Sermon 6th April 2025 | Lent 5

Lent 5 6 Apr 25 

Readings: Isaiah 43: 16-21; Psalm 126: Philippians 3:3-14; John 12: 1-8

 John 12:3 – “Mary took a pound of costly perfume made of pure nard, anointed Jesus’ feet, and wiped them with her hair.  The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.”   An aroma can be a very powerful prompter of memory.  My first parish in this Diocese was Kingaroy - St. Michael and All Angels in Kingaroy was the main church.  A young woman had come back to Kingaroy for her marriage.  We were talking and we walked into the church together.  She took a deep breath and said, “I remember the smell – it smells like a church.”  And she was right in one sense, the church did have a quite distinctive aroma, born of years of being enveloped sometimes in dust from the huge peanut silos next door.  Aromas prompt memories - good or bad.  Some aromas just seem to pervade everything else and linger – the smell of freshly baked bread, the aroma of a great cup of coffee first thing in the morning, perhaps a favourite perfume, or the aroma of death. 

 John in the gospel reading has told quite an old story.  It appears in St. Mark’s gospel, probably the first written.  Forty years almost has elapsed by the time John’s gospel is written and the story has been reworked a few times.  In John, it’s a good woman, named Mary, a personal friend of Jesus.  In Luke it’s an unnamed sinful woman, it Mark and Matthew it’s an unnamed woman.  In Mark and Matthew, she anoints Jesus’ head, in Luke and John she anoints his feet.  Later generations wrongly imagined the woman was Mary Magdalene.  The differences go on.  In John, Judas objects.  In Matthew, the disciples object.  In Mark, some of those present object.  In Luke, Simon the Pharisee objects – the incident happens in his house.  But in Matthew and Mark, it happens in the house of Simon the Leper and in John, as we’ve read, it happens in the home of Lazarus, whom Jesus has just raised from the dead.

 Confused yet?  Amongst all the confusion, there is a consistent aroma that wafts through all the variations in the story, one of the few apart from the Passion narratives that is common to all four gospels.   So, if we stop for a while and sniff the air so to speak, what can we detect.  The real focus, it seems is on the response of the woman, but as we know from the story, her response is not always welcomed.  The focus of the protests is the waste of resources, and the suggestion that the resources should be going to the poor.  But above all of that, a person is responding to Jesus with love and generosity, extravagance even.  One writer comments that this isn’t the time to talk about budgets, but to value the person.

 And maybe as we concentrate on the aroma of generosity and extravagance, maybe there are some hints lingering from last week.  We heard the story of the man with two sons, and when we think of the stories again, the aroma of extravagance comes wafting back to us.  In one sense there’s a negative, the extravagant living of the younger son, but as he puts all that behind him, he is welcomed home by the father who throws an extravagant homecoming party.  Similarly, in the same chapter of St. Luke, the shepherd goes in search of the lost sheep, and when he finds it, he calls together his friends and neighbours and says “Rejoice with me” Let’s celebrate.  It’s an act of extravagance – one can only hope the lost sheep does not become part of the party!  The woman sweeps the house and goes on searching until she finds the coin, and in almost the same words that Luke in his account uses for the shepherd, she too calls her friends and neighbours together to celebrate.

 The same aroma of extravagance that pervades these stories from Luke pervades the story from John this morning.    A pound of perfume made from pure nard was, in those times about 400 grams of a very costly imported substance.  Nard is mentioned in the Song of Solomon as one of the perfumes with which the beloved is anointed.  It has overtones of sensual extravagance.

 But what, then do we make of John’s added comment from Jesus – there will always be the poor around, but you won’t always have me. Some of the scholars say that this comment was inspired from a verse in the Book of Deuteronomy.  It’s Deuteronomy 15:11 “Since there will never cease to be some in need on the earth, I therefore command you, “Open your hand to the poor and needy neighbour in your land.”  In Deuteronomy, a response is commanded.  Therefore, when Jesus says, “You will always have the poor with you.”, it’s not just a throw away line to suggest some kind of fatalism – the poor are always there and there’s not much we can do.   The question implicit in that statement is, “How will you respond to the need?”   Will you respond generously, extravagantly?  It goes to the heart of one of our Lenten disciplines – alms giving.  It goes to the heart of our own stewardship of all that God has given us. Do we respond extravagantly, generously, or begrudgingly like those who complain about the woman’s extravagance in the gospels. One commentator (American, I think) says: “The very soul of this nation will be shaped by how we answer.”  Applies to us just as well – as a nation and to our own souls.

 But as well as the aroma of extravagance that pervades this story, there’s another as well – the aroma of death.   These eight short verses at the beginning of Chapter 12 of St. John’s gospel are full of indications of what is to happen to Jesus.  This story follows immediately upon the story of the raising of Lazarus and the resulting plot by the council of chief priests and Pharisees to kill Jesus.  The ointment Mary uses was used in the anointing of bodies prior to burial.  John, of all the gospel writers, takes every opportunity to cast Judas in the worst possible light, so he adds a comment on Judas – the one who was about to betray Jesus – he writes.  So, Jesus’ betrayal is foreshadowed.  Jesus himself foreshadows his death as he rebukes Judas.  “Leave her alone”, he says, “she bought it so that she might keep it for the day of my burial.”  And in the next verses immediately following this morning’s gospel, the chief priests plan to put Lazarus to death as well, because they say that on account of him, many people were deserting them and believing in Jesus.  The fragrance of the perfume fills the house, but the aroma of death definitely lurks in the background as well.  In fact, as we draw closer and closer to Easter, this story in St. John’s gospel marks the beginning of the cycle of events leading to Jesus’ arrest and crucifixion.  The next day, John tells us, the great crowd that had come to the festival, for the Passover, hears that Jesus is coming to Jerusalem, so they welcome him with branches of palm trees as we will re-enact next Sunday.

 Mary in her extravagance shows her response to Jesus.  She anticipates in a sense the sacrifice that Jesus is willing to make by preparing his body for the death he is about to face, expressing her love for the one who gives his life in love for the world, for all of us.  This is the one of whom Paul writes in his Letter to the Philippians, the one whose suffering Paul shares as he anticipates the resurrection he will also share.

Gestures of friendship and appreciation can’t always be measured by ordinary criteria.  When we want to show appreciation for a friend or someone we love deeply we can sometimes throw caution to the winds and go overboard.  Mary’s act of extravagance and celebration in the shadow of the cross is such an act.  It’s contrasted with a narrow and begrudging response.  As we draw towards the conclusion of this season of Lent, we catch this aroma of extravagance, of going overboard.  Maybe this is a time to commit ourselves anew to show no bounds in our love for Jesus, the one in whom God is about to do a new thing that transforms the death that lurks in the story to new life full of boundless potential and joy.

© The Rev’d WD Crossman

 

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Sermon 30th March 2025 | Lent 4

Lent 4 30th  March 2025

Readings: Joshua 5: 2-12; Psalm 32; 2 Corinthians 5: 16-21; Luke 15: 11-32

Today is Mothering Sunday.  It’s also been variously called Laetare Sunday, Mid-Lent Sunday, Refreshment Sunday, and in England it’s also Mother’s Day.  It is a Christian festival in origin. During the sixteenth century, people returned to their mother church, the main local church or cathedral of the area, for a service to be held on Laetare Sunday. The name came from the Latin word for rejoice – the introit canticle on that day was from Isaiah 66:10 which begins “Rejoice Jerusalem” and describes Zion in distinctively feminine, maternal imagery Anyone who gathered in this way was commonly said to have gone "a-mothering", although whether this preceded the term Mothering Sunday is unclear.  Cakes called “simnel”, after a Latin word for fine flour were eaten. This Sunday was a break from the strictures of Lenten fasting – so it was also called Refreshment Sunday. Clergy wore rose coloured vestments instead of the Lenten violet to represent the note of celebration.  Later, in the 19th century particularly, Mothering Sunday became a day when domestic servants were given a day off to visit their mother church, usually with their own mothers and other family members. It was often the only time that whole families could gather, since on other days they were prevented by conflicting working hours.  One can imagine a massive movement of people.  In 1901 in England, almost 1.7 million women, representing just over 40% of the adult female working population were in domestic service. Children and young people who were "in service" (servants in richer households) were given a day off on that date so they could visit their families (or, originally, return to their "mother" church). The children would pick wildflowers along the way to place in the church or give to their mothers. The custom of simnel cake was revived.  By the beginning of the First World War, the custom of keeping Mothering Sunday had tended to lapse, but the daughter of an English rural vicar created a “Mothering Sunday Movement”, and the keeping of Mothering Sunday was revived.  Eventually, the religious tradition evolved into the Mothering Sunday secular tradition of giving gifts to mothers.  And it became mixed up with the secular Mothers’ Day with the influx of American servicemen during the Second World War, but we should recognize its distinctively spiritual beginnings – a thanksgiving for “mother” church.

How ironic, therefore, that the Gospel for today about a father and two sons has no mention of the mother.  Perhaps we can imagine the mother’s anguish at the younger son’s departure – even more so if word of his lifestyle in the foreign country gets back to her.  And perhaps we can imagine her rejoicing, too, when he returns.  This story is, along with the story of the Good Samaritan, one of the best known of Jesus’ parables.  In Luke 15, there are three parables all about “lostness”, the lost sheep, the lost coin, and then what we usually call the prodigal son.  It’s always been difficult to find an accurate title for the story – the “prodigal son” reflects a tendency to concentrate on the first part of the story to the neglect of the second half which concentrates on the father and the older brother and its unresolved ending.  The “Lost Son” brings out the connection with the other parables but isn’t really adequate as it still doesn’t represent the second part of the story.

Luke, as usual, tells the story wonderfully.  At its heart, the parable is, I think, about three things – grace (with which I would include humility), forgiveness, and hospitality.

The grace and humility of the father is highlighted.  Grace is so difficult to define exactly - in spiritual terms it refers to the great gift of God’s free and unmerited favour shown towards us.  In everyday terms it can refer to beauty or elegance, or a sense of consideration or goodwill for others.  But even if we can’t define it, we seem to feel instinctively when we are in the presence of a graceful person – and the father in the story is such a person, I think.  In the face of the young son’s initial graceless and arrogant conduct, he accedes to the request for the share of the property.  Strictly speaking, the young son should only get his share on his father’s death – he’s saying to the father, in effect “You’re as good as dead as far as I’m concerned.”    The younger son experiences a fall from grace and finds himself in humiliating, rather than humble circumstances.  But he comes to himself – it’s a moment of clarity and realism about his state at least, not necessarily a moral conversion.  He goes home and the father re-enters the story - full of grace.  He runs out, falls on his son’s neck and kisses him.  This was totally unconventional behavior for a dignified man with a sizeable estate in the Palestinian world.  To leave the house to meet one of lower rank, to run, rather than to walk sedately, to display emotion extravagantly in public: all this involves serious loss of face.  The father is unconcerned – he humbles himself.  And all of this contrasts with the graceless conduct of the older son.  The father goes out to meet him too, and speaks gracefully to him, and pleads with him.  There is no doubt in the father’s mind that he, too, is a son.  But the son is unmoved.  In the presence of the father, we are in the presence of incredible grace and humility.  Can we show the same grace and humility in our lives and relationships?

It’s a story about forgiveness and how forgiveness can transform relationships.  How many times should I forgive, Simon Peter asked Jesus – seven times?  Not seven times, but seventy times seven was the reply. [1] That implies an ample and over-flowing forgiveness – which we see personified in the father.  He has no place for “sin” or “repentance” – he doesn’t mention the words, although the son has been thinking in these terms “Father, I have sinned….”  The son doesn’t get the chance to give his prepared speech.  The father speaks in terms of “lost and Found” or “dead and alive”.  It’s a great example of how forgiveness can bring about restoration and transformation.  Forgiveness is not easy.  You will hear people say “Oh, you just forgive and forget”, which is a load of rubbish.  Some things can never be forgotten.  The son who was lost will always be shaped by his behavior, but he has been transformed. Perhaps to think of a modern parallel, sometimes we’ll see news reports or stories about former sports stars caught up in gambling or alcohol abuse for example, or others whose lives are full of potential, but have come off the rails and they’ve spent time in prison.  But somehow, they turn things around and you read or hear of them going around schools or junior sporting clubs to share their stories and encourage younger people to live well.    They’ve been shaped been shaped by their behavior, but their past stories have been transformed into a gift for others. Again, a contrast is drawn with the older brother and his unforgiving response.  He does not come across as an attractive character, but his reaction is understandable.  In a sense, we’re invited to feel his anger and resentment and to come to a decision – who will we be like?   Will we be like the father, or like the older brother?

Finally, the story is about hospitality – extravagant and overflowing hospitality which mirrors the father’s forgiveness. As in the parables of the lost sheep and the lost coin, there is joy and celebration when whatever was lost is found.  So, there is a communal celebration.  Everything symbolizes the complete reinstatement of the younger son – bring out the best robe, put a ring on his finger (the ring then was a symbol of authority in the household), put sandals on his feet (members of the family wore sandals while slaves were barefoot).  The calf that has been fattened is to be killed and eaten at the feast.  There is music and dancing which the older brother hears.  One of the servants tells him what has happened “Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fatted calf because he has got him back safe and sound.”  The older brother is overcome with anger and resentment and refuses to join the celebration.  We never learn whether he is later persuaded to join the party, or whether he remains outside bitterly nursing his resentment.  It leaves questions for us.  Where are we in the end?  Inside joining in the celebration, or stuck outside, hearing the music and the dancing but too angry to go in?  Can we cope with a God imaged by the father in the parable?  Do we find in ourselves some stirring of the resistance of the older brother?  Can we be part of a family whose hospitality is so extravagant and so understanding, indulgent even, of human failing as this?

