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True blessedness

February 12, 2022

Epiphany 6 – 2022
Luke 6:17-26
Marian Free

In the name of God, Creator, Redeemer and Sustainer. Amen.

At the end of last year, at a time when there was a great panic about Rapid Antigen Tests, I bought a pack online. Later, when it seemed as though such things were going to be impossible to obtain I thought that as the first purchase had been so straight forward I should buy some more. After all, I was going to be responsible for babysitting all the grandchildren whose parents might be comforted in the knowledge that their children were unlikely to contract the Omicron variant of COVID as a result of being in my care. If I had any symptoms I could simply do a test! Now that the peak of infections has passed, children are eligible for vaccinations and restrictions are being eased I find myself in the embarrassing possession of unused RATS.

Today’s gospel has given me a great deal of cause for thought about my behaviour and its significance. I find myself asking whether my need was really so great that I needed to purchase so many tests? As it turns out, I haven’t benefitted from having them. In retrospect I now understand that it is possible that someone missed out because I was in a position – financially and otherwise – to ensure that I was covered. In my anxiety to protect myself and my family I had failed to consider the consequences to others if I had more than necessary and what I might do with more than enough.

One of the problems in managing the pandemic world-wide has been this sort of self-centred, nationalistic approach to the situation. In January 2020, the WHO made it clear to an anxious world that a universal rather than local tactic would bring the pandemic to an early end. WHO urged first world nations to ensure that all nations have equal access to vaccines so that we could knock the virus on its head and avoid the long-drawn out consequences of new variants emerging. Yet, while the situation has been made more complex by a number of other issues, by and large, those nations who could afford to purchase the vaccines have ensured that their nations have had enough (more than enough) to go around, while third-world nations have gone without.

In today’s gospel, Jesus speaks directly to this problem – the problem of who we are, on what do we base our identity and where do we fit in the world? In essence, Jesus is encouraging his listeners to ask themselves who they are and on what basis have they come to that conclusion? Against whom and against what do the disciples measure themselves and with and to whom are they connected?

The Beatitudes, whether pronounced on the mountain as in Matthew, or on the plain, as here in Luke, are in direct contradiction with what is normal human nature – the drive to survive at all costs, to avoid pain and suffering and to compare our situation against that of others. Jesus confronts our idea of is what “normal” and insists that an individualist focus and individualist behaviours will take us down the path of woe and not of blessing. In other words, he is suggesting that focussing on ourselves and on our own well-being is harmful not only to those around us, but also to ourselves. If we are driven by our own need for satisfaction and comfort, if we spend our lives trying to avoid suffering and pain and if we amass more than we really need, the consequences will not be blessedness, but will be isolation from others, indifference to the experiences of others and, ultimately, the cause of hurt to others. Furthermore, self-reliance, the belief that we can shield ourselves from harm, is futile. None of us, no matter how rich or privileged can escape the traumas and accidents that life throws at us.

In naming who is and is not blessed Jesus is challenging those things that collectively we have accepted as identity markers and has shown how ineffectual and self-centred they are and how they disconnect us from our fellow human beings. It is only when we truly understand the interconnectedness between ourselves and every other person (dare I say every other living thing), that we will begin to understand that our contentedness and sense of well-being is tied to the well-being of others. We will never be truly blessed if our blessedness comes at the expense of someone else’s blessedness and we will never be truly at peace if our idea of peace comes at the cost of competition – for resources or for security.

Jesus’ words are not easy to hear, let alone act upon. Most of us find it hard to let go of the need to quantify his words/our situation. How poor do we really need to be? we wonder. Does Jesus really intend us to be destitute, starving, and grief-stricken and if so what sort of life would that be? In asking such questions, we fail to see is that Jesus is not suggesting that we develop a scale against which to measure ourselves, but that we enlarge our thinking such that our concept of blessedness embraces the totality of our experiences (good, bad and indifferent) – all of which enrich and enhance our lives. At the same time, Jesus knows that once we are able to dispense with a scale of “blessedness”, we will be open to see how our blessedness is tied up with the blessedness of every other person in the world.

The Beatitudes are anything but comfortable words – especially for those of us privileged enough to live in a nation such as ours. Jesus’ words are designed to stretch and challenge us and – God forbid! – change us. We do not have to make ourselves poor, hungry or sad, but neither should we shy away from such experiences for it is they that form us and humble us and unite us to every living person and ultimately to the one who created us all.

