Sermon for the Sixth Sunday after Pentecost - 30th June 2024

Pentecost 6 Christ Church St Lucia 30th June 2024

The Venerable Rod Winterton

 – Healing the Woman and Raising the Dead. Mark 5.21-43.

          One of the beauties and simplicities of Mark’s Gospel is how he lets the Good News unfold. Over the last few weeks we have journeyed from concepts of the Kingdom of God to watching the Kingdom unfold as we follow Jesus on his travels. We have moved from Jesus the preacher to Jesus the calmer of storms and now the ultimate proof of his identity – Jesus the Son of God who has power over death.

          The two central figures in our story from Mark this morning are both Jewish and from the same village and yet from opposite ends of the spectrum. Jairus is a leader of the synagogue, a powerful man in his community. The other is unnamed and is an outcast from society, unclean because of her continual bleeding. These two characters are linked by fate. The girl is twelve years old and the woman has been bleeding for the same length of time.

          Jairus humbles himself by calling on Jesus and putting the fate of his daughter in Jesus’ hands. The unclean woman doesn’t have the luxury of being able to make a request such as that. Instead, she prostrates herself to touch the hem of Jesus robe. Both break boundaries and both have their prayers answered.

          A couple of weeks ago I commented to the folk in another parish that, when contemplating the Kingdom of God, it is foolish to attempt to put limits on God’s grace. Today’s stories are prime examples of God breaking boundaries and how God calls the most unlikely of us to be participants in God’s mission. But what happens when God seems to be deaf to our calls for healing and help?

          I remember many years ago going up for communion at the midday Mass in Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. At the communion rail in Notre Dame is a book in which people can write out prayer requests for the community to include in their prayers. I ran my eye over it and amongst the ones written in English was a request that someone had made that one of their loved ones would have a long and happy life, free of trouble and pain. When I read this it troubled me a bit, because I have come to recognize those things as part of the human condition. The good things of life are enjoyed all the more when weighed up against the not so good. But sometimes pain and suffering can seem endless, as if God has turned his back on us. After twelve years of bleeding, of being unclean and a social outcast, that woman who touched Jesus’ robe could well have been crying out to God in the words of the psalm Out of the depths I cry to you, Lord. Lord hear my voice. 

Continuing to explore the particularly Jewish aspects of this story I would like to share a story told from the 18th century Jewish renewal movement -- the Chassidim: "After Yom Kippur the Rabbi of Berdichev sent for a tailor and asked him to report on how his disputes with God had gone the previous day. The tailor said, 'I told God: You want me to repent of my sins, but I have only committed slight transgressions. Maybe I have stolen a little leftover cloth or eaten in a non-Jewish home without washing my hands after working there. But you, Lord, You have committed great sins: You have taken away little children from their mothers, and mothers from their little children. Let us call it quits: You forgive me, and I will forgive you.' Later in the story, the Rabbi of Berdichev says to the tailor: 'Why did you let God get away with it so lightly?'"

Of all the issues confronting humanity, there is probably none that is more challenging to our finite minds and hearts than the question of how to reconcile a good and all-powerful God with the mystery of evil and suffering. Not Job, not Jeremiah, no, not even Jesus have articulated a definitive answer; nor will I attempt to do so. But the question remains: How does a Christian cope and deal with suffering? There is no one who will escape this universal experience: physical or mental suffering, suffering from loss, suffering from poverty or loneliness or fear, addiction or abuse, suffering from watching a loved one suffering; so many living who want to die; so many dying who want to live. Some people try to cope with the mystery by responding: "God wills it," or "God is trying to teach us something," or "God is punishing us." The God revealed to us in Jesus, however, forces us to search for another option, a different approach.

Years ago Anthony Padovano wrote: "It is not a love for suffering which Christ reveals, but a love which prevails in suffering. It is not the physical death of Jesus which is redemptive, but the love of Jesus for us even unto death." It is this thought that sustains me in the sacred space that is the bedside of the dying. I cry to the Lord but the Lord seems deaf, but in reality it is often I who am deaf to God.

The God revealed in Jesus has a heart that is filled with compassion in the sight of suffering: a woman bent over; a man born blind; a woman suffering from haemorrhage; a man who is paralyzed; a widow burying her only son; a man who is hearing and speech impaired; a mother at the foot of a cross. But nowhere does Jesus say, "God bless you; grin and bear this, for this is God's will for you." Instead, his aching heart reaches out with a healing touch. Our God, revealed in Jesus, longs for our wholeness and our happiness.

