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

Sermon for the Third Sunday after Pentecost - 9th June 2024

Pentecost 3 – 9th June 2024 (Christ Church St. Lucia)

Readings:  1 Samuel 8: 4-20; Psalm 138; 2 Corinthians 4:13 – 5:1; Mark 3: 20-35

I want to begin with a brief comment on the first reading and then to spend a bit more time with the Gospel reading which has a couple of difficult passages in it.

Samuel is an old man, and he knows his time is short.  He’s been a judge over Israel – divinely appointed.  Judges then were more than the judicial appointments we think of now – they functioned as priest, prophet, political leader.  He appoints his sons to succeed him, but they are corrupt.  It’s been a period of relative stability, and the people turn their eyes elsewhere and see that their neighbours have kings.  Working, I think, on the principle that the grass is always greener on the other side, they decide they want a king as well.  God says to Samuel, “Don’t take it personally, but tell them what a king will be like.”  So, Samuel does just that.  He says basically, “You want a king?  OK then.  This is what a king will do.  He’ll conscript your sons.  He’ll require your daughters to work in his court.  He’ll spend up big on armaments.  He’ll levy the best of your land and your produce for his courtiers and flunkeys.  In the end, you’ll feel like slaves in your own land.”  Well, the people don’t listen.  They’re determined to have a king – and they do.  And the first king, Saul, is a disaster.  Everything Samuel predicts happens.  As I read through the reading there are three words that occur like a refrain.  You may have picked them up as you listened. They are “He will take.”  “He will take.”   Our faith calls us to the opposite – to self-giving and service to others.  A couple of weeks ago, National Volunteer Week was observed. Across Australia, it is estimated that over 5 million (5.025 million) people volunteered through an organisation or group in 2020. This is almost one quarter (24.8%) of people aged 15 years and over[1].   We can give thanks for millions of Australians who are givers of themselves in all sorts of ways and organisations.  We can give thanks for all those who give of themselves to God’s mission expressed through all the pastoral, liturgical and administrative facets of our parish.  We can give thanks for leaders who have given of themselves in the service of their peoples – would that there were more.

As I mentioned, the gospel for this morning has a couple of difficult passages, so I thought I might have a go at them.   First, to set the gospel reading in some context, it reflects a couple of themes that run through St. Mark’s Gospel.   The first is a continuing conflict with the religious authorities which begins very early in Jesus’ ministry and just escalates.  Already, in the early part of Chapter 3 read last Sunday, Mark tells us there is a plot hatched between Pharisees and Herodians to destroy Jesus.[2]  The second is the whole matter of demons and the demonic.  This was very much part of the worldview at the time.  Human subjection to the demonic world, led by the prince of demons known as Satan or Beelzebul was all encompassing. Destructive natural events such as storms were attributed to demons.  Illness, both physical and mental and moral, was attributed to demons.  The Roman occupiers were understood to be instruments manipulated by demons for their own ends.

We have these two themes come together in the passage this morning.  Jesus own family think he has lost it, basically.  The Greek translated as “gone out of his mind” means literally he is “beside himself.”  This of course is an opportunity for the scribes who suddenly appear and accuse him of being demon possessed.  He casts out demons by the power of the chief demon, they say.  Jesus, of course is more than a match for them and quickly dismisses their argument.  How can a divided house stand?  He uses a reverse kind of image about someone wanting to plunder a strong man’s house – the strong man must be first bound.  And then this difficult statement about those who blaspheme against the Holy Spirit can never be forgiven.  What sin can be unforgiveable?  Isn’t forgiveness available for all, no strings attached?  The Australian commentator Brendan Byrne writes on this passage “the thought of an unforgiveable sin has been a torment for the delicate Christian conscience.”[3]  Rather than asking what kind of specific act might lead to such a condemnation, we can look more closely at the passage in context.  Since it is by the power of God’s Holy Spirit that Jesus expels demons, to accuse him of doing so through the prince of demons is identifying the Holy Spirit with the unclean spirits of the demonic world.  It’s the intentional denial of the holiness of God’s Spirit, confusing good and evil, which Jesus describes as unforgivable.[4] There is an assurance of forgiveness for all when Jesus says, “Truly I tell you people will be forgiven for their sins.”  Jesus has come to proclaim the Kingdom of God and to offer the forgiveness linked with the onset of the Kingdom.  “The kingdom of God has come near”, he says earlier, “repent and believe the good news.”[5]  Only those who identify Jesus’ activity with what is its absolute opposite place themselves out of the reach of God’s saving grace.  Who might that be today?  Maybe those who misuse scripture to justify acts of violence, particularly domestic violence spring to mind.  In my visiting at Greenslopes Hospital for Legacy, a patient recently disclosed to me that an ex-husband had beaten her and quoted the gospel passage about turning the other cheek.[6]