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Holy fear

February 5, 2022

Epiphany 5 – 2022
Luke 5:1-11
Marian Free
In the name of God who is both immanent and transcendent, as close as breath and as distant as heaven, as demanding as forgiving. Amen.
In the wake of the death of Archbishop Desmond Tutu many people from many walks of life uploaded their memories online. Among them was journalist Giles Brandenreth who posted what (at the time) he thought might be the last ever interview with Tutu who was being treated for prostate cancer. (That was 2005!) It was in that context that Brandenreth asked: ‘When you get to Heaven what do you think will happen when you come face to face with God?’ In response the Archbishop shrieked. ‘Will I survive? You remember Gerontius? He longs to be in the presence of God and his guardian angel takes him to God and the moment he comes into the divine presence he cries out in anguish, “Take me away.” In the blinding presence of holiness, who would survive?’
Gerontius is a character in a poem written by John Henry Newman who, having converted to Roman Catholicism from Anglicanism, pens a verse to help explain the doctrine of purgatory. Newman uses Gerontius (who had died) as the means through which the reader might be drawn to consider their own death and their feeling of unworthiness before God. Towards the end of the poem the soul of Gerontius asks his guide if he will see God. He is told that for a moment, he will see the face of God, but that the sight will open a wound and heal the wound and widen the wound all at the same time. Acutely aware of how pitiful he is, Gerontius begs that rather than come into the presence of God he might be allowed to undergo purgatorial cleansing so that his sinfulness might not sully the perfection of God and the courts of heaven.
The notion of purgatory (which has no support in scripture) was one of the doctrines rejected by the English church at the time of the Reformation, but Newman’s understanding that being in the presence of God would leave a person feeling exposed is not his alone. Geoffrey Studdart Kennedy uses the same imagery in his poem ‘Well’ in which a person (finding himself before God) sees himself and his imperfect life through God’s eyes. When God finally says, ‘Well?’ the person responds, ‘Please can I go to ‘Ell.’ (He cannot in all conscience believe that he belongs in the presence of God.)
This sense of sinfulness or unworthiness in God’s presence has its roots in scripture. Many of the prophets respond to God’s call with a declaration of their unworthiness and here, in today’s gospel, Peter falls at Jesus’ knees and begs him ‘to get away from him’ because in Jesus’ presence he recognises himself as a sinful man. It seems that God’s very goodness has the propensity to make us aware of our lack goodness. In the presence of God’s infinite holiness we, like Peter, want to hide ourselves from sight, at least until we have been cleansed and made ready for the encounter, or so that we are in no danger of contaminating holiness itself.
This is similar to, but different from, the reaction that demons have to Jesus. They too want Jesus to go away but, in the case of the demons, Jesus’ presence is like a blinding light or burning fire that threatens to consume them. Unlike Peter they are satisfied with themselves and want to be left alone to their wickedness. In asking Jesus to go away, the demons are protecting themselves, whereas Peter mistakenly believes that Jesus needs protecting from him.
Jesus’ response is to reassure Peter. He does not pretend that Peter is perfect, but he makes it clear that Peter can serve him, and serve God, just as he is.
God is something of a contradiction. On the one hand God is transcendent, omnipotent, and unreachable, demanding of humanity the perfection/godliness for which we were created. On the other hand, God is immanent, relatable, and intimate, loving and accepting, constantly overlooking our foibles, and always drawing us back into relationship. This, of course, is what is perfectly revealed in the Incarnation (Jesus coming among us as one of us). The transcendence of God is balanced by the presence of God, the need to be accountable to God the creator is beautifully balanced by the saving love of the Redeemer.
In our relationship with God who is both transcendent and immanent it is essential to understand the tension between God’s expectations of us and God’s refusal to give up on us, to find a healthy balance between fear of God and over-familiarity with God. On the one hand we must acknowledge God’s holiness and our comparative lack of holiness. On the other hand, we must not assume that God simply ‘one of us’ with little to no expectations of us.
While it is important – essential even – to understand that we are completely and utterly and unconditionally loved by God, it is also important to remember that we have a responsibility to try to be the best that we can be and that we will one day be called to account. God loves us, but that doesn’t mean that God demands nothing of us. In other words, knowing ourselves loved does not mean that we should treat that love lightly. Knowing ourselves loved, leads us to want to be worthy of such love.
Approaching God with a true sense of holy awe (and an awareness of our unworthiness) is very different from the sort of terror experienced by demons or a sense of deep shame that prevents God’s love from reaching us. In every encounter between the created and the creator the first words spoken are always ‘Do not be afraid’ – the very words that Jesus utters to Peter in our gospel today. In the face of our alarm, awkwardness and embarrassment, God/Jesus reassures us that we. belong, we need not fear.
In the interview with Brandenreth, Archbishop Tutu questions whether he/anyone could survive in the presence of God yet elsewhere he writes that being in heaven is to encounter the unutterable beauty of God. In the presence of such beauty he argues, even an Idi Amin or Adolf Hitler would be compelled to fall down and worship and thus would gain eternity. Kennedy’s poem ‘Well’ concludes with the voice of God refusing the penitent entrance to ‘‘Ell’ on the basis is that hell is ‘for the blind, and not for those that see.’
So do not be afraid. Do not take God for granted but take it for granted that God’s love is constant and unwavering and, no matter the state of our lives or our hearts, God’s love will never, ever be withdrawn.

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Defying expectations

January 29, 2022

Epiphany 4 – 2022
Luke 4:21-30
Marian Free

In the name of God who shakes us out of our complacency into a new way of seeing, a new way of being. Amen.

Today’s gospel presents something of a conundrum. The Nazarenes who begin by claiming him and being amazed, very quickly turn on him.

As Luke tells the story, Jesus, who by all accounts has begun to make a name for himself, returns to the place in which he grew up. On the Sabbath he attends the synagogue and is given the scroll from which to read. As we know from last week’s gospel, he opens the scroll at a point towards the end of the prophet Isaiah and reads from what we know as the Servant Song in which the liberating power of God is announced. When he sits down after closing the scroll, Jesus announces that the words spoken by the writer of Isaiah have been fulfilled in the hearing of those present.

These are bold words and yet – possibly because word of his healing powers have reached his home – no one takes offence. Just the opposite. Even though his audience know his family of origin (and therefore possibly the circumstances of his birth), no one is affronted. In fact Luke tells us that ‘all spoke well of him’ and reminded themselves that this was Joseph’s son. He is one of their own, someone of whom they can be justly proud and of whom they might rightly have high expectations. If Jesus can perform miracles elsewhere, how much more so among his family and for those among whom he grew up?! Surely he owes them that much.

One can imagine the air of anticipation – that is until Jesus, without any adequate warning or explanation completely dispels their hopes. He cuts short their excitement and breaks into their hopeful dreams by abruptly quoting back to them what he imagines they are thinking. “Do here also in your hometown the things that we have heard you did at Capernaum,” he says, before going on to explain why this is simply impossible. “A prophet is not without honour except in his own town.”

In order to illustrate his point, Jesus reminds his audience of examples of God’s reaching out to those who do not belong the the family of Israel and of the prophets who found themselves performing miracles beyond the boundaries. In other words, Jesus appears to be reminding his audience that God’s purpose has always extended to those who do not belong to ‘the people of God’ and that he too cannot be limited by their narrow expectations.

