Open to heaven

January 17, 2015

Epiphany 2 – 2015

John 1:43-51

Marian Free

 May my spoken word, lead us through the written Word, to encounter the Living Word, even Jesus Christ our Saviour. Amen.

Last week Rodney and I attended the Clergy Summer School. Attending is always worthwhile, because whatever the topic, I find that I learn something new. At the same time I enjoy the break and the collegiality of my peers. This year our theme was music – “The Experience of Music as Theology. One of our speakers was Geoff Bullock – the founder of Hillsong Music Australia. A composer and lyric writer, he was the Worship pastor of Hillsong from 1987-1995. Four of Geoff’s songs can be found in our hymnbook including The Power of Your Love and The Heavens Shall Declare. The second speaker was Maeve Heaney, a member of the Spanish religious community (Verbum Die Missionary Society). Like Geoff, Maeve is a writer and composer of Christian music. She hails from Ireland, has written a Phd on music as theology and now teaches at the Australian Catholic University at Banyo.

The two speakers were invited for very different reasons. The committee were aware that Geoff had left Hillsong 20 years ago and that since then both his faith and his music writing had taken a different direction. Music and lyrics that had formerly reflected the theology of the Hillsong community had changed to be more representative of mainstream theology. Geoff was invited to tell his story and to share with us some of the history of contemporary church music. Maeve had recently published her Phd and was invited to speak about church music from a more academic perspective.

As I have said, the Summer School is always valuable, but this year there was a very different feel to it. On reflection, I suspect that it was because the input was not just academic, but also personal – there was heart stuff as well as head stuff. In sharing the story of his music, Geoff shared a great deal about his faith story and in teaching us about the theology of music; Maeve revealed something of her relationship with Jesus. The generosity of both Maeve and Geoff in sharing with us their personal stories brought us face-to-face with the presence of Jesus in their lives. I felt that they told their stories in such a way that the presence of God was almost palpable. It was if a door had been opened between heaven and earth and that Jesus was in the lecture theatre with us.

This week and last, the gospel readings have reminded us that in Jesus the boundaries between heaven and earth have been radically changed. Last Sunday, we heard from Mark’s gospel  that at Jesus’ baptism the heavens were ripped apart and that the Spirit descended on Jesus like a dove. In today’s gospel Jesus tells Nathaniel: “Very truly, I tell you, you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.”

Many of us will have recognised in today’s gospel the reference to Jacob’s dream in Genesis 28:7 in which Jacob sees angels ascending and descending a ladder that reaches into heaven. There is a significant difference however between Genesis and John. In the former, access to heaven occurs when Jacob is dreaming whereas Jesus’ promise to Nathaniel suggests that access to heaven is through Jesus, that Jesus’ presence on earth means that the barriers between heaven and earth have been permanently removed. From now on, access to heaven or to God is not limited to dreams, it is not mediated through the patriarchs, the prophets or the priests, it is not found only in the Temple, but is available at any time and in any place to each and everyone of Jesus’ disciples and to all who worship him. Jesus’ coming among us on earth means that heaven and earth have been brought together in a way that was unimaginable and perhaps even impossible before.

That does not necessarily mean that we are always aware of God’s presence, nor that we are constantly “moved by the Spirit”. Life would be impossible if every person of faith was constantly experiencing or seeking some sort of religious or spiritual high. If that were to be the case, there would be a danger that the experience of heaven would come to be taken for granted, that instead of our experience of God being wondrous and special it would become mundane and ordinary. Of course, we all know the presence of God in our lives most if not all of the time, but there are occasions when it feels as though, God/Jesus/the Holy Spirit is particularly close. At those times there seems to be no barrier between the eternal and ourselves.

How and when that happens will almost certainly be different for each one of us. For some it will happen when they are listening to a particularly inspiring or beautiful piece of music, others will have their breath taken away by an extraordinary view, still others will have an experience of God during worship or in a time of private prayer and yet others when they are sharing together stories of their faith. We may experience God in all of these or in many other ways at different moments of our lives. God in Jesus is not limited to time and space and will at times catch us by surprise, move us deeply or take our breath away.

Jesus might have ascended to heaven, but that does not mean that he is no longer accessible to us. Heaven has been opened to us, if we are to get the most out of our relationship with God, it is essential that we are open to heaven.

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The heavens torn asunder

January 10, 2015

Baptism of Jesus – 2015

Mark 1:4-11 (Genesis 1:1-8)

Marian Free

May my spoken word, lead us through the written Word, to encounter the Living Word, even Jesus Christ our Saviour. Amen.