We live in a world full of suffering, but we also live in a world full of hope. That hope is in us, is us. I remember on the occasion of the twentieth anniversary of his consecration as bishop Archbishop Phillip reminded us that love of Jesus and service are intrinsically connected. You cannot truly love God if you don’t put that love into action in the world in which we live.

The late Jonathan Sacks was, until September 2013, the Chief Rabbi of Britain and the Commonwealth. “In his book To Heal a Fractured World, he wrote about the ethics of responsibility. Reflecting upon the word he makes the point that it is made up of two words – ‘response’ and ‘ability’. What is my ability to respond to the fractured world in which I live?

Rabbi Sacks also refers to a psychological phenomenon known as ‘The Genovese Effect’ named after Kitty Genovese, a young woman who was stabbed to death by a serial murderer and rapist in a New York suburb in 1964. Many people heard her cries but no one came to assist her. Also known as the Bystander effect it was researched by two social scientists in 1968. They staged a number of emergencies and then measured how long it took before participants did something about it, or if they intervened at all. These experiments have been frequently replicated and showed that a lone bystander was far more willing to intervene than a group of bystanders. People in a group all think that someone else should act. ‘Why me? Why should I intervene?’

Jesus sent out the disciples to preach and heal, just as you and I are called and sent. Why me? Well, as Rabbi Sacks points out, there is no life without a task; no person without a talent; no moment without its call.

God calls us out of our weakness and not our strength, remembering that it is his grace working in and through us, and as Saint Paul said, that is sufficient. Jesus and his disciples experienced rejection and scorn, just as his message is rejected and scorned today, however we still have our hope in him and our faith in his love and so we continue to pray and to reach out to all who cry in pain or distress.

As Jesus experienced the totality of our human condition, and therefore, the mystery of suffering, I assume that possibly the words of the Psalm 130 were on his lips often. As he knew the pain of rejection by his own friends and family, knew the loss of a friend, Lazarus; knew the so called "failure" of his life's work; knew fear; knew betrayal; knew the anguish of Gethsemane and the torture of Calvary; and the feeling of abandonment by his God in the midst of it all, we have one who understands when we cry:

Out of the depths I cry to you, Lord. Lord hear my voice.

I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in God's Word I hope;

my soul waits for the Lord more than those who watch for the morning,

more than those who watch for the morning.

O Israel, hope in the Lord!

For with the Lord there is steadfast love,

and with the Lord is great the power of redemption.

 Amen.

Sermon for the Fifth Sunday after Pentecost - 23rd June 2024 (7am only)

Fifth Sunday after Pentecost – 23 Jun 24; Christ Church St. Lucia (7am only)

Readings:  1 Samuel 17:32-49; Psalm 9: 9-20; 2 Corinthians 6: 1-13; Mark 4: 35-41

If you’ve driven from Sydney to Canberra via the Hume and Federal Highways, you will have driven along the western shore of Lake George. Often, it’s practically dry, however in the 1980s when Libbie and I lived in Canberra it filled a few times and we can remember on more than one occasion driving along the shore of the lake with the water lapping the road embankment.  Lake George is at its maximum 25 km long and 10 km wide.  You may well think that’s today’s piece of inconsequential trivia.  But wait – there’s more. The Sea of Galilee is at its maximum 21 km long and 13 km wide.  So, if you’ve driven along Lake George, you’ll have some idea of the size of the Sea of Galilee.  There’s another similarity – on both bodies of water the wind and waves can rise quite suddenly.  As humans, we’re often powerless in the face of water.  It can easily overwhelm us.  The journalist Julia Baird has written movingly of a very recent experience when she, her brother and her father, all experienced ocean swimmers, were caught in a rip and nearly drowned.[1] The Sea of Galilee has an average depth of 25 metres and at its maximum is almost 45 metres deep.  In today’s Gospel, we’re in deep water.  Deep theological water.

A small group of boats sets out on Lake Galilee – and there was more than one boat.  The text says, “other boats were with him.”  What happened to them I wonder?  What happened to the people in them?  How many were saved?  How many died?  One of the sudden storms for which the lake is well known blows up.  The community for whom Mark’s Gospel was written would have familiar with such stories.  It’s a violent squall, and the boat immediately begins to fill with water. The disciples, some of whom were seasoned fishermen, are filled with fear and amazed to find Jesus asleep in the stem. They mistake his slumber for indifference: “Teacher, don’t you care that we’re drowning?’’ (4:38). This is the first of four unanswered questions in this story (see also 4:40, 41), and each arrests the attention. The fact that the first question is left unanswered increases the tension in the story just prior to its climax. Like the disciples, those hearing the story are eager to learn why Jesus is sleeping during such a crisis. They wait on the edge of their seats, for Jesus’s response, but he never answers the question.   Why doesn’t he answer?   Well, he’s about to answer a different question.