It is no wonder that the mood of the people abruptly changes. They move from being enchanted by Jesus to being enraged. He has shattered their dreams and their hopes and pointed to a much wider vision of God’s intentions than they seem to be able to encompass.

Their disappointment and frustration can be better understood if we can picture the setting in which the people of Nazareth find themselves. Historians and archeologists believe that Nazareth was no more than a village in our terms, having a population of between 3-600 people. Pottery from that era has been identified as having come from Jerusalem leading to speculation that the population consisted of a group of practicing Jews who had been sent from Jerusalem to be a Jewish presence in what was primarily a gentile region. No doubt they felt somewhat embattled and isolated. It is small wonder that they had hoped that Jesus would remain with them, performing miracles, drawing crowds, bringing people to faith, re-judaising the population. How much easier would their task be if only Jesus were to remain, to base his mission among them.

From Jesus’ point of view however, their apparent desire to hold on to him, to contain him and perhaps even to direct him, is evidence of their narrowness of vision, of their desire to build the future on their terms, not God’s. The very fact that they cannot see that the kingdom of heaven will include those outside their religious and racial boundaries is proof that they have read the scriptures in a narrow and self-centred way – one that focuses on them and on their desire to return to the glory days of the past rather than on a willingness to expand their vision and to move into the future.

The problem then, as now, is that God/Jesus will not and cannot be contained by the limits of our imagination. God/Jesus has always operated on the fringes, has always (as Jesus points out) demonstrated an interest in and concern for those on the margins and for the outsider. God/Jesus has always bent the rules and done the unexpected. Yet, we as do the people of Nazareth, continue to believe that we know and understand God and that we know how God will act in any given situation.

Like the people of Nazareth, most of us are guilty at some time or another of believing that our understanding of God (and of how God behaves) is the ‘right’ understanding. There are probably more times than we would like to remember that we have have imposed our own hopes and desires on to our images of God/Jesus. We, as much as Jesus’ contemporaries, are guilty of wanting to think that we know God well enough to know how God does/will act in any given situation.

Jesus’ intention, now as then, is to ask us to think outside the box, to let go of our cherished ideas about God and about faith and to be constantly open to the ways in which God might act in our present.

Today’s gospel challenges us to rethink our relationship with God and to ask ourselves whether our image of God makes us feel comfortable, self-confident and self-assured, or whether our idea of God constantly unsettles us, challenges our pre-conceptions and allows us to be alert, expectant and excited and open to what God might do and how God might reveal Godself next.

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A radical realignment of the world

January 22, 2022

Epiphany 3 – 2022
Luke 4:14-21
Marian Free

In the name of God who asks that we do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with our God. Amen.

I grew up within sight of the University of Queensland, not far from the main road that ran between the University and the city. My father was an academic, so I was very aware of the student activism of the 1960’s and 1970’s – especially around the issues of conscription and apartheid. The protest marches passed by the end of our street. My father signed a petition objecting to the suggestion that the then Premier allow the military on to the University grounds. Students who were members of our Parish shared their experiences with us (and worried about whether their landlady would terminate their lease if she saw their images on the evening news. It was a time of activism and of engagement with political issues both at home and abroad and though I was not old enough to be involved, I was very aware of what was going on in the world around me.

In the conservative State of Queensland, public opinion was divided. The protesters were labelled as firebrands, troublemakers and radicals and legislation was introduced that forbade marches and public gatherings. Indeed, the then Premier declared a month-long state of emergency in reaction to the unrest.

A popular refrain at the time was that sport and politics had no relationship to each other. Those who supported the 1971 Springbok tour could not understand that by welcoming an all-white football team to this nation we were in fact condoning (indeed supporting) the policies of a government that excluded the majority of its citizens from playing rugby at a national level and whose policy of apartheid was oppressive and unjust.

When the church makes its voice heard on social issues such as climate change or the current policies on refugees we are told that the church should keep out of politics and that religion and politics should not mix. Churches/Christians that take this position to heart risk finding themselves in the company of the majority of churches in Germany who by choosing to remain silent allowed Hitter to send six million Jews to their deaths believing that the church had no place in politics or public affairs.

Such an attitude or way of thinking that is not supported by our scriptures as our gospel today reminds us.

From the time of Leviticus, through to the arrival in the promised land, to the urging of the prophets, the themes of caring for the widows, the orphans and the aliens in the land have been pronounced loudly and clearly in the Hebrew Scriptures. In the gospels, Jesus’ harshest words were addressed to the priests and Pharisees who neglected their responsibilities to the poor and disenfranchised and to those who put a narrow interpretation of the law above compassion and generosity. Jesus told the comfortable, the do-gooders and the self-satisfied that prostitutes, tax-collectors and sinners would enter heaven before them.

Of all the gospel writers it is Luke who is most concerned with the theme of social justice. Mary’s song (based on the song of Hannah) blatantly claims that in choosing her to bear God’s son, God has ‘has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. He has brought down the powerful from their thrones and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things and sent the rich away empty.’ God’s programme, as announced by Mary, is quite clearly one that will address the inequities and injustices of the world. According to her, God is not just concerned with piety and goodness, but with radically addressing the structures that favour some people over others.

As we have heard today, Jesus’ first and only recorded sermon does not speak of morality or obedience or even of faith. Jesus doesn’t call the people to repentance or even to prayer or spirituality (even those these are evident in his life). His mission as he understands it is one of setting the world to rights. Quoting Isaiah Jesus reads: ‘the Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free.” Then, controversially, he proclaims that these words have come to fruition in his life and ministry.

If our faith is a matter of pious sentimentality or if we are under the illusion that access to the kingdom has to do with keeping the Ten Commandments and doing good works, we will be unsettled, if not outright offended by Jesus’ words. For most of us, a radical realignment of society through the redistribution of power, status, and wealth would impact negatively on our comfortable lifestyles and a rearrangement of the way in which the world is ordered would necessitate a fundamental change in our attitudes and values. (Imagine, for example, if the prisoners really were set free.)

