the Sabbath, dining with sinners and tax collectors, confronting the authorities, breaking the law, or questioning long held traditions Jesus seemed to manage to put someone or some group offside. Jesus was always on the side of the oppressed, the disadvantaged and the demonised. This, needless to say, put him into conflict with the ruling authorities. Yet even though Jesus knew that he was causing offense and even though people rejected him and rejected his teaching, he could not stop. He knew who he was and what he was called to do, and nothing (not even the threat of death) would stand in his way.

If we are truly followers of Jesus, we too should be among those who cause offense by challenging unjust structures, lobbying on behalf of the marginalised and the dispossessed, and questioning laws that oppress rather than liberate.

For many of us it would go against the grain but perhaps, just perhaps, in the name of Christ we should cause offense. Instead of trying to fit in we should try to stand out, instead of being silent we should raise our voices for the needy, the destitute and the burdened and instead of trying to present ourselves as perfect, we should humble admit our shortcomings. Maybe then, those who are longing for God’s kingdom to come, will see in us a community determined to see it come about.

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