So, sinfulness and repentance are not the main focus of the story.  Sure they are there – the overt sinning of the younger brother and the anger and resentment of the older.  But the emphasis is on grace, humility, forgiveness and generous, overflowing hospitality.  These are all good things to reflect upon in this season of Lent and to ask ourselves “How do we relate to a God who acts so generously like this?”

 

[1] Matthew 18:21-22

© The Rev’d WD Crossman

 

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Sermon Choral Evensong – 16th March 2025 | Lent 2

Lent 2 - 16th March 2025 = Choral Evensong

Readings: Exodus 11: 1-10; Psalm 119: 121-136; Luke 22: 39-53

Luke 22:53 “When I was with you day after day in the temple, you did not lay hands on me.  But this is your hour, and the power of darkness.

On Friday we were privileged to host the World Day of Prayer Service.  The focus of the service was the Cook Islands – 15 islands scattered over 2 million square kilometres of the Pacific Ocean with a population of 16,000.  However, there are 20,000 Cook Islanders living in Australia and 80,000 in New Zealand.  During the service we were introduced to a Cook Islander woman named Vainiu.  In her story she describes being taught in her own language, Cook Island Maori for the first three years of her education in the early 1960’s.  However, as she progressed English became the language of instruction, and they were told not to speak their mother tongue.  She describes how one day she was caught speaking in her mother tongue and as punishment was made to wear a cardboard sign that said, “I am a Maori speaker”, as well as being given a detention and made to pull out prickly weeds in the playground.   She describes how she was devalued and shamed by the school system and likened this to darkness.  She said “God goes with us to the darkness at the bottom of the ocean where there is no light, And God helps lead us out of darkness into a wonderful light.

Darkness in the scriptures is much more than an absence of light.  It represents, along with light, a fundamental duality that reaches right back to the creation.  In the first verse of our Scriptures, we read “In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters. Then God said, let there be light, and there was light….”[1]  Darkness represents nothingness, formlessness.  It has come to be associated with sin, evil, wilful disobedience to God.  And if you, as I did yesterday, put the word “darkness” into your favourite Bible browser, you’ll come up with 177 verses in which, for the most part, this duality between light and darkness is drawn.  Two or three examples – from Isaiah “Ah, you who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness”[2], part of Isaiah’s denunciation of social injustice.  Or from Micah

“Do not rejoice over me, O my enemy;
when I fall, I shall rise;
when I sit in darkness,
   the Lord will be a light to me.”[3]

Or from St. John “And this is the judgement, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil.”[4]

So, when Jesus says as his betrayers and the chief priests and the temple police come for him “This is your hour, and the power of darkness”, maybe he’s not referring just to the act of betrayal by Judas.  Maybe he’s indicating that at this moment, all the powers of darkness – nothingness, complete separation from God, untrammelled evil, a reversal of the goodness of creation are in the ascendancy and as we follow the story – the second readings for Sunday Evening Prayer during the Season of Lent take us through St. Luke’s Passion narrative, we’ll come to the point of Jesus’ death when “darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon while the sun’s light failed.”[5]

Where does the power of darkness reside today – which powers of darkness may think their hour has come?  We’ve already had one example at the beginning of this sermon – the darkness of cultural devaluation and repression in Vainiu’s story.  A story, no doubt, all too familiar to our own indigenous brothers and sisters.  We see the darkness of conflict around the world – not only in the violence, injustice, awful injury, deaths of the innocent, but in literal darkness as the Israeli Defence Force cuts electricity to Gaza again, or Russia deliberately targets electrical infrastructure in Ukraine.  We see the darkness of gender-based violence not only in our own country but around the world.  This year’s ABM Lenten Appeal aims to support women to flourish as they build peace in homes and communities, gain confidence in the wider world and become economically empowered. It assists in supporting communities to be restored to wholeness after being trained in how to end gender-based violence and other injustices against women and girls.   Rallies held yesterday highlighted yet again the scourge of violence against women in our own society. There is darkness in the threats to properly functioning democracy around the world posed by authoritarianism, dictatorship, and wilful casting aside of proper diplomatic norms and long-standing alliances.  There is darkness in the influence those with money and perceived power have in the halls of some governments.  There is darkness in the threat posed to proper discourse by deliberate misinformation and disinformation propagated through the anti-social media.  You no doubt can think of other examples.

But as you read the final verses of the passage from St. Luke again, Jesus, in the midst of betrayal and impending arrest, remains composed and in control. Despite the pandemonium, and chaotic circumstances he demonstrates his divine authority and compassion - he heals the ear of Malchus, one of the mob come to arrest him. The hour darkness has come, but the one who said “I am the light of the world”[6] is still in control.  The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.[7]  The light of Christ still shines in the darknesses of our present world too – they may have their hour but, in the end, they will not overcome the light. In the first reading at the Eucharist this morning, we heard how a deep and terrifying darkness descends on Abraham.  Yet even in the darkness, God is there.  The smoking firepot and flaming torch that pass by him are vivid Old Testament symbols of God’s presence.[8]

In this Season of Lent we’re bidden to reflect on darkness in our own lives – and to expose that darkness to the light of Christ who is the world’s light, he and none other.  Born in our darkness, he became our brother.[9]

Let us pray:

God of tender compassion and mercy,

whose Son is the morning star

and the sun of righteousness.

let him shine in the darkness

and shadows of this world,

that we may serve you in freedom and peace;

through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen

[1] Genesis 1: 1-3

[2] Isaiah 5:20

[3] Micah 7:8

[4] John 3:19

[5] Luke 23:44

[6] John 8:12

[7] John 1:5

[8] Genesis 15:17

[9] TIS 246

© The Rev’d WD Crossman

 

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Sermon – 16th March 2025 | Lent 2

Lent 2 - 16th March 2025 

Readings:  Genesis 15: 1-12, 17-18; Psalm 27; Philippians 3:17 – 4:1; Luke 13: 31-35

 Lent, as you know is a penitential season when all of us are urged to reflect on our own brokenness, to reflect on the need for repentance.  The baptism service makes this specific.  “Do you repent of your sins”, the sponsors of the child are asked on his or her behalf, or in the case of someone able to answer for themselves, they’re asked directly. How do we understand repentance?

 We often overlay repentance with guilt – mistakenly in my view.  Repent comes from a word which simply means to turn your mind, to think in a new way about your life.  This isn’t to downplay its seriousness.  Jesus places a condition on it – “unless you repent”[1] he says, there are serious consequences.

 But again, this isn’t meant to weigh us down.  I think the notion of repentance as being a turning is helpful.  We turn from one thing towards another.  It’s made clear in the baptism service “Do you turn to Christ”. And it’s good for us to ask ourselves the same question during Lent. Luke Timothy Johnson, a significant commentator on St. Luke’s gospel writes that Jesus’ call to repentance has a specific quality.  He writes that it: “is not simply a turning from sin but an acceptance of the visitation of God in the proclamation of God’s kingdom.”   

There is an element of grace in repentance – grace being God’s free gift to us.  There’s more than a hint of it in the gospel story earlier in Chapter 13 when the fig tree is given a second chance.[2]  Repentance is not simply a turning from sin (which is described not so much as the biblical vice lists, but a deep alienation from God).  Repentance is the acceptance of the visitation of God.

 Abraham is visited by God as we hear in our first reading from Genesis this morning.  It’s important that we set the reading in its right context.  Remember the first verse – the word of the Lord came to Abraham in a vision.  What we have is the description of a dream.  It’s not the first time that God has called Abraham – a couple of chapters earlier in Genesis, Abram, as he is then called, hears the call of God to leave his home country and to travel to the land that God will show him.  Abraham in this dream is promised many descendants.  On one level, it’s quite a funny exchange.  Abraham is promised a great reward and his reply to God is sort of “That’s all well and good, but what can you give me anyway – I don’t have any children.”   Children were extremely important for inheritance.  And Abraham goes on “and what’s more, God, if I don’t have any children, all my inheritance will go to Eliezer of Damascus.”  The subtext is, I think “Perish the thought”.  Abraham goes so far as to accuse God of not giving him any children.  Eliezer is going to get the lot and it’s all your fault, God!  But the story also speaks to a deep fear.  Abram is afraid that he will die without an heir. He is afraid that his line, and the memory of his life, will end at his death.  No child has been born from his marriage to Sarah. He has parented a child from a slave, but this will not suffice in his own eyes and the eyes of his culture.[3]  But Abraham is shown a vision and despite his fears, his questions and his doubts about the way in which God’s promises were to be carried out, he has faith that God will be faithful to God’s promises.  “And he believed the Lord, and the Lord reckoned it to him as righteousness.”  Or as one who is right with God.  Paul, in his letters to the Romans and the Galatians establishes Abraham’s legendary reputation for faith on the basis of this verse.   Abraham has heard the call of God, not just once or initially, but as a continuing invitation to follow and to trust.  Abraham accepts the visitation of God.  To live in faith is to trust that God will be faithful to his promises despite the questions and doubts and fears that inevitably arise – and so it is for us, too.

 The Apostle Paul has also heard and responded to the call of God as it has come to him through Christ Jesus.  We know from the account in the Acts of the Apostles how that call comes to him as he travels to Damascus.  Paul urges the Christians of Philippi to whom he writes to imitate his single-minded devotion to the call of Christ.  He acknowledges that there are some who live differently – he calls them “enemies of the Cross”, but he does not call for punishment or any thing like that.  He simply acknowledges it in sadness – in tears -  that they cannot set their minds on the hope to be found in Jesus Christ.  However, for those who trust that God will be faithful, he uses the image of citizenship – citizenship of Heaven.  Paul prized his Roman citizenship, but for him, his true and lasting allegiance was elsewhere.  I’ve referred earlier to the baptism service, and I often think there are quite a few similarities between the baptism service and a citizenship ceremony.  People come for all sorts of reasons, but fundamentally because somehow, they see the possibility or promise of a different kind of life.  They take part in a public ceremony at which promises of allegiance are made, certificates are given in recognition of this.  But just because people have gone through the ceremony doesn’t automatically make them good citizens – that depends on the decisions they take about their lives, the people they surround themselves with, how faithful they are to the promises of allegiance made to their new country.  Like Abraham, the question is – do we respond to God’s continual invitation and call, do we continually trust that God will be faithful.

 Paul’s own life was lived between two poles – Christ’s crucifixion and the expectation of his return.  Christian life is determined and shaped by the death of Christ on the cross, which calls us to the same kind of faithfulness and self giving love; and, on the other hand, Christ’s followers wait in hope for transformation – Paul describes it as the transformation of the body of our humiliation – other translations have “humble bodies” which I prefer – but transformation in order to be conformed to the body of his glory. 

 

In the gospel reading, the stakes are much higher.  Jesus is warned that his life is in danger. This is no news to him – he is fully aware of the dangers ahead of him. Herod is out to get him. But Jesus continues to teach. He must follow his vocation and in following his vocation, he finds his strength. His life gains perspective. It is all part of God’s holy story of salvation. In his book born of the Nazi concentration camps, Viktor Frankl quotes the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, “Those who have a ‘why’ to live can bear with almost any ‘how’.”[4] Jesus’ sense of purpose, his vocational sense, enabled him to face his fear of suffering and abandonment, trusting that his life had meaning and that God’s purposes for him were more enduring that Herod’s hatred.

 Repentance, which is where we began, and acceptance of the call of God makes transformation possible for us all.  Transformation may not mean that the physical circumstances of our live may change all that much, but it does mean that despite questions, doubts, fears, disappointments, extreme dangers, we will see our lives in a new light as having new meaning, new purposes, new hope grounded in the promises of God.

 Abraham trusted the God who called him, despite the questions he had, Paul trusted God’s call to him through Christ, Jesus trusted God’s purposes for him.  How much do we trust God’s call to us?

 

[1] Luke 13:5

[2] Luke 13: 6-9

[3] https://www.patheos.com/blogs/livingaholyadventure/2019/03/the-adventurous-lectionary-the-second-sunday-in-lent-march-17-2019/

[4] ibid

© The Rev’d WD Crossman

 

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Sermon – 9th March 2025 | Lent 1

Lent 1 -  9 March 25

Readings: Deuteronomy 26: 1-11, Psalm 91: 1-2, 9-16, Romans 10: 4-13, Luke 4: 1-15

 

Today as you know is the first Sunday in the Season of Lent.  In the early church, Lent was a time of preparation for those who were to be baptized at Easter or for those who were to be received back into the community of faith from which they had become separated – usually through wrongdoing.    Gradually, people came to see that, as the Ash Wednesday liturgy says, “By keeping these days with care and attention Christians might take to heart the call to repentance and the assurance of forgiveness proclaimed in the gospel and grow in faith and devotion to our Lord.  So, by self-examination and repentance, by prayer and fasting, by self-denial and acts of generosity and by reading and meditating on the word of God, let us keep a holy Lent ……”[1]

 

Lent is a penitential season when we are bidden to take the journey into our hearts, and we express the penitential nature by some sombreness in our liturgy – the Ten Commandments can be recited, we don’t sing the “Gloria” for example, we don’t have flowers.  This sombreness is not so we feel beaten down as dreadful sinners, but as an expression that we’re on a journey and to provide some visible indication of the journey into our hearts that we are taking, and that it is indeed a different liturgical season.