And then Jesus’ natural family appears on the scene – his mother and brothers – and they try to make contact with him.  Jesus doesn’t acknowledge them at all but looks at the crowd around him and says that they are his mother and brothers and then goes on to say that whoever does God’s will is his “brother and sister and mother.” The text sets the natural family of Jesus, including his mother on the side of those who misunderstand Jesus and seek to divert him from his mission.  We tend to come away from Christmas with glowing, idealized images of the holy family, but Mark paints them in quite a negative light – much more so than Matthew or Luke.  It’s not perhaps what we might expect from a Gospel writer.  Brendan Byrne notes wryly “If one is looking for a rich theology of family life in the New Testament, Marks gospel is hardly the place to begin.”[7]  We like to speak of the “parish family”, but we need to be sensitive as to how we use the term as for some people family is or was hardly a happy place.  It’s also clear from today’s Gospel that there were tensions in Jesus own family.  What’s going on?  It’s possible that Mark wrote his Gospel for a community that was under some threat – the community was probably in Rome – and survival required single minded commitment to the life of the small faith community and sacrifice in many areas of life, so Mark has Jesus highlighting the significance of this for those who would do God’s will. 

So, it’s all rather a mixed bag this morning.  Perhaps one thing that draws the passage from Samuel and the Gospel together is what should characterize this community of the Kingdom, this family of Jesus.  And one thing that should characterize us is single minded commitment to service, exemplified for us of course in the life of Jesus, who, ignoring petty argument showed us the way of self-giving, who came not to be served, but to serve.  The kind of service encapsulated in the hymn Brother, sister, let me serve you, let me be as Christ to you.[8]

May we serve each other as Christ served us.

©The Rev’d. W.D. Crossman

[1] https://www.volunteeringaustralia.org/wp-content/uploads/Volunteering-Australia-Key-Volunteering-Statistics-2024-Update.pdf

[2] Mark 3:6

[3] Brendan Byrne A Costly Freedom – A Theological Reading of Mark’s Gospel St. Paul’s Publications, Strathfield 2008 p74

[4] 3 Rosalind Brown Fresh from the Word – A Preaching Companion for Sundays and Holy Days Canterbury Press Norwich UK 2016 p194

[5] Mark 1:15

[6] Matthew 5:39

[7] Op cit p75

[8] Together in Song No650 – The Servant Song

Sermon for the Second Sunday after Pentecost - 2nd June 2024

Pentecost 2 - 2 Jun 2024 Christ Church St. Lucia

Readings:  Deuteronomy 5: 12-15; Psalm 139: 1-6, 13-18: 1-10; 2 Corinthians 4: 5-12; Mark 2:23-6:6

In my second last or last year at primary school, I started playing hockey. I played right through high school, had a break while I was at university, and then played on and off for about 12 years when I was in the Army.  I guess there’s many things I have forgotten about my hockey playing days, but one thing I’ve never forgotten was my father’s reaction when I came home and told him we’d been asked to play on a Sunday.  He was not at all happy about it.  My father’s family came from West Country Methodist stock and my mother’s family from Northern Ireland Presbyterian stock, so Sundays were definitely days of rest.  In our family we’d go to church – my brother and sister and I to Sunday School and later to Christian Endeavour, then home for lunch, a rest, and then we’d often go on a family walk together – we didn’t have a car for a long time.  I think my parents would hardly recognise Sundays now.  Just about anything that can open is open, just about anything that can be done is done.   We rarely hear talk these days of “the Sabbath”, but years ago you did.   Sunday was “the Sabbath” and there were strict expectations and cultural norms about what could and couldn’t be done.  What do we make of the Sabbath these days?

The Sabbath was a Jewish institution, and its observance was grounded deeply in Jewish identity.  It reaches right back to the Creation stories when we’re told that God rested on the seventh day – in Genesis Chapter 2 we read “And on the seventh day God finished the work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all the work that he had done.  So, God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it, because on it God rested from all the work that he had done in creation.”[1]  It’s not saying that God needed a rest, rather it’s saying that for God, rest was part of the creation.  The Fourth Commandment about remembering the Sabbath day and keeping it holy is one of the more lengthy and developed commandments and an extensive body of legal interpretation grew up regarding what did and did not violate Sabbath rest.  The evidence of the Gospels suggests that Jesus didn’t reject Sabbath observance, but he did question interpretations he judged to be at odds with the original purpose of the Sabbath.  And the two sabbath controversies we have in the reading from St. Mark’s Gospel today reflect this attitude of Jesus.