Before he says anything to the disciples, Jesus, we’re told “woke up and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, ‘Peace! Be still!’ The wind ceased and there was a dead calm” (4:39). This language of Jesus “rebuking” the wind and “silencing” the sea is reminiscent of an exorcism story in Mark Chapter 1.  You may recall Jesus is at Capernaum (on the shore of Lake Galilee by the way) and encounters in the synagogue a man with an unclean spirit.  The text there says Jesus “rebukes” the spirit and says “be silent”.   So, Jesus is not simply manipulating the physical elements into a more favorable weather pattern; he is engaging demonic powers and demonstrating his authority over them. Here the story picks up on a common theme in antiquity, especially in Jewish literature: that the sea is to be equated with all the forces of chaos and evil.   It’s not a place to enjoy – to go for a swim, or to go boating, or to go on a cruise.  A few hardy souls went fishing, but for everyone, the sea was a place to be feared.  The Old Testament is full of texts about this.  For example, Psalm 69 “Save me O god, for the waters have come up even to my throat.  I sink in deep mire where no footing is”[2].   Or Psalm 144 “Reach down your hand from on high; rescue me and pluck me out of the great waters: out of the hand of aliens.”[3]  In the Book of Daniel, there’s a description of a dream which Daniel has.  Four great beasts are described in terrifying detail – and they come up out of the sea.[4]   From the beginning, when the spirit of God hovered over the unformed and unfilled waters[5]  creation was understood as bringing order to this chaos. In Daniel’s dream, a being described as an “Ancient One” takes his throne and defeats the beasts.[6] The Psalms also allude to the reality of God having power over the waters and all the forces unleashed by it.  “When the waters saw you, O God, when the waters saw you, they were afraid; the very deep trembled…”, says Psalm 77[7], or Psalm 89 “You rule the raging of the sea; when its waves rise, you still them.”[8]

Apocalyptic texts, both Jewish and Christian, speak of a future world in which the watery chaos has been finally defeated, sometimes depicted by the monsters of the sea being devoured at the messianic banquet or there is  a simple assertion in the Book of Revelation that “the sea was no more”[9]  So Jesus’s calming of the sea has, to use a theological term seeing we’re in deep theological water, Christological implications. That is, it’s about who Jesus is; Jesus has authority over the watery chaos, an authority associated with God himself.

Jesus then turns to his disciples and asks, “Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?” (4:40). The second and third unanswered questions in this story put the disciples in a bad light. Even though they have heard his teaching, they still do not grasp the significance of what they’ve witnessed. They lack faith in who Jesus is; a point confirmed by their closing question. Still filled with fear, they say to one another, and this is the fourth unanswered question “Who then is this that even the wind and the sea obey him!” (4:41). Those who in the early part of the story were so sure that they were taking the familiar Jesus with them, “just as he was,” are now revealed to be clueless regarding the true identity of Jesus. He is sovereign over wind and sea; he is Lord over evil and chaos.  He is God incarnate.

The story doesn’t end there.  It’s immediately followed by the story of the Gerasene demoniac.  Bear in mind that in the original text there were no verse or chapter divisions.  These came much later, so the story of the stilling of the storm and the story of the Gerasene demoniac are linked.  The demons in habiting the man who accosts Jesus bargaining with him to be allowed to enter a herd of pigs feeding on an adjacent hillside. This part of the story would have been humorous to an original readership who were either Jewish or familiar with Jewish dietary law. The unclean pigs were an appropriate refuge for the unclean spirits. Jesus grants their request, and immediately “the herd of about two thousand pigs rushed down the cliff into the lake and drowned” (5:13).

The readers know what the unclean spirits do not: Jesus has just demonstrated he is Lord even of the sea, the place of chaos and evil. The unclean spirits had hoped to escape the authority of Jesus by entering unclean pigs and returning to the place of chaos and evil – the place where they belong. But, according to Mark, there is nowhere that they can go that lies outside the divine jurisdiction of Jesus. They are the victims of their own ingenuity, and once again the authority of Jesus over the demonic is demonstrated.