Christians are not called to uphold the status quo, to behave in ways that do not rock the boat, to accept the decisions of their governments without demur or to observe the thoughtlessness, unkindness or cruelty that enshrine such things without challenging the people and institutions that encourage such behaviour and who enshrine it in law. Jesus calls us to challenge and to confront the structures and systems that hold people captive, and which diminish or destroy their capacity to live lives that are rich and meaningful.

We are not truly free until everyone is free. So long as some live in poverty, the lives of us all are impoverished. If we do not critique the nature of the society in which we live, we are guilty of condoning and supporting its inequities.

What does it truly mean to follow Christ, and what changes do we need to make in our own lives in order to be part of a process that builds and more just and equitable world?

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Why baptism?

January 8, 2022

The Baptism of Jesus – 2022
Luke 3:15-22
Marian Free

In the name of God who calls us to be the people we were created to be. Amen.

I believe that I have mentioned previously that Jesus’ baptism was problematic for the gospel writers. Matthew and Luke both provide additions/alterations to Mark’s text in order to try to explain why Jesus – who was sinless – would need baptism for the forgiveness of sins and both Luke and John go to the trouble of distancing Jesus and John the Baptist .

One of the problems for us, as for the gospel writers is, that with the exception of the account of Jesus in the Temple, recorded only by Luke, we have no details from the time of Jesus’ birth until he bursts on the scene in connection with John the Baptist. Later, non-canonical, writers tried to fill in the gap. They provided us with extraordinary (if not always edifying) stories of Jesus’ childhood in writings like Proto-James and the Infancy Gospel of Thomas in order to demonstrate that the trajectory hinted at in Jesus’ birth, continued throughout his childhood – that the divinity that became evident in Jesus’ ministry was obvious from his childhood. For example, the Infancy Gospel of Thomas depicts the child Jesus as someone who not only heals and raises from the dead, but who also strikes down (dead) those who disagree with or provoke him!

Such stories only serve to emphasise the difficulty of Jesus suddenly appearing as an adult and beginning his public ministry after his baptism “of repentance for the forgiveness of sins” by John the Baptist. Why, we wonder, would Jesus need forgiveness? Of what would he need to repent? These are questioned that taxed Matthew, Luke and John and which continue to puzzle us.

In Luke’s account, Jesus only appears after questions have been raised as to whether or not John is the anointed one, and after John has been imprisoned. In this way, Jesus is neatly removed from John (perhaps to dispel any idea that Jesus was John’s disciple or a part of the movement surrounding John the Baptist). Jesus has been baptised (we are not told by whom) and is praying when the Spirit descends on him in a bodily form like a dove. Luke omits the dramatic tearing of the heavens that characterise Mark and Matthew though the words from heaven are the same as in Mark: “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased .” These words are a composite quote from the Old Testament: Psalm 2:7 in which a voice from heaven was seen as a reference to messianic sonship; three references from the Book of Genesis in which “beloved son” occurs in relation to the binding of Isaac (Gen 22:2,12,16); and Isaiah 42:1, the beginning of the first Servant Song in which God says: “with you I am well pleased”. The presence of the Spirit and the words from heaven announce – at the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry – his relationship with God and God’s affirmation of his status and mission.

But why baptism? In particular, why baptism for the “forgiveness of sins”? John Kavanagh SJ provides a compelling explanation. He reminds us that Jesus came, not just to reveal God to us, but to reveal to us what it really means to be human. In order to do this, Kavanagh argues Jesus had to fully identify with the human condition including its tendency to sin. Kavanagh states that: “We misunderstand this because we misunderstand our humanity as well as our sin .” He continues: “Not only is he (Jesus) truly God. He is truly human. And he is truly human precisely because he does not sin. All of our sin is nothing other than the rejection of the truth of our humanity.”

This is the critical point and one which is overlooked. “All of our sin is nothing other than the rejection of the truth of our humanity” – our God-created, God-given humanity. Only taking on the human form – with all its frailty, its propensity to go its own way – only by fully identifying with humankind, is Jesus able to “reverse our sinful rejection of our creatureliness”; to redeem and restore humanity to what it was created to be.

You see, even though we know that we are created by God in the image of God too many of us reject or resist our humanity. We don’t like our bodies, our actions, or our thoughts. We build up barriers between ourselves and others (even God) to protect ourselves from exposure or hurt. We continually split ourselves in two – that which we like (the good?) and that which we do not like (the bad?). We separate our human nature from our divine nature and in so doing we not only become riven in two, but worse, we demonstrate our complete lack of faith in our creator who, having made humankind in God’s own image, looked at what God had made and declared that: “indeed, it was very good” (Gen 1:31). Our rejection of ourselves is our rejection of God – of our God given humanity. Our rejection of our humanity leads to our rejection of our divinity and this, Kavanagh argues is sin. In identifying with our “sin” – that is in fully taking on our humanity – in “repenting” (and not rejecting) -and by being baptised, Jesus in his own person reunites our divided humanity and restores our divinity.
So much damage has been done to the Christian faith by our failure to understand the true nature of sin and therefor the true nature of our redemption. If only we could allow ourselves to see ourselves as God sees us and allow God through Jesus to make us whole, then perhaps we would all hear the words from heaven: “You are my beloved child, with you I am well-pleased.”

Jesus has done the hard work, we need only to apply to ourselves the results of his repentance and baptism.

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The Feast of Stephen

December 25, 2021

Christmas 1 – 2021
Marian Free

In the name of God who gave everything for us. Amen.

“Good King Wenceslas looked out
on the Feast of Stephen
when the snow lay round about,
deep and crips and even
brightly shone the moon that night
though the frost was cruel
when a poor man came in sight,
gathering winter fuuu-u-u-el.”