It is difficult to let go of the idea that heaven is above us and that hell – if such a place exists – is below. Even though modern science has revealed the vastness of the universe, and even though we know that the nearest star is light years away, most of us still think of heaven as somewhere above the sky. One reason for such a view is that our image of heaven is formed by our biblical texts that in turn are dependent on a view of the world that dominated in ancient times. In this period of time, it was believed that the earth sat on pillars above the waters below and that the sky was a vast dome that held back the waters above. The sun, moon and stars hung from this dome and the rain fell through holes in the dome.

In Hebrew the word for this dome is raqia. This is the same word that is used for God’s chariot or for the platform for God’s throne. It seems that in Hebrew thought the sky – what was for them the roof of the earth – was for God the floor of heaven. That is not to say that they understood God to be confined to heaven or that they thought that the dome was impermeable, preventing movement in either direction. After all, God had conversations with Abraham and Moses spoke to God face-to-face. It does seem however, that communication between God and humankind generally occurred through individuals such as the patriarchs or the prophets or through intermediaries such as angels. In any event, over time the communication between heaven and earth became ritualized and instead of communication being a two-way conversation, it was limited to an action that took place once a year – first of all in the tent of meeting and then in the Temple.

The design of these places of worship is important, in particular the separation of the sanctuary, which is the place of meeting. In Exodus God says to Moses: “And have them make me a sanctuary. There I will meet you and I will give you all my commands for the Israelites.” Moses used to meet God in the sanctuary on a regular basis but, according to the Book of Leviticus this place, which was separated by a curtain from the remainder of the tent of meeting, was considered so holy that it was only entered once and year and then only by the current High Priest. On the Day of Atonement, the High Priest would enter the Holy of Holies surrounded by a cloud of incense that would prevent him from seeing God. Inside the sanctuary he would sprinkle blood on and before the mercy seat. This was to cleanse the tent of the sins of the people and to make it possible for God to continue to dwell in their midst. It was not a conversation between the priest and God as it had been in Moses’ day. The Temple, when it was built, was built on the same design as the Tent of meeting. Again the sanctuary was separated from the inner court by a curtain and entered only once a year by the High Priest. The relationship between God and the people at this time was not personal but formal and dictated by ritual.

All of this background information is essential if we are to understand Mark’s account of Jesus’ baptism.

Mark tells us that as Jesus was coming out of the water, he saw the heavens torn asunder and hears the voice of God saying: “You are my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.” It is true that in this account only Jesus sees the heavens torn and hears the voice of God, but Mark’s audience hear the words as if they too see and hear, and the implication of what is happening is not lost on them. The violent tearing of the heavens suggests to them that the barrier that existed between them and heaven has been broken irreparably. The dome is no longer intact. God has broken through into the world and nothing will ever be the same. From now on the way in which God communicates with the world will be radically different. God will be accessible to all people, not to just a few.

That this is Mark’s intended meaning is made clear at the conclusion of the gospel when another violent tearing destroys the curtain in the Temple – that which had separated the people from the sanctuary. Mark records that when Jesus took his last breath, the veil (curtain) in the Temple was torn from top to bottom making clear that no longer is communication with God limited to just one person just once a year. All people now have access to and can communicate directly with God.

Even though Mark does not record Jesus’ birth, in only a few verses he makes it obvious that in Jesus, God has radically entered the world. God’s heaven has been opened in a way that could not previously have been imagined and the violence of the opening suggests that it will not easily be closed again. The barriers (real or perceived) between earth and heaven have been destroyed. All of humanity is now able to speak directly to God without the need of an intermediary.

God has done everything possible to open channels of communication with us. It is up to us to make good use of them.

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Alarm bells

January 3, 2015

Epiphany – 2015

Matthew 2:1-12

Marian Free

In the name of God who is always the same and yet always challenging (alarming) those who are open to God’s presence. Amen.[1]

In a recent edition of The Christian Century I read the following story. A parish in the United States was in the habit of presenting a “live nativity pageant” – real people and real animals spread out over the expansive front lawn. It was the practice on these occasions for the magi to appear from elsewhere and to this end, those playing the role of magi put on their costumes in the hall of the local Catholic Church. One year, the enterprising participants decided to add to the mystery and drama by arriving in a cloud of incense. They borrowed a Thurible from the Catholics and set off towards their own Church having first made sure that the coals were well alight and that the incense was smoking. As they made their way to their destination, they were perturbed to hear the sirens of the fire trucks. Unbeknownst to them, they had triggered the smoke alarm in the hall and this had sent a signal to the local fire department. When the firemen finally tracked down the cause of the problem, one was heard to say: “You %#@& wise men are setting off alarms all over town!”