 

The English word “Lent” initially simply meant spring (as in the German language Lenz and Dutch lente) and it comes from the Germanic word for long because in the spring the days visibly lengthen.   That’s of course a Northern Hemisphere reference. Today is also forty days before Easter, so traditionally was called “quadrigesima”.   I must admit that growing up as a good Methodist boy, quadrigesima and all the other gesimas were a mystery to me for a long time.  

But the number forty has many  symbolic Biblical references: the forty days Moses spent on Mount Sinai with God[2]; the forty days and nights Elijah spent walking to Mount Horeb[3]; the forty days and nights God sent rain in the great flood of Noah[4]; the forty years the Hebrew people wandered in the desert while travelling to the Promised Land[5]; the forty days Jonah gave in his prophecy of judgment to the city of Nineveh in which to repent or be destroyed[6].  Forty usually represented a time of testing or trial.

Jesus retreated into the wilderness, where he fasted for forty days, so what is being described is highly symbolic. Jesus is tempted by the devil as we hear in the Gospel reading from Luke this morning.  He overcomes all three of the temptations by citing scripture to the evil one, at which point the devil leaves Him, angels minister to Him, and He begins His ministry.

This reading from Luke 4:1-13 is a traditional centrepiece for the First Sunday in Lent, and it should be. In so many ways, Lent invites us to explore our values.  Jane Williams in her 2019 Lent Book, “The Merciful Humility of God” comments that Lent is not primarily about giving things up or even denying ourselves.  It is about finding ourselves.  Along the way, she says, it will often feel like a journey of self-abnegation, but that is because our “selves” have been built on shaky foundations.[7]  Jesus takes this journey to discern on what foundations his life will be built.  The Lenten season similarly invites us to self-examination about the foundations of our lives.  Questions like:  What is truly important to us? Where are our deepest values and how do we embody them in daily life? Where is God in our lives? 

The traditional Lenten disciplines are gifts to help us concentrate our minds on what is important to us.  Taking on something extra in prayer, or reading of the scriptures, or other spiritual reading, giving generously, living simply, fasting are all to encourage us in, or even direct us to some serious self-examination and reflection on what really is important to us, what defines us.  Again, from Jane Williams “We are already beloved by God, and God waits, humbly, while we try to work out if this is enough.  It will mean putting aside other self-definitions, that may seem more obvious and dependable, but that will always take us back into the world where we are a commodity and treat others as such.  If we are defined by what we do or have, then there will always be others who do and have more and so threaten our self-definition.  But if we are brave enough to let God tell us who we are, then we are always and for ever the beloved ones (of God) alongside others equally beloved.” [8]

Although today’s gospel reading is often described as “Jesus’ temptations in the wilderness,” others prefer to describe it as “Jesus vocational retreat.” Throughout history, both Christian and non-Christian, young and not so young adults have gone on spiritual quests to discern their life’s path. These times set apart serve to help seekers discover their “true” nature or calling, the tasks that lie ahead of them, and their role in the community and the larger world.  The Community of the Way established at St. Francis’ College is a local example. It describes itself as a community of people who seek to follow the way of Jesus with prayerful hearts, enquiring minds, and compassionate lives.[9]

During his retreat or quest, Jesus discovers his vocation, but he also experiences temptations to turn away from the highest and best possibilities set before him.  In themselves, what is offered to Jesus; healthy food, security from danger, and power to change the world for the good seem attractive. The problem is that following these temptations might lead to a good life, but ultimately it will lead to self-serving and self- agrandizement. For example, the third temptation takes place on “the pinnacle of the temple”, representing the height of religious experience and achievement. Often the best things turned bad are the worst things of all.  A “religious” or “spiritual” life can be riddled with pride and a sense of distinction, judging others, looking down on them, despising God’s good creation.  Such twisted religion can do enormous damage in the world.[10]  It will not lead to the recognition of God as the source of life and to the richness and fullness of life that is and can be the glory of God in human experience.   The singer, Leonard Cohen once said in an interview that the real weapons of mass destruction are the hardened hearts of humanity.[11]

Temptation never ends for any of us.  The Gospel tells us that the devil left Jesus “until an opportune time”. We constantly make decisions, some of which bring us closer to, others of which take us away, from God’s visions for our lives. We are responsible for our choices.  Jesus makes choices in the desert.  He takes his own experience of God and the words at his baptism “You are my beloved Son” and chooses that this will be who he is.   Facing temptation can be a solitary process, but it need not be. Jesus does not go on this quest as some sort of rugged lonely hero.  He goes with his experience of God and with the force of the Holy Spirit with him. The Holy Spirit bookends this morning’s Gospel.  We’re told both at the beginning and end that Jesus is filled with the Holy Spirit. Living our lives as a people of God requires a group of supportive companions, colleagues, and spiritual companions – that’s one reason we worship – to provide that group of spiritual supporters, a faith community that is absolutely essential to our Christian life and growth.

We embark on a holy adventure in this season of Lent. “May this Lenten discipline, which we undertake with love, turn our minds to things above.”[12]

 


[1] Lent, Holy Week, Easter Services and Prayers Church House Publishing with Cambridge University Press and SPCK 1986 p 14

[2] Exodus 24:18

[3] 1 Kings 19:8

[4] Genesis 7:4

[5] Numbers 14:33

[6] Jonah 3:4

[7] Williams, Jane The Merciful Humility of God Bloomsbury, London 2018 p9

[8] Ibid p20-21

[9] https://www.communityoftheway.org.au

[10] Guite, Malcolm The Word in the Wilderness - A Poem a Day for Lent and Easter Canterbury Press, Norwich p17

[11] This quotation is from Leonard Cohen’s March 30, 2007 appearance on the Norwegian TV talk show “Først & sist.”

[12] Together in Song No 463

© The Rev’d WD Crossman

 

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Sermon – 2nd March 2025 | Transfiguration

Transfiguration – Sunday 2nd March 2025 

Readings: Exodus 34: 29-35; Psalm 99; 2 Corinthians 3:12-4:2; Luke 9:28-36

As you know, we hear the Gospels read many times in the cycle of readings provided by our Lectionary.  This year of the liturgical cycle, Year C, is the year of Luke, so we read through his Gospel Sunday by Sunday.  Last year was Mark, next year will be Matthew …and we commence the cycle again.  We’ll get to Luke again in 2028.   Just for a while, I’d like us to try to imagine ourselves as members of St. Luke’s community who are reading his Gospel – or hearing it read - for the very first time.  Remember that not everyone was able to read then.

Luke’s story begins with him writing to Theophilus, possibly a patron, saying that he (Luke) has decided after careful investigation to write an orderly account so that Theophilus may know the truth.[1] We may well think, “who’s this about?” Remember, we’re hearing this story for the first time.  And before we know where we are in the story, angels appear foretelling the births of John the Baptist and Jesus.  Mary sings the praise of God – singing of a reversal – of the proud being scattered in the thoughts of their hearts and the powerful being brought down.[2]  We hear the miraculous story of Jesus birth, again with angels to the fore, and of the glory of the Lord shining around shepherds who are caught up in the story. Jesus is presented in the temple, and both Simeon and Anna recognize something special about the child.  We’re told on more than one occasion that the favour of God is upon him.[3] Jesus suddenly appears from Nazareth and is baptized by John in the Jordan River, and there’s this strange account of Jesus hearing a voice – maybe we’re a bit suspicious of people who say they  hear voices – but he hears a voice saying You are my Son, the Beloved, with you I am well pleased.”[4]  And then he disappears into the wilderness for forty days, and after that he re-appears in Nazareth with a message to the members of the synagogue that the scripture from Isaiah about the year of the Lord’s favour has been fulfilled in their hearing[5] – something we’d all been longing to see – remember we’re first century Jewish / Gentile community probably living in Rome.

Then we hear of his healing in Capernaum in Galilee and his preaching in the synagogues of Judea.  He calls some disciples to follow him – and his fame begins to spread.  He heals a man with an unclean spirit, he heals the mother-in-law of one of his disciples, he walks around preaching, cleanses lepers, heals a paralysed man, heals a man with a withered hand.  People flock to hear him, so many in one instance he gets into a boat and sets out from the shore.  He’s beginning to get into arguments with Pharisees about what is lawful to do on the Sabbath and what he says is liberating.  And he tells stories – things we understand.  Stories of a sower, or a mustard seed, or a fig tree, or a lamp under a jar.  And as we hear these for the first time, we realise they’re about something more – they’re about how about God works and about how we should live our lives in the light of this.  There are even stories of him stilling a storm or walking on water.  And maybe some are beginning to understand even more what the stories are about – and there not so much about storms or the rest of it but they’re about who this person Jesus really is.  The sea, the waters were the place of danger, chaos, darkness and only God had power over those.  Maybe we find ourselves saying with those in the story of the stilling of the storm “Who then is this?”[6] The amazing things continue – he feeds a massive crowd, restores a young girl to life.  And then as Jesus is praying with his disciples close by, he asks them directly who the crowds think he is.  Peter guesses the answer to the same question we’ve probably been asking ourselves as we hear the story read.  Who is this person?  He says to Jesus that he is “the Messiah of God” And then Jesus shocks us by disclosing that he will be rejected and killed.[7]

Eight days after this incident, the story goes, we hear of this amazing mountain top experience – and the same words heard at Jesus baptism are heard again by those on the mountain.  We know from our own spiritual depths – remember we’re reading or hearing this story for the first time - that the place of encounter between God and humans is a mountain top – Moses and Elijah met God on mountain tops, and they’re part of this story.  Suddenly, the coin drops and we realize that the whole story up to this point has been a gradual revealing of who this person really is.  He is the Son of God.  He is bathed in light – just as Moses was, just as the shepherds were.  And then suddenly the story changes – we’re back down in the dirt and dust of the plain and Jesus says again what will happen[8] – betrayal and death and as the story goes on from this point it leads inexorably there.

Bring ourselves back to the 21st century now.  The whole Season of Epiphany we have observed up until now, the Last Sunday after Epiphany, has been like the first nine and a half chapters of St. Luke’s Gospel, a gradual revealing of who Jesus really is.  If you look back over the Gospel readings for the Sundays and major festivals in Epiphany, the stories and hints and clues are all there.  And now we come to this culmination, the story of the Transfiguration – the culmination of the hints large and small of who Jesus really is, and it’s a turning point.  Just as St. Luke’s Gospel turns its story towards the cross, just as the disciples head down the mountain, we’re headed in the same direction. We turn our faces toward suffering and the cross as we begin the Season of Lent on Ash Wednesday – next Wednesday.   The disciples with Jesus on the mountaintop – misunderstanding and dumbfounded - are thrust from the moment of glory on the mountain to the realities of life when they come down from the mountain and begin the hard way of the journey with Jesus to the cross.  He’s already said eight days before that if any want to be his followers let them deny themselves and take up their cross.[9]  They will soon learn what this means.  And so are we thrust from the moment of glory on the mountain to the realities of life on the plain and the journey to the cross.  It’s great to have the mountain top experience, but the test of our faithfulness is this: can we follow Jesus on to the cross?  Lent gives us the opportunity to test our faithfulness on that journey.  On the mountain, Peter is so eager to be with Jesus and make the moment last forever: will Peter be as eager when the going gets tough on another night?  We know the answer to that question.  But before we get too comfortable about that, the question is for us too – will we be as eager when the going gets tough?

Jesus has a way of taking us to the mountain top, of filling our hearts with joy, but he also has a way of leading us toward the cross.  In our Sunday worship we praise God, we lift our voices in song, but it’s not real worship of God until we come down off the mountain and connect our heavenly praise with earthly need.  We hear and listen to God’s word, then we get up and come forward and hold our empty hands out to be filled with God’s grace in the Eucharist, but then we’re told to go in peace to love and serve the Lord.  The American writer and United Methodist bishop William Willimon recounts a pithy old saying in some Pentecostal churches “It ain’t how high folks jump in church that make ‘em Christians.  It’s what they do when they hits the ground.”

The mountain and the cross connected to the suffering.  This is the tension in St. Luke’s Gospel; it’s the tension in the Christian life.  Glory is not just in the high moments, glory is not just in  acts of Christian service in everyday life, but it’s in the tension between the two.  Jesus’ disciples can’t stay on the mount of transfiguration.  If they wish to worship Jesus, they must follow him down the mountain and journey with him.  And because of Jesus’ gift of high moments of worship, so can we.  Will we journey with him through Lent as now we turn our faces toward the cross, remembering that we have the glory of transfiguration behind us and the glory of resurrection yet to come.

[1] Luke 1:3

[2] Luke 1: 46-55

[3] Eg Luke 2:40

[4] Luke 3: 21-22

[5][5] Luke 4: 16-21

[6] Luke 8;25

[7] Luke 9: 18-21

[8] Luke 9: 43-45

[9] Luke 9:23

© The Rev’d WD Crossman

 

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Sermon for the Seventh Sunday after Epiphany – 23rd Feb 2025

Epiphany 7 – 23 Feb 25 

Readings:  Genesis 45: 3-11, 15; Psalm 37: 1-11, 40-41; 1 Corinthians 15:35-50; Luke 6:27-38

Some of you may know I’m a Legatee with Brisbane Legacy and until I began my locum ministry here, I was the Legacy visitor for Greenslopes Hospital – I’d visit once a week and go around the wards visiting Legacy clients.  I hope to take it up again when I finish the locum.  Earlier last year, I visited a woman on three or four occasions – she was younger than most of the older Legacy widows I was visiting.  She’d emigrated to Australia from the Ukraine quite a while ago.  On one particular visit she disclosed to me that her ex-husband in the Ukraine, a former soldier, had regularly beaten her - and in the course of doing so had told her to turn the other cheek “because that’s what the Bible says”.