I wonder how many of us have sung this popular carol without giving much thought to King Wenceslas or to the feast of Stephen. Apart from the snow (which even in the southern hemisphere signifies Christmas) there is nothing remotely Christmasy about the words of the song. So why is it associated with Christmas and why does it reference the Feast of Stephen? The answer is simple – today (the day following Christmas Day) – is the Feast of Stephen. We often overlook this as we mark Boxing Day or, as is the case this year, we celebrate the first Sunday after Christmas.

Today’s preacher then has a wealth of themes on which to focus – the secular celebration of Boxing Day, the first Sunday of Christmas or the Feast of St Stephen. (One could even stretch to focusing on Wenceslas who was a Duke and not a King and who lived in Bohemia from 907-935. The Duke was known for his piety and his support of the poor and as a consequence was made a saint.)

Because the first Sunday of Christmas follows immediately after Christmas Day it seems too much of a jump to focus on the readings for that day which take us forward 12 years to the account of Jesus -on the verge of adulthood – frightening his parents by staying behind in Jerusalem. So let us instead consider Stephen, the first person to be martyred on account of the emerging faith in the crucified Jesus.

What we know about Stephen comes from the Book of Acts in which Luke provides us with a stylised view of the emerging church. From Acts 1:8 we can see that Luke structures his account in concentric circles. He imagines the gospel spreading from Jerusalem, to Judea, to Samaria to the ends of the earth. The movement is not only geographic, but ethnic – from the centre of Judaism, to the Jews, to the Samaritans (who have something in common with the Jews) and finally to the Gentiles. According to Luke’s telling of the story it is Stephen’s martyrdom that sets this movement in train and which presages the spread of the faith beyond Jerusalem to ‘the ends of the earth.’

Stephen’s story begins in Acts 6 and concludes at the end of Acts 7. According to Luke, the earliest community of believers was led by the Twelve. It becomes clear that they cannot do everything and that the widows of Hellenist (Greek or gentile) believers were being neglected in the daily distribution of food. The Twelve make the decision that they should not be distracted from preaching by waiting on tables and they direct the Hellenists to choose seven men of ‘good standing full of the Spirit and wisdom’ to fulfill this task. Seven were chosen and were formally ‘ordained’ by the laying on of hands and with prayer. Among the seven was Stephen.

As I said, Luke. Uses the appointment of another tier of leadership (the beginnings of the diaconate) to introduce a new period of growth in the church – many come to ‘the obedience of faith’, even priests. Unfortunately, as is often the case, with success came conflict. Members of the synagogue of Freedmen (who themselves appear to have been Hellenists) argued with Stephen and, being unable to compete with Stephen’s wisdom and spirituality, they stirred up others against him and brought false charges of blasphemy against him.

Stephen is brought before the high priest and in response to the accusations gives a long speech (a typical Lucan device) in which he recites the history of the Jews from Abraham to Jesus, recounting the ‘typical’ rejection of the prophets by the people of God. This, as you might imagine, only further enraged his opponents. When Stephen concluded his speech by saying that he saw the heavens opened and Jesus standing at the right hand of God Stephan’s opponents had had enough. They dragged him out of the city and stoned him. Hence Stephen became the first person to be martyred for his faith, to sacrifice his life for Jesus.

In a recent podcast Alexander John Shaia suggests that it is possible to link Boxing Day and the Feast of St Stephen to each other. I share it with you, not because I am convinced, but because it is a novel idea worth pondering. In the northern hemisphere Christmas falls near the winter solstice. It is the depths of winter a time when earth was often covered with snow. Snow or not, it is impossible to grow crops and for the poor there was nowhere to forage for food. On the day after the winter solstice, the Celts had a tradition of teaching boys on the verge of adulthood something about the value of sacrifice – giving of themselves that others might live.

The ritual (which seems barbaric to us) involved killing a wren and letting its blood run into the earth in order that the earth might regenerate after the long hard winter. Shaia argues that the early Celtic Christians saw in this tradition a resonance with their newfound faith. Stephen the first Christian martyr had given his life for the life of others. As was the case with many Celtic traditions, they kept the day but gave it a new meaning. They no longer sacrificed a wren, but adopted the spiritual practice for men and boys to gather and give food and money and clothing to poor and shut ins.

Here Shaia brings us back to the carol which ends:
“In his master’s step he trod,
where the snow lay dented.
heat was in the very sod
which the saint had printed.
therefore, Christian men, be sure,
wealth or rank possessing,
ye who now will bless the poor
shall yourselves find blessing”

Having asked his page who the poor man is and where he lives, the king and page set out in the bitter weather with food and wine and fuel to ease the suffering of the poor man. When the page’s strength fails, the king urges boldness to combat the cold and the carol ends – as we see with a blessing for those who are generous.

Whether we link gift giving and generosity to the wise ones or the tradition of Stephen, it is important that in the midst of our own celebrations, our self-indulgence and our (often) over eating, that we remember those for whom every day is a struggle – the refugee, the poor, the hungry, the lonely, those suffering from the effects of war, civil strife or natural disaster and that we give – not what we can spare – but generously and openly so that our small sacrifice might make the world a better place and ourselves better for the gift.

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Who would God choose?

December 18, 2021

Advent 4 – 2021
Luke 1:39-55
Marian Free

In the name of God who overturns the structures of power, wealth and status and who chooses the poor and the vulnerable to bring God to life in the world. Amen.

This year I received a Christmas card on which the image was a reproduction of a painting by Australian artist Rod Moss. I have to say that it is the most realistic image of the Holy Family that I have ever been privileged to see. Rod Moss has adapted a painting by Caravaggio and has used as his model an indigenous family and a central Australian setting. What stands out to me is the fact that the scene is not sentimental, nor has it been sanitised or primped. It is posed to be sure, but the models are real people – people who are almost certainly more like Mary and Joseph than any other representation that I have seen.

The background is likewise unadorned – it is bare and plain – a simple corrugated iron structure, a family of dogs and an angel that is not overtly “angelic”.