The first arises when the disciples walk with Jesus through a field of standing grain and begin to pluck heads of possibly ripening grain.  The Law allowed this – you could pick grain in this way, but you weren’t allowed to use a sickle.  That was harvesting, that was work.  When the Pharisees suddenly turn up, it’s not the picking of the grain they object to, but that it’s being done on the Sabbath.   In their defence, Jesus appeals to Biblical precedent – David and his followers, because they were hungry, had entered the house of God and had eaten the bread reserved for the priests.[2] The use of David’s name is significant – some say that there’s an implied messianic claim in the appeal to David.  Be that as it may, Jesus in the next verse takes the defence much further and he declares with authority the true purpose of the Sabbath – “the Sabbath was made for humankind, and not humankind for the sabbath.”  “Was made” some say is creation type language, so taking this view, Jesus is reclaiming an order of creation in the name of the Kingdom.  The statement is much more than a general statement reflecting a humane view of the religious law – Jesus is revealing something of the coming of the Kingdom.  He seems to make this specific in the next statement when he says the Son of Man is the Lord of the Sabbath.  As an agent of the Kingdom now dawning, Jesus has authority as Son of Man to institute the original intention and purpose of the Creator for human beings and to challenge with equal authority all the structures and attitude that are holding this back.  So, an incident that begins as a trivial infringement of perceived Sabbath Law has ended with Jesus declaring God’s ultimate will for humankind. Bishop George Browning in his book “Sabbath and the Common Good” comments that under this interpretation, Sabbath is a gift from the dawn of time, a gift not simply for the Jewish people, but for the whole of humanity within the community of creation – a gift that edifies and empowers human life.  This view does not allow for the abandonment of sabbath but promotes its rediscovery; its extraction from the legal requirements of disagreement to a celebration of engagement with God and the whole created order.[3]

The second conflict grows out of the first and it shows that Jesus is indeed the Lord of the Sabbath.  The Pharisees have possibly set Jesus up – using the presence of the man with the withered hand to see if Jesus will flout the law.  Traditional interpretation allowed for exceptions in matters of life and death.  The man’s ailment is not life threatening.  Jesus could ignore the man or postpone dealing with the situation until the next day. But he chooses to confront the Pharisees.  He questions them as to what the Sabbath is all about – is it about saving life or destroying it?  The Pharisees try to save face, but too late.  Jesus has already taken the issue beyond the limits in which they had set it – simple Sabbath observance – to another level completely – God’s will and purpose to bring life in its abundance to all human beings.  Jesus shifts the focus from what may be appropriate on the seventh day to what is always appropriate every day; a focus on sabbath as intended in the Genesis narrative; a focus on blessing and sanctification within the whole created order.[4] To delay the healing is to delay God’s Kingdom.  The healing becomes a proclamation of the Kingdom and a symbolic rescue of a human life from powers opposed to the Kingdom – and here it’s not demonic powers – it’s hardness of heart, slavish obedience to letter of the Law, resistance to life and wholeness.

So, what do we do with all of this?   The idea that ‘humanity was made for the Sabbath’ continues to be a popular theology in some places.  Its basis is that God created the law and humanity needs to live up to it or else we are lost.  In that theology, God is chiefly known as holy, and humans must achieve a certain level of holiness – through following laws or practicing certain observances or following certain restrictions - to be acceptable to God.   The alternative theology, which is the one Jesus poses, is that ‘the Sabbath was made for humanity.’ In that sense, God is chiefly known as love and as George Browning observes “humanity is crowned with supreme value in the embrace of sabbath, in the interconnectedness of life shared with God and the whole created order.[5]  The first sees “the sabbath” as one day of the week, the second sees “sabbath” as a gift from God.

In a polarized world consumed with conflict and western consumerism and individualism, sabbath calls us to a choice of mutuality shared with other human beings in the company of the whole created order under the sovereignty of God, or a life of competitive independence and self-interest.[6]    To respond adequately to this gift of Sabbath as God originally intended takes time and space.  That’s what Sabbath is about -that’s what we’re doing in worship – making time and space for God.  That’s what we do in times of quiet and rest – make space for God.   Sabbath observance shouldn’t be the legal straitjacket of Sabbatarianism,[7] but a joyful foretaste of something eternal. 