Our passive nativity scenes do not adequately capture the extraordinary nature of the visit of the magi – who must have seemed exotic, different and disturbing at the time. Indeed we know that not only Herod, but also all Jerusalem trembled at their presence. Over time, the magi have been stripped of their mystery and their power to disrupt our comfortable lives. Subsequent generations of believers have domesticated these magicians/astrologers. They no longer appear as figures who are strange and disquieting. These days they are more often referred to as kings or as wise men rather than as magicians. Their number has been determined and history has given them names and nationalities – even to the point of guessing the colour of their skin.

The text however is clear. These men – whose origin, nationality and number are unknown to us – were men who studied the sky and interpreted the movements of the stars and the planets. (Today we – good Christians that we are – might shun them as proponents of astrology, people who believe that they not God can look into the future.) Yet it is heir study of the sky is the reason that they (and apparently no one else) have noticed the star and guessed at its meaning. Even Herod, the chief priests and the scribes appear not to have noticed this phenomenon or, if they had, they had not realised its significance. No wonder the presence of the magi set alarm bells ringing.

What was the cause for alarm? First century Jerusalem was a cosmopolitan city. Successive invasions would have ensured that many cultures were represented in the city. The Pax Romana ensured that roads were safe to travel and merchants and others were, as a consequence, quite mobile. Apart from this people (not only Jews) from all over the Empire would have come to worship at the Temple. The city would not have been without its fortune-tellers, healers and miracle workers. From this vantage point, the magi might have looked like any other visitors to the city. Added to this, Matthew implies that their presence should not have been unexpected. The Old Testament bears witness in many places to an expectation that when God restored the fortunes of Israel, “all the nations” would stream to Jerusalem to worship God.

The thing that makes these particular visitors so disturbing is that it is they, not the leaders of Israel have understood the importance of the star and of the birth of the child. Unlike the Israelites who are shown to be ignorant of and then indifferent to the presence of Jesus among them, the magi recognise what is going on and have come from a distance to worship the child.

From this vantage point, their presence is disturbing – indeed alarming. Their part in the story of Jesus’ birth indicates that God is doing something radically different and unexpected. That is, God is giving the Gentiles a prominent place in the unfolding story of the people of God. The identification by the magi of Jesus as the Christ implies that from now on everything is going to be different – as indeed it turns out to be. As Paul’s letters reveal, one of the most confronting and difficult issues for the emerging church was this: “what is the place of the Gentiles and how much should our traditions and practices change so that they can be included?”

For us, the magi provide a romantic element to the accounts of Jesus’ nativity, but “King Herod was troubled and all Jerusalem with him.” Not only did the birth of the King of the Jews threaten Herod’s position and the peace and stability of Jerusalem, but it also shattered the expectations about how God would act and threw open previously unthought-of possibilities with regard to God and God’s relationship with the world.

In life, but more particularly in faith, most of us become comfortable with the way things are. We tend to think that because God has acted in a particular way in the past, God will continue to behave in that way in the future. In so doing, we make God a servant of our expectations; we place boundaries on the way that we think God will act and we blind ourselves to God’s intervention in our lives and in the world. God is not and cannot be a slave to our expectations.

Matthew’s account of the magi raises important questions: Do we want to keep things the same or are we willing to allow our world-view to be shaken and tossed upside down by God’s once more breaking through our complacency and entering into our world. When the alarm bells ring – do we look to immediately extinguish the flames or do we ask ourselves whether God is saying something new and radical, challenging us to move in new directions and to open our eyes to new possibilities? And do we have the courage to accept the change that that involves?

[1] (With thanks to Thomas Long (Christian Century) Blogging Towards Sunday, Epiphany, 2015, 2014.

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Open to God’s future

December 27, 2014

Christmas 1 – 2014

Luke 1:21-40

Marian Free

In the name of God who is beyond all we can conceive or imagine. Amen.

It is not unusual for parents to keep records of their children’s birth, growth and development. At the very least, many will keep the band that identified their child in the hospital, the records of immunisations and the growth chart from routine visits to child health centres. Others go further and record in a book designed for the purpose, the date of the baby’s first smile, first tooth, first step, first word. If the child is the first born, there will be ample photos to accompany the time-line. Over time stories will be told and re-told about events in the child’s life or signs that foretold the sort of person the child would grow to be.

No such records exist for Jesus. If his parents had stories to tell, they are lost to us and if the gospel writers knew any such stories they considered them irrelevant to the account of Jesus’ life and ministry. Mark and John are singularly uninterested in any aspect of Jesus’ life before his public ministry. Matthew and Luke do record Jesus’ birth, but they do so in ways that serve their particular purpose and that make it difficult to tell truth from fiction.

