Reflections and Refractions

Praying for Christian Unity – the Challenge

2008-05-04T09:30:00.002+08:00

John 17:1-11 4th May, 2008
Author: Dennis Ryle

Even the world of prayer can call us to daunting tasks.

Praying for Christian unity is one of them, yet why should this be so?

It is the Lord’s true prayer. In one of the most intimate and lengthy prayers that the Bible gives us, we see the intensity of Jesus’ passion for his followers to be enfolded in the same bonding that binds Father and Son.

The kind of unity that emanates from longing, lingering communion with one another in the embrace of the Creator’s love and purpose for all.

The kind of unity that was so essential to the dream of a new humanity that it cost the Son of Man a cross of humiliation and suffering.

The kind of unity for which Jesus’ vision was so strong that not even the tomb could destroy it. So strong that when the experience of the Risen Jesus passed from the first witnesses, the presence of the Risen Jesus in the Holy Spirit would continue with the generations to follow.

So why should praying for Christian unity be so daunting?

Is it because recurring fractures in the Body of Christ are so in our face?

This became starkly evident for me around this time last Sunday, when I was in attendance at a Roman Catholic Mass. Could I or could I not present myself for communion? It was not an ecumenical service where certain dispensations would allow participation. Official Roman Catholic doctrine precluded my participation; hospitable community life in the Spirit invited it. On other occasions, I would have gladly (possibly even rebelliously) taken part. On this occasion however, I held back, conscious of the grace in the invitation, but also of the sadness of great church rifts that seem to make such communion impossible.

Prominent in my mind was the picture of a joint celebration earlier this year between churches of two great liturgical traditions – each presenting the gifts of the Eucharist, setting the bread and wine together on the altar – then the two celebrants dramatically turning their backs on them in lament and sorrow that the respective traditions did not permit intercommunion.

This is why praying for Christian unity is so daunting – it requires heroic levels of honesty. But then doesn’t all prayer?

Specific prayer that all Christ’s followers may be one even as the Father and Son are one, however, calls for extra doses of honesty and extra doses of yearning.

Why? Because when we encounter something that tends to separate the experience and witness of my sister or brother in Christ from mine, there is a common tendency for both honesty and yearning to fade into the background.

On one hand, we can say that the differences don’t matter or that they don’t really exist. The desire to show unity is so strong that we deny important differences, and this snuffs out the possibility of honest dialogue, when we can both receive and give from our respective perspectives.

On the other hand we can say that our points of view are so different that the thought of coming to some unifying understanding that honours and respects the differences is impossible. And we do not yearn for something that is unachievable.

Prayer, specifically prayer for Christian unity, requires both honesty and yearning.

Perhaps this provides a reason for Kersten Storch’s assertion, “ Although prayer is certainly at the heart of Christian life, praying together is not an easy exercise for churches within worldwide Christendom.”
Storch’s article on the Centenary of the annual Week of Prayer for Christian Unity provides some interesting background to this fairly recent, in ecclesiastical terms, observation:

Even today, common prayers are exceptional events rather than part of the daily life of the churches. But at least once a year it has become "normal" for many churches and congregations to pray together during the annual celebration of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. In 2008, the 100th anniversary of this most meaningful ecumenical initiative is being celebrated around the globe.

The roots of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity can be traced back to the beginning of the 19th century. Initiatives involving praying for unity together with Christians from other denominations had been taking place here and there for over a century when, in 1908, a priest and a sister, both Episcopalians, publicly celebrated for the first time an Octave of Prayer for Church Unity from 18-25 January in Graymoor, Garrison, New York. The Rev. Paul Wattson and Mother Lurana White, co-founders of a small religious community in the Franciscan tradition known as the Society of the Atonement, chose for the octave the days spanning from what was at that time in the Roman Catholic calendar the "feast of the Chair of Peter", to the "feast of the conversion of Paul".
In celebrating its 100th anniversary, this year's Week of Prayer for Christian Unity points to that historical milestone as its foundational moment. But it is clear that much has changed in the ecumenical landscape over the last century.

The Octave of Prayer for Church Unity of those days was based on a concept of unity as re-union of Christendom under the Pope's authority. For that reason, the octave was neither appealing nor theologically acceptable for Christians and churches outside the Roman Catholic Church, except for some Anglicans who were sympathetic to the idea of a reunion of Canterbury with Rome – like
Wattson and White, who joined the Roman Catholic Church themselves. While it soon became widely observed in the Roman Catholic Church, the octave was by no means the only initiative of prayer for church unity at that time.

Well before 1908, the World Evangelical Alliance, the World Student Christian Federation, the Young Men's Christian Association together with the Young Women's Christian Association, had already all launched worldwide annual weeks or days of prayer in which the aspect of unity played an important role.
As early as 1907 the London-based Times published a letter signed by an impressive list of highranking church leaders from different denominations, who called on "all the Christian ministers of religion in England […] to prepare their congregations for a united effort of prayer on Whitsunday […] for the reunion of Christians". They underlined that those prayers should not compromise the beliefs of any confession but should focus on God's will for the unity of all. The church leaders soberly declared that it was not yet the time for large schemes of corporate reunion but that churches should unite in penitence and prayer: penitence for their divisions and prayer for opening their minds to God's will for unity.

"God's will for the unity of all" became something like the leitmotif of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity through the years. Early writings of the Faith and Order movement on prayer and unity refer to that concept. Decades later, that formula made it possible to pray for unity within the Roman Catholic Church in a way that would not hurt denominational loyalties of other Christians.

And even today it is a reminder to Christians and churches everywhere that the quest for the unity of all does not depend nor is it based on different doctrinal concepts of unity; it is rather God's will for the entire creation.
…
Celebrating this year the 100th anniversary of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity [is] an occasion to give thanks for the unity, however provisional it may be, that churches already do have and live, and in which the Week of Prayer certainly has its share.

In Jerusalem – one of the places where the divisions within Christianity have often become visible in the most distressing ways – the impact of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity on the life of the churches is confirmed by the fact that opportunities for common prayer multiply almost spontaneously. This is especially true for ecumenical prayers for peace, as Christian unity and peace are inseparable concerns for the Christians in the Middle East.

It was the tradition of preparing together for the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity which led churches in Slovakia to the idea of preparing a special ecumenical celebration when the country entered into the European Union in 2004. The Week of Prayer is observed nationwide in Slovakia, both at the top church level as well as at the grass-roots.

Examples from all over the world could be multiplied. This year's theme – Pray without ceasing (1 Thess. 5:17) – highlights the fact that Christians and churches cannot cease to pray for the unity of all. The divisions, which are still a reality between and within the churches, do not simply follow denominational lines.

They are often – at least to some extent – rooted in ethnic or national identities, in issues of race, social status, gender or sexuality, exclusion of people with disabilities or of those living with HIV/AIDS.

The Week of Prayer for Christian Unity cannot provide a solution to all these problems. But its celebration every year is a victory over divisions because it expresses the unity which Christians do have in Christ.[i]

Joining with Jesus in his prayer “that they all may be one” can be daunting.

The pendulum that swings across 2000 years of Christian tradition and witness describes a wide arc. Over the last week I have experienced the full swing. Three days living in silence in a Benedictine monastery, breaking it only to participate in the chanting of the psalms during the hours of prayer, were followed by three days in noisy, loud and intense conference with a large number of leaders from Churches of Christ and Baptist background.
From prayers of silence to exuberant, demonstrative charismatic styles of worship in equal measure. All Christian. All in fellowship with the One Father revealed to us through the embrace of the Son who we know in his risen Spirit. Can we trust such a miracle? I’m sure we can.

In fact we will be giving full expression to that trust next Sunday as the Centenary Week of Prayer for Christian Unity finds its local expression at our combined Pentecost celebration, 9.00 a.m., at St Paul’s Anglican church.
Remember to wear red. Remember to bring something to share for morning tea.
[i] http://www.ncca.org.au/__data/page/2215/Praying_together_over_a_century_of_changes.pdf

Slaves and Shepherds

2008-04-13T09:30:00.001+08:00

1 Peter 2:18-25 13th April, 2008

1 Peter 2: 19-25It is greatly to your credit if you can cop it sweet and keep looking to God when you are being treated cruelly and unfairly by others. Of course, there is no great credit in copping it sweet if you deserve the punishment, is there? But if you are being made to suffer for doing the right thing, then God will applaud you for taking it on the chin and holding your line. After all, it comes with the territory in the life to which you have been called. Christ set the example on this when he suffered for your benefit, and we should all be following in his footsteps. “He never did anything wrong, and not a word of a lie ever passed his lips.” When he was abused, he never retaliated; when they inflicted pain on him, he made no threats of revenge. He trusted God to get him through, and to judge the right and wrong of it all. He copped the consequences of our corruption in his own body on the cross, so that we could walk free with a clean slate and dedicate our lives to doing what is right. When he was wounded, we were healed. Before that we were as far off track as a penguin in the desert, but now we are back where we belong, in the care of the one who protects and guides us.

©2002 Nathan Nettleton LaughingBird.net

It seems to me there is value this morning in using Nathan Nettleton’s dynamic translation of today’s passage from First Peter.

It is addressed to a particular time in history in ancient Greek-Roman society, where the writer of the letter is seeking to encourage persecuted believers, urging them to obey the Emperor (see verse 13) and adhere to the status quo of socially accepted household structure, even if it means suffering injustices.

There are two benefits for this.

On one hand they enter the suffering of Jesus, who also endured injustice to the point of death. In this is God’s vindication and healing for us all. On the other hand, submission to the structures of society, in which they find themselves ensconced, grants them credible opportunity to “give reason for the hope that is in them.”They lived in a society in which obedience to the emperor and strict household orders were social norms. The very act of becoming a follower of the way of Jesus challenged these expectations. You could very easily cut yourself off socially, economically and politically by becoming Christian. Peter’s letter reads like a strategy on how to respond in this kind of a situation.

The question we asked when we explored this last Wednesday night’s house group was, “What principles can we find here that we can transfer to a free and open democratic society?” Particularly in Australia where Jack is as good as his master and we have a historical predilection for rolling over to no-one?

It occurred to me that Peter was trying to show his church how to walk robustly on eggshells.
This became more evident in the question that arose at the end of Wednesday night’s discussion, “How can we know when it is right for the church to silently suffer injustice and when we should speak out?”

We have two great biblical traditions – the suffering lamb that goes meekly to the slaughter and the prophet on fire with God’s righteousness and the will to storm the citadels to demand fair play.

Are these traditions in conflict?

Or are they two sides of the same coin?

And if they are simply the front and back of the same coin, how do we know in any given circumstance which side of the penny we should be attending to?