The Gospel for this morning follows immediately that of last week – St. Luke’s version of the Beatitudes.  I remarked last week that the Beatitudes were provocative and intentionally so.  As if they weren’t radical enough, Jesus takes his listeners further.  He begins a longish instruction at verse 27 “but I say to you that listen – love your enemies”, and to make sure no one is in any doubt, repeats it at verse 35 “But love your enemies, do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return.”  So, this is what we might call the central theme.  In between he gives a number of examples – practical application of the principles he has just laid out in the lives of his listeners; returning curses with a blessing, turning the other cheek, not asking for return of your own stuff that others may have taken and so on, ending with Luke’s version of the Golden Rule – “Do to others as you would have them do to you” – much quoted, but more often than not quoted quite divorced from its radical scriptural context.  All the examples Jesus gives involve responding to injury or unreasonable demand with nothing but generosity and the abandonment of all claims to retribution or restitution.[1]

How might we think about the Gospel today?  Jesus is not laying down maxims or attitudes to be followed literally.  But we need to recognize that some people do, and in doing so cause tremendous damage and hurt that is absolutely inimical to the Gospel and its values.  My example at the beginning is a case in point.  The words about loving your enemies and turning the other cheek are difficult. But to some people these words are more than difficult, they can cause a visceral reaction of spiritual and psychological hurt either because of the people that come to mind when they hear them or because of the context in which the words were quoted at them. There are people who hear these words as “Love the husband or partner who makes your life a misery with coercive control,” or “Do good to those who sexually abused you when you were a child; bless those who stole your innocence so blatantly that every relationship you have ever had has been a painful struggle; or pray for the one who beat or verbally abused your mother (in my case it was my aunt)  in front of you when you were a child.” There are women and children who have fled from their homes to escape the drunken rampages of a perpetually violent man, who have been told by some churches to turn the other cheek and go back and love him. Some of those women and children are now dead because of callous misuse of this passage.[2]

It may be useful to return to last Sunday’s sermon when I said that in the context of the Beatitudes “Being vulnerable provides scope for God’s power, for God’s way of working.”  Jesus is rejected by his own people – the self-satisfied congregation in the synagogue at Nazareth after he speaks of a reversal of the ways people expect things to be  – how God had acted through Gentiles.[3]  St. Matthew’s version of the same event adds the words “And he did not do many deeds of power there because of their unbelief.”[4]    Applying the same train of thought here – it’s the vulnerable who come under the grace of God.  Untrammelled, coercive, violent, rapacious use of power is not part of the Kingdom of God.  So maybe these words about turning the other cheek are addressed not to the vulnerable and suffering who in most instances don’t have much choice in the matter, but to the ones who do have a choice – those who hold the power.  Jesus was directing his words to those who were able to strike back.  He is saying, “Next time you are about to retaliate against someone who has offended you, stop and think, maybe this time you could think about it differently.  Don’t think about retaliation, maybe think about being merciful. “Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.” Jesus says – and his listeners then would have immediately recognised that he was referring to the Holiness Code at the heart of their own faith tradition, given its most concise expression in in the Book of Leviticus “You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy.”[5]  Jesus is seeking to inculcate a fundamental attitude according to which one would be prepared to be vulnerable to a degree foolish by the standards of the world.  And this only makes sense in the context of the reversal inherent in the values of Gods’ Kingdom – the way God works in the world.  Advantages, disadvantages, power relationships are all turned on their heads.

I think it’s also useful to reflect that Jesus is not speaking just to individuals, but he was speaking to a group, a crowd, a community of God’s people.  In view of this kingdom relationship with God, the community is to be merciful, as God is merciful.  The community is to refrain from being judgmental.  If it forgives, it will experience God’s forgiveness, if it is generous in giving, it will meet with an extraordinary measure of generosity in return.  The sense is not that God waits to see the level of human generosity before deciding to be generous in return.  God is extravagantly generous.  But just as the volume of water one might draw from a tank depends upon the capacity of the vessel one brings, so the human receptacle determines the amount or measure God can give.  Any limitation stems from the human side.[6]

So the gospel should perhaps lead us to reflect on our own capacities; our capacity for mercy, our capacity for blessing, our capacity for generosity, our capacity for acceptance rather than judgmentalism, our capacity to put aside thoughts of retribution, our capacity for prayer, and above all our capacity for love.

As always, Malcolm Guite captures this beautifully in his reflection on Luke 6:37 – with a nod to John Lennon.

Do not judge, and you will not be judged

Imagine if we took these words to heart,

Unselved ourselves and took another’s part,

Silenced the accuser, dropped the grudge….

Do not condemn and you will not be condemned.

Imagine if we lived our lives from this

And met each other’s outcasts face to face,

Imagine if the blood-dimmed tide was stemmed.

Forgive and you yourselves will be forgiven.

What if we walked together on this path,

What if the whole world laid aside its wrath,

And things were done on earth as though in heaven,

As though the heart’s dark knots were all undone,

As though this dreamer weren’t the only one?[7]

 

 [1] Brendan Byrne The Hospitality of God – A Reading of Luke’s Gospel Collegeville Press Minnesota 2015 p78

[2] https://southyarrabaptist.church/sermons/how-do-we-love-those-who-have-hurt-us-badly/

[3] Luke 4: 21-30

[4] Matthew 13:54-58

[5] Leviticus 19:2

[6] Brendan Byrne ibid p79.

[7] Malcolm Guite Parable and Paradox – Sonnets on the sayings of Jesus and other poems Canterbury Press Norwich UK 2016 p46 “Imagine”

© The Rev’d WD Crossman

 

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Sermon for the Sixth Sunday after Epiphany – 16th Feb 2025

Epiphany 6 – 16 Feb 25 

Readings:  Jeremiah 17: 5-10; Psalm 1; 1 Corinthians 15:12-20; Luke 6:17-26

The late Duke of Edinburgh apparently once said that people talk about high church and low church, but he liked short church.  It seems to me that after the massive effort of the Garage Sale, you might appreciate short church today, so just a few reflections on the Gospel for today – Luke’s version of the Beatitudes.  We’re told that Jesus meets the crowd on a level place.  On the northern shore of the Sea of Galilee there is a lovely, simply decorated and furnished Benedictine church on a small hill overlooking the water.  It’s reputedly the place of the Sermon on the Mount – St. Matthew’s version.  Between the hill and the lake is a large flat area – so you might be able to imagine how Luke’s version came about.  But we’re not here to think about geography – we’re here to think about scripture and theology and how we live our lives.

In contrast to Matthew’s nine beatitudes, Luke has four, followed by four corresponding “woes”.  Luke’s beatitudes are blunt and unqualified – “blessed are you who are poor” in contrast with Matthew’s “blessed are the poor in spirit”.  The beatitudes are provocative – and intentionally so. They are well known, but it can be easy to allow familiarity to blind us to the hard edge.  There’s a tendency as well to spiritualise Luke’s version by kind of importing Matthew’s version – Luke writes “Blessed are the poor” but some might want to say (and I’ve heard it said) that what he really meant to say is “Blessed are the poor in spirit”.  We need to sit with what Luke writes. Brendan Byrne comments that it’s outrageous in any age to bless (he uses the word congratulate) the poor on being poor, the hungry on being hungry, the weeping and the reviled on their present condition.  Correspondingly, he says, it appears foolish to declare unfortunate the wealthy, the well-fed, the laughing, and those who enjoy good reputations.  In one sense they are perfectly desirable states  of being.[1]

But Jesus has a completely different way of looking at it - the beatitudes and woes make sense in the light of the coming reversal of fortunes in God’s kingdom.  This is a prominent theme in Luke’s Gospel.  Mary in a sense sets the scene as she proclaims the same reversal in her song – the Magnificat

He has shown strength with his arm;
   he 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.[2]

Jesus does not endorse poverty or hunger – he’s insisting that what most people reckon to be advantages and disadvantages are reversed in the way God works in the world – God’s kingdom.

 Irrespective of geography or location, Luke, like Matthew, continues the vision of a countercultural or upside-down way of living by pronouncing blessing and well-being on those who, at first glance, appear to be at the margins of society and religious life.  Being vulnerable provides scope for God’s power, for God’s way of working.  By contrast, you might recall that two weeks ago we read St. Luke’s version of Jesus rejection by his own people – the self-satisfied congregation in the synagogue after he speaks of a similar reversal – how God had acted through Gentiles.[3]  St. Matthew’s version of the same event adds the words “And he did not do many deeds of power there because of their unbelief.”[4]  Wealth, pleasure, possession, power, and ease do not ensure blessedness.  I found a paraphrase of the Beatitudes which summarizes this well:

In today’s world…

 It’s good for the rich,

         they can buy whatever they want.

It’s good for the strong,

         they can take whatever they want.  They will also make the team.

It’s good for the winners,

         they get all the prizes.

It’s good for the smart,

         they get the good results, get to go to university, and get good jobs.

It’s good for the beautiful,

         they will get their pictures in magazines and get to be in movies.

It’s good for the grownups,

         they get to make all the plans.

 

Jesus says that in his kingdom…

 It’s good for those who know they do not know everything. 

         They belong in God’s world.

It’s good for those who are terribly sad. 

         They will be comforted.

It’s good for those who don’t get justice now. 

         They will get it.

It’s good for those who forgive and care about others. 

         God forgives and cares about them.

It’s good for those who are pure in heart.  They will see God. 

 

It’s good for the peacemakers. 

         They will be praised as God’s own children.

It’s good for those who are hurt because they stand up for God’s ways.

         They will be God's heroes and heroines.

It’s even good for you when people come after you because you follow me. 

         You will be rewarded. 

 

Where’s the reward.  There’s a great temptation to answer, “in heaven”, but it’s not what Jesus has in mind.  The point is, I think, that we are called in the present to live in a way that demonstrates what God’s future can be like.  We have a glimpse of this in today’s Gospel - we’ve seen what that future can be like because it’s already arrived in the person of Jesus of Nazareth.  It might seem completely at odds with the way things happen in the world, but we’re called to believe this and live it.  In the words of the prophet Micah, we’re called to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with our God.[5]  And when we do this, we find that the kingdom way of living is its own reward.

 

 [1] Brendan Byrne The Hospitality of God – A Reading of Luke’s Gospel Collegeville Press Minnesota 2015 p76

[2] Luke 1:51-53

[3] Luke 4: 21-30

[4] Matthew 13:54-58

[5] Micah 6:8

© The Rev’d WD Crossman

 

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Sermon for the Fifth Sunday after Epiphany – 9th Feb 2025

Epiphany 5 - 9 th February 2025

Readings:  Isaiah 6: 1-8; Psalm 138; 1 Corinthians 15: 1-11; Luke 5: 1-11

My last full-time parish as many of you know was Bribie Island, and often in the late afternoon or early evening I’d take a walk along Red Beach on the southern end of the island.  Sometimes I was the only person on the beach and on a clear evening you could see the lights in the high rises of Brisbane city coming on.  But sometimes too there were fishermen on the beach - professional fisherman with boats and nets and I’d see them hauling in their nets full of mullet mostly.  Nets absolutely full of them flapping and heaving.  It was quite exciting to watch.  I’d watch the fishermen too when we spent five years at Caloundra, so as we’re thinking about fishing this morning, here are some things I observed.

Firstly, the fishermen were always watchful.  I’d see them standing on the dunes at Bribie or on the cliffs at Caloundra constantly watching - looking out to sea.  Looking ahead, not behind. We’re in the business, Jesus tells us, of fishing for people - our core business if you like or one of them.  Another we don’t have time to go into today is the ministry of reconciliation, which St. Paul tells us we have.  But as we’re in the business, it seems to me that we need to be alert, always watchful, looking for opportunities, looking ahead and not behind.  The fishermen of Bribie or Caloundra were never going to spot any opportunities if they looked behind them, and neither will we.  That doesn’t mean we ignore or forget everything that has made us the people of God in this place - it’s history, shared stories, traditions.  But they can’t constrain us from looking ahead, looking for opportunity, looking for what God might have in store.

Secondly, as soon as they saw an opportunity - a school of fish they were off.  You could see them running for their four-wheel drives which towed their boats, nets all ready and piled in the boats.  It was like a Le Mans start - no standing in their way.  So, it seems to me that as soon as we see opportunities we should be acting quickly, no mucking around, but just going for it basically.  Libbie and I took the view in our parish ministries that if someone came to see us with an idea, we’d do everything we could to in our power to support it and to go for it.  Now of course not every idea is going to be a good one- you need to be discerning, but it’s important we grab the opportunities.  We were at Caloundra a couple of years ago for a service and I was humbled to see that an outreach initiative that began about 20 years ago with one lady coming to see me was still going.

Thirdly, as we all know, professional fishing is a risky business.  The fishermen I used to watch would head out into the deep just as it was getting dark.  These days, it seems to me, you don’t get much of a catch simply standing on the shore.  Ministry, outreach, fishing for people is a risky business and we should recognise this and be prepared to take the risks.  Sometimes I would see empty nets, sometimes we will make mistakes and miss out.  I don’t mean being foolhardy - the net fishermen I watched weren’t - they knew the risks and how to manage them.  But when it all pays off, the nets will be full, we’ll be amazed at the result, as were Peter and his offsiders.

 

A couple of additional observations from the readings:

Firstly, Peter’s experience mirrors the experience of many of us in faith communities, whether clergy or lay people.  We have worked really hard and tried to be faithful and yet sometimes things just don’t seem to work out.  We have tried all the latest programmes and the downward trend continues. And, yet God offers one more thing – launch out into the deep, go toward the horizon, be alert to new possibilities. Don’t give up, be faithful and join your imagination with action that goes beyond mere church survival; that always looks ahead rather than behind.