From the image one can deduce that this is a family who have little to spare. Mary is dressed simply in a blue, ill-fitting, open-necked polo shirt paired with a bright patterned skirt. Her long hair is not covered, and strands have broken loose from her ponytail. Not for this Mary the spotless white head covering or perfect blue robe in which she is usually depicted. Joseph wears a shirt that is a bit too big for his narrow frame and his longish hair is tousled rather than neatly brushed unlike the tidy, well-groomed Joseph of most nativity scenes.

The baby is lying (arms outstretched) on a bed.

Moss’s image provides what to me is a realistic picture of Mary and Joseph – a couple from a poor rural town who have travelled by foot for several days only to discover that there is nowhere for them to stay when they arrive at their destination. The painting is a stark reminder that neither Mary or Joseph came from families of privilege, wealth, status or power.

An image such as this – one that doesn’t gloss over the poverty and the hardships faced by Mary and Joseph – gives power and meaning to Mary’s song. “He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly” (Lk 1:52). In response to Elizabeth’s blessing, Mary seems to grasp the implications of what God has done – that in choosing her to bear God’s anointed, God has clearly demonstrated God’s preference for the poor. Mary has no position or heritage that sets her apart, a fact that is further amplified by the fact that she is a woman, yet she is the one whom God has chosen to bring God into the world. In choosing Mary, God has acted contrary to expectation that God will enter the world with power and might and God has made it clear that justice and equity are at the heart of God’s relationship with the world.

Our English translation does not do justice to grammar of the text. As O. Wesley Allen Jn. Allen points out Luke shapes the Magnificat by having Mary speak of God’s actions in the past tense: “God looked, did great things for me, showed strength, scattered the proud, brought down the powerful, lifted up the lowly, filled the hungry, sent the rich away empty, and helped Israel (verses 48–54). English translations render the verbs in the perfect tense (for example, “has looked”) implying an action in the past that continues into the present. But the Greek verbs are all aorist, indicating actions completely completed in the past .”

In the words of her song, Mary is saying that God has (already) acted. God’s choice of Mary is proof positive of God’s preference for the poor, the marginalized and the dispossessed. It is not something that is going to happen – it has happened. God has acted. God has demonstrated God’s preference, has provided a glimpse of the kingdom values.

God’s choice of Mary is a slap in the face of all who think that their power, their influence or their wealth comes from God, who think that their place in the world implies that they are better than those who do not share their privilege, or who think that because they are richer and more powerful that it is within their right to exploit or to oppress others.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer describes the Magnificat this way: “It is at once the most passionate, the wildest, one might even say the most revolutionary Advent hymn ever sung. This is not the gentle, tender, dreamy Mary whom we sometimes see in paintings…. This song has none of the sweet, nostalgic, or even playful tones of some of our Christmas carols. It is instead a hard, strong, inexorable song about the power of God and the powerlessness of humankind.”

Mary’s song is an indictment against a church that has become institutionalised and that has aligned itself with the cultural norms and values of the world in which it finds itself. It critiques a church that has become contented with its place among the establishment, the respectable and the comfortable. It puts the lie to the idea that God needs beautiful churches and well-dressed congregations, and it challenges all of us who believe that we are doing all that we can to bring about God’s kingdom.

Mary’s song is an uncomfortable song and echoes down the ages with a message for us all.

What does God’s choice tell us about our attitudes and dispositions, our value judgments, our position in the world? I wonder who God would choose today and how comfortable would God’s choice make us feel?

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Don’t wait for heaven – live it now

December 11, 2021

Advent 3 – 2021

Luke 3:7-18

Marian Free

May we allow Christ into our lives so that we might be transformed into people who will know themselves at home in heaven. Amen.

Some years ago, I was impressed by a statement written be C.S. Lewis. In Mere Christianity Lewis wrote: “We might think that the ‘virtues’ were necessary only for this present life – that in the other world we could stop being just because there is nothing to quarrel about and stop being brave because there is no danger (or stop being good because there is no reason to be bad)[1]. Now it is quite true that there will probably be no occasion for just or courageous (or virtuous) acts in the next world, but there will be every occasion for being the sort of people we can become only as a result of doing such acts here. The point is not that God will not refuse you admission to his Eternal world  if you have not got certain qualities of character: the point is that if people have not got at least the beginnings of these qualities inside them, then no possible external conditions could make it Heaven for them, that is could make them happy with the deep, strong, unshakeable kind of happiness that God intends for us.”

I find Lewis notoriously difficult to re-phrase but I took this to mean that if we want to feel at home in heaven that we should begin changing our behavior now. That is if, as we imagine heaven is a place of peace, joy and harmony we should, in the present begin to practice those qualities in our own lives and to begin to excise those parts of us that will not be comfortable in such an environment. We should in the present, try to remove from our lives anything that would make others feel uncomfortable – self righteousness, judgementalism, anger, hatred and so on. It is a challenging concept – especially for those of us who are carrying grudges and who have an expectation that we will be vindicated in the life hereafter. A heaven filled with sour, unforgiving people would be no heaven at all and those who are sour and unforgiving would not be at all comfortable in a place full of peace and joy. Fear of hell is no reason to be good now, but wanting to be at home is every reason to practice being heavenly now.

In her sermon commentary for this week Chelsea Harmon says a similar thing from a different perspective. She asks: “When the world ends and all that’s left of you is what is of God and his Kingdom, will you be able to recognize yourself?”[2] If I found Lewis’s idea challenging, I find Chelsea’s even more confronting. What would remain of me if everything that was not of God was taken away?

Lewis’s image allows us to imagine that we can act in a way that prepares us for heaven, that we can practice the virtues that will fit us for everlasting life. In Harmon’s image we see ourselves completely stripped bare, with only what is Godly remaining. In essence, the ideas are exactly the same but the first allows room for us to act, the second reminds us that one of our tasks in this life is to get ourselves out of the way so that our lives and our actions are determined by the presence of God in us.