Of all the gospel writers, it is only the author of Luke’s gospel who shows any interest at all in the events of Jesus’ childhood and even then, his interest serves to make a theological point rather than to create an accurate record. In the gospel of Luke, accounts of Jesus’ childhood firmly embed and ground him in the traditions of his faith – circumcised on the eighth day and redeemed by an offering of two turtledoves in the Temple. In this way, Luke establishes Jesus’ credibility and makes it clear that he indeed is the one expected by Israel – despite the fact that he will turn out to be very different from what had been expected.

Jesus’ status both as the one who fulfils the promise to Israel and the one who confounds all expectation is established by two unlikely figures – Simeon and Anna. Both are old and wise and, by all accounts, model Jews. Simeon we are told is righteous and devout and Anna has spent the better part of her life in prayer and fasting. Their presence in the Temple links them to the past, to the traditions of their people and to what God has done. Their recognition of the child Jesus points to the future and to what God is about to do.

Past and future are juxtaposed throughout this narrative – life and death, youth and age, old and new, law and Spirit. We, the readers, get the sense that the world is on the brink of something new. The past and all the traditions represented by the Temple are about to give way to something radically different and unexpected. The exclusivity of Israel is about to be shattered by the inclusion of the Gentiles and the law and all that it represented is about to give way to the precedence of the Holy Spirit.

Simeon can see that the much-anticipated salvation of Israel will cause disquiet among the people and that not all will welcome the child with as much joy and excitement as does Anna. His hymn and the prophecy that follow exemplify just how divisive this child of Mary and Joseph will be. “he is destined for the falling and the rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed.” Jesus’ life and ministry will shatter all preconceptions about a Saviour for Israel and his very presence will demand a response and expose the nature of a person’s relationship to and understanding of God.

Those who accept Jesus will demonstrate their openness to God and those who do not will reveal their self-absorption, their narrowness of heart and mind. There will be many who think that they know the law yet their very adherence to the law will result in their inability to recognise the one sent to fulfil the law. Jesus’ failure to conform to their expectations and their subsequent rejection of him, will disclose their narrow and limited understanding of the law and of God’s promises. Conversely there will be many – especially those on the fringes of the faith – who will recognise Jesus’ divinity and embrace his presence despite or perhaps because he challenges the established view and refuses to be bound by a limited view of what the Christ should be.

Simeon understands that nothing is at it seems and that everything will be turned upside down and thrown into apparent disarray. Only those who are truly open to God and to the presence of God’s Spirit within them, will, with Simeon and Anna welcome the Christ among them.

We are all creatures of habit. We become comfortable with what we know and suspicious of what we do not. Change can be unsettling and disquieting and it is tempting to resist it believing that the ways things are is the way that they should always be. This is as true for our relationship with God as it is with other aspects of our lives. We are sometimes guilty of making God conform to our own image of God, of assuming that because we worship God in one particular way that that is the only way to worship because, that because our faith is expressed in certain words and forms, that that is the only way that it can be expressed. It is easy to make the mistake of believing that the past was right and the future must be wrong. In our desire to retain our comfort levels we struggle to maintain the status quo and we become closed and cautious, unwilling to accept that things could be any different or better.

What makes Anna and Simeon distinct from those around them is that they are actively waiting for God’s intervention in the world, and they have not predetermined how that intervention will occur. Because their eyes and minds are open, they see Israel’s Saviour where others see an ordinary child of an equally ordinary family. They are not at all perturbed that God has entered the world in such an extraordinary fashion – just the opposite – they are joyful and filled with praise for God.

God cannot and will not be bound by the limits of our imagination. It remains for us to develop an attitude of anticipation and expectation such that will we recognise God’s presence in the world in the ordinary and extraordinary, the expected and the unexpected and that our thoughts – when they are exposed for all to see – will not be found wanting.

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Making a difference in the world

December 20, 2014

Advent 4 – 2014
Luke 1:26-36
Marian Free

In the name of Jesus who surrendered himself completely and in so doing became completely God. Amen.

What a year this has been. What a week! This week alone two people have lost their lives in a hostage situation in Sydney, 140 students and teachers have been killed in an attack on a school in Pakistan, eight children have been stabbed to death by their mother in Cairns, and (hidden away in a small paragraph of today’s paper) we learn that another 180 women and children have been kidnapped by Boko Haran in Nigeria. In the face of all this horror and violence it is easy to overlook the devastating news that the UN has run out of funds and that hundreds of thousands of refugees who have fled the violence in Syria and Iraq can no longer expect food handouts and so may have escaped the war only to face starvation. It might also have escaped our attention that currently in the Central African Republic something like 10,000 children – some as young as eight – have been recruited as soldiers and force to fight in a war they almost certainly do not understand.