Like Jeremiah last week, Isaiah, who protests his inadequacy.  “Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips and I live among a people of unclean lips”[1] when he sees the vision of God, Peter is similarly overwhelmed and protests his inadequacy. “Go away from me Lord, for I am a sinful man.” He knows his imperfections and he fears that he’s getting in over his head (which he is).  But how does Jesus respond?  Does he command him to repent?  No. Does he say, “Sell all you have and give half to the poor”?  No.    Peter and his friends have painfully explored their own unworthiness and weaknesses.  They are all too aware of their inadequacies and right at this moment of painful self- awareness, Jesus simply says “Follow me” and Peter, James and John join Jesus on the adventure.

Isaiah and Peter alike, all too aware of their weaknesses and imperfection, trust God to use it.  That’s the essence of humility.  We too are called to an essential humility, to own our foibles and fragilities, but to trust that in all the ups and downs of success and failure, God calls us to expect great things and empowers us to be more than we can imagine. 

Secondly, a brief word about language. As we’ve been thinking about fishing this morning, we’ve studiously avoided one inconvenient part of the fishing metaphor – when you catch fish either for livelihood or for leisure, the fish die.[2]  What are we to make of that?  Well, Luke is a great storyteller, and like all great storytellers, chooses his language carefully. When Jesus tells Peter and James and John that from now on, they will be catching people, the verb Luke uses is a combination word.  It combines the Greek words for life and catch.  It was used in connection with catching animals alive for keeping in some protected way - like netting fish for an aquarium.  Brendan Byrne comments that it resonates with a sense of life - it communicates the sense of “capturing”people with the Word and bringing them to a more abundant life of the kingdom of God.[3]  My point is that we too, in our fishing for people, must be similarly careful with the language we employ.

I want to conclude with a short parable: 

There was a group that called themselves The Fisherfolk Club. They started out as a gathering of people who earned their living fishing in the ocean. At first, only real fisherfolk could join. But not wanting to be selfish, and because they had nice facilities that needed to be paid for, they invited others to come in too.

In the club headquarters there were fish symbols galore, hooks, nets, floats and rods. All the members of the club, even those who were not fishers, wore old hats with lures stuck in them and tall wading boots which got quite uncomfortable on warm days. But they were proud to be fishers and so never took them off.

They had a well-stocked library of books about fishing. And several times a year they ran seminars at which world-renounced fishers were invited to come and deliver learned lectures. All the talk and all the activities of the club centred around fishing, but as the years went by, fewer and fewer of the members actually went out fishing.

Then one day, the club had a new member. They had not had a new member for some time, so this was an interesting experience. And the new member asked an interesting question. “When do you go fishing?”

Well, it turned out that members of The Fisherfolk Club had never caught a fish. In fact, they had never actually seen a live fish. And the idea that they should go out there in a boat or wade into the water came as quite a shock to them.

They had long meetings on the subject and finally came to the conclusion that the new member would have to leave. The new member obviously knew very little about what it really meant to be a member of The Fisherfolk Club.

© The Rev’d WD Crossman

 

[1] Isaiah 6:5

[2] I acknowledge that some sports fishermen and women release the fish they’ve caught.

[3] Brendan Byrne The Hospitality of God – A Reading of Luke’s Gospel Liturgical Press Collegeville Minnesota 2015 p67

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Sermon for the Fourth Sunday after Epiphany – 2 Feb 2025

Epiphany 4 – 2 Feb 2025  

Readings: Jeremiah 1: 4-10, Psalm 71: 1-6, 1 Corinthians 13: 1-13, Luke 2: 22-40

 The Prayer Book allows a choice of celebrations for today – The Presentation of Christ in the Temple, or the Fourth Sunday After Epiphany.  It’s been my practice to keep the Epiphany series going as far as possible for two reasons; firstly, taken together they’re a pattern of revelation or epiphanies of who Jesus really is, and secondly, I think we lose the sense of the Seasons of the Church’s Year if we interrupt the flow too much.  Having said all of that, it’s maybe ironic that I’m not really preaching on the Gospel for today.  Rather, I want to turn to the second reading.

 First Corinthians 13 is perhaps one of the most familiar passages of the New Testament.  It’s a great hymn to love, and the passage of years (and translations) since Paul first wrote his letter to the church in Corinth around about the year 55 has not dimmed the majesty and the beauty of the language.  And I guess it’s familiar because it’s a popular reading for weddings – and that’s fine.  In the past, I’ve had it requested for funeral services too, and it’s appropriate there in many circumstances as well.

But, given all of that, its use just at weddings and funerals lifts it from its context.  You may recall that the epistle reading last week – a rather long one – was Paul’s urging of the community of faith at Corinth to work together as all the parts of the body work together.  Those who were here will also recall that in his sermon Bishop John posed the question “Why does 1 Corinthians 12 come before 1 Corinthians 13?” My take on it is that Paul wants working together to be seen in the context of love – and for him there is no other way.  We heard last week that all people have gifts whose proper exercise brings health to the body of Christ. Yet, the body of Christ has many parts, as does a human body, all of which need one another to fully flourish.  Paul writes of all using their gifts for the good of the community and concludes Chapter 12 with …”and I will show you a still more excellent way” and then launches into his great hymn to love and its focus is the broader community of the body of Christ.

The use of all our gifts is to be in the context of love – a patient, self-effacing, forgiving, self giving love. This kind of love is the heart of any enduring and creative community, whether it be two people, a congregation or a Diocese. We are bound together within the body of Christ. Our actions become parts of others’ experiences and contribute to the health or to the dis-ease of the whole. Accordingly, within the body of Christ or the human body, what is most important is healthy interdependence and cooperation rather than individual power, influence, or performance. Even the charismatic spiritual gifts of which Paul writes later can be destructive if they do not take into consideration the overall well-being of the body, that is, the larger community of faith.

God calls us to offer and use our gifts, in love, for the good of all.  Too often, however, we think we’re not good enough or have not much to offer.  God’s call to us seems greater than we perceive our own gifts to be. There’s nothing new about that – Jeremiah protests his inadequacy as he perceives it. ‘Ah, Lord God! Truly I do not know how to speak, for I am only a boy.’[1]  But God is always with us to bring his vision into being through us. “You shall go to all to whom I send you, and you shall speak whatever I command you, do not be afraid of them, for I am with you to deliver you.”[2], he says to Jeremiah.  Jeremiah experiences God’s call to a prophetic and public ministry which God has envisaged for his life. From the very beginning, before he was “formed in the womb,” God has a purpose for Jeremiah, just as God has good purposes for each of us. The passage from Jeremiah read this morning is making a statement of vocation or calling – I don’t think it’s about predestination. God has created a world in which God calls young and old toward purposes they cannot imagine. God slowly and gracefully called forth Jeremiah’s inclinations toward the ministry God had in store for him despite his protestations of inadequacy.  I can relate to that. Throughout the process, Jeremiah responded freely to God’s call, but God kept calling within the context of Jeremiah’s unique gifts, talents, and context. God called and Jeremiah responded, thus, beginning a journey that shaped his life and that of his community in his place and beyond.

Jeremiah’s protest seems to me to be part of the Christian vocational journey, irrespective of who we are. However, there’s a note of caution to be sounded.  When we feel inadequate or not up to it, we might think we’re just being humble.  We’re not really. Humility is essential to a healthy spiritual journey, but it is not the same as unworthiness or inadequacy – many people confuse the two.  Humility is a right and appropriate sense of who we are before God.  The Rev’d. Dr Martyn Percy in his book “The Humble Church” writes that the word “humble” comes originally from the Latin word “Humus” which means being earthed.  He goes on to say that the humble person is a grounded person: surer of their own being, so not above themselves (another good old Australian term springs to mind), and knowing that they are not above others, no matter what giftedness, rank, or status they hold.[3] 

 The Gospels remind us that the Jesus often gave his disciples lessons in humility when they forgot who they were and wanted for example, like James and John to have the places of honour in the kingdom.[4] Paul writes of not being boastful, or arrogant, or thinking we know it all.  All the highly regarded virtues of love depend on a foundation of humility and, as a value, humility as a value is the very opposite of the individualistic, manipulative, seeking behaviour we see in much of society today.  St. Benedict was well aware of this. The longest chapter in his Rule is on humility. Sister Joan Chittister in her commentary on the Rule of Benedict writes of the Roman Empire into which Benedict wrote his rule being not unlike our own.  The economy was deteriorating; the helpless were being destroyed by the warlike; the rich lived on the backs of the poor; the powerful few made decisions that profited them but plunged the powerless many into continual chaos.  Into an environment like this, she writes, Benedict flung his rule calling for humility, a proper sense of self in a universe of wonders.  Later generations, she writes distorted the notion and confused the concept of humility with lack of self-esteem.  Eventually the thought of humility was rejected out of hand, she says, and we’ve been left as a civilization to stew in the consequences of our own arrogance.[5]

The people of Jesus congregation in Nazareth get a rude shock.  Sitting back, complacent, smugly self-satisfied at how well the hometown boy is doing.  Then Jesus drops the bombshell – the epiphany revelation for today - God’s grace came to a Gentile woman, or to an unclean Syrian.  The locals are furious – not much humility there. Jesus is revealing here the true nature of his ministry as he proclaims God’s love and care for outsiders, persons who were routinely looked down upon as spiritual and moral inferiors hardly worthy to come within God’s ambit.  It’s all too much. They believed that God’s ways were crystal clear to persons like themselves and must include them at the centre of God’s love.  Jesus escapes their self-righteous fury – and it’s not known that he ever visited Nazareth again.  Things don’t change.  We saw the same self-righteous fury in Washington National Cathedral on 21st January as Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde, the Bishop of Washington preached at the National Prayer Service following the Presidential Inauguration.  She spoke Gospel truth to power about God’s love for the poor, the outcast, the dispossessed and the despised, and the powerful and arrogant didn’t like it.

God call us in love, God gives us gifts in love, and in love and humility we respond, offering the gifts we’re given for the good of all – always confident in God’s good purposes for us, always aware that God is with us, but always wary that we don’t develop some sense of spiritual superiority that we’re OK and others aren’t.  Perhaps the last word from Sister Joan – “Humility, the lost virtue of our era, is crying to heaven for rediscovery.  The development of nations, the preservation of the globe, and the achievement of human community may well depend on it.[6]

 © The Rev’d WD Crossman

.

[1] Jeremiah 1:6

[2] Jeremiah 1:7-8

[3] Martyn Percy The Humble Church Canterbury Press, Norwich, UK 2021 p134

[4] Mark 11: 35-45

[5] Joan Chittister The Rule of Benedict – A Spirituality for the 21st Century Crossroad, New York 2010 p 76-77

[6] Joan Chittister ibid p99

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Sermon for Second Sunday after Epiphany – 19th January 2025

Second Sunday after Epiphany – 19th January 2025

Readings:  Isaiah 62: 1-5:  Psalm 36: 5-10:  1 Corinthians 12: 1-11: John 2: 1-11

 Libbie and I count ourselves fortunate to have been able to conduct the marriage services of both of our children.  In 2002 we conducted the marriage of our daughter Rowena at our neighbouring parish of St. Thomas’ Toowong.  We both remember the occasion well – the clouds had been rolling in and threatening all day.  Just as the service had finished and Rowena and her husband Kevin were heading off down the aisle and off into the start of their new life, there was a great clap of thunder and an enormous flash of lightning.  What sort of sign was this, many of us there wondered?  Was Psalm 77 coming to life “The clouds poured out water; the skies thundered; your arrows flashed on every side.  The crash of your thunder was in the whirlwind: your lightnings lit up the world”?[1]  Really it was all coincidental and their marriage has been a joy for us all.  We all have funny wedding stories no doubt.

 We have a wedding story this morning – the wedding at Cana.  And in one sense it’s a funny story.  Jesus is invited to a village wedding – obviously the family is well to do as they have servants, and the wine appears to be flowing.  Then the wine runs out – disaster!  Jesus’ mother tells him the wine has run out – seems like a statement of the obvious, and his reply is not very gracious – basically he says, “It’s not my problem – yet”.  Suddenly, miraculously, there are lashings of wine again – and good stuff too – and plenty of it.  About 600 litres – nearly 800 bottles if you do the sums.  No way that amount of wine could be drunk at a wedding is there?  Wedding celebrations then could last an entire week, but even so…. And then, in the last sentence of the reading, John the gospel writer writes of a sign – he comments that this was the first of Jesus’ signs, that it reveals his glory, and that his disciples believed in him.  This puts a funny story about a village wedding into an entirely different context.   What is being underlined here is the reality of the incarnation – a revelation of divine glory in the down to earth human context of a village wedding.[2]

 ll the Gospel readings during the Season of Epiphany point to the gradual revealing of who Jesus really is.  In this instance, therefore, the story is not really about the goings on at a wedding, but about who Jesus is.  In fact, all of what we call miracle stories in the Gospels are really theological statements about the person and nature of Christ.  But John doesn’t ever use the word “miracle” – he uses the word “sign” and there are six signs in St. John’s Gospel that reveal the identity of Jesus to both the Jewish and Gentile world. They are:

·        The changing of water into wine (2:1-12)

·        Two healings—the Galilean official's son (4:46-54) and the man by the Bethzatha pool (5:1-9)

·        The feeding of the 5,000 (6:1-14)

·        Walking on the sea (6:16-21)

·        The healing of a blind man (9:1-12)

·        The raising of Lazarus from the dead (11:1-44).