But there are so many things that claim our time and energies – and in one sense there’s nothing new about this – the English romantic poets knew it – William Wordsworth wrote:

The world is too much with us; late and soon,

Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers; —

Little we see in Nature that is ours;

We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon![8]

Busyness can affect and infect us all - it can be really seductive.  It can lead us to think we’re indispensable, or that we’re doing God’s work and no one else seems to be.  In our spiritual journeys as individuals and as community, Sabbath is still crucial – slowing down, taking time out, just stopping and being quiet long enough to see what God is doing and how we respond.   May God give us all grace to make that time and space.  Let’s pray:

O Sabbath rest by Galilee,
O calm of hills above,
Where Jesus knelt to share with Thee
The silence of eternity,
Interpreted by love!

Drop Thy still dews of quietness,
Till all our strivings cease;
Take from our souls the strain and stress,
And let our ordered lives confess
The beauty of Thy peace.[9]

©The Rev’d. W.D. Crossman

[1] Genesis 2: 2-3

[2] 1 Samuel 21: 2-7

[3] George Victor Browning Sabbath and the Common Good – Prospects for a New Humanity  Barrallier Books West Geelong, Vic 2016 p134

[4] Ibid p138

[5] George Victor Browning ibid p178

[6] George Victor Browning ibid p178

[7] Sabbatarianism is usually defined as the belief that Christians should observe a particular day of the week as the Sabbath, either the seventh day or the first day of the week.

[8] Composed c1802, first published 1807

[9] Together in Song No 598

Sermon for Trinity Sunday - 26th May 2024

Trinity Sunday:  26 May 24 (Christ Church St. Lucia)

Readings:  Isaiah 6: 1-8; Psalm 29; Romans 8: 12-17; John 3: 1-17

 Fifty years ago, a great controversy raged across the media for a while.  It didn’t involve some political or corporate or sporting scandal; it involved surprisingly enough a work of art – Jackson Pollock’s “Blue Poles”.  The National Gallery of Australia, with the support of a then fairly new Federal Government had paid what seemed like an enormous sum of money - $1.3 million – for the painting.  There were headlines in the newspapers for a while – one tabloid screamed “Drunks Did It!”[1].  Others worked themselves into a lather about the waste of money.  The gallery quietly exhibited the picture.  It is now one of our greatest treasures, worth many times what they paid for it - at last estimate $500 million - and they don’t seek to explain it.  You need to experience it.[2]  And when you do see it, it’s an enormous painting.  If you get too close to it, it doesn’t seem to mean anything much, but if you step back and take the time to look at it for a while, a pattern begins to emerge.  I’ve seen it more than once now, and each time the experience has been the same – not exactly the same – there’s always a subtle difference in what I see.

 The idea of the Trinity is a bit like that.  It emerged in great controversy.  The then emperor, Constantine, a recent convert to Christianity saw that the church was divided as to how God could be described as three persons in one – as Father, Son and Spirit.  Constantine didn’t want a divided church but recognised that events were starting to run away from him.  He called a Council at Nicea in 325 and a creed was accepted – shorter than the Nicean creed we will recite shortly.   At the Council of Nicea, the bishops went on to do other things – regulate the time of preparation for baptism, regulate the morals of the clergy, work out what to do with penitents in one church trying to get pardoned in another, laying down that a new bishop should be consecrated by all the bishops in that province – or at least three of them (still happens today) and so on.  Importantly, the Council established the equality of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit in the Holy Trinity and asserted that only the Son became incarnate as Jesus Christ. After all this, the bishops went home – where away from the emperor and the other bishops, some began to have second thoughts and more controversies emerged.  It wasn’t for about another 50 years that things were tidied up.  Now I’m not going to go into all the details, but it’s a fascinating read, particularly if you thought the early church was sweetness and light.  The controversy raged – there was a great cast of characters – Arius, Athanasius, Sabellius, Hippolytus, Callistus (of whom Hippolytus said he was “a senseless and unstable fellow who improvises blasphemies in every direction.”)  There were excommunications, bishops sentenced to the treadmill or sent to the mines in Sardinia – just to give you an idea of what went on.  In the end, Gregory of Nazianzus, who along with Basil of Caesarea and Gregory of Nyssa tidied the whole thing up wrote, I suppose in exasperation, “My inclination is to avoid all assemblies of bishops, because I have never seen any council come to a good end, nor turn out to be a solution of evils.  On the contrary, it usually increases them.”[3]

The early church tried to define Trinity – with words like persona rather than person, and substance and so on.  Maybe they tried to get too close.  I don’t think you can define Trinity – any more than Einstein’s E=mc squared and his Theory of Relativity defines or fully explains the majesty and glory of the universe that we can experience when we look at a clear night sky and with the psalmist consider the works of the heavens, the works of God’s fingers, the moon and the stars which have been set in order.[4]   Or have you ever attempted to come up with an exhaustive explanation of the experience of falling in love. You can’t do it, can you? You can say things about it that are true, but you can never explain it in such a way that a person who hadn’t experienced it would understand what you were talking about. In the end it is still a mystery. In fact, to push that analogy a bit further, imagine trying to write down a set of instructions for falling in love; an explanation or equation for someone who didn’t previously know the experience, so that if they followed your formula they would fall in love. Could you do it? I doubt it.