And that is just this week and only the news items that particularly grabbed my attention. It is only the tip of the iceberg in a world that seems to be falling apart at the seams.

The week just gone is exactly the sort of week that might make a person ask “where is God in all this” and “why doesn’t God do something to stop the violence and destruction?” The reason is simple – God can’t intervene. At least God cannot intervene decisively and enduringly without stooping to our level and behaving just like us. If God were to use violence to put an end to violence either the world itself would be destroyed or the world would follow God’s example and the cycle of violence would continue. If instead God tried to impose God’s will, to dominate and subjugate the aggressors would resist God’s control and take out their frustration on others the situation might become worse rather than better.

So while God might despair at the state of the world today, God chooses not to intervene. If God does intervene God does so in a completely novel and unexpected way – without resorting to violence or domination. God knows that forcing us to do God’s will is not nearly as effective as working with us to achieve the same end. For this reason God refuses to coerce us, to bend us to his purpose or to subjugate us to God’s authority. Instead God waits. God waits until we are ready, until we recognise and are open to God’s greater wisdom and willingly submit ourselves to God’s plan for us and for the world. For it is only when individuals acknowledge God and allow God to direct their lives that they enable God to be effective in achieving God’s purpose. It is only when we relinquish our pride, our arrogance and our selfish ambitions that God is able to work in and through us to make real God’s hopes for all humankind.

And so we come at last to today’s gospel and the extraordinary story of an ordinary young woman whose selfless humility made a place for God in her life and therefore for God in the world. In order to respond to God, Mary put aside her fears, her ambitions, her desire for respectability and her need to be in control of her own life. Mary was less concerned with what was good for her, and more concerned about the greater good, less worried about her own future, and more worried about the future of humankind. Mary let go and gave herself and her life completely into God’s hands.

It was Mary’s willingness to submit to God that provided God with the opportunity to intervene in the world. It was Mary’s “yes” that led to Christ’s birth and consequently to the redemption of all humankind.

If then the world has not been redeemed, we need not look to God but to ourselves. While we continue to hold on to our own hopes and dreams, while we persist in trying to prove ourselves by competing with and striving over and against others, while we rely on our own resources to provide security for the present and the future, we effectively diminish God’s presence in the world while at the same time reinforcing our own.

Paradoxically, it was Mary’s submission, her giving up of her self, that not only allowed God to be brought to birth in the world, but made her most truly the person God created her to be. In giving up everything, Mary gained more than she could have ever imagined, by accepting ignominy, Mary gained the sort of fame which few have achieved and few can even imagine.

Mary is told: “Nothing is impossible with God.” Nothing is impossible for God, but in order for God to make a difference in this broken world, God needs our cooperation, our willingness to let go of ambition and self interest, our preparedness to relinquish our need for control and give ourselves completely to God’s will. There are few who are prepared to give themselves so completely and lose themselves so thoroughly and as a result the world continues its trajectory towards self-destruction.

God needs our ‘yes’ to join that of Mary’s so that in every age and every place, ordinary men and women will continue to bring Christ to birth. Our “yes to God might not transform the world, but it might change our small corner for the better.

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Prayers for peace and tolerance

December 20, 2014

After a week of trauma in Australia and abroad, I thought these two prayers were worth sharing. The first I found in my reading this morning, the second, appropriately, I have said each day this week as part of the Daily Office.

O Lord, remember not only the men and women of good will, but also those

of ill will. But do not remember all the suffering they have inflicted upon us;

remember the fruits we bought, thanks to this suffering – comradeship, our

loyalty, our humility, the courage, the generosity, the greatness of heart

which has grown out of this; and when they come to judgement,

let all the fruits that we have borne be their forgiveness.

 

(Found on a piece of wrapping paper in Ravensbrooke, the largest of the

German concentration camps for women.

Quoted by Stephen Platten in “Thanksgiving.” in Liturgical Spirituality:

Anglican Reflections on the Church’s Prayer. Stephen Burns (Ed), New York:

Seabury Press, 2013, p23.

Collect for the Third Week in Advent

Almighty God, you have made us and all things to serve you:
come quickly to save us, so that wars and violence shall end,
and your children may live in peace,
honouring one another with justice and love;
through Jesus Christ our Lord,
who lives with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and forever. Amen.

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Self promotion or the promotion of Jesus

December 13, 2014

Advent 3 – 2014

John 1:6-8,19-28

Marian Free

 In the name of God, Life-giver, Redeemer, Sustainer. Amen.