(Some say the cleansing of the temple in John 2 is a seventh, but I’m not so sure)

 And when we use this word “sign” in connection with the Gospel, I want to take those of you who were here for the Children’s Christmas Service.  You may recall that I had the children gathered around the altar just before the Thanksgiving Prayer and we spoke about how the bread and wine might be signs.  I asked them to think about a road sign.  All of us when were driving on a journey see plenty of signs telling us that our destination is so many kilometres away.  Now we can take these at face value – a piece of painted metal with a few letters and numbers on it – or we can think of what that particular destination might mean to us in our lives.  The community, the people, family, the environment, the school that we or our children attended, the particular the reason we’re going.  If we allow ourselves to focus on the surface of the sign, and not to look through it in a sense, we miss the real significance.  It’s no different with St. John’s Gospel.  When I was at theological college, we were introduced to St. John’s Gospel as the Book of Signs and the Book of Glory., and in our reading this morning we’re told that this is the first sign in the Gospel and that it reveals Jesus’ glory.  How so? 

 Well, the true revelation of Jesus’ glory in the scheme of things in St. John’s Gospel happens on the cross.  How do we connect the glory revealed by the wine at Cana and the glory revealed in Christ’s death and resurrection.  Well, there are a few clues in the story.  We’re told that “on the third day” there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee.  That’s tremendously significant – remember about looking through the sign.  We’re told the mother of Jesus is there.  She’s never named in St. John’s Gospel, and she makes only two appearances – at the wedding in Cana, and in Chapter 19[3] when she stands at the foot of the cross and is entrusted to the care of the Beloved Disciple – who many think is John himself.  These two cameo appearances connect Jesus’ first sign and his last breath.   Jesus says, “my hour has not yet come” When does his hour come?  John Chapter 17,[4] Jesus begins his prayer for his disciples, just before he goes out to his arrest with these words “Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son…….”   This village wedding story looks forward to the cross where the glory of Jesus is revealed.  Apart from Jesus, none of people in the story are named.  Why might that be?  Maybe it’s a reminder to us to fill in the blanks with our names, that our lives even amid joy and celebration are lived too in the shadow of the cross.  Jesus’ mission operates solely in accordance with God’s purpose and in God’s time.  And that purpose is to address human need at its most radical and fundamental (alienation from God), something that will come to a climax at the hour of his lifting up upon the cross.[5] Jesus’ comment about his hour not having yet needs to be seen against this backdrop.

 The story also looks forward beyond Jesus’ death and resurrection to the great Day of the Lord.[6]  The image of copious wine and wedding banquets was, for the people of Jesus’ time, firmly linked with their messianic expectations when the new would transform the old.  The prophet Amos uses the image of mountains dripping with sweet wine and the hills flowing with it for the great Day of the Lord to come[7], and similar examples of wine as a sign of messianic abundance can be found in other Hebrew prophets like Hosea[8] or Jeremiah[9].  In our first reading this morning from Isaiah[10], God’s rejoicing over his people and their restoration is likened to the rejoicing at a wedding (although the feasting side isn’t mentioned here).  Jesus uses the image of a wedding banquet for the kingdom of heaven in his parable of those who refused the invitation to attend – both Matthew and Luke have that parable[11], and in Mark Ch 2, he likens himself to the bridegroom in the dispute with the Pharisees over fasting[12].  All of this, says John the Evangelist, is being inaugurated in the here and now as Jesus begins his ministry at a village wedding in Galilee.

 At the end of his Gospel, John tells us that he has selected the signs he describes – and this morning’s is the first – from the many done by Jesus in the presence of his disciples, that we might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and so have life in him[13].  So as Jesus gives life to the wedding party when things run out, so he comes to us in his glory as the crucified and risen one with an enormous abundance of grace to transform the old and make all things new.

 Here's an epiphany to have and hold,

A truth that you can taste upon the tongue,

No distant shrines and canopies of gold

Or ladders to be clambered rung by rung,

But her and now, amidst your daily living,

Where you can taste and touch and feel and see,

The spring of love, the fount of all forgiving,

Flows when you need it, rich, abundant, free.

Better than waters of some outer weeping,

That leave you still with all your hidden sin,

Here is a vintage richer for the keeping

That works its transformation from within.

“What price?” you ask me as we raise the glass,

“It cost our Saviour everything he has.”[14]


© The Rev’d WD Crossman

[1] Psalm 77:17-18

[2] Brendan Byrne Life Abounding – A Reading of John’s Gospel Liturgical Press Collegeville, Minnesota 2014 p52

[3] John 19: 25-27

[4] John 17:1

[5] Brendan Byrne ibid p54

[6] This last section is drawn from Richard A. Burridge The People’s Bible Commentary – John The Bible Reading Fellowship Abingdon UK 2010 p49

[7] Amos 9:13

[8] Hosea 14:7

[9] Jeremiah 31;12

[10] Isaiah 62:4-5

[11] Matthew 22:1-10, Luke 14: 15-24

[12] Mark 2:19

[13] John 20:31

[14] Malcolm Guite The miracle at Cana in Sounding the Seasons – Seventy Sonnets for the Christian Year Canterbury Press Norwich UK 2012 p23

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Sermon for Baptism of our Lord - Sunday 12th January 2025

Readings: Isaiah 43: 1-7, Psalm 29, Acts 8: 14-17, Luke 3: 15-22

Like quite a few of you, I guess, we had a heavy storm at our place last Wednesday night….and again yesterday.  Wednesday’s storm didn’t take long to pass, but it sure rained.  Some of you know we have a gully outside our place.  Originally, I suppose it was a gully, but now it’s more of a storm water drain. Normally it’s gently flowing but when it does rain, the water level and flow rises rather rapidly.  Given what happened to us in 2011 and 2022 we always keep a close eye on the gully.  We know from bitter experience how quickly a gentle flow turns to a torrent, or how quickly a calm and, in the early morning, picturesque river not far away turns into a malevolent unstoppable rising flood.  In the last few days, we’ve seen the terrifyingly apocalyptic vision of the fires in Los Angeles which have been unstoppable for days.  The loss of property is beyond words to describe – and tragically there is loss of life and serious injury as well.  It’s incredible sometimes how quickly a small fire can turn into an inferno.

In classical Greek thought, there were four fundamental elements - water and fire are two of them[1] - and in Australia we are all too well aware of their destructive potential.  The collect for Australia Day in a couple of weeks’ time refers to “a land of fire, drought and flood.”[2]  In the prayer for Australia, we bless God “for its contrasts of landscape and climate.”[3]  In the Gospel for this morning, Luke’s account of Jesus baptism, we find both elements brought together – John the Baptist says that he  baptises with water, but that Jesus will baptise with the Holy Spirit and fire.  Isaiah, as well, brings the two elements together “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you: and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you.”[4]  What can we make of all of this?

The passage from Isaiah is part of God’s promise of redemption and restoration for the people who have been uprooted and forced into exile.  It’s a wonderful passage full of promise and hope.  It’s an intimate, personal passage – God calls the people by name.  Even though the people have been metaphorically and probably literally through flood and fire, there’s a promise that God is with them, and they will not be overwhelmed.  They are precious in his sight.  God promises to call, and by implication bless people from all points of the compass “everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made.” [5]    The big question is, “How do we understand everyone?”  Israel was regarded as the “chosen people”.  Is it “everyone whom God chooses?” or “everyone”.   It’s not just a fine theological point but has deep pastoral implications as well.   It’s something many families face and often worry about when someone dies.  I’ve lost count of the times I’ve been asked by a grieving family whether someone who has died who “didn’t go to church much, but we think they believed in God” will be OK.  How do we understand “everyone”.

At one end of the spectrum is the extreme Calvinist position in which from the beginning of time God has already chosen – the word used is pre-destined – those who are to be saved and those who won’t be.  Under this view, our destiny, whether elect or not is set, full stop, and there is nothing we can do about it.  Our final destiny and our ability to believe in God’s way are determined in advance.  At the other end of the spectrum is what can be termed universalism.   All are saved regardless of behaviour or belief.  In between are other positions, for example, God calls everyone, and humans have a choice as to how they will respond, whether positively or negatively.

Baptism happens at a time when someone responds positively to God’s call – a parent or grand-parent for children, or an adult for themselves.  Often people can’t verbalise it, nor do I expect them to, but I believe it is a spiritual call or a prompting of the Spirit.    In over thirty years of ordained ministry, I’ve had very few requests about “wanting the child done”.  And in baptism, both water and fire come into play.  Water, of course, is the outward sign of the sacrament of baptism.  Water is essential for our existence and in the scriptures, water is always to do with new life, or the potential for new life.  From the very first verse of the scriptures where the spirit of God moves over the face of the waters[6], to the last chapter of the scriptures, in the Revelation to John where in his vision an angel shows him the river of the water of life flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb[7].  In between is the foundational story in the history of God’s chosen people, the Exodus when the people pass through water from the old way of captivity and slavery to the new life God promises for them in the Land of Promise.  The Holy Spirit is symbolised by a dove – as in the Gospel account for today – or by fire – remember the story of Pentecost.  Fire symbolising energy and light.  The paschal candle which burns at baptism – again fire, symbolises the risen Christ, the light of the world.  The baptismal candle, lit from the paschal is handed to the family or to the one baptised and taken with them – they carry the light of Christ with them into their lives from that day.  All of us who have been baptised have been gifted with all the possibility and potential of new life as children of God, all the energy and light of the Holy Spirit for our ministries – all of us whatever ministry we are exercising are living out our baptismal calling.

And for everyone who responds positively to God’s call in baptism there is an irrevocable change – a spiritual change.  I say in baptism “I sign you with the sign of the cross to show that you are marked as Christ’s own for ever.”[8]   Marked as Christ’s own for ever.  I recall in a former parish receiving a phone call from a man I didn’t know and who worshipped, if at all, in another denomination.  His 20-year-old daughter had, it seems, taken her own life – she had been drinking heavily and had hung herself.  I guess we’ll never know whether she had actually meant to do it.  There was conflict between he and her mother from whom he had been separated for many years.  He said she was mixed up in witchcraft and he was worried there would be some pagan ceremony.  He wanted some sort of Christian service before, as he put it, “They got their hands on her.”  I arranged a memorial service and held it a couple of days later.  I asked him at one stage what had led him to an Anglican Church.  He said his daughter had been baptised in an Anglican Church in another diocese.  It turned out that before I was ordained, I had known the priest who baptised her and I could visualise how he would have conducted the baptism.  I said that at her baptism, he would have said that she was marked as Christ’s own forever.  I said that no matter what had happened, or what might happen, nothing, nothing at all could ever change that.  To hear that was, the father said, of enormous reassurance and support for him in the whole fraught and tragic time.    Often, I feel, we don’t fully recognise the healing and transforming power of the words we use in worship.  By the same token, we also need to be aware of how injurious and destructive they can be (like water and fire) if used carelessly or wantonly.

In Luke’s account, Jesus appears as one among the crowd and is baptised along with others.  How many?  We don’t know.  No fanfare, no fuss.  No lengthy account.  We’re simply told he is baptised.  But then, the epiphany moment, the showing or revelation of his true nature as the voice from heaven says, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”  It’s a life changing point for Jesus – his public ministry begins at this point.  Jesus responds freely to the grace he has received.  He is fully open to embodying God’s vision and purpose in his own unique way, sharing God’s transforming grace for the wholeness and salvation of humankind. At our baptisms we were signed with water and fire – not as elements of destruction, but as elements of new life and energy. Our own baptisms were epiphany moments; we too were revealed as children of God  – and we too are called to be fully open in our unique way to God’s vision and purpose in and for our lives.   Can it be that God is well pleased with us?

 

[1] The other two are air and earth.  Some, like the Babylonians added a fifth, wind.

[2] A Prayer Book for Australia p 628

[3] Ibid p204

[4] Isaiah 43:2

[5] Isaiah 43:7

[6] Genesis 1: 1-2

[7] Revelation 22:1

[8] A Prayer Book for Australia p 60.

© Rev’d Bill Crossman

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Sermon for Epiphany - 5th January 2025

Readings:  Isaiah 60: 1-6; Psalm 72: 1-7, 10-14; Ephesians 3: 1-12; Matthew 2: 1-12

 The Australian theologian and biblical commentator Brendan Byrne in his commentary on the Epiphany Gospel from St. Matthew writes “precisely because of its appeal the journey of the magi has become in Christian tradition a central part of the Christmas story, attracting in the process all kinds of accretions….”[1]

Perhaps as an example of what Brendan Byrne calls “accretions”, the Vatican Library has for more than 250 years held a document called “The Revelation of the Magi”.  It is supposedly a first-hand account of the journey of the Magi to pay tribute to the infant Jesus.  It was written in ancient Syriac – the language spoken by early Christians from Syria - and it’s first translation into English was made about ten or twelve years ago – a Professor of Religious Studies from the University of Oklahoma took two years to complete the translation.  The document is an eighth century copy of a story first written down around 100 years or so after St. Matthew’s Gospel was written.   St. Matthew’s has the only biblical account we have of the story of the Wise Men and “The Revelation of the Magi” differs in many respects from Matthew’s brief account.  The three wise men have traditionally been associated with Persian mystics, but those in the “Revelation of the Magi” are from much further afield – from a semi mythical land of Shir, now associated with ancient China.  (Maybe The Rev’d John Henry Hopkins Jr. knew something when in 1857 he wrote the carol “We Three Kings of Orient Are”!)  In the document, the wise men are said to be descendants of Seth, the third son of Abraham and to have belonged to a sect that believed in silent prayer.  In a departure from the traditional story, it says there were “scores” of Magi.  Matthew of course doesn’t give us any number – the assumption has been that there were three wise men because there were three gifts.  The document also conflates Jesus Christ and the Star of Bethlehem, claiming they are different manifestations of the same thing.  It says the star guides the Magi to Bethlehem and into a cave where it transforms into a human infant who tells them to go back and be preachers of the Gospel.