What about Zimbabwe? This is much closer than here to the scenario that First Peter describes. “Obey the Emperor” – maintain your own household order even if it involves suffering injustice – seems to be prudent advice according to our church contacts there. The odd prophetic voice from within the church has challenged the political order, but overall, the churches adherence to the spirit of First Peter in identifying with the sufferings of Christ has proved to be the glue that is holding together what is left of Zimbabwe society.

We have considered recently the example of Dietrich Bonheoffer – a strong advocate for identifying with the suffering of Christ, choosing to return to Germany at the height of the rise of Nazism. He raised a seminary where his students were trained to be pastors under the reworked application of the “cost of discipleship.” In his own demeanour, he submitted to aspects of Hitler’s regime that stripped him and his seminary of the democratic freedoms we take for granted. Yet he exercised a prophetic ministry against the laws of the regime by assisting Jewish fugitives. Some say he went too far in his prophetic activism when he was implicated in a plot to kill Hitler.

This week we learned of the sudden death of Len Wallam, Aboriginal Noongar Elder and leader of the Bunbury Aboriginal fellowship , a significant leader in our national indigenous ministries and an ATSIEC Commissioner appointed by the church at large – able to bare with dignity the injustices experienced by aboriginal people and yet speak clearly of what is needed for reconciliation in today’s climate. The shepherd and the prophet!

I offer these examples because we have some degree of personal affiliation with them either through engagement with their struggles or, as in the case of Bonhoeffer, a memory of significant challenge as we studied his mind, his methods, and his efforts.

What can we learn from them as we attempt to discern when to submit to the status quo and when to be the voice of the prophet?

To what principles from First Peter do we see them giving expression?

Remember that there are two big thrusts running though the whole of the letter.

First, the call for God’s people to be holy – to be the kind of robust people who recognise their call to be an attractive difference in any community in which they find themselves planted because they are living the way God has shown. In this way they become a conduit of blessing to all nations – all peoples.

The second is a corollary of the first – we show this calling by imitating Christ in his suffering – we integrate into our living and witness what Paul calls “the foolishness of the cross” – for in such is the wisdom of God to be found. Such integration is the true meaning of “laying down our lives” for the sake of the gospel.John Yoder is well known as commentator on the “politics of Jesus”. He spells this second flavour out very comprehensively

The cross of Christ was the price of his obedience to God amidst a rebellious world; it was suffering for having done right, for loving where others hated, for representing in the flesh the forgiveness and the righteousness of God amongst humanity, which was both less forgiving and less righteous. The cross of Christ was God's overcoming evil with good.

The cross of the Christian is then no different; it is the price of our obedience to God's love toward all others in a world ruled by hate. Such unflinching love for friend and foe alike will mean hostility and suffering for us, as it did for him.

Jesus instructed his disciples, simply and clearly, not to resist evil. He said, "Whoever slaps you on the right cheek, turn and offer him the left. If he sues you for your shirt, let him have your coat as well, ... Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, only so can you be the children of your heavenly Father who sends sun and rain to good and bad alike" (Matthew 5:39-45).

In saying this Jesus was not a foolish dreamer, spinning out futile hopes for a better world, thinking that if only we keep smiling everything will turn out all right, with our opponents turned into friends and our sacrifices all repaid. He knew full well the cost of such unlimited love. He foresaw clearly the suffering it would mean, first for himself and then for his followers. But there was no other way for him to take, no other way worthy of God. Jesus' teaching here is not a collection of good human ideas; it is his divinely authoritative interpretation of the law of God…

"It is by this that we know what love is," says the apostle, "that Christ laid down his life for us.

And we in turn are bound to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters" (1 John 3:16).
The Christian whose loyalty to the Prince of Peace puts him or her out of step with today's nationalistic world, because of a willingness to love one's nation's friends but not to hate the nation's enemies, is not an unrealistic dreamer who thinks that by one's objections all wars will end. It is rather the soldiers who think that they can put an end to wars by preparing for just one more. Nor does the Christian think that by refusal to help with the organized destruction of life and property one is uninvolved in the complications and conflicts of modern life. Nor is the Christian reacting simply in emotional fear to the fantastic awfulness of the weapons created by the demonic ingenuity of modern humanity. The Christian loves one's enemies not because he or she thinks they are wonderful people, nor because it is thought that love is sure to conquer them; and not because the believer fails to respect one's native land or its rulers, nor is unconcerned for the safety of one's neighbors, nor because another political or economic system may be favored. The Christian loves his or her enemies because God does and he commands his followers to do so; that is the only reason, and that is enough. Our God, who has been made known in Jesus Christ, is a reconciling, a forgiving, a suffering God. If, to paraphrase what the apostle Paul said, "It is no longer I who love, but Christ who loves in me," my life must bear the marks of that revelation (Galatians 2:20).[i]

It seems to me that the question which is our dilemma is quickly resolved when we recognise the true focus in First Peter - heeding the call to holy living based on the suffering of Jesus.

This in itself is a prophetic stance against a world driven by hate, fear and greed.

The very existence of communities that base their living on love for friend and enemy alike to the extent that they are willing to lay down their lives is a very strong statement. So strong that we celebrate an empty tomb and a Risen Lord who dwells amongst us and inspires us.
Which side of the coin? The suffering servant or the fiery prophet?

It seems to me that however you use the coin - to spend it, to toss it, to scratch a gaming ticket with it, to use it as an emergency screwdriver – you can’t use one side without the other!

But it also seems that First Peter, and, I suspect, John Yoder , and our exemplars in Zimbabwe and amongst Australia’s indigenous Christian movement, and even Bonhoeffer’s Germany, would observe hat the face of the coin is that of the Suffering Servant!

[i] http://www.sojo.net/ John Howard Yoder—the author of several books, including The Politics of Jesus—Adapted from presentations in 1961 on The Mennonite Hour broadcasts in Harrisonburg, Virginia.

Getting Eastered

2008-04-06T09:30:00.000+08:00

Author: Dennis Ryle

1 Peter 1:17-23 6th April 2008

17 If you invoke as Father the one who judges all people impartially according to their deeds, live in reverent fear during the time of your exile. 18You know that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your ancestors, not with perishable things like silver or gold, 19but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without defect or blemish. 20He was destined before the foundation of the world, but was revealed at the end of the ages for your sake. 21Through him you have come to trust in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are set on God.
22 Now that you have purified your souls by your obedience to the truth* so that you have genuine mutual love, love one another deeply* from the heart.* 23You have been born anew, not of perishable but of imperishable seed, through the living and enduring word of God.*

The New Revised Standard Version (Anglicized Edition), copyright 1989, 1995 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Last week, Linda introduced a new verb – “to easter” or “to be eastered.”

On this third Sunday of celebration in the Easter season, we may consider ourselves well and truly Eastered. I hope so!

After all, every Sunday, in effect, is Easter Sunday. We gather expecting encounter with the crucified and risen one.

Every gathering at this table is the culmination of a weekly Emmaus walk, where the risen Christ is discovered in the breaking of bread, and we are equipped by his presence to swiftly take good news back to our various Jerusalems and beyond.

In this season that we call Easter, however, we are taking opportunity to focus on how the historic event of the disciples’ experience of the losing and regaining of Jesus impacts on our orientation and perspective as a vibrant Easter people.

If the gospels give us perspectives built around reported and interpreted eye-witness accounts, it is the collection of particular pastoral letters circulating the early church that spell out the implications of the death and resurrection of Jesus for those generations who, having not seen any of this, nevertheless believe and trust.

First Peter is one of these general pastoral letters. It was not written in a vacuum or in some lofty theological tower. Ordinary households were paying the price to Roman government authorities and a fickle and compliant population for daring to follow the tenets of a new way of living based on rumours of an executed Jewish subversive who allegedly refused to stay dead. They had been eastered, and the document we have in our hands as First Peter, tells us how.

From this we can extrapolate some apostolic advice for what it means for us to be eastered in our own setting and with the particular and peculiar challenges and opportunities that confront us in the here and now.

Get a picture now of the bridge that connects us with those households of faith whom First Peter is addressing.

Notice the strong allusion to those things that tug us one way or the other and the urge to awaken our awareness.

The self is hungry and it looks in conflicting directions for food to satisfy that hunger – some food is perishable, like silver and gold, stocks and property, power and influence. Other food is imperishable and everlasting – and the dynamic of the risen Christ points us towards the redeeming act of sacrificial love on the cross followed by an empty tomb, a tomb powerless to contain the pulsating energy of life that overcomes the despair and defeat of death’s darkness.

David Bartlett writes:

“this portion of the epistle implies what the whole letter will make clear: those who set their hearts on the perishable will perish; those who set their hearts on what endures will endure.”[i]

It’s the whole point of resurrection.

To paint a picture of this reality, he introduces us briefly to two characters from Jonathan Kozol’s novel set in New York’s Bronx district. You may notice the similarities to Perth’s dilemma as we deal with unprecedented boom times and the underclass that its economies create. Confronted with such enticing material opportunities and the misery for those who miss out, how do we respond? This was as real a question for the well-off Roman citizen who had decided to opt for the way of Christ, thus cutting themselves off from accepted society mores, as it is for today’s denizen of richly resourced income streams.

One of Kozol’s characters is a newspaper columnist who has given up on invisible realities and idealistically driven hopes. She writes:

All right…Out there, someone is sleeping on a grate… and the emergency rooms are full of people… [Still] cruelty is as natural to the city as fresh air is to the country… I used to feel this cruelty was wrong, immoral… Now I don’t know. Maybe it’s the fuel that powers the palace.[ii]

While this woman revels in the cruelty–fuelled palace, a boy called Anthony grows up with not a fraction of her material security and wealth. Anthony has his heart set elsewhere, though he too aspires to be a writer. But he writes of his hope for God’s kingdom:

God’s Kingdom…God will be there. He’ll be happy that we have arrived.People shall come hand-in-hand…God will be fond of you…[iii]

Such distinction, in First Peter, defined by one’s orientation to that which decays or that which lasts, is what defines holiness.

If you stay with Peter you have to get used to the word “holiness”. Culturally we have dressed this word up with all sorts of accoutrements that, in the popular mind, render holiness both undesirable and unreachable.

For the sake of us gaining from the richness of First Peter’s writing, let me reclaim the word!
Peter draws strongly on the Leviticus code of the Hebrew people when he would have us embrace holiness. The purpose of this ancient code was to craft a community dedicated to becoming a conduit for the grace and blessing of the Creator to the whole of creation.