In the movie Love Actually, Bill Nighie’s character (Billy Mack) is a washed up musician whose long-suffering manager (Joe) has found him a job re-working a popular song for Christmas. Billy is not at all happy. He thinks the task is below him and is rude, crude and obnoxious. He shows no gratitude towards Joe and risks the whole project by putting the producers of the song offside. His sullenness continues through the promotion period and through the radio interviews and TV appearances that Joe has set up. His attititude towards the song is so disparaging that during one of the interviews he states that if the song is the number one Christmas hit, he will perform it naked on that same TV show. Possibly as a result of Billy’s blustering, the song does make it to number one. As a result, Billy becomes a popular star once more. Beautiful women surround him and other stars want him to attend their Christmas parties. Joe gets no credit for putting Billy back on his feet. His efforts and his patience and the fact that he suffered Billy’s arrogant disdain for the song are all taken for granted. On Christmas Eve, Billy goes off in a limousine to a party and Joe (who makes no complaint) is left alone in the shabby apartment that they share.

There is more to the story than that of course, but it does bring to mind all the faceless, behind-the-scenes people who never receive public acknowledgement for the work they put into getting their employer or the person/s whom they represent to the top. The men and women behind national leaders and other politicians, the band managers, stage directors and so on are faceless. They don’t get invited to the parties, they are never in the newspapers. Few people even know they exist. These people find satisfaction – not in getting to the top themselves, but in supporting the ambitions of someone else.

They bear some similarities to John the Baptist, who stepped back so that Jesus could have front and centre stage. John says to those around him: ‘After me comes a man who ranks ahead of me because he was before me’ and the one who is coming after me; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandal.‘ John doesn’t even know Jesus and has no idea of his credentials. Even when they finally meet, Jesus is as yet untried. He has done nothing to demonstrate his promise or to justify John’s confidence in him. What is more, John himself has a very successful ministry of his own. His influence is so significant that the religious leaders of the time send people to ask whether or not he is the Christ.

It must have been satisfying to see his own ministry grow, and tempting to let it go to his head. John has much to lose if Jesus does turn up yet he is absolutely clear about his role as the one who prepares the way for another. He recognises the limits of his own ministry and mission and is ready to stand aside when the time does come. Despite his success he is happy to play the role of support person – to allow his own role to diminish as that of Jesus grows. He is so confident that it was his responsibility to prepare the way for the one who was to come, that he can let go of his own authority and encourage his own disciples to become followers of Jesus (1:36). He gives up everything for the greater role that he believes that Jesus has to play.

John is a model for all of us who are in ministry and for all who would follow Christ. It doesn’t matter how good we are at our job, or how successful we are in our ministry we should not be seeking credit or to enlarge our influence. No matter how talented we are, we should not be striving for reward or recognition. if we are not promoting Jesus, we are only promoting ourselves.

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Preparing for eternity

December 6, 2014

Advent 2 – 2014

Mark 1:1-8

Marian Free

 Living God fill us with a sense of expectation and anticipation that we may be ready to meet you when you come again. Amen.

 I was both a Brownie and a Girl Guide, so I knew all about being prepared. Among other things ‘being prepared’ involved carrying emergency kits in our pockets. I particularly remember this because unlike the other girls in my unit, I was unable to get all the various bits and pieces into a neat compact package. My first aid kit was twice as big as anyone else’s and my pocket always bulged unattractively. It made me self-conscious, but my kit contained only the same things as everyone else and I was prepared as anyone for almost any eventuality – snakebite, broken-glass, splinters, cuts. I had everything required for a minor medical emergency. The second kit (in my case equally bulky) contained other essentials like matches and pocketknife so that we could fend for ourselves in the bush. We were prepared for anything.

You don’t have to be a Girl Guide to be prepared. While much of our lives are routine, there are some areas that require at least some preparation. If for example, we are travelling overseas we need to check that we have passports, visas, inoculations, insurance and other such necessities. If we are going to hospital or having a medical procedure, it is essential that we are prepared – that we have filled in the correct forms, fasted for the right number of hours, advised the appropriate people of the medications we are taking or the things we are allergic to. Being prepared assures us of a safe trip, and the best possible outcome of our medical treatment.

We go to a lot of effort to be prepared for upcoming events to ensure that everything runs smoothly or works out as we have hoped. Planning for aspects of our earthly existence often comes at the expense of planning for our heavenly existence. Our concern with things temporal tends to overwhelm and overtake our concern for things eternal. Our focus on the present can mean that we do not pay enough attention to the future.