You can also read the Gospel passage in an allegorical way. The ship or boat is one of the earliest symbols of the Christian church.  In fact, the logo of the World Council of Churches still features a small boat. Boats need to take the water at some stage – and that immediately involves risk – but risks we need to take.  Our Archbishop in his address to Synod yesterday morning quoted Dom Helder Camaro; “Pilgrim, when your ship long moored in harbour gives you the illusion of being a house; when your ship begins to put down roots in stagnant water by the quay: put out to sea!  Save your boat’s journeying soul and your own pilgrim soul, cost what may”[10] The storm is a handy metaphor to describe personal or community calamity, so the ship tossed to and fro by a violent storm is a readily recognizable image of a church in trouble. Come what may, Jesus has the power and authority to still the storm, rescue the disciples, and bring the boat safely to its destination. 

 These two seemingly unrelated stories, the stilling of the storm and the healing of the Gerasene demoniac, underscore the same reality.  And that reality doesn’t have much to do with the external detail of what may or may not have happened on a stormy lake or with a herd of pigs; it has even less to do with “praying to the weather gods” as folk religion might like to think.  Allegorical readings of it are helpful up to a point. The reality is that it’s about the identity of Jesus.  Psalm 65 says of the God of our salvation: “You still the raging of the seas; the roaring of the waves, and the tumult of the peoples.[11] Jesus has ultimate authority over evil, whether it manifests itself in nature, in the life of an individual or a community or nation, or in institutional opposition to the church, or indeed within the church as we’ve become all too tragically aware over the past few years. By the end of these stories, the reader is hopefully much better prepared to answer that fourth question in the reading, “Who then is this?”[12]   That same question echoes down the ages to us as 21st century readers.  “Who then is this?”  What will our answer be? 

©The Rev’d. W.D. Crossman

[1] https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-06-16/rip-surf-safety-drowning-spoon-bay-too-many-died-warnings/103971940

[2] Psalm 69:1-2

[3] Psalm 144:7

[4] Daniel 7: 2-3

[5] Genesis 1:2

[6] Daniel 7:9-12

[7] Psalm 77:16

[8] Psalm 89:9

[9] Revelation 21:1

[10] Archbishops Address to the First Session of the Eighty-First Synod of the Diocese of Brisbane p7.

[11] Psalm 65:6

[12] Mark 4:41

Sermon for the Fourth Sunday after Pentecost - 16th June 2024

Pentecost 4 16th June 2024 (Christ Church St. Lucia)

Readings:  1 Samuel 15:34 – 16:13; Psalm 20; 2 Corinthians 5:6 – 17; Mark 4: 26-34

Recent elections for the European Parliament have seen a significant increase in the far-right vote – much to my dismay.  There seems to be an ever-increasing drift to the far-right around the world with populist leaders gaining influence. A couple of things concern me.   One is the number of younger voters who seem to be attracted – or maybe distracted - in this direction.  The second is alliances between this form of politics and deeply conservative interpretations of religion leading to religious nationalism - I had something to say about this in the sermon at Choral Evensong last month.  I’ve read a couple of interesting articles in the last few days about the reasons for the increase in far-right influence. One points to what’s called “livelihood insecurity for younger generations – no matter how many degrees they might invest money, effort and hope in, they may never land a job.  This and other fears also nourish conservative instincts for stability and safety.[1]  Another proposes that people are looking for strong leadership and are willing to overlook other things like moral and ethical flaws in the pursuit of strong, some call it “strong man” leadership.  Well, as we discovered in the reading from First Samuel last week, there’s nothing new about this.  The people wanted a king – a strong leader after the instability of the Judges, someone who would govern them and go out before them and fight their battles.[2]  Despite Samuel’s warnings about what would happen, Saul is anointed as king.

Ideas of kingship and kingdom link our readings today.  In the first reading, Samuel anoints David as king after the disastrous reign of Saul.  The Psalm affirms God’s protection and affirmation of the king.  David’s reign was to be a golden age for the nation of Israel, a time of prosperity and territorial expansion.  So, when Jesus came proclaiming that the Kingdom of God was near – Mark has this proclamation in the first few verses of hos gospel[3] -  people wondered if the restoration of Israel’s golden age was close. Would Jesus, who was becoming more and more popular with many (except the religious authorities) be the king who would lead them?  For the community at Corinth to whom Paul was writing, there was an expectation that Jesus was coming again – and soon.  Maybe then God’s glorious kingdom would be ushered in.  Maybe the question “What is God’s kingdom like” was being asked.