For Peter, those caught up in Christ’s resurrection are the heirs of that purpose.
Rather than a namby pamby “don’t get your hands dirty” withdrawal from the community, such holiness calls for robust and muscular engagement with life around us. We do this, however, from the perspective of those who are dedicated lock stock and barrel to God’s purpose. To borrow a thought from Stephen Curkpatrick, we are “free to choose what God has willed to be chosen.”[iv]

The side effect of such a will to dedicate oneself to God’s purpose is not focused in God alone or even in one’s devotional exercises. “Holiness builds community, the community of mutual love and support.”[v]

Or as Peter puts it by urging the households of God dotted throughout the metropolis of Rome and its districts, and indeed throughout Perth and its suburbs,

22 Now that you have purified your souls by your obedience to the truth* so that you have genuine mutual love, love one another deeply* from the heart.*

This is the measure of holiness. This is resurrection faith. This is what turns the world upside down. This is what being eastered is all about.

[i] David Bartlett, ‘The First Letter of Peter’ in The New Interpreter’s Bible¸ Vol XII, (Abingdon, Nashville, 1998) 261.
[ii] Jonathan Kozol, Amazing Grace:The Lives of Children and the Conscience of a Nation (Crown, New York, 1995) 113-114.
[iii] Ibid., 237-238.
[iv] http://www.cctc.edu.au/will.html
[v] Bartlett, op.cit., 261.

Three Cheers for Thomas

2008-03-30T09:30:00.000+08:00

Author: Dennis Ryle

John 20:19-31 30th March, 2008

19When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” 20After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. 21Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” 22When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. 23If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.” 24But Thomas (who was called the Twin), one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. 25So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord.” But he said to them, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.”

26A week later his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” 27Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.” 28Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!” 29Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.” 30Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. 31But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.

The New Revised Standard Version, copyright 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

If you’ve been here longer than a year or two, you will well know the temptation of today’s text for me to launch a long and spirited defence of Thomas, demonstrably one of the most loyal and committed disciples of Jesus. Long tarnished with the sobriquet “Doubting Thomas”, this disciple is considered by a consensus of fourth gospel scholars to be a model for the second and third and subsequent generations of the early church – those Christians who were not present at the first resurrection encounters of the apostles with Jesus.

For me, Thomas bridges the gap – himself a benefactor of eventual tangible encounter with the risen Christ, and also a vehicle of blessing for those who “believe having not seen.”

I note that Bill Loader differs here. He sees Thomas as a figure of ambiguity. He says in conclusion on this passage,

Ultimately John's celebrations in narrative of the Easter message point to life as its message. Before and after Easter it is still life. The change is that now there are new bearers of that life and the Spirit given without measure to Jesus (3:34) now operates without measure among the disciples and makes Jesus' presence real to them (14:22-26). Thomas needs to get there and until he does (if he does), he remains on one of the roads of religious distraction which robs him and others of life but keeps them very busy, saying even the right things.

My temperamentally conditioned bias for Thomas fights such a negative suggestion, probably because I recognise myself to be a figure of ambiguity. I think there are many desperadoes like me!

My fascination for Thomas was fed at yesterday morning’s meeting of the WA Council of Churches hosted by the church in Claremont that is, happily, dedicated to St Thomas.

A stained glass window depicts Thomas’ quest for tangible evidence that Jesus has appeared bodily to his colleagues in his absence, and how this quest is dramatically qualified by an “up close and personal” encounter with the crucified and risen One – an encounter that unmistakably catapults Thomas into the company of believers. That it came through a route that has endured continuous criticism does not lessen his participation in the congregation of the faithful.

He believed because he saw, but blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.

For me, Thomas is not so much a figure of ambiguity but of tension. It may be the intention of John’s gospel to use the tradition of Thomas to help a later generation of Christians see clear choices between believing and not believing, but the drama of the narrative leads me to a place where I see Thomas seeking to hold doubt and trust together with integrity. And that’s not easy for people embarked on a journey where the faith muscle is getting a continuous workout.

This tension was ably illustrated in the homily given by the parish priest in yesterday’s opening prayers. He addressed the difficulties Christians find, when, coming from a range of backgrounds and traditions and theological understandings, they seek to express the unity for which Jesus prayed in John 17. The unity we seek is there – but so much blinds us to it. Unless we see we will not believe.

He told of long childhood road trips across Dismal Swamp in the south of the USA. One dare not stop mid journey – the hazards of the swamplands were too great. The tension of the journey was broken by loud singing.
The trip could not be avoided, it had to be made. But the song carried them forward and made the journey easy to bear.

Perhaps this reflection resonates with Thomas and those of us who are like him. The journey has to be made. It is hazardous.

Jesus is determined to return to Bethany and the sorrowing household of Lazarus. It is Thomas who says, “Let us also go that we may die with him.”

A little later, Jesus waxes lyrical about the destination of this journey, comforting his friends by telling them he is going to be with the Father and he knows the way and they know the way. Thomas, in frustration, blurts out, “How can we know the way?” Jesus honours his challenge – “I am the way, the truth and the life…” And the way is dangerous, risky and has the shadow of a cross falling across it. It is indeed “Dismal Swamp!”
And the risen Christ appears to Thomas and shows him how to sing,”My Lord and my God!” Now Thomas sees, there is a song to carry us on the journey through. It is the song of the presence of the crucified and risen one.

Is Thomas not blessed, just because his belief came through seeing ? “Believing” is the burden of John’s gospel. “Believing” through sight or touch, or coming to belief without the benefit of “seeing” all results in “blessedness”, because “believing” is that which expresses the abundant life that is in Christ.

For John’s gospel, “incarnation” and “touch” are also in tension. The”Word made flesh” touches us. He walks amongst the poor laying hands on the untouchable leper, stretching his fingertips to the sightless eyes of the blind, wrapping his arms around the young and infirm. In the garden outside the tomb, he says to Mary Magdalene, “Don’t touch me.” To Thomas he says, , “Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side.” Ambiguity? Thomas doesn’t have the monopoly on that!

Thomas believed in and followed a Lord who was very tangible. Here’s some of what Rose Marie Berger in “The Sense of Touch” says:

Elias Canetti opens his powerful collection Crowds and Power with these lines: "There is nothing that man fears more than the touch of the unknown. He wants to see what is reaching towards him, and to be able to recognize or at least classify it."

At Christmas, we encounter the terror of touch. God runs a finger tenderly along the face of the world. Human flesh flashes with the fire of the Divine. It burns. It is ecstatic. For a moment we are fully human, not just hominid…

…It took a while for the modern world to catch on to what the ancient world already knew. What were those Christmas moments like when Mary’s hands first caressed the impossibly soft skin of her newborn? Gazed into his eyes? Felt him pull, tug, and bite at her breast? She was not just a vessel of Divine intent. Mary shaped Jesus into a human being through the force and affections of her body.
Jesus learned Mary’s lessons well. Touch was significant to his ministry throughout his life. He touched lepers, the blind, the lame. He gathered children into his arms and touched their heads. With loving care, he ran his hands along the feet of his disciples…

… In Jesus’ life, touch was also vibrantly political. He allowed himself to be touched by the bleeding woman who reached him through the crowd and the woman anointer at Bethany. He received Judas’ ambiguous kiss and the violent soldiers’ blows.

After his death women touched him, washed him, rubbed oil into his skin, and wrapped his body in linens. Even resurrected Jesus said to Thomas, "Touch me and see. No ghost has flesh and bones like this…"
… We fear the unknown touch, says Canetti. And that may be true. But we crave the affectionate intimate touch that comes with incarnation. "An ordinary hand," writes poet Anne Sexton, "just lonely for something to touch that touches back… [Then] Your hand found mine. Life rushed to my fingers like a blood clot. Oh, my carpenter, the fingers are rebuilt. They dance with yours."

Is Thomas so wrong to crave the touch that brings belief?

Susan Guthrie reminds us:

For 11th-hour laborers and others who are slow-of-heart, Thomas's caution makes him a more credible witness. Furthermore, after the invitation to touch the wounds of Jesus, he penetrates even beyond the superficial excitement of the moment. It is Cousin Thomas who delivers the punch line that kicks off the next 2,000 years of professional Christology: "My Lord and my God!" The beatitude that follows is not meant as a whack at Thomas, the doubter. Rather, Jesus encourages those of us who did not witness these events for ourselves to discover the truth alone in the prayer room, or in struggles for justice, by serving the weak, by worshiping in spirit and in truth, or by schmoozing with the Bible people at family reunions.

Late have I loved you, beauty so ancient and so fresh. Late have I loved you. Behold, you were within and I was outside, and I was seeking you there. I, deformed, was pursuing you in the beautifully formed things that you made. You were with me, but I was not with you. Those things held me far away from you, things that would not exist if they were not in you. You called and clamored and shattered my deafness; you flashed and gleamed and banished my blindness; you were fragrant and I drew in breath and now pant for you. I tasted and now I hunger and thirst for you; you touched me and I have been set ablaze with longing for your peace. (St. Augustine, Confessions [10:38], translated by Scott MacDonald)

It’s the song that carries us along the hazardous journey that we call life.

Resurrection Day

2008-03-23T09:30:00.000+09:00

Author: Dennis Ryle

John 20:1-18 23rd March, 2008

Early on Sunday, the first day of the week, even before it began to get light, Mary Magdalene went to visit the tomb where Jesus had been buried. When she got there, she discovered that the stone had been removed and the tomb was open. She fled as fast as she could, and found Simon Peter and the disciple whom Jesus had been closest to. Mary blurted out, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don’t know where they have taken him.”

So Peter and the other disciple set off on the double. They were both running at full tilt, but the other disciple was faster than Peter and reached the tomb first. He didn’t go in, but he bent down to peer inside and saw that the linen burial shroud had been unwrapped and left behind. Moments later, Simon Peter arrived, and barged straight into the tomb. He too, saw the unwrapped shroud lying there, and noticed that the cloth that had been on Jesus’ head was not with the rest of the shroud, but had been rolled up and left in a different spot. Then the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, followed Peter in. They had not yet got their minds around the scriptures that said that Jesus must rise from the dead, but what he saw was enough to convince him that this was no grave robbery, but something far more extraordinary.

The two men left, and headed off to their homes, but Mary stayed behind and stood weeping outside the tomb. A little later she bent down to look into the tomb, and through her tears she saw two angels dressed in white. They were sitting where the body of Jesus had previously been lying, one at the head and the other at the feet. They said to her, “Woman, why are you crying?”

She replied, “Someone has taken away my Lord, and I have got no idea where they might have put him.”

Having said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing behind her, but she didn’t realise it was him. Jesus asked her, “Woman, why are you crying? Who are you looking for?”

Mary assumed that he was the cemetery gardener, so she said to him, “Mister, if you have removed his body from the tomb, please tell me where you have put him, and I will take him off your hands.”

Jesus said to her, “Mary!”

She spun around and said, “Rabbouni!”, which is a Hebrew word meaning ‘Dear Teacher’.

Jesus said to her, “Don’t try to hold on to me, because I have not yet fully risen to the Father. But go now, and tell my whole family of disciples that I am rising up to the one who conceived me and conceived you, to my God and your God.”