What are we doing now to ensure a good outcome at the judgement? Have we put the necessary things in place to guarantee a positive experience?

John the Baptist draws our attention to the coming of Jesus, and challenges us to be prepared, to set our lives straight and to repent of those things which might be a cause for regret.

Being prepared means more than being good. It means developing a heart and mind that are focused on the things of God. It means ridding ourselves of all selfishness and malice, all discontent and pettiness. It means being deeply at peace with ourselves and with the world. It means understanding and accepting God’s love and God’s grace. It means accepting that we are pilgrims and strangers on earth and knowing that our true home is with God.

We cannot expect to have a good relationship with God in the future if we are not developing a good relationship with God in the present. We cannot expect to recognise Jesus when he comes in glory, if we have not spent time getting to know the Jesus who came in humility. We cannot expect to be content for eternity if we have not practiced contentment now.

Advent can be an unsettling time. On the one hand it is a season that gives us reassurance that Jesus will return and take us to himself. On the other hand it reminds us of our obligation to be ready. On the one hand it focuses our attention on the love that sent Jesus into the world for our salvation. On the other hand it reminds us Jesus will come again in judgement. On the one hand it echoes a warning to “be prepared”. On the other hand it is a gentle prompt not to neglect those things that will make us ready.

The question is: “how do you want to spend eternity, and what are you doing to prepare for that outcome?”

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Domesticating God

November 29, 2014

Advent 1 – 2014

Mark 13:24-37 (Isaiah 64:1-9)

Marian Free

 In the name of God whose power exceeds anything that we can know or comprehend. Amen.

This week I was half way through a wedding rehearsal when there was the most eerie sound – a sound like the intake of breath that ended with what I can only describe as a rather loud popping noise. Moments before I had seen black clouds to the south and so I knew without further investigation that what I had heard was the decrease in pressure before the clouds unleashed a torrent of hail. Even though I knew what to expect, the experience was terrifying. All along the southern side of the church hail smashed into our beautiful stained-glass windows – shattering the glass and sending shards flying from one side of the church to the other. The force and impact of the hail was extraordinary and all that I could think about was finding a place in which we could wait out the storm in safety.

Hardly had the storm begun than it was over – leaving a swathe of destruction throughout Brisbane. Windows were shattered, roofs blown from houses, trees uprooted, cars crushed, power lines brought down, roads and even stations flooded.

Experienced up close, nature is absolutely formidable and totally uncontrollable. In the face of such ferocity human ingenuity is completely ineffectual. No amount of technological advance can withstand the force of nature at its worst. The best that we can do in the face of such power is to hope that we will survive and, having survived, pick up the pieces and start again.

Natural events – earthquakes, storms, tsunamis – all expose the insignificance and vulnerability of humanity in comparison with the vastness and potency of creation as a whole. Earthquakes, floods and tsuamis can destroy entire cities and change the topography of the land. Floods and mudslides can carry all before them. Nature is as violent and unpredictable as it is benign and life sustaining. Despite our best efforts, it cannot be manipulated or bent to our will.

If creation is beyond our reach to control, how much less is the God behind creation within our grasp to manage or direct?

The prophet Isaiah knew this and could only imagine that if God were to visit the earth it could only be in a dramatic and world-shattering way, that the God who created the universe and all that is in it was more powerful and more terrifying than anything that the natural world could throw at us. God’s coming would tear the heavens apart and God’s presence would do nothing less than change the face of the earth – the mountains themselves would quake, the valleys be raised and the mountains laid low, there would be no need for sun and moon, for God would provide perpetual light.

The gospels took up this theme and developed it even further. As the gospel writers saw it, the coming of God would completely transform creation – the sun would be darkened, nor would the moon give its light, the stars would fall and even the powers of heaven will be shaken at the coming of the Son of Man.

Despite these breath-taking and frightening images, I suspect that most of us are rather blasé about the Second Coming of Jesus. If we think about it at all, we associate it with our death or else we have rather romantic images of Jesus’ arriving peacefully on a cloud and gathering us to himself. Centuries of Christianity have led to a certain complacency, a tendency to domesticate God, a belief that all is right between ourselves and God and an assumption that we can know and understand God and God’s purpose for us and for the world.

The readings today put the lie to that kind of thinking. We are reminded that God is magnificent and awesome – beyond our ability to understand, let alone control. We are forced to consider that in the scale of things and in comparison to the universe as a whole we are of less significance and are less powerful than a speck of dust. If nature cannot be contained by our best efforts, how much less are we able to control God.

Advent begins, as the church year ends, with dramatic and vivid descriptions of God’s coming among us. The intention is not to make us cower in terror, but to fill us with awe at the nature and power of God, to remind us of who we are before God, to prick our inflated egos and to expose our arrogance and self-reliance.