And yet the fact that you can’t explain the experience or write a manual for it doesn’t stop you from falling in love. The experience comes whether you can comprehend it or not.   I think the same is true of the Trinity. Before there was ever a doctrine of the Trinity, there was an experience of the Trinity. The early church experienced God in certain ways, and as they attempted to describe their experience the idea of the Trinity emerged. They began with their experience of the living God who’d come in human form as Jesus the Son and was now still alive and worshipped in the power of the Spirit. The theology came second.  Christian faith is not about explanations, it’s about experience; it’s about stepping back and taking time; it’s about a relationship with the living God.  

Yet we often feel under constant pressure to define things, to be certain about things.  The English theologian and biblical scholar, Dr. Paula Gooder has written; “We live in a world obsessed by certainty.  We are meant to hold clear, confident view on subjects that range widely from education to euthanasia, from economics to the environment – and to express our clear, certain views regularly….premature certainty is as corrosive of truth as lies can be.  Certain things in life need time for reflection as we wrestle with issues, questions and explore possibilities.  Rushing too swiftly to immovable certainty undermines our ability to grasp the truth.  Today we often feel that we can only worship if we are clear in our views, if we have dotted all the “i”s and crossed all the “t”s.  Doubt can be seen to be the antithesis of worship.  It is not.  We worship not out of our certainty but out of our response to God.  Fortunately, we do not have to comprehend everything about God and God’s relationship with the world before we worship.  In fact, sometimes it is our doubts that can draw us deeper into the mystery of God, and from deep within the mystery of God the only possible thing to do is worship.”[5]

In a much deeper way than one can be drawn into “Blue Poles”, the idea of Trinity, which we can’t reduce to some formula, draws us deeper into the mystery of God.  One of the things that most of the theologians agree on when considering the Trinitarian nature of God is that we are not so much talking about three persons, but about three relationships. Three relationships of love that exist within the being of God.

What we have here are love relationships that are extravagantly self-giving. Rather than becoming rivals of one another, they delight in one another and strive to glorify one another.  There seems no limit to their willingness to give themselves to one another, and to give themselves to the mutual strengthening of the relationships.

The more we step back and contemplate the relationships of the Trinity, rather than trying to define them, the more we see God’s emerging call to us to be like God and to love in ways which are not possessive and aggressive; to love in ways that do not seek the exclusion of the other or the glorification of ourselves. The more fully we imitate the self-giving love of the Trinity, the more we will be set free from possessiveness and self-gratification.  

The beautiful and extravagantly self-giving love of the Trinity is not only a model for us to imitate. It is also an invitation. Because just as these three relationships celebrate and glory in them, they eagerly look to draw others, namely us, into the life of those relationships. God is not a closed system, an exclusive love bond that has nothing to offer to those outside. On the contrary, God is intensely and overflowingly relational, and longs to draw us into relationship. The heart of the revelation of the nature of God is Christ’s self-offering on the cross, where Jesus, having been falsely cast as a rebel and troublemaker, gives up his life rather than reciprocate the hostility, and thus reveals to us the nature of God’s self-giving love and the invitation into that love. And that’s where we stand at this table today, as witnesses of that act of self-giving, as recipients of that extravagant offer, as the Trinity of Love reaches out to us and places the body of Christ into our hands. And so here again, we are faced with the call and the invitation. How shall we respond? We can grasp at all we desire seeking to possess and control, and gratify ourselves, or we can let go, and accept the invitation and be carried by the Spirit into a relationship with self-giving love – God’s love which has already been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.[6]   Trinity invites us to unlock our hearts and enter deeply into the mystery of God whose very nature is love.

 © The Rev’d. W.D. Crossman

[1] The Daily Mirror 23rd October 1973

[2] I first heard this connection made in 1990 by The Rev’d. Dr. Jim McPherson when I was a theological student in the Parish of Kambah (Dio Canberra-Goulburn) where he was the Rector.

[3] https://earlychurchtexts.com/public/gregoryofnaz_councils_of_bishops.htm#

[4] Psalm 8:3

[5] Paula Gooder This Risen Existence Canterbury Press Norwich UK 2009

[6] Romans 5:5