So Mary Magdalene went straight to the disciples, and was the first to make the announcement, “I have seen the Lord!”

She went on to fill them in on all that he had said to her.

©2003 Nathan Nettleton LaughingBird.net

What does one say on this day that gave great consolation to Mary Magdalene but left the disciples speechless and running hither and thither in confusion?

How do we talk about this matter of resurrection without sounding disingenuous or looking foolish? Is this even the right question for people of faith?

Today I can do no better than use the words of Diana Butler Bass (author of Christianity for the Rest of Us: How the Neighborhood Church is Transforming the Faith) when she says

In the early '90s, I lived in Santa Barbara, California, and attended a dynamic, renewing, spiritually vital liberal congregation, Trinity Episcopal Church. There, I was fortunate enough to meet the Rt. Rev. Daniel Corrigan, an aged Episcopal bishop who was also the first bishop to ordain women to the priesthood. Dan Corrigan was a unique breed: one of those mid-20th century liberal princes of the pulpit, a Protestant minister whose stirring preaching and passionate commitment to social justice pushed Christians to enact God's shalom toward the oppressed and the outcast. He was both pastor and prophet. Even at the end of his life, Dan Corrigan wore the Holy Spirit like a mantle around his shoulders, always ready to speak for God.

One year, as Easter approached, I overheard an exchange between this octogenarian liberal lion and a fellow parishioner. "Bishop Corrigan," the person asked, "Do you believe in the resurrection?" Frankly, I could not wait to hear the answer – like most of his generation, there was no way that Bishop Corrigan believed in a literal resurrection. He looked at the questioner and said firmly, without pause, "Yes. I believe in the resurrection. I've seen it too many times not to."

Progressive Christians often stumble on the resurrection. Many will sit in churches this Easter Sunday, silently doubting or questioning the minister's sermon. They may like the music, appreciate the tradition and liturgy, and delight in the feelings of joy – but they will not really believe the resurrection. One of the great theological problems of old-style Protestant liberalism was the doctrine of the resurrection – it defied logic, reason, and human experience that a man would be raised from the dead. Having rejected the idea of the miraculous, the liberal tradition turned resurrection into an allegory or a spiritual metaphor.

As a writer, I happen to appreciate the power of allegory and metaphor. And I thought that was the theological tack Bishop Corrigan would take with the parishioner. However, he did not. Instead, Bishop Corrigan headed right for the dicey territory of historical witness: I've seen it too many times not to.

The problem with trying to prove – or disprove, for that matter – the resurrection is that actual historical evidence of the event 2,000 years ago does not exist one way or the other. In his popular book, Evidence That Demands a Verdict, Josh McDowell goes through a torturous process of picking and choosing facts to establish a legal case that proves the resurrection. On the other side of the theological ledger, the recent book, The Jesus Family Tomb, likewise picks and chooses from meager data to intellectually establish that Jesus died and stayed dead. Both sides of this street are an intellectual and historical dead-end, an argument with no solution – only overheated opinions.

Bishop Corrigan's comment – a comment upon which I have meditated for some dozen years – points to a different way of embracing, of believing, the resurrection. His answer both defies the conventional approach to the resurrection (as a scientifically verifiable event), and maintains the truthfulness (the credibility) of the resurrection as historically viable and real. The resurrection is not an intellectual puzzle. Rather, it is a living theological reality, a distant event with continuing spiritual, human, and social consequences. The evidence for the resurrection is all around us. Not in some ancient text, Jesus bones, or a DNA sample. Rather, the historical evidence for the resurrection is Jesus living in us; it is the transformative power of the Holy Spirit, bringing back to life that which was dead. We are the evidence.

Diana goes on to say:

There is a woman in my church in Washington, D.C., who was homeless for 15 years. Several years ago, she came to Epiphany Church and was welcomed by the congregation's ministry to homeless people.

"It was the first time," she told me, "that I came into a church and no one looked at me as if I was going to steal something." Epiphany's people respected her humanity, fed her, listened to her, and helped her – all in the name and power of Jesus. Eventually, she moved off the street into [assisted] housing, secured both work and support, and pulled her life together. An active member of Epiphany, she helps run the homeless ministry, serves as a Sunday reader, and usher.

When I see her on Sunday, she is a living, breathing, historical witness that the resurrection is true.

Like Bishop Corrigan, I, too, can say that I believe the resurrection. I've seen it too many times not to.

This Easter Sunday, consider all the resurrections you have seen. If you are anything like me, those resurrections are not only stories of homeless people who find a home in Christ. They will be stories of your own life, of your myriad deaths and rebirths – of all the times you thought God had deserted you only to discover that God was finding you anew. The resurrection cannot be intellectually proved; it goes well beyond allegory and myth. It is the continuing, transforming power of God to bring back from death all that was lost – that ever-renewing love at work changing ourselves, our communities, and our world. Go ahead: believe.

Have This Mind...

2008-03-17T01:30:00.000+09:00

Author: Dennis Ryle

Philippians 2: 5-11 16 March 2008

Model your attitude on the attitude of the Messiah, Jesus. Although Jesus was the same as God in every way, he did not think of his God-like privileges as something to milked for all they were worth. Instead, he laid it all aside and, with no more privileges than a slave, was born as a human being.Having become a human being, he was the model of humility. He didn’t demand his own way but let God set the agenda; even when it included his own death,and a gruesome public death at that.

Because of all this, God has raised him to the status of number one and honoured him more highly than anyone else in the universe.

So now, just the mention of the name ‘Jesus’ should bring everyone to their knees; everyone who has ever lived or ever will. Everyone, everywhere will honour God by openly acknowledging that Jesus the Messiah is Lord of all!

©2001 Nathan Nettleton LaughingBird.net

Palm Sunday heralds the final week of our Lenten journey. From this point on we become very focused on the processes that both condemn Jesus in the eyes of popular opinion and offended authority and also bring about the climactic accomplishment of a mission that is more far reaching than our poor intellects can fully comprehend.

This drama is re-enacted year after year, not only in the traditional liturgies of the church, but in the misunderstanding of the populace as the message of Easter once again makes its powerful impact, with the paradox of its confronting offense and foolishness and, at the same time,
its promise of hope and the fulfilment of dreams and visions that almost dare not be spoken, because we do not know if our poor frames can contain the promised abundance of life.

To sift through the media at such a time is to once again, see this tension being played out. Amongst the pious editorials we will find reports that sensationalise particular aspects of religious life and thinking, as if to say, “Aren’t those followers of Jesus a ripe old mob. Watch us stir them into frenzy! We’ll make them madder than a cut snake”

Hey look! The Vatican’s now decreed that there are 14 deadly sins, not seven (they have not).

Hey look! A local theatre production which portrays Jesus as a semi-naked female on the cross has received almost $28,000 in State Government funding. (They have – but so what!)

Far more telling is the exhortation from the apostle Paul as he addresses the distracted church at Philippi.

“Have this mind among yourselves…”

“Model your attitude on the attitude of the Messiah, Jesus...”

Well known Ignatian spiritual director, Margaret Silf, is visiting Perth. At yesterday’s workshop at Dayspring, Margaret posed the possibility of Jesus modelling the fully evolved state of our humanity. Exploring the evolutionary concepts of progress from hominid to homo sapiens, we were invited to reconsider the Genesis accounts of Adam and Eve, the tree of knowledge of good and evil and the eviction from Eden as a universal story of extinction and rebirth. “When the time was right”, the Son became incarnate and dwelt among us, expressing the fullness of human nature to which we are called.

A significant and core element of the story of the salvation of the universe is the realisation of the Divine in Jesus that calls us to our full humanity.

“Have this mind among yourselves…”

“Model your attitude on the attitude of the Messiah, Jesus...”

Although Jesus was the same as God in every way, he did not think of his God-like privileges as something to milked for all they were worth. Instead, he laid it all aside and, with no more privileges than a slave, was born as a human being.Having become a human being, he was the model of humility.

In more familiar language, Jesus “emptied himself” of all that would get in the way of modelling what perfect humanity looks like.

No rule book to follow except the rule of the heart to love God and love your neighbour as you love yourself. All else is laid aside.

Margaret offered a very helpful illustration from her Canadian canoeing experience. In the vast lake system there, it is possible to navigate hundreds of miles by canoe, even though not all the lakes are linked by water ways.

There are portage paths, that is, dry land links.

You paddle your canoe in the direction you are heading, and you come to a bank. You can paddle no further, but, nearby you will see a sign with an arrow and the word “portage”. The sign indicates the best path by which you can carry your canoe to the nearest shore of the next waterway.

The most efficient way to carry the canoe is to turn it upside down and carry it over your head.

What happens to the contents when you turn it up? It empties itself.

To continue the journey to answer the divine call to the full expression of our humanity, we have to decide to pay the cost of continuing the journey. We have to get out onto dry land, empty our canoe, and carry it.

How did the portage paths appear? The first peoples of the land put them there? How did they know where to place them? Their pioneers explored and scouted the land to find the best routes and signed them – not with written signs as are there now.

The tallest tree on the shoreline at the beginning of the portage route was selected. Its foliage, except for the crown, would be trimmed. This encouraged greater growth, so that its height could be seen from a distance.

A canoeist could easily see the portage point while still paddling some distance out on the lake.

Happily for the sake of our allegory, such a marker bears some resemblance to a cross.

If we are to progress on our human journey, the cross is a critical marker:

Having become a human being, he was the model of humility. He didn’t demand his own way but let God set the agenda; even when it included his own death,and a gruesome public death at that.

There are many layers to the explanation of the meaning of Jesus’ death. They are all well rehearsed in and through first the gospel accounts from Mark’s stark almost tabloid depiction of the events of Calvary to John’s more reflective treatment couched in the popular Greek idiom of his audience. And then from Paul’s exhortations to those of the early Church Fathers.

Even so, the passage of time tells us that however we view the significance of Jesus’ death, the cross stands as a marker in the evolution of how we human beings see ourselves.

We can stay in the lake and assert that nothing ever changes, we humans will continue to employ our wit and knowledge to exploit, defeat, deceive and corrupt one another or, we will get out of the lake, turn our canoes up, and using the guidance of the portage sign, carry our load to the next waterway.

There we will embark on the next stage of the journey, driven not by our wit, but by a humble heart.

Because of all this, God has raised him to the status of number one and honoured him more highly than anyone else in the universe.

