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

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

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

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

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

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