Whether God’s coming is as quiet and unobtrusive as a birth in a far off land, or as dramatic and earth shattering as the re-arrangement of the universe, it will not to be caught unprepared. It does us good to be reminded that God is always just beyond our grasp because familiarity can lead to complacency and lead us to believe that we are in control when nothing could be further from the truth.

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Who gets to judge?

November 22, 2014

Christ the King

Matthew 25:31-46

Marian Free

 

In the name of God who is known and served in various and many ways. Amen.

I’d like to begin with two stories that reflect a particular faith perspective and way of interpreting scripture. Some twenty years ago I attended a funeral of someone who had been the former treasurer in the parish and was respected and loved by all. His nephew who had spent many of the previous years as a missionary conducted the funeral. During the sermon the nephew said something that took me completely by surprise, but which was welcomed by many of those in attendance. What he said was: “At this point in the service, I often have the difficult task of telling the family that the deceased person hasn’t made it.” By this I think he meant that this is what he would say if the deceased had been an unbeliever. To this day I hope that he was using poetic licence and that he wouldn’t really have used those words. That if that statement represented his theology, that he might have had the discussion with the family before the funeral and as a result might have refused a Christian funeral or better still, that he might have reminded himself that it is God’s place to judge not his.

The second story relates to a conversation with a Parish Administrator whom I’ll call Sarah. Sarah arrived at work one morning in a very distressed state. The previous night she had watched a documentary about teenage homelessness. One of those interviewed was a young girl who was living on the streets to avoid a situation of abuse that included sexual abuse. In order to eat, she prostituted herself and in order to dull the pain of her past and her present she took drugs. In the process this girl was damaging her health and reducing her life expectancy. Sarah’s question was: “If the girl doesn’t come to faith before she dies, will she go to hell – hasn’t she suffered enough?” I suspect that Sarah hadn’t thought much about the issue of judgement until then. As a result of what she had been taught, she thought, presumably based on John 14:6, that only those who accepted Jesus were eligible for eternal salvation. Confronted with the reality of this young girl’s plight, Sarah was questioning her certainty about this position, but she had no tools to help her to find an answer. Her compassion for the girl was competing with her belief that only those who believe in Jesus go to heaven.

Today’s gospel suggests the solution to Sarah’s dilemma and a point of view that the nephew of the deceased may have overlooked. Most of us hear the parable of the sheep and the goats as an account of the judgement of believers, of God separating Christian from Christian on the basis of good works. Yet the text doesn’t say this at all.

In terms to the two scenarios above a number of things are worth noting. First of all, in this account, none of those who are gathered before the king are believers. They are all non-believers – some of whom receive eternal life and others of whom who are cast into everlasting punishment. The idea of a separate judgement for those who are non-Jews has an Old Testament precedent and the concept that those who are not Jews can still know God is consistent with Paul’s argument at the beginning of Romans. What is being described here is not a separation between those who believe and those who do not.

A second point is related. If those who have been assembled are not believers, then faith in Jesus or lack of faith is not the criterion according to which they are being judged. This leads to a third point. According to this narrative, the criterion on which one is judged relates to what one has done or not done to the “least of these” – whoever they are. Good works are not sufficient. It is the beneficiaries of those who deeds which is the pertinent issue.

When Matthew uses the expression “the least of these” elsewhere, he is referring to Christians – whether they are missionaries or disciples. For example, earlier in the gospel, Jesus is reported as saying: “whoever gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones in the name of a disciple—truly I tell you, none of these will lose their reward.” The argument then is that those who do not believe in Jesus will be raised to eternal life if they provide relief to Christians who are thirsty, hungry or in prison even if they do not realise that that is what they are doing. For those who do not believe, genuine compassion for and consideration of others – without any thought of reward – is the key to a good outcome at the judgement. If a person acts generously they may well be generous to a disciple of Christ without recognising that that is what they are doing. (You will notice that those who are commended by the king, are as surprised as those who are condemned. They were not acting out of self-interest, but out of genuine concern for the suffering of another.)

Fast-forward two thousand years – if this is not a story about doing “good works” what does it mean for us today? In the light of the two stories with which I began, may I suggest that the parable is a warning for us not to be too hasty to judge others or to presume to know the mind of God. In the light of the parables that precede this one, it is better that we ensure that we are prepared to face the judge than to become absorbed in worrying about the fate of others.

We will all come before the judgement seat – Christian and non-Christian. Let us not make the mistake of presuming ahead of time, that we are in a position to predict the outcome.

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