Bill Loader tells us what this means rather succinctly

2:9 speaks of God exalting Jesus. This is a commentary on the resurrection which sees it as an act of God which vindicates and rewards Jesus. People regularly misunderstand the statement about the name in 2:9-10. It is not the name, 'Jesus'. Rather Jesus receives a name. That name is none other than the name which is above all other names: the unspoken name of God, represented by the word, 'Lord'. 2:11 also makes that clear. Everyone will acclaim Jesus Christ with his new name: 'Lord'. It is a way of saying that Jesus really does reveal God and the way God is. Bearing someone's name was like bearing their responsibility and being recognised as able to represent them. In Judaism angels could sometimes be given Yahweh's name. At one level we have a story with a twist. Jesus did not chance his arm to try to usurp God. Instead he chose to do what God wanted. As a reward for that God actually gave him what he had originally contemplated and had rejected as an option: he was called 'Lord' (or God). We could then trivialise it into a piece of common wisdom. Don't be too ambitious about promotion.

Do your job and see: you'll get there. It is possible to reduce the passage to an account of Jesus' cv. As such it becomes a piece of divine, self indulgent PR. But this skews its function. Paul is using it to expound an attitude. That attitude is not about how to get promoted, but about what the will of God is and what Jesus was doing. Paul would not be imagining that the act of lowliness was just one of those things Jesus had to go through to get to the top, but something paradigmatic. It said something about the heart of Jesus and the heart of God. He is 'Lord' now not because he has left all that behind, but because God names him as representing the way of divine being. It is in that sense even paradoxical to speak of exaltation and enthronement. Elsewhere we see that paradox expressed in an enthronement of Jesus on a cross with a crown of thorns.

And paradox it is. The way of humility by which Jesus models our calling to full humanity is not well understood – both outside and inside the church.

A number of movies lately have explored the ambiguity both of self-made sufficiency and selfless service, perhaps reflecting a culture which is suffering self-doubt.

‘Let there be blood’ tells a story of the symbiotic relationship between a pioneering oil monopoly and ambitious churchmanship.

Rambo has a taciturn Sylvester Stallone rescuing Christian missionaries caught in the Burmese genocide of the Karen hill tribes, declaring “Nothing can change”.

One gets a sense of people out on the lake in their canoes. The rising mists obscure the portage sign. But are the mists from the lake or our own foggy miscomprehension of the Word who became flesh and dwelt among us?

The writer of the Philippian hymn is more hopeful. This is how he finishes his ode of praise.

So now, just the mention of the name ‘Jesus’ should bring everyone to their knees; everyone who has ever lived or ever will. Everyone, everywhere will honour God by openly acknowledging that Jesus the Messiah is Lord of all!

Leapin' Lazarus

2008-03-10T01:30:00.000+09:00

Author: Dennis Ryle

John 11:1-45 9 March 2008

A man named Lazarus became dangerously ill. He and his two sisters, Mary and Martha, lived in the town of Bethany and were good friends of Jesus. Mary was the one who is remembered for having massaged the Lord’s feet with perfumed oils and dried them with her hair. When her brother Lazarus got sick, she and her sister sent a message to Jesus, saying, “Lord, your good mate Lazarus is gravely ill.”

When Jesus got the message, he said, “This illness is not going to result in death, but in great credit being given to God and to the Son of God.”

Despite his great love for Martha and her sister, and for Lazarus, Jesus did not drop everything the minute he got the message and head off to be with them. It was another two days before he finished up what he was doing and got ready to go. When he was ready he said to his disciples, “Let’s make tracks back to Judea.”

But the disciples said, “Rabbi, you’ve only just fled Judea because they were trying to kill you there. Why on earth would you be wanting to go back?”

Jesus replied, “There is a time for working and a time for sleeping. If you go about your business during the daylight, you won’t stumble, because your world will be full of light. But if you wait until its dark, you will fall flat on your face because you will have no light to guide you. Our good mate Lazarus has gone to sleep, and I am going down there to wake him up.”

The disciples said to him, “Lord, if he is getting plenty of sleep then he will be back on his feet in no time.”

Jesus had really been saying that Lazarus had died, but the disciples had taken him too literally, so he spelt it out for them: “Lazarus is dead. I’m glad, for your sakes that I wasn’t there, because this will toughen up your faith. So let’s go and join him.”

Thomas the Twin turned to the other disciples and said, “Come on. If he is going to get himself killed, we might as well be killed with him.”

When Jesus arrived in Bethany, he discovered that Lazarus had been buried four days earlier. Many people from nearby Jerusalem had come to town to comfort Martha and Mary and pay their last respects to Lazarus. Martha heard that Jesus had arrived and ran down the street to meet him, leaving Mary at home. Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if only you’d been here. I know my brother wouldn’t have died if you had been here. But I know that, even now, God will do anything you ask.”

Jesus said to her, “Your brother will be raised to life again.”

Martha replied, “I know that he and all the dead will be raised to life at the end of time.”

But Jesus said to her, “I am the one who raises the dead and gives life. Those who put their trust in me will have life, even if they die. Those who live trusting in me, will never succumb to death. Will you take my word for this, Martha?”

“Yes, Lord,” she replied, “I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God; the one whose arrival the world has been waiting for.”

Having said this, Martha went back to the house and spoke in private to her sister Mary, saying, “The teacher is here and he wants to see you.”

When she heard this, Mary wasted no time in getting up and hurrying out to meet Jesus. She found him where Martha had left him, just outside the fringe of the town. When all the visitors from Jerusalem who had been with her in the house saw her hurrying out, they assumed that she was going to the graveyard to mourn and leave flowers, so they followed her. When Mary saw Jesus, she embraced him and sobbed, “Lord, if only you’d been here. I know my brother wouldn’t have died if you had been here.”

Jesus was stirred up, deep in his guts, by her tears and by the crying of the people who were with her. “Where did you bury him?” he asked.

“Come and we’ll show you, Lord,” they said. As they went, Jesus too began weeping. This prompted some of the people to say, “He must have really loved Lazarus,” but others were more cynical, saying, “If he loved him so much, how come he didn’t do something to keep him from dying? After all, he had no trouble giving sight to a blind man.”

Jesus arrived at the tomb, and by now he was quite worked up. The tomb was a cave with a big rock sealing the entrance. Jesus gave orders for it to be reopened. Martha, the other sister of the dead man, protested saying, “Lord, it will stink to high heaven. He’s already been dead for four days.”

But Jesus said, “I told you, didn’t I, that if you believed, you would see things so amazing that they could only be credited to God?”

So they went ahead and removed the rock from the entrance of the tomb. Jesus paused to pray, saying, “Father, thank you for hearing my prayer. I know you always do, but I want this crowd to hear me giving the credit to you, because then they might believe that it was you who sent me.”

Having said that, he raised his voice and bellowed, “Lazarus, get out here!”

And sure enough, the dead man came out, still wrapped up like a mummy from head to toe. Jesus gave the order to unwrap him and set him free.

This was the turning point for many of the people who had accompanied Mary. When they saw what Jesus did, they put their trust him.

©2002 Nathan Nettleton LaughingBird.net

Nathan Nettleton’s paraphrase brings the narrative of this part of John’s gospel right into our laps.

Earlier this week I was called upon to take a funeral service for a man, not yet fifty, who had died alone. His family and friends were, understandably, distraught.

It has also been said by some of you that we are in that part of the cycle of our lives where farewelling friends and family, often people with whom we have shared a life time, is becoming a frequent occurrence.

The story of Lazarus has many points of connection with our human processes of grieving.

We have the confusion of the disciples as they alter their travel plans.

There is the sisters’ displaced remonstrance that their family friend was not where he was supposed to be when he was needed.

And let’s not forget Jesus’ own public engagement with the full humanity of his passion and emotion, leaving him exposed variously to the compassion and cynicism of the crowd.
Sometimes there is no rational or even faith-based response to the experience of the loss of someone with whom you are deeply connected. Lazarus was a friend of Jesus. Standing at the tomb, confronted with the reality of Lazarus’ death, Jesus wept.

Before this however, there had been a very interesting tête-à-tête between Jesus and Martha – a theological discussion that sounds almost out of place in the raw emotion of the situation. We need to remember that the writer of the fourth gospel is not merely reporting an event; he is seeking to give us understanding as we go.

In the discussion between Jesus and Martha, the writer of John’s gospel brings to the fore the new orientation to the human experience of life and death that the church in its infancy is struggling to comprehend.

Yes dogma does point to a time when all the dead shall be raised. Lazarus shall live again at something called the end of time. But dogma is not a meal that satisfies.

Jesus asserts that he, not the dogma, is the one in whom Martha can direct her trust. In him alone is the authority and authenticity that defeats the darkness, even the darkness of death. Martha assents by naming him as the one that God has sent into the world.

This is the crux of the message of John’s gospel.

When Jesus bellows for Lazarus to come out of the tomb, and Lazarus come forth and is set free, John dramatically underlines his message.

In Jesus, we see the one who points us to release from fear of all that the powers of defeat and darkness can dish up – even the fear of that final obliteration that death is waiting to deal out.
“I am the resurrection and the life,” Jesus declares. “Those who put their trust in me will live, even though they die.”

It is the genius of John’s gospel that the message of the resurrection is first given to us at an everyday graveside and not the world-shaking event that is the focus of Good Friday and Easter Sunday commemorations. It was Lazarus who walked in resurrection before Jesus did, albeit by Jesus’ authoritative word.

This serves to make the hope of resurrection faith accessible to us. And it has everything to do with living resurrection life now, not in some ethereal future on the other side of the grave.
Listen to Suzanne Guthrie, Episcopal chaplain at Cornell University and writing for the Christian Century.

I didn't want to come back. My consciousness hovered somewhere above the body lying on the gurney. It was all over, I thought. The last sensation I remembered had been incomprehensible pain, then a tunnel, and a grinding noise as described in other "near death experiences." But unlike other people who tell of "NDEs," I saw no lights, no angels, no dead relatives, no friendly saints; rather, I found myself very much awake in a weightless, imageless, gray hyperreality. I experienced a blessed clarity, freedom and relief, and a stunning sense of the illusory nature of the life I'd left behind.Then the recovery room nurse enforced an alternative plan for my life.

Someone was shaking my body and calling me by name. No! NO! Unprepared and inept, I slipped, as if falling on ice, into that lesser "reality" in a helpless panic of anguish and anger.

Suddenly I was back in the confines of that little life of mine. Now I carried a memory of the futility of this "fake" life. It was as if I hadn't had time to drink the magic "forgetting potion" that makes you immune to truth. I came to consciousness disappointed, frustrated, unspeakably sad—and in excruciating pain.

How did Lazarus feel about coming back? How far had he traveled along the way of clarity, truth and reality in those four days? How deeply had he journeyed into eternal life? How transformed had he become as time and space separated soul from the prison of blood and bone and brain?

When Lazarus heard his name did he want to shout, "No! Not even for you, my friend and Master! Please, NO!" With what sense of contempt or ambivalence did he slip through his grave clothes into his body and back to his troubles? Could he have refused to respond?