 Now, I don’t know if you find any of that convincing or not.  I don’t really – certainly not about Jesus and the star being the same thing. But the interesting thing is as the translator has commented that “Somebody was really fascinated by the wise men to have created this big, long story and tell it from their perspective.  A great deal of thought and imagination has gone into it…….”  However, Brendan Byrne in his commentary goes on to write that the accretions “are not really part of Matthrew’s account, which is certainly rich enough to stand by itself.”[2]

 So, what might the Epiphany mean as we’ve come to the beginning of a New Year.  Setting the fascination aside for a moment – I mean it’s always been there. Put “Star of Bethlehem” into your favourite search engine and you get an impossible number of results for it.   But as we come to the beginning of any New Year we look back and look forward.  The Epiphany story looks back back and forward – back to Isaiah’s prophecy of the restored Jerusalem of the new and glorious age of the Messiah for whom people waited.  Gold and frankincense will proclaim the praise of the Lord, Isaiah says[3] – as gold and frankincense proclaim that the infant in the manger is the Lord.  The myrrh used for anointing the dead looks forward to the passion and death of Christ.  The same prophecy of Isaiah takes up the theme of light rising to disperse the darkness that covers the earth.[4]  Epiphany has always been associated with bringing light into darkness. 

And the theme of light – light for the journey is, I think, especially relevant for us this morning as we have just begun a New Year.  Most of us look back to the year past – we celebrate things that have gone well, regret things that haven’t, perhaps relive the pain of loss; but we look forward too. We might make new year’s resolutions, or at least think about them, and we all express the hope that the new year will be better than the one just past.  But the reality often is that as we go through a new year, we find ourselves doing many things we did in the old year.  We might follow pretty much the same pattern of things as we’ve followed in the past.  We will probably think many of the same thoughts we thought before.  We will probably face many of the same challenges we have faced before at personal, local, national and international levels.  And yet, by God’s grace things can be different, things can be new.  There are certain moments when God, who loves us, shows himself, manifests or reveals himself, to use Epiphany language.  God steps into our time and into our lives.  The light does shine in the darkness.  Epiphany demonstrates this.  We sometimes forget about the verses that follow this morning’s Gospel account – the flight of the Holy Family into Egypt to escape the violence Herod’s intentions[5] – as a news story on Friday evening of the flight of Sudanese women and children into the neighbouring country of Chad to escape the violence of conflict reminded me.  Then follows the appalling story in Matthew’s Gospel of the massacre of the infants and of Rachel weeping in Ramah for her children and refusing to be consoled because they are no more.[6]  We see that from Gaza almost every evening in news bulletin.  Yet somehow, the light can shine.  I remember seeing a few months ago some vision from Gaza of children playing amid the ruins on a see-saw they had made from the debris.  We should always be looking for the light, seeking to bring light into dark places.

Secondly, we can take four actions from the Epiphany which are relevant as much today as they were then.  They are to seek, to find, to worship and to rejoice.  The wise men are faithful enquirers using all the means at their disposal to follow the guiding of a star seeking this new king. But their own endeavours can only get them so far. Once in Jerusalem they pay attention to the revelation of scripture and are diligent in following where the star is leading them, even when that goes against their expectations, and they are led beyond Jerusalem to Bethlehem.  Surely there is a message there for us - being faithful in our following, in our seeking after the light and goodness of Christ; being open to looking beyond the boundaries of our lives and experiences and expectations of ourselves, of others and of God.[7]  When the wise men reach their destination and find the place where Jesus is their first response is to fall to their knees and to worship him.   They allow the truth of what they see to transform and delight them.  The most important thing we do as Anglicans is worship – can we be open to the truth and grace of Christ experienced in worship transforming and delighting us.  And they rejoice – despite all that lies in front of them – their long, arduous return by another was so they can avoid Herod, they rejoice.  St. Paul reminds us to rejoice “Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.”[8] 

So, as we begin the New Year, we begin with faith.  We begin with faith that God does not leave us to our own devices, but that God shows himself to us, makes time for us, takes time for us.  God doesn’t leave it all up to us, thank goodness.  It isn’t our primary task by resolutions and all the rest of it to make the New Year better.  Sure, there is a place for our own honest reflection and soul searching to identify aspects of our lives we would like to be better – but God comes to us, reveals himself to us, brings light into darkness.  Perhaps underlying theme in this new year for ourselves and for our parish could be summed in in the line with which Malcolm Guite ends his Epiphany sonnet, “The Magi” 

It might have been just someone else’s story;

Some chosen people get a special king,

We leave them to their own peculiar glory,

We don’t belong, it doesn’t mean a thing.

But when these three arrive they bring us with them,

Gentiles like us, their wisdom might be ours;

A steady step that finds an inner rhythm,

A pilgrim’s eye that sees beyond the stars.

They did not know his name but still they sought him,

They came from otherwhere but still they found;

In palaces, found those who sold and bought him,

But in the filthy stable, hallowed ground.

Their courage gives our questing hearts a voice

To seek, to find, to worship, to rejoice.[9]

 

[1] Brendan Byrne Lifting the Burden – Reading Matthew’s Gospel in the Church Today Liturgical Press Collegeville Minnesota 2004 p28

[2] Bendan Byrne ibid

[3] Isaiah 60:6

[4] Isaiah 60:1-3

[5] Matthew 2:13-15

[6] Matthew 2:18

[7] https://www.stmartin-in-the-fields.org/epiphany-sunday-4/ - a Sermon by The Rev’d. Katherine Hedderley

[8] 1 Thessalonians 5:16

[9] Malcolm Guite Sounding the Seasons – Seventy Sonnets for the Christian Year Canterbury Press Norwich UK 2012 p19

© Rev’d Bill Crossman

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Sermon for 29 Dec 24 - Christmas 1

Readings:  1 Samuel 2: 18-20, 26; Psalm 148: Colossians 3: 12-17; Luke 2: 41-52

I want to go back to a Christmas 48 years ago.  Libbie and I were in Cooma with her family for Christmas.  Our daughter, Rowena, was not yet 1.  A few days after Christmas Day we all decided to drive up into the mountains for a family picnic.  There were three cars and as Libbie’s father then worked for the Kosciuszko National Park, he had a key to all the locked roads.  We drove up over Schlink Pass to an old Snowy construction hut named the Schlink Hilton.  It’s still there today.  It was very windy, so we decided to have our picnic in the hut – and a very good time was had by all eating and drinking good things.  We loaded up the cards and started down the road.  We looked around in the car – where was Rowena!?  We couldn’t see her.  So, we returned to the Schlink Hilton and found her straight away – sleeping peacefully in her bassinet in one of the rooms at the back of the hut so we didn’t disturb her during lunch.  We can relate to the sinking feeling Mary and Joseph must have had when they can’t find their son, who, it must be said, has grown rather rapidly.  We celebrated his birth only four days ago, and here he is at twelve years.  I commented the other day that one could be forgiven for thinking that the Lectionary seems all over the place in the Advent and Christmas seasons.  Next Sunday we’ll be back with the infant Jesus and the wise men as we celebrate Epiphany.

We’re in an in-between time, between Christmas and New Year; caught between the hope to keep the spirit of Christmas all year round and the often-fruitless compiling of New Year’s resolutions.  What might we take from the readings today.  Firstly, this is a very human story – something we can relate to – Mary and Joseph’s faithful observance of an important festival, the travel, the concern when they can’t find their son, the search, the relief when he is found, the admonition; “We’ve been looking for you for three days,  What on earth do you think you were doing?”; the precociousness, even arrogance of youth, “Why were you looking – didn’t you know I must be here”.  If at Christmas we are caught up in divine mystery – messages from angels to not be afraid, heavenly hosts singing “Glory to God in the highest” the willing participation of Joseph and Mary in God’s purposes, the wonder of the shepherds, in this story we’re very much reminded that Jesus is human – just like us.  Do we not say in the Creed every Sunday that Jesus” by the power of the Holy Spirit was incarnate of the Virgin Mary, and became fully human”?

In looking at the readings from Samuel and in the Gospel, I think there is another aspect too. In them, we have the descriptions of two young men, both of whom were contemplating their future lives and vocations – Samuel, who becomes a great prophet, and Jesus, the son of Mary and Joseph, and God with us. In fact, Luke weaves images from the story of Samuel into his story – Hannah, Samuel’s mother is barren, just like Elizabeth, the mother of John the Baptist.  The Song of Mary has many similarities to the Song of Hannah, and as we’ve read this morning Samuel grows “in stature and favor with God and with the people” and Jesus increases “in wisdom and in stature and in divine and human favor.”

Surely rowing in wisdom and stature is one thing we can take from both readings.  Some commentators talk about Jesus physical stature.  I don’t think Luke means that at all myself.  Jesus grows naturally.  What is being described is stature of a different kind.  One commentator writes of “stature,” or largeness of spirit, that is, how much of the world in its wonderful variety and challenging contrast or the nuances in various situations you can embrace without losing your personal centre.   Persons of stature, he writes, have large images of God and God’s presence in our lives, and see God’s work on a vast cosmic canvas, rather than simply focused on the earth and human beings and individual salvation. People of stature in religion, politics, and business, look beyond their own interests and even the interests of their community and country to the good of the whole.  We can think of people of ethical or spiritual stature - and don’t we need them now, both nationally and internationally! 

Jesus’ experience in the temple can serve as a model for growing in wisdom and stature. On the verge of adulthood, Jesus is drawn to the temple for theological reflection and questioning. Attracted, lured even, by the opportunity to share in the wisdom of his faith, he forgets all about his parents and the rules of his household. Like his later forty-day spiritual retreat in the wilderness, Jesus’ three days in the temple were a pivotal point in his spiritual growth, and they are a guide for our own spiritual growth. Jesus grew in spiritual stature by claiming his faith tradition faithfully and then extending its boundaries to new horizons. Growing in wisdom and stature calls us to take our own faith seriously enough to study the scriptures, wrestle with traditional theological doctrines, explore new images of God, Christ, and salvation, and spend time in prayer, meditation, and service. A growing faith is not accidental but requires going regularly to our own “temple” – both physical and spiritual, I would suggest to listen, to ask, and to share.

As Christians, we are called to be people of spiritual stature; or you could say “large-souled persons.” In Philippians, the apostle Paul describes this in terms of having “the same mind that was in Christ Jesus.”[1] Colossians provides similar guidance for those who wish to embody Christ in thought, word, and deed. “Clothe yourselves with compassion . . . clothe yourselves with love.”[2] In other words, let your face to the world be one of love in action. To have the mind of Christ is to see Christ in everyone and treat everyone as if he or she is Christ’s beloved son or daughter.

Colossians also counsels us to “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly.”[3] Take time to listen to Christ’s presence within you in times of prayer and meditation. In every moment of life, the word of God wells up within us. God is always inspiring us, if we open our spirits to God’s leading. Through our prayer, worship, study, and reflection we hear and respond to that inner word of God.

What we need at the turn of the year is greater “stature.” So on this “low” Sunday, we can commit ourselves to a “high” spirituality. We can commit ourselves to daily practices so we increase in stature – to daily meditation, to hospitality and welcome, to a growing understanding of God through study, and to service that changes the world.  Then, we will grow with Jesus, and we will feel the spirit of the incarnation throughout the year, for we will, “grow in wisdom and stature and favor with God and humankind.”

© Rev’d Bill Crossman

 [1] Philippians 2:2

[2] Colossians 3: 12-14

[3] Colossians 3:16

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Sermon for Christmas 2024

Last Friday evening for some reason I was at sixes and sevens a bit.  I wanted something to read.  I had four books on the floor by my bed, but they wouldn’t do.  I’d just read two of them and didn’t feel like picking up the other two.  So off to the bookshelf for something not too taxing.  I took down a collection of short stories I haven’t read for years; “Adventure Stories from the Strand”.  The Strand was a monthly magazine first published in 1891 and ran until 1950.   I looked at the contents page, and my eyes lighted on a story written by H.G. Wells in 1903 - Wells was known as “the father of science fiction”.   The story was titled “The Land Ironclads” and in it he does some military crystal ball gazing and forecasts the use of tanks in modern warfare.” Where’s he going with all of this?” many of you may beginning to think.  Bear with me.  In the story, none of the characters are named – perhaps, I think, to depict the de-humanising nature of warfare.  In the opening scenes, Wells writes this of one he describes as “the war correspondent”.  He was depressed.  He believed that there were other things in life better worth than having proficiency in war; he believed that in the heart of civilisation, for all its stresses, its crushing concentrations of forces, its injustice and suffering, there lay something that might be the hope of the world.[1]

Words for our times surely. Quite a few people comment to me about how depressing news bulletins are these days.  I think many around the world desperately long for some sense or vision of hope.  Whether it be people trapped in seemingly endless awful violence and conflict in and between Ukraine and Russia, Gaza, the West Bank, Israel, Lebanon and Yemen, Sudan and South Sudan.  In other places ordinary people struggle to survive under corrupt regimes where entire economies have been destroyed.  I saw a news bulletin the other evening about the human and societal destruction being wrought by gang warfare in Haiti.  Around the world we see the rise of right-wing populism, in my view a dangerous threat to properly functioning democracy. In the past week we’ve seen the dreadful loss of life at the Magdeburg Christmas Market in Germany, and the suffering following the earthquakes in Vanuatu.  Many are worried about approaching bushfire and flood seasons, others carry their private grief of illness or loss. In all this a sign, even a glimpse of hope can literally be lifesaving.  Among the many great gifts of Christmas is the gift of hope, please pray that those who see no hope may catch something of the hope of the world whose coming we celebrate each Christmas.  In the Christ Child we pray that that the light of hope may shine brightly for them.