Either way, as Richard Rohr points out, “We don’t go to heaven, we learn how to live in heaven now. If try to prove that we’re better than everybody else or believe that we’re worse than everybody else, we are already in hell.” (12/3/21)

According to today’s gospel, crowds have been drawn into the wilderness seeking John’s “baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.” Among those who came were tax collectors and soldiers – those despised by the general population because (for whatever reason) they were in the service of Rome. Instead of welcoming the crowds, John’s tone is harsh and judgmental: “who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?” he asks. Apparently, he doubts their sincerity. By implication, he is accusing them of being self-serving – wanting to find an easy (superficial) way to avoid God’s judgement. Their question tells us otherwise. They (especially those whose situation is one of compromise and obligation) genuinely want to know what they must do. John’s response is to tell them how to behave according to the values of heaven. That is, instead of taking advantage of others because of their positions they are to live (as much as is possible) generously and with integrity. In other words, they are to live the life of the kingdom now, so that when it comes, they will be at home.

It is quite clear to us that the urgency with which John proclaimed his message was misplaced. The world did not come to a physical end. His generation did not experience the wrath of God. But God did come. God came – not in power and with wrath but in obscurity and with peace. Jesus entered the world, not to judge but to transform, to turn hearts to God and lives to God’s way of being. John did announce the end, but perhaps not the end he expected. The Incarnation, the coming of Jesus heralded the end of one way of existence and the beginning of a new. John’s listeners had a choice – to continue in their old ways, to demonstrate by their behaviour and their attitudes an unwillingness to become part of God’s kingdom, or to repent (to turn around), to let go of their old, self-centred ways and to begin to live lives focused on God and on their neighbours. They were live as if they were in heaven now.

So it is with us, whether by practicing kingdom values, attitudes and behaviours as Lewis suggests, or divesting ourselves of worldly values, attitudes and behaviours as Harmon says,  John calls us to turn our lives around, to “flee from the wrath to come”, to begin to live in the present as we hope to live for eternity.

This is the choice we are offered again and again every Advent – to hold fast to the values of the world (which is coming to an end) or to allow ourselves to be transformed by the values of the kingdom which never ends.

We have been warned. We have a choice to make.

Will we choose earth or heaven, the present or eternity?

 

 

[1] Italics mine. In Lewis’s book The Great Divorce, he creates a fictional story about a variety of people who self-exclude themselves from heaven – the angry and the bitter who cannot bear to see that the person who has wronged them is already there for example.

[2] For the full article go to https://cepreaching.org/authors/chelsey-harmon/

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Looking back, looking forward

November 27, 2021

Advent 1 – 2021
Luke 21:25-38
Marian Free

In the name of God, Earth-Maker, Pain-Bearer, Life-Giver. Amen.
On the 26th of July, Marmour Kunpeter wrote for Anglican Focus: “I fled South Sudan for Ethiopia when I was 11. The journey across the desert without clothing or shoes was very bad. We travelled for many days – we walked for more than a month across the desert to escape the persecution of the Khartoum government who wanted to abduct boys so they couldn’t join the rebel groups once they became older.
More than 20,000 boys walked across the desert as unaccompanied minors. We are known as the ‘Lost Boys of Sudan’. There were seven from my extended family and we walked with 13,000 others. I left my parents with only the food I could carry, which my mum packed for me, and a two litre container of water. My mum packed simsim for me, a sort of produce like peanuts that doesn’t need cooking so it was easy to eat. I didn’t see my parents again.

We travelled at nighttime, mostly so the Khartoum government military in helicopters could not find us. We ran out of food quickly and ate wild animals, although not all of us would get a portion. It was a struggle. The desert was very dry and it was dangerous. We could be abducted. Many were eaten by wild animals. Some children were eaten by lions. Most children who died just fell asleep and did not get up as they were too weak to walk any further.” Once the group entered Ethiopia it took three months before the United Nations came with food and water, by then many more children had died.

Unless we have had a similar experience, it is impossible to really understand the privations that some people go through and still come out the other side – the death camps of the Holocaust, the civil war in Syria, people-trafficking, the persecution of the Rohingya are just a few of the horrific examples that come to mind.

The gospels were written at a time when the violent and murderous march of Titus through Galilee and the subsequent destruction of Jerusalem were fresh in the minds of many. Not only had the siege of that city by Rome led to starvation and desperation, but the in-fighting between the different sects of Judaism had made the situation even worse. After five months, the Romans entered the city and razed it to the ground so that it could not once again become a focus for dissension and rebellion. Those for whom the gospels were written would have known only too well how uncertain and precarious life could be. Jesus’ words as reported by Luke, would have provided reassurance and a sense of optimism to his community – reassurance that catastrophic events such as the destruction of Jerusalem (and with it the Temple) were not unexpected, and a sense of optimism that God is present even in the very worst of circumstances.

Today is the first Sunday of Advent, the beginning of the church year, yet we begin at the end of the story – Jesus’ warning of future events in the days before his death. This is perhaps because Jesus is referring to an end that is also a beginning, to devastation that has within it the seeds of the future. As Advent continues our readings will move us from upheaval, through promise to joyous expectation. Together they serve as a reminder that, with or without faith, life rarely runs smoothly, that there may well be times when our hopes are dashed and our expectations shattered, when we are forced to face difficulties and obstacles for which we were unprepared.

As the church year continues, we will experience the full gamut of human emotions – terror and hope, despair and joy, disappointment, and surprise, wonder and confusion. In the stories of Jesus’ followers, we will witness excitement and expectation as well as foolishness and betrayal. The gospels are not a record of dry, historical events, but a microcosm of human experience, a reassurance that our experiences are not unique but are shared (to a greater or lesser extent) by all humanity. All of us will at some time or another have our lives turned upside down – by external events (war, COVID, natural disaster), by personal issues (the death of a loved one, a diagnosis of a terminal or deteriorative disease). At such moments, Jesus assures us, God will not have abandoned us. Indeed, as many of us can attest, it is often when our world seemed to be falling apart that we discovered that God was closer than we had thought.