That Jesus did not go into the tomb to touch him or shake him awake or draw him out puts the resolve upon Lazarus himself. Jesus stood outside calling. And Lazarus responded, now double-bound by winding sheet and by the limits of the old life. He brought himself out, burdened with the fetid grave clothes he would need again and the feeble body which would die again.

Unbind him and let him go, said Jesus. But go where? Home? Could Lazarus dwell contentedly at home again in the house of Mary and Martha? If you come from eternal life, how do you settle for anything less than eternal life? But Lazarus, the ultimate human witness to the way, the truth and the life, is called forth from eternal life . . . to mere everyday life. That is, in Johannine terms, to engage again in the ominous final struggle against the powers of darkness over the Light. And the world cannot bear the Light.

By a cruel irony, Jesus will be put to death because he brought Lazarus back to life. After the raising of Lazarus, the Sanhedrin gathers in that famous meeting where Caiaphas presents his troubling prophecy. Worried about the Roman occupiers and the attention drawn to Jesus by the people, they ask, "What are we to do? For this man performs many signs. If we let him go on thus, everyone will believe in him, and the Romans will come and destroy both our holy place and our nation." But one of them, Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, said to them, "You know nothing at all; you do not understand that it is expedient for you that one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation should not perish." So "from that day on they took counsel on how to put him to death" (John 11:47b-50, 53).

Aware of the threat, Jesus withdrew into hiding in Ephraim on the edge of the wilderness. But people kept coming to see Lazarus. So the chief priests planned to put him to death, because on account of him many were going away and believing in Jesus.

Double irony. Lazarus comes forth from death for death, this time not by disease but perhaps by the disturbed Sanhedrin—to be put to death for responding to life. Just as Jesus would be put to death for bringing forth life.

"See how he loved him!" said the crowd. Indeed, Lazarus is the type for the lovers of God, along with his quick-witted sister Martha and the intuitive Mary. Jesus' love for the family represents God's love for us. But the love we return is not without sacrifice. In small ways we practice dying: dying to sin, dying to shame, to prejudices, opinions, stagnant ideas, dying to one old life and then another, ever striving toward new life. You consciously practice rising from whatever tomb you have holed yourself up in lately.

(See full article at http://www.christiancentury.org/article.lasso?id=2940 )

For John’s gospel, the eternal impinges on the here and now.

When you think about it, it makes a whole lot of sense, for the only way you can relate to what is eternal, that which is from everlasting to everlasting, that which runs to very depths and the core of who we really are – is when we are fully engaged with the present moment.

I don’t think the writer of John’s gospel was too concerned about the practicalities of Lazarus post-tomb life.

He was concerned that his community in Christ grasp the reality of fullness of life and that they grasp the courage to walk the path with its attendant risks and threats so that this reality might find full expression.

Our Lenten walk begins the ascent to Jerusalem and the Golgotha that casts its shadow over it.

Perhaps the story of Lazarus reminds us that a shadow does not exist without a light to cast it.

Repackaging Sin

2008-03-03T02:30:00.000+09:00

Author: Dennis Ryle

John 9:1-41 2nd March, 2008

9As he walked along, he saw a man blind from birth. 2His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” 3Jesus answered, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him. 4We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming when no one can work. 5As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” 6When he had said this, he spat on the ground and made mud with the saliva and spread the mud on the man’s eyes, 7saying to him, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam” (which means Sent). Then he went and washed and came back able to see.

8The neighbors and those who had seen him before as a beggar began to ask, “Is this not the man who used to sit and beg?” 9Some were saying, “It is he.” Others were saying, “No, but it is someone like him.” He kept saying, “I am the man.” 10But they kept asking him, “Then how were your eyes opened?” 11He answered, “The man called Jesus made mud, spread it on my eyes, and said to me, ‘Go to Siloam and wash.’ Then I went and washed and received my sight.”

12They said to him, “Where is he?” He said, “I do not know.”

13They brought to the Pharisees the man who had formerly been blind. 14Now it was a sabbath day when Jesus made the mud and opened his eyes. 15Then the Pharisees also began to ask him how he had received his sight. He said to them, “He put mud on my eyes. Then I washed, and now I see.” 16Some of the Pharisees said, “This man is not from God, for he does not observe the sabbath.” But others said, “How can a man who is a sinner perform such signs?” And they were divided. 17So they said again to the blind man, “What do you say about him? It was your eyes he opened.” He said, “He is a prophet.” 18The Jews did not believe that he had been blind and had received his sight until they called the parents of the man who had received his sight 19and asked them, “Is this your son, who you say was born blind? How then does he now see?” 20His parents answered, “We know that this is our son, and that he was born blind; 21but we do not know how it is that now he sees, nor do we know who opened his eyes. Ask him; he is of age. He will speak for himself.” 22His parents said this because they were afraid of the Jews; for the Jews had already agreed that anyone who confessed Jesus to be the Messiah would be put out of the synagogue. 23Therefore his parents said, “He is of age; ask him.” 24So for the second time they called the man who had been blind, and they said to him, “Give glory to God! We know that this man is a sinner.” 25He answered, “I do not know whether he is a sinner. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.” 26They said to him, “What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?” 27He answered them, “I have told you already, and you would not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you also want to become his disciples?” 28Then they reviled him, saying, “You are his disciple, but we are disciples of Moses. 29We know that God has spoken to Moses, but as for this man, we do not know where he comes from.” 30The man answered, “Here is an astonishing thing! You do not know where he comes from, and yet he opened my eyes. 31We know that God does not listen to sinners, but he does listen to one who worships him and obeys his will. 32Never since the world began has it been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a person born blind. 33If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.”

34They answered him, “You were born entirely in sins, and are you trying to teach us?” And they drove him out.

35Jesus heard that they had driven him out, and when he found him, he said, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?” 36He answered, “And who is he, sir? Tell me, so that I may believe in him.”

37Jesus said to him, “You have seen him, and the one speaking with you is he.” 38He said, “Lord, I believe.” And he worshiped him.

39Jesus said, “I came into this world for judgment so that those who do not see may see, and those who do see may become blind.” 40Some of the Pharisees near him heard this and said to him, “Surely we are not blind, are we?” 41Jesus said to them, “If you were blind, you would not have sin. But now that you say, ‘We see,’ your sin remains.

The New Revised Standard Version, copyright 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

“Whatever became of sin?” I am sometimes asked. “We never hear you preachers speak of sin lately. Has it finally gone out of fashion? Is everything that we used to call sin – pride, sloth, wrath, envy, gluttony, deceit, avarice, cowardice and lust – OK now? Haven’t you preachers watered down the gospel so much that it makes little sense to sing “Amazing Grace” anymore?
Now I’m happy to let other preachers speak for themselves, but perhaps you don’t hear a terrible lot about sin from this preacher because Jesus himself, at least as the gospels present him, doesn’t raise the topic a lot himself.

Where we find Jesus discussing sin, it is usually in response to someone else who has raised it.2His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents that he was born blind?”

What a loaded question. It raises a whole heap of revelations within itself.

First, Jesus’ disciples appear to be buying into the generally accepted idea of the time, reinforced by leaders of temple and synagogue, that personal affliction is the consequence of grievous sin.
But what if you’re born with the affliction? How can a baby, before he has seen the light of day, be accountable for “missing the mark?”

That’s what the word “sin” means. It was a military term used for archers in shooting practice.

A baby hasn’t even learned how to take aim at the target yet. So is the affliction the result of something his parents have done?

The disciples raise this not as a medical question, but a moral one. It was made moral by the systematic construction of a fortress of rules and regulations established by the religious elite – who’s in and who’s out, who can be included in the community and who must be shunned.To be born blind, lame, deaf or otherwise afflicted was to bring shame on your family and community. Somebody somewhere had sinned against God and this was the consequence.

The disciples have been hanging around Jesus long enough to realise that, with authority and authenticity, he was a challenge to some well worn conventions.

Their question is not only about this particular blind person, but humanity in general.

“Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents that he was born blind?”

In John’s gospel, this question is not just academic, nor is it just moral, nor even merely existential. It goes to the very heart of who we are and how we live with who we are. It is a universal question. Why do I make this assertion?

In the whole of chapter 9, we do not learn this man’s name. It is a recognised convention in the study of John’s gospel that un-named character is representative of everyone. It is also a recognised convention that John’s gospel is loaded with metaphors.

The underlying question mouthed through the disciples is this:

“What is the blindness that we are all born with? Is it a fault within us? Or is it inherited?”

Heard this way, Jesus response is very instructive. “Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him. 4We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming when no one can work. 5As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”

This is why this preacher doesn’t speak of sin all that often.

We all know that we “miss the mark.”

We all know how often we succumb to “blindness.”Just as it is unnecessary to speak of the act of breathing to get oxygen into our blood – it is of little use to speak of that of which we are acutely aware in a way that leads to depression and self destruction.

It’s far better to draw attention to and celebrate that which Jesus himself fetes – “God’s works that are revealed in us.” Because that is what we have difficulty accepting.

We know the sin – it dogs us day in and day out – but we struggle to recognise and accept God’s works that are revealed in us. And in my humble opinion, that’s what a preacher of the gospel needs to be building on.

Some will come back at me and say I am denying the power of sin.

I come back and say, “Be careful, you do not deny the power of the gospel.”

Unpack the rest of John chapter 9 and observe what happens.

It is the ruling elite, those dedicated to religious gate-keeping that draw the line in the sand and want to keep the man born blind out. The trouble is he now sees and their carefully constructed and maintained balustrade of rules and regulations all faithfully built on the laws of Moses, majestically crumbles.

Of course, someone has to pay. His frightened parents? The man himself who challenges their own metaphorical blindness by stating the obvious?

They finally trace this outrage to Jesus himself. This interloper who not only upsets the religious applecart by healing outcasts without official authority but in the forbidden space of the Sabbath!
(This brings to mind my favourite quote from the medieval German church reformer, Martin Luther “Be a sinner and sin mightily, but more mightily believe and rejoice in Christ.”)

But do you see what has happened?

What begins as a question about “sin” and personal or inherited accountability becomes a conflict between self-appointed religious authorities backed by centuries of tradition and the “official line” and Jesus, who opens the eyes of the blind.

Do you get it?

My mother gets it. She’s not too impressed with us theologically trained impresarios – we bamboozle her with our jargon. But she gets it – her eyes are open.

When she was working, a colleague of a rather enthusiastic fundamentalist bent was pressing her on what she thought of sin and the works of the devil.

“Oh, I don’t have time to think about all that,” she replied. “I’d rather just think about Jesus.”
Do you hear the man born blind?

25…One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.”

Shelley Douglass, once contributing editor to Sojourners magazine says:

The formerly blind man makes it very simple: I was born blind, and now I see! Having experienced this miracle of healing, he cannot fathom why the leaders of the people quibble over inessential—why he was born blind, that he was healed on the Sabbath. God's action breaking into history is no respecter of human laws, and the crucial point is simply this: I SEE!