Jesus poses the same question in the Gospel.  Imagine the surprise and probable consternation of the people when he starts talking about something completely different as he tells stories – parables – of what God’s kingdom was like.  We have two such stories in the Gospel this morning.  Jesus speaks of small things, insignificant things, secret things; seed scattered on the ground, a mustard seed.  How could God’s kingdom be like these?  And that’s a difficult question to answer if we think of God’s kingdom as some sort of regal institution – a continuation to a new and glorious degree of the royal court that would grow up around King David, or if we think of God’s Kingdom as some wonderful paradise to which we hope we eventually will come.

The word in the scriptures translated as “kingdom” is perhaps more accurately translated as “rule” or “reign”.  When Jesus speaks of the “kingdom” he means “the way God reigns in the world.”, not some geographical place or governing entity.  He understood the conventional understanding of kingdom in the minds of those who heard him, but a great deal of what he says of the kingdom is aimed at challenging and transforming that understanding so it conforms with his vision of God and of how God is already at work in the world – here and now.

So, the story about the seed sown in the ground illustrates that.  The seed of the kingdom has been sown – in the teaching of Jesus.  Then follows a long period when nothing seems to be happening – at least nothing visible or dramatic. However, all the while growth is taking place – hidden, unseen, secretly.  Eventually the time for the harvest will come and the transformation of the seed into a plant or flower will be revealed.  In the meantime, we wait patiently.  And that can be difficult.  When we lived in Goondiwindi I had a vegetable garden at the Rectory – actually it was Libbie’s rectory - but if I’d planted out corn or beans, I’d be out there most mornings to see if anything had happened.  Isn’t it a special moment when you see the soil breaking and the first signs of growth emerging?  I think the parable encourages us to think of God who sows the seed, then sits back, allowing the process of growth to run its course.  That’s not to say God is uninterested or uninvolved, but it does say that just because there are no apparent visible or even dramatic signs, it doesn’t mean that the Kingdom is not at work, silently, unseen, bringing new life and new possibility.  And that can apply to the church today – it seems there is no apparent growth and it’s all going pear shaped, and it’s right to be concerned about this – but the seed has been sown and the growth will come.  It can apply in our own lives – things happen, and we can wonder where God is in all of it.  Well, God is there, sometimes silently and unseen – but there, nonetheless.  And how affirming it can be when we can catch the first small signs of that presence – like new growth sprouting from the seed. 

Often things in life happen randomly, without warning.  But both these parables tell us that beneath the randomness and uncertainties of life, there is the providence of God seeking growth, new creation, wholeness, and transformation.  Possibilities appear to emerge from nowhere – a way is made where there may seem to be no possibility of a way forward.  This is the often unseen and subtle God who works for good in all things.  Even the least obvious, the mustard seed, can grow into greater things, bringing sustenance and comfort to all around.  And even when the seed grew into a mustard bush, it wasn’t perfect.  Mustard bushes were spindly and lopsided, and yet………

Paul writes of walking by faith and not by sight.  The Gospel has spoken of things we cannot see. Paul claims our true home is elsewhere – he writes he would rather be away from the body than alive in this world.  Maybe Paul yearns to escape the burdens of ageing or imprisonment or the thorn in the flesh that he writes about elsewhere.  Yet I find the Gospel much more earthed.  While it is true that we live by faith – or by a vision of God and God’s good purposes for the whole of creation – humans and the natural world - experiencing God begins right where we are as flesh and blood people facing real situations.  The great visionary revelation of St. John includes the words “See, the home of God is among mortals.  He will dwell with them as their God: they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them.” [4]  God is with us and our calling with God’s help is not to flee the world but to transform it– in the here and now.

Jesus was planting different images in the minds of the crowd who heard him.  He’s leading them to see that wanting to go back to some golden age isn’t what kingship and the kingdom is about.  He wants them to understand the true nature of the Kingdom.  He wants disciples, both then and now to understand that the absence of visible and dramatic signs and all the external panoply of kingship and strong leadership does not mean that the Kingdom isn’t at work – it is present and active, producing fruit that will be harvested in God’s good time.[5]  The obvious challenge is whether we are open to unexpected harvests where God gives the growth.  Are we willing to forego the temptation to retreat to the supposed certainties of old ways, rather than have our imaginations expanded to cope with how God might be working now.[6]

©The Rev’d. W.D. Crossman

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/jun/14/far-right-seduced-young-voters-europe-elections?

[2] 1 Samuel 8:20

[3] Mark 1:15

[4] Revelation 21:3

[5] Brendan Byrne A Costly Freedom – A Theological Reading of Mark’s Gospel Liturgical Press, Collegeville, Minnesota 2008 p90

[6] Rosalind Brown Fresh from the Word – A Preaching Companion for Sundays and Holy Days Canterbury Press Norwich UK 2016 p197