In the midst of his unimaginable travails, Marmour found God. “It was at this time when I was 11 years old that I began to have a relationship with God. In Ethiopia there was a church that I went to. It was there that I found out about the Israelites and how they travelled a long way on foot. After hearing their story, instead of thinking so much about going back to my parents, I thought to myself that this is what I had to live with, that this is my life now. I thought about what I had experienced and decided that there had to be some kind of power – something that was sustaining my life.”

Now in Brisbane, Marmour is married with six children and studying for his Bachelor of Theology. His story is a powerful illustration of God’s presence in the worst of circumstances and a reminder that, at the start of another year, a year in which anything could happen, that in good times and bad the kingdom of God is near and that “Heaven and earth may pass away, but Jesus’ words will never pass away.”

May we face whatever lies ahead with courage and with confidence that when we need God most, God will be most near.

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A powerless God

December 26, 2020

Christmas 1 – 2020

Luke 2:22-40

Marian Free

In the name of our upside-down God who defies our expectations. Amen.

I can’t imagine that there is anyone for whom 2020 has turned out the way that they expected. Among our acquaintances there are at least six people who had made plans to celebrate their 60th birthdays in style only to have them overturned. One friend planned a cruise and had thought she’d be in Monte Carlo for her birthday. Instead, having spent two weeks off the coast of Perth on board the cruise liner, s celebrated turning 60 while in hotel quarantine. 

No one, even in their wildest dreams, could have imagined a year like this in which plans have been 

thwarted, career trajectories halted or even over-turned, and families separated for months at a time. Who could have envisaged silent airports, empty supermarket shelves, and more sanitiser than we’d ever have thought possible? Turning away families from aged care and hospitals would have been unthinkable a year ago and yet circumstances have dictated that in some places families have not been able to sit with the dying or to attend their funeral. In Queensland, we have been extraordinarily lucky and still our lives have been turned upside down by job losses, business closures and restrictions on who we can or cannot visit, where we can go and how we can worship.

For ten months we have lived in a topsy turvy world in which our expectations have been proven to be unrealistic and in which planning has been impossible. We have found ourselves to be at the mercy of a virus over which we have had no control.

Not having control might be a novel experience for us, but for many it is a state of life – for those living in war zones, for refugees, those living below the poverty line and those who livelihoods are at the mercy of the weather.

It is human to long for certainty, to hope that things will improve, to believe that there is a God who turn the situation around. 

This longing is a characteristic of the prophetic books of the Old Testament, many of which were written during Israel’s time in exile. The Israelites yearn to return to their own land, to the way that things used to be and to having control over their destiny. 

At the turn of the millennia, the time of Jesus, the Israelites are in the home country, but they have been under the dominion of foreign powers for centuries. Once again, they are vulnerable to the whims of another nation. They looked forward to a redeemer (the one promised by the prophets) to restore of the nation to its former glory – the Roman colonists defeated, Temple worship reestablished under the historic priesthood, the land fruitful and a descendant of David on the throne. 

How differently things turned out. God’s redeemer did come among them, but in such a way that he was largely unnoticed and was completely unrecognisable. in fact, Jesus appearance was the reverse of everything that they had come to expect! There were no flashes of lightening, no violent upheavals of the heavens or of earth, no obvious trappings of authority  – just the whimper of a child in an insignificant town, a human infant, not an omnipotent being, a powerless son of a carpenter not a member of a ruling family

No matter how many times one reads Simeon’s speech and the account of Anna, the language jars. 

We would expect Simeon to say: “the rising and the fall” of many and to read that Anna prayed: “day and night” in the Temple. Those would be the usual figures of speech. What Simeon does say is “the fall and the raising” and Anna is said to pray “night and day”. This reversal of what we expect to hear turns out to be a sign what is to come. Jesus may be the “salvation prepared in sight of all peoples” and a “light to the Gentiles” but his life will play out in a very different way. He will be opposed instead of being welcomed. Instead of restoring the institutions of Israel, Jesus will be perceived to be undermining them. Rather than supporting and affirming those in positions of authority, Jesus will expose their hypocrisy and self-centredness and, as a consequence his life will be demanded of him. 

Despite the longings and hopes of the Israelites, Jesus will not be an interventionist Saviour. He will not lead armies or expel the Romans. He will not bring down the corrupt priests who rule the Temple and control the Sanhedrin nor will he denounce tax-collectors, prostitutes and other sinners. From the start he will be a disappointment and he will fall before there is any rising as Simeon predicts. There will be suffering not triumph. Jesus will serve not govern and those with most to lose will seek to destroy him.

“Fall and rising”, “night and day” – the unusual phraseology of this passage alerts us to the fact that this story is not going to go the way we expected. From the beginning to the end of Jesus’ life, our upside-down God confounds, confronts and challenges expectations. Jesus does not, in any way, conform to the image of one who was to redeem Israel. He has not come to judge – not even the Romans and the collaborators. He is anything but powerful and influential and he undermines rather than upholds the religious establishment.

God, in Jesus is utterly at the service of the poor and the marginalised. God in Jesus models how to bring about change and transformation in others. God in Jesus is vulnerable to the fears and desires of those who do not want anything to stand between them and their craving for status and power. 

In fact, Jesus’ life (and death) is a stark reminder that God is powerless against human greed, ambition and selfishness. 

If the world is to change, we have to change. We have to cede our need for control, our desire for power and our yearning for material things. We have to acknowledge our own complicity in and responsibility for the inequities and injustices of this world and with Jesus align ourselves to the powerless, the vulnerable and marginalised. We must fall before we rise, experience night before day and, in immersing ourselves in the suffering of the world find the power that leads to the transformation of the world.

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