This sight that we gain through Jesus is a dangerous thing. In John's gospel we see the blind man's parents distancing themselves from him because to claim Jesus—to see him as Lord—is to be declared a sinner by the community, and forced out of the synagogue. At the same time, Jesus (the Christian community) declares that if we CLAIM sight, we will be judged as though we do in fact see. To claim Jesus is to open ourselves to Jesus' message—from that point on, our own lives should begin to reveal the same signs seen in Jesus' life.

Dangerous indeed.

As we walk through this Lent we ask ourselves a … question: How often do I quibble with inessentials to avoid facing the gospel? …

You may not hear this preacher use the word “sin” often – but I hope you will find me pointing to Jesus who “opens eyes” and makes it possible for all born blind to see.

Born in the night

2008-02-18T02:30:00.000+09:00

John 3:1-17 - 17th February, 2008

3Now there was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews. 2He came to Jesus by night and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God.” 3Jesus answered him, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.” 4Nicodemus said to him, “How can anyone be born after having grown old? Can one enter a second time into the mother’s womb and be born?” 5Jesus answered, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit. 6What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit. 7Do not be astonished that I said to you, ‘You must be born from above.’ 8The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” 9Nicodemus said to him, “How can these things be?” 10Jesus answered him, “Are you a teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things? 11“Very truly, I tell you, we speak of what we know and testify to what we have seen; yet you do not receive our testimony. 12If I have told you about earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you about heavenly things? 13No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. 14And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, 15that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. 16“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. 17“Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.
________________________________________
The New Revised Standard Version, copyright 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

When I was a youngster, I spent many a long summer holiday staying with my cousins’ family in the Mt Lofty Ranges. This was long before the freeway went through. One really had the feeling of being a long way from suburban life, spending days in a rambling stone farmhouse amongst thickly wooded slopes. My cousins had a favourite game that I eagerly looked forward to each holiday – “Murder in the Dark.” To play it, one needs complete pitch blackness, such as you could only get deep in the hills on moonless nights. By light of a hurricane lamp, my cousins and their friends would draw scraps of paper from a shoe-box. Most were blank, but three had scrawled on them a role description - murderer, victim, detective.

After we had drawn our scraps of paper, my oldest cousin would blow out the lamp and in pitch blackness, we would wait. Soon there would be an ear-piercing scream, and someone would hurriedly relight the lamp. The victim was already dutifully sprawled on the ground; and while the rest of us feigned innocence the detective would begin interrogations. Eventually the murderer would be identified.

The thrill of the dark with all its danger, mystery and intrigue was a highlight of the game. But so was the relief of the light of the hurricane lamp, by which clues, reactions, and signs – all critical to the work of the “detective” – could be revealed.

The eagerness with which my eight year old self anticipated playing this game was a strange mixture of fear and courage. The surroundings were less than familiar, my cousins and their friends were not well-known to me, and my imagination was finely enough honed to bring a semblance of reality to the drama that was being played out.

I have been wondering if similar dynamics were not in play when the conversation between Nicodemus and Jesus as recorded in John’s gospel took place.

Certainly there are differences.

These are not children at play in the dark – rather the extremely adult and authoritative leader of Israel uses the cover of night to pay Jesus a secret visit.

This was no game – but like the game, big questions were at stake. Did the adrenalin pump through Nicodemus’ arteries as he made his way through the dark back alleys of Jerusalem to his rendezvous with Jesus?

In our game, the coveted role was that of “detective.” Nicodemus begins playing this role, initiating his encounter with Jesus, not with a question, but a leading statement; “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God.” Is his purpose to evoke some self-disclosure from Jesus? The Sanhedrin, protector of all things pertaining to living life well under God’s law and protection, would certainly have a vested interest in knowing where this country preacher with such a wide following had come from. But Nicodemus suddenly finds himself under scrutiny.

He is in a conversation of such depth and subtlety that he becomes confused.

It is often like that when the lamp is lit – we blink our eyes and it takes a moment or two for our vision to become adjusted to the realities and forms that the light reveals.

Nicodemus has come out of the cover of darkness. Jesus’ words illuminate the darkness.

(3) Jesus answered him, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.”

Nicodemus is bewildered and disoriented.

(4) Nicodemus said to him, “How can anyone be born after having grown old? Can one enter a second time into the mother’s womb and be born?” (5) Jesus answered, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit. (6) What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit. (7) Do not be astonished that I said to you, ‘You must be born from above.’ (8) The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” (9) Nicodemus said to him, “How can these things be?” 10 Jesus answered him, “Are you a teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things?

This, I believe, is where the conversation ends. The rest of the passage is commentary.

We are left with a highly respected and honoured teacher and leader, having emerged from the dark shadows, which, in John’s gospel, represent the depths of the mystique of the universal shadow, embracing the darkness of our individual and collective humanity.

We will encounter Nicodemus on two other occasions in John’s gospel, both in a light that has Nicodemus sympathetic to and protective of Jesus.

But this first of encounters is worth staying with on this second Sunday in Lent, for it prompts us to ask “How often does the darkness delude us?”

It was Wednesday that the Prime Minister and the Opposition Leader of this country said “sorry” on our behalf to Australia’s aborigines. “Sorry Day” has come and gone. We have had several days to reflect on the aftermath.

If we thought the word “sorry” was going to quickly fix everything, we would have been deluded. The day necessarily brought many feelings and emotions to the surface, for those tendering the apology and those receiving it, for those in favour and those against. Grief, sadness, sorrow, anger, fury, misunderstanding, hate, malice, confusion all found expression in what followed.

Our collective dark side was exposed and examined in the light. Many of us did not like confronting what we saw. When a boil is lanced, however, the infected, diseased material leeches out. It is part of the process of healing, and it will not be hurried.

The aftermath of the official national “sorry” is going to keep us exposed to some dark spaces.
May the light in Jesus’ words to Nicodemus keep us focused. Hear and understand them.

(6) What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit. (7) Do not be astonished that I said to you, ‘You must be born from above.’ (8) The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”

Let us not underestimate the role that you and I have to play in bringing the understanding of the world from darkness to light.

Jim Wallis, founder of Sojourners says:

… We can't see [the wind], we can't understand it, and we certainly can't control it. But we can see its results.

The heart of Christian faith is not intellectual truth, or theology, or academic and abstract concepts, which can be discussed, understood, and therefore controlled like the law, with which Nicodemus was so familiar. At the heart of Christian faith is a mystery which must be experienced to be known…

Can we live with this mystery or do we demand certainty?

It is easy to identify this mystery, this wind that comes from we know not where and blows in a direction we know not, with the Holy Spirit. John’s gospel is indeed the gospel of the Holy Spirit, for we see her gentle, work wafting in and through the words that are thick and layered with meaning – in our dark places as well as those that are illumined.

Nicodemus bought more than he bargained for when he emerged from the shadows into the brightness of Jesus’ presence. It is possible for us to experience the same in the darkest places of our Lenten reflections.

Sorry Day Temptations

2008-02-11T02:30:00.000+09:00

Matthew 4:1-11, 1st Sunday in Lent, 10th Feb 2008

........The Spirit led Jesus up into a remote wilderness area so that he could be challenged and prove himself. He went without food for forty days and nights out there, and after that he could have eaten a horse. Then, sensing his weakness, the devil tried every trick in the book to lure him off-track. Playing on his hunger, the devil said, “If you are really the Son of God, prove it! Say the word and turn these rocks into loaves of bread.”
........Jesus answered him, “As the scriptures say,
‘It takes a lot more than bread to make life worth living.
........It is the words that God speaks, every one of them,
................that really feed us.’”
........The devil decided to try quoting scripture too. Taking Jesus to the holy city and standing him on top of the Temple’s highest tower, the devil said, “If you are really the Son of God, prove it to everyone. Throw yourself down from the top of this tower so that God can fulfil the scriptures that say:
‘God will give instructions to the angels about you,’
‘They will catch you as you fall
........and you won’t so much as stub your toe on the rocks below.’”
But Jesus couldn’t be budged and replied, “The scriptures also say, ‘don’t go trying to test out the Lord your God.’”
........Making another try, the devil took Jesus up onto a very high mountain with panoramic views of all the world’s nations in all their splendour, and said to him, “I can make the world your oyster. I will give you all this if you just get down on your knees and worship me. Just acknowledge me as number one — and it’s all yours.”
........But Jesus was not taken in, and he said, “Get out of here, Satan! The scriptures leave no doubt about who we are to call number one:
‘Worship the Lord your God and no other.
Give your whole-hearted service
........to the Lord your God and no other.’”
........With that, the devil cleared off, and suddenly God’s angels showed up and took care of everything Jesus needed.
©2002 Nathan Nettleton LaughingBird.net

I have come to understand that the testing of Jesus in the wilderness features as one of those “thin places” in the landscape of the human soul.

Peel back the layers of the onion, and you’ll understand what I mean.

The first layer is our “Sunday School” orientation to this story which features prominently in the accounts of the beginnings of Jesus ministry in the gospels.

We hear it first as a morality tale with the appropriate accompanying hymn – “Yield not to temptation, for yielding is sin.” Jesus was able to stand up to the devil and when we “ask the Saviour to help you”, so can we. It is an important initial lesson on the road of discipleship, but we are not meant to stop there, else we are only skimming the surface of human experience and the divine encounter.

We peel the second layer back when we discover that Matthew’s gospel tells the story in a way that is unique to Matthew. Much more expansive than Mark’s account and almost identical to Luke’s documentary, it is Matthew’s context that makes the difference.

We have come to understand Matthew’s style of modelling his gospel on the Torah, the received ancient teaching of Israel traced back to Moses and his encounter with Yahweh on Sinai.

When Matthew’s Jesus is tested in the wilderness beyond the Jordan, we are meant to see echoes of the testing of the man and the woman in the Eden of Genesis. The very strong hint here is to see the continuing story of the testing of Adam (that’s you and me). Although Adam fails in Eden’s lavish garden, Adam overcomes in the Judean desert. Matthew introduces an archetypal understanding (a base reality) of our human condition here.

It explains why we can be, at the same time, melancholy and hopeful.

We carry Adam’s darkness, but, in Jesus, we see a new expression of Adam, one that meets the testing, that overcomes and, for the moment, is victorious. But it is not over, for more testing always lies ahead. In the meantime “God’s angels show up and take care of everything …needed.”

Seen this way, the story of the testing of Jesus suddenly becomes much more personal.

His testing points become my testing points, and not just vicariously.

“Turn the stones to bread” challenges my tendency to look for the short cut and the quick fix, to avoid confronting the depths of human need, to evade engagement with the suffering of the one alongside and the painful empathy that is required to work through to full rounded wholeness and health.