Light, of course, has always been associated with the joy of Christmas.  The prophecy of Isaiah – “the people who walked in darkness have seen a great light”, or the light of the guiding star, or the glory of the Lord which Luke describes shining around the shepherds.  And it’s interesting, or at least I think it is, that amid all the joy and celebration we feel, the message of the angels to the shepherds is essentially the same as the message given separately to both Joseph and Mary in the gospel accounts leading up to the account of Jesus’ birth – and that message is “Do not be afraid.”  A former Archbishop of Canterbury, Archbishop Rowan Williams commented some years ago now that this message “Do not be afraid” is a “recurring motif in the Christmas stories, and a significant reminder that the overwhelming news of God the Saviour's coming is both all that the human heart could hope for and also something that powerfully disrupts the way the world goes and the way our lives go. There is something to be afraid of in the renewal of a world”[2]

On one hand, we may not be so keen on a renewal of a world when we think we’re OK – kind of.  If we are safe, secure comfortable, it’s possible that we may not be so keen on having God unexpectedly break into our world.  The stories surrounding Jesus’ birth have God breaking into the lives of Mary, Joseph, Mary’s relative Elizabeth and her husband Zechariah in extraordinary ways.  They were ordinary people, living ordinary lives and suddenly caught up in God’s wonderful purposes – and they really wondered what it was all about.  Why me?  Who am I?  –  they ask.  But the message comes – don’t be afraid.  All of us are like Mary and Joseph – ordinary people - and the wonder of Christmas is that we too can be caught up, if only for a time in God’s purposes – to hear the story again, to have our imaginations fired, our sympathies broadened, our harshness softened as we hear again the story of Christ’s birth.  The gospel reading reminds us that joy is not just a matter of circumstance or worldly success but emerges even in the most contrary environments. Jesus was born in Roman occupied Judea. They are the ones who order the census, no doubt so they can make sure everyone, even an ordinary man like Joseph pays tribute or taxes to the oppressor. Jesus’ birth took place in the humblest environment. Incarnation –– God coming to us in human form - God’s vision of possibility is another description I’ve read - is global, not restricted to the environments or communities we might think are the obvious ones. God comes to the weak as well as the strong; to the powerless as well as the powerful; to the foreigner as well as the neighbour.  The message to us is the same – Do not be afraid.  God is with us.  The Holy Child is the hope of the world.

There are many who do not want their worlds changed – particularly those who wield power and influence unjustly.  Like King Herod, they are threatened by faith in one who comes in weakness and vulnerability – who in his life of teaching showed there was a different way.  People can feel uncomfortable when religion makes a visible difference in public life.  A couple of weeks ago here in a sermon I quoted The Rev’d Geoffrey Studdert-Kennedy who wrote “Nobody worries about Christ as long as he can be kept shut up in churches. He is quite safe there.  But there is always trouble if you try to let him out.”[3]  Why is that I wonder.  What do they fear?  Loss of influence, loss of power – or are they thinking about bad stereotypes of Christianity we see too often in the media.  At the extreme, fear of genuine faith can lead to the unthinking violence of the religious extremist.

But there is nothing to fear because, again to paraphrase Rowan Williams, what happens when God comes to earth is not something like the first landing of an occupying army, who possesses land ironclads and wants to take all that is ours. The truth is as different as could be and the clue is in those simple words from St’ John’s Gospel, simple words that invite a lifetime's joyful reflection, 'The Word became flesh and lived among us'.[4]

God comes in stillness. He comes in dependency and weakness. He comes by God's absolutely free gift. Yet he comes from the heart of our own human world and life, from the womb of a mother, from the free love of Mary's heart given to God in trust.

As Christians, our faith does not need to carve territories to defend, nor do we need to mount campaigns to take over a potentially rebellious world and subdue it by force, although we must admit in times past Christians have used force supposedly in God’s name.  We simply witness to the world that the world will never be fully itself except in what Rowan Williams calls the glad receiving of God's presence and the recognition of the 'true light' at the centre of all human, all created life.  And it’s this glad receiving we celebrate at this holy season.  As humans, God calls us to a destiny more glorious than we can imagine.  We need not be afraid of this.

We don't have to fight for our claims in such a way that all the world sees is another power-obsessed and anxious human institution; we have only to let the Word be born in us and speak in us. In the stillness of this place, in the stillness of these next few moments, ask that God may give us grace to let Jesus Christ, his son, the Word made flesh as St. John calls him, be born again in us this Christmas, and live in us, and speak in us…………………………………………………………………..

Michael Leunig, the cartoonist, died just under a week ago. I felt pangs of sadness as I was a fan of his work and because he died on my birthday.  He could be savage and controversial and confronting.  But he could be whimsical, delightful and profound.  In a cartoon simply titled “Christmas” wrote these few lines with which I conclude.  We thought about them in our Advent Study Group the other day and thought, on balance, we could see reference to the Christ Child, the hope of the world being born in us.  He wrote:

I see a twinkle in your eye

So this shall be my Christmas star

And I will travel to your heart

The manger where the real things are.

 

And I will find a mother there

Who holds you gently to her breast

A father to protect your peace

And by these things you shall be blessed.

 

And you will always be reborn

And I will always see the star

And make the journey to your heart

The manger where the real things are.[5]

 

And may you all have a holy, happy and blessed Christmas.

 

 [1] Adventure Stories from the Strand The Folio Society Ltd., London. 1995 p90

[2] This and other references to Archbishop Rowan Williams from http://rowanwilliams.archbishopofcanterbury.org/articles.php/1620/christmas-sermon-2003.htm

[3] https://www.azquotes.com/author/32441-Geoffrey_Studdert_Kennedy

[4] John 1:14

[5] The Essential Leunig Viking, an imprint of Penguin Books, Melbourne, 2012 p257

 © Rev’d Bill Crossman

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Sermon for Advent 4 - 22 Dec 24

Readings: Micah 5; 2-5a; The Song of Mary, Hebrews 10: 5-10; Luke 1: 39-45

We come to the fourth Sunday of Advent and to a lovely story in St. Luke’s Gospel – the story of the Visitation of Mary to her cousin Elizabeth.  In relationship to the gospels for the last two Sundays, it’s a kind of flash-back.  We’ve seen the adult John the Baptist on the second and third Sundays of Advent and now the focus shifts to John before his birth.  Luke opens his gospel with two stories – the annunciation of the birth of John the Baptist and the annunciation of the birth of Jesus.  The two are told as separate stories – with some common features; the angel Gabriel is the bearer of the news in both stories.  In our gospel reading this morning, the two stories come together.

 I began last week with a story from long service leave some years ago.  Perhaps I could return there for a moment.  Libbie and I had moved on to Italy from the United States.  We were in Florence – for many years we’d wanted to see the Uffizi Gallery and finally we were there – after two hours of queuing.  There are paintings by well-known great masters, of course – Leonardo, Botticelli among them.  I walked into one of the smaller rooms in the gallery and I happened to glance at a smaller picture just by the door – and I was just spellbound.  It was a painting of the Visitation - I recognized that immediately, but what held me in front of the picture for what seemed like ages was the depiction of the greeting between Mary and Elizabeth.  The picture was painted in 1503.  The colours were very strong, but there was incredible softness in the picture.  The artist was a Mariotto Albertinelli, whom I’d never heard of.  In one sense he was perhaps an unlikely artist to have painted such a scene.  A biography says of him:  “Mariotto was a most restless person and carnal in the affairs of love and apt to the art of living, and, taking a dislike to the studies and brain-wracking necessary to painting, being also often stung by the tongues of other painters, as is their way, he resolved to give himself to a less laborious and more jovial profession” So he opened a tavern. The biography goes on: “But at last the low life became an annoyance to him, and, filled with remorse, he returned to painting.[1]”    

I’m glad he did. The painting captures the moment of meeting – of recognition between Mary and Elizabeth.  They lean close to each other and grasp hands, Elizabeth touches Mary tenderly on the shoulder.  It’s easy to imagine they’re about to greet each other with a kiss. There is an amazing tenderness and grace in their moment of greeting – this moment of greeting between two humble women, ordinary women – and yet, there was to my mind when I saw it a wonderful transcendence about it as well.  I had the sense when I saw it that there was something much greater going on than just a greeting between two relatives. 

And of course, there is something much greater going on in our Gospel reading.  Luke doesn’t tell us why Mary sets out, yet one can imagine why, perhaps. Just before this episode, Mary has been visited by Gabriel, who announces to her that she will conceive and bear a son, despite her protest that she is a virgin, and her son will be called the Son of the Most High. Mary receives this startling news by saying “Let it me with me according to your word,” giving her “Yes” to God, and so co-creating with God the possibility of blessing and salvation. But because she is not yet married, to conceive and bear a son will put her in a very precarious social position in Nazareth, and probably a precarious position with Joseph as well—after all, it is in Matthew’s account that an angel appears to Joseph to assure him of Mary’s integrity; Luke leaves us to wonder how Joseph receives the news.  In one of the Advent studies from the ABM resource “Caravan” which re-imagines the stories of the incarnation in a contemporary Australian context, Joseph is a knock-about chippie who receives the news by letter.  He is confused, aching, angry, even furious and hurt.  Maybe Mary decides she needs the wisdom and guidance of an older woman, a trusted relative, who can understand her unusual situation. When Elizabeth hears Mary’s greeting, it touches off a series of recognitions. The “recognition scene” was a staple element in classic Greek literature, and Luke, being a fine storyteller in that style, uses that to good effect in his story. When Mary greets Elizabeth, the unborn John the Baptist in Elizabeth’s womb recognizes the presence of the unborn Jesus in Mary’s womb, and leaps for joy. Elizabeth then recognizes the meaning of her baby’s movement—not just a random kick, but a ready greeting—and in turn recognizes Mary, not primarily as a relative, but as “the mother of my Lord” and “she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.”

This recognition on Elizabeth’s part is not clairvoyance, but the work in her of the Holy Spirit, which empowers her to recognize realities she herself could not have witnessed firsthand. Mary, in turn, recognizes the work of the Spirit in Elizabeth’s sudden knowledge, and responds with her Magnificat, or Song of Mary, which is the Psalm for today – we sing it in the form of “Tell out my soul, the greatness of the Lord.”  It is in this complex web of recognitions and recognitions-of-recognitions that the witness to the coming of the Christ emerges. No one part alone tells the whole story; but together these women and their unborn children proclaim the advent of the Lord.  Something much greater indeed.

The Fourth Sunday of Advent brings us as a worshipping community of faith to the eve of the Christmas Gospel, as today’s gospel makes clear.  During Advent, the gospel lessons have moved us from the grand cosmic scale of the first Sunday of Advent to a very domestic, situation this morning – two female relative meeting in a home.  Yet even here in the seeming ordinary domesticity of this meeting, God is turning things upside down – one commentator calls Elizabeth and Mary living signs of the Great Reversal: two women, completely outside of the religious and social establishments recognize and prepare for the in-breaking of God in the world.  They are insignificant in the eyes of patriarchal culture—one is old, one is young; one has been barren, one not yet childbearing; neither possessing status nor power—and yet they are the first to recognize the embodiment of God’s holiness in a human life. It’s a constant theme in the gospel stories surrounding the events of the anticipation of Jesus’ birth, and his actual birth, that the governors, emperors and other power brokers are of no account – God simply subverts them.

Elizabeth and Mary’s relationships—with each other, with God, with Zechariah and Joseph, with the townspeople and villagers; relationships both of support and subjugation, both suspicion and rejoicing—Elizabeth and Mary’s relationship form the fertile ground in which the incredible possibilities that God has in store can grow and flourish. Those new possibilities are gathered most obviously in the unborn John and Jesus, whose potentials will unfold in adult lives of ministry and mission. But those new possibilities are also and immediately evident in Elizabeth and Mary, in the inspiration and insight and song they share, in the way their lives are changed and redirected by the Holy Spirit.

 Human relationships are complex and contradictory.  Often human relationships are the framework in which tragedy, trauma, violence, evil are manifest.  At the same time, however, human relationships are the framework in which unconditional love, compassion, forgiveness, goodness and peace are made manifest.  As we come to the end of this Advent Season, can we look at ourselves and our own relationships?  Do they provide the right framework or the fertile ground for the things of God to flourish and grow.  Mary and Elizabeth’s story is one of recognition. How do we recognize the presence of Christ within and among ourselves, how are our lives are redirected, changed by the Holy Spirit.

At the start of a new Christian year, the season of Advent offers us the chance to begin our life with God and God’s creation anew.  Yet this new beginning is also a return to the old unlimited promises of God for a just creation.  We look back to look forward.  Each year these hopes for the fulfillment of God’s promises are born again, as we look forward to the advent of the One who redefines past, present and future.  May we be prepared to recognize and welcome him.

© Rev’d Bill Crossman

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We meet to worship on custodial land of the oldest living civilisation in the world. We pay our respects to both the Jagera and the Turrbal people and their Elders, past, present and emerging, for they hold the hopes, dreams, traditions and cultures of Aboriginal Australia. We acknowledge and respect their spiritual connection to country and their stewardship of the land that now sustains us all. We pray for ongoing reconciliation for all who call Australia home.