“Jump off the temple and let God’s angels catch you,” tests my resistance to the desire to manipulate a following through creating spectacle. It would be so easy in this age of technology and easy access to many fields of expertise and a culture where “marketing strategies” wield disproportionate influence on our lives. Surely such is testing to God’s patience.

“All this I will give you, “says the Accuser, “if you will just get down on your knees and worship me.” All this – political systems of power, financial security, domination over others – my, how the siren call of these has beckoned us over the years. How the church through the ages has fallen for it big time. What a strain it is at all times to allow our mouth and hearts and souls – our mind and our strength, to speak the words of Jesus.

‘Worship the Lord your God and no other.

Give your whole-hearted service

........to the Lord your God and no other.’”

This is why we have the season of Lent. We have a fresh opportunity to align and renew ourselves with the spirit of Jesus, best seen I would suggest, not in his triumph but in his struggle, for there is no quick express trip to the victory of Easter.

There is only one road to an understanding of the triumph and it begins in the Judean wilderness. There the preparations are made for the journey.

Each Lent we ensure the hope and victory associated with our call to be an Easter people is never disengaged from the struggle and the suffering of the way Jesus trod and beckoned us to follow.

This year our Lenten journey takes place in a unique context.

Wednesday is shaping up to be a significant day in our nation’s history.

At 7.00 a.m. Perth time, the Prime Minister, on behalf of federal parliament, will be making a statement of apology to the Aborigines of Australia, specifically in relation to children forcibly removed and officially disengaged from their families.

It will be a day of great relief for many, signifying the beginning of a healing in our nation’s soul.

It will also take us into a time of significant testing.

The word “sorry” is going to be used. It is a significant power word for many reasons – positively with associations for healing, reconciliation and the empowerment for both giver and receiver to move on - negatively for those for whom the word evokes fear of retribution in the form of litigation and claims for compensation.

There are points of testing for all who are working out where they will fit this Wednesday.
In an address last Friday to the Institute of Public Administration Australia – Western Australia Division, the Governor of Western Australia,

Lieutenant General John Sanderson, in his capacity as Special Adviser on Indigenous Affairs to the Government of Western Australia, said

In recent times I have taken to asserting that most of our conversations about the relationship between Indigenous and non Indigenous Australians have been taking place in a philosophical vacuum.

I have come to this conclusion because I see little agreement on what the aim of this discussion is. ‘Closing the gap’, or ‘overcoming Indigenous disadvantage’ don’t seem to me to resonate with the strategic clarity needed for the times we are entering.

I have long been a proponent of the view that reconciliation is the only foundation of long term and enduring strategies - everywhere. Some of you might have difficulty with such a proposition, believing that there are some things you cannot be reconciled to – like evil in its purest forms and slavery for example. But this is not what I mean when I contend that reconciliation is the only foundation of long term strategy. What I do mean is that unless you can come together and agree on what sort of a future you desire, and work out the pathways to that future then you are doomed to be in a constant state of struggle – potentially a struggle to the death for one party, or into a state of enduring misery for everyone.

This strategic approach does not mean compromising the fundamental principles of your existence, although it does mean questioning them to make sure that they really are fundamental. Being certain about something without questioning it is the most dangerous of conditions. It can lead to you being trapped in a situation of no retreat when you are surprised by a sudden turn of events.

At its best, reconciliation is about finding win-win solutions for everyone and it always begins with a confession about the terrible things you have done to each other – if indeed you have. Saying sorry is a part of that. If you can’t do that then reconciliation will always remain elusive.

In the rest of the speech, drawing from his expert experience as a military commander in some of the world’s hotspots, the Governor gives a brilliant description of strategies that apply in the business of reconciling national groups and equipping disempowered people.
(See full speech at http://www.blogger.com/www.wa.ipaa.org.au )

This is hard work, however, and there is no retirement into an easy way forward.

If the “sorry” words become “stones turned into bread” – easy fixes that say “Well we’ve done it” and then turn our backs, dismissing complex stories that require us to sit down in listening circles to plan our work for the way ahead, we will have yielded to temptation.

If the “sorry” word is used as some kind of a magical miracle formula without the effort and sincerity required to make it work in our conversations and goodwill amongst indigenous people, we will have missed the mark.

And if the “sorry” word becomes the focus for manipulative power plays by either giver or receiver, the Accuser will have won the day.

Followers of the Way of Christ have a critical role to play in the events surrounding Wednesday. We have been on the journey ourselves over the years, enacting symbolically, taking part in those early listening circles, swapping banners with the Coolbellup Aboriginal Fellowship in 1997, and in 1999 the presentation of the Sorry Book with other local churches to Noongar elders.
As this country moves into a new phase of relationship with its original inhabitants, followers of the Way are called by the Christ of the Temptations to be with him as he treads the path that leads to completion.

Mark Riessen, Blackwood Church of Christ in South Australia, reflects on the discipline of the journey we are on.

[Isaiah 58] says that if your disciplines don’t change you or redirect your journey then they are discovered for what they really are, a poor attempt to win favor with God.

However Isaiah responds on God’s behalf,

‘This is the kind of fasting I choose: cut the bonds of oppression, undo the yoke of injustice, set the oppressed free. Share your bread with the hungry, open your doors to the homeless. Give your coat to those who shiver, and don’t hide yourself from your own family.

Do this and light shall begin to dawn, and very quickly healing will be yours, my righteousness shall go ahead of you, and my glory shall follow your every step. Then you will call out for help, and I will answer. I will say to you, “Here I am, my child.”’

Lent isn’t just about a pious abstinence from the things of this world; it is a solid commitment to participate in changing it. May you commit to the journey of such things that melt the heart of God, and may your heart also be transformed as you participate in the journey God longs for us.

http://markriessen.blogspot.com/

Transfiguration in the Ordinary

2008-02-03T02:30:00.000+09:00

Transfiguration Sunday - 3 February 2008

Matthew 17:1-9

17 Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and his brother John and led them up a high mountain, by themselves. 2 And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became dazzling white. 3 Suddenly there appeared to them Moses and Elijah, talking with him. 4 Then Peter said to Jesus, “Lord, it is good for us to be here; if you wish, I will make three dwellings here, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” 5 While he was still speaking, suddenly a bright cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud a voice said, “This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him!” 6 When the disciples heard this, they fell to the ground and were overcome by fear. 7 But Jesus came and touched them, saying, “Get up and do not be afraid.” 8 And when they looked up, they saw no one except Jesus himself alone. 9 As they were coming down the mountain, Jesus ordered them, “Tell no one about the vision until after the Son of Man has been raised from the dead.”

The New Revised Standard Version, copyright 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

We’ve not stayed long in Epiphany. An early Easter predicates an early Lent which in turn means that we come to the mountain of Transfiguration much sooner than is customary.
We have dwelt in the season of light and celebration of God’s self-revelation for but a brief moment.

Perhaps, with Peter, we would like to stay here longer, but Jesus calls us now to descend the mountain with him. The Epiphany glory of the call to discipleship will, in a few days, become the Lenten call to the cost of discipleship.

How apt that Trandfiguration, the event of demarcation between the glory and the cost, should occur today, the first Sunday in February, when the hard regular work of the church year comes out of its summer break, when we crank up all the groups and programs that have been in recess and roll up our sleeves and get under way.

This week, Prime Ministers and Presidents have rallied their respective nations and summarised highlights and actions for the coming months.

It seems to me that church leaders stand today in a similar place of opportunity. Here’s what lies ahead for us at Wembley Downs as your elected board and elders implement strategies for mission and service in this district and, indeed, the Western Suburbs of Perth.

Let me remind you of some of the prominent features of this strategy, now in its second year of implementation.

Ministers of Churches of Christ in Perth’s western suburbs have been meeting regularly over the last two years for the purpose of fellowship, mutual support and networking. One immediate outcome is the identification of strengths and gifts in each congregation so that churches might avoid unnecessary duplication but, further, encourage churches to offer their gifts and strengths beyond their local communities to the whole of the church and community in the Western Suburbs.

This can be represented in this diagram.

The contribution of this church currently is the beginnings of two parallel congregations that reflect the legacy, the DNA, the personality of this church – PeaceChurch and Sacred Spaces.

What is a parallel congregation? Our Church Life Review in 2006 identified a twin challenge. One is the result of a natural process, the greying of our congregation and the issue of sustainability of mission in a demographic that reflects our language and sub-culture. Currently there is much energy and productivity that finds expression in celebration of what happens here Sunday mornings – our Mountain of Transfiguration times!

Parallel congregations attempt to replicate the same effectiveness, productivity and celebration at different times, possibly different places and with different sub cultures.

With PeaceChurch and Sacred Spaces, this church, on behalf of the Western suburbs network, is making some stumbling attempts to lay the basis for some new mission groupings which may or may not develop into congregations in their own right.

PeaceChurch meets tonight around the green agenda – what does it mean for individuals and community groups to see taking care of the environment as a service to God.

Next month Scott Vawser visits to share from his “listening journey” amongst aboriginal communities in the North West. What will this mean as aboriginal issues for reconciling return to the national agenda?

Sacred Spaces expands and applies the contemplative ministries amongst us as we make more intentional connections with Dayspring, the Taizé services at St Columba’s in Scarborough and the Christian Meditation Community of WA. It is a potential Tuesday night congregation for which here are growing expressions of interest.

The Western Suburbs network is currently experiencing a great deal of fluidity as some of the churches go through structural and leadership changes. Your board and elders will be in a combined retreat with other local leadership teams on February 16. Be sure to hold them in your prayers.

Speaking of prayer, today we launch the 2008 edition of the Prayer Diary compiled and maintained by Dot Cant. I know many of you use this regularly to keep the particular features of our close and wide community before you as well as your prayerful awareness of one another. It is available either as a hard copy or it can be emailed to you if you prefer to use it on your computer. See Dot and let her know your preference.

While PeaceChurch and sacred Spaces are our major new thrusts for the year 2008, the rest of our church and community ministries are getting under way with the same dedicated and enthusiastic leadership.

Guiding it all are an excellent board and eldership team. This morning provides an excellent context for us to acknowledge the role that we call them to play amongst us and to offer our prayers in support of them and their families. They are not aware that I was going to call on them to participate in this way this morning, but I’m asking them to stand as I call their name.

Elders – John Beard, Brian Kidd, Margaret Kirby, Lesley Wishart

Board – Graeme Black, Dot Cant, Michael Charteris, Wendy Hewitt, John Penrose, Clive Robartson, Muriel White, Ray Wishart

Prayer of Dedication.

This blessing reflects advice from Cormac, who was known as the Irish Solomon to those who were to become kings and warriors.

God’s blessing be upon you in this office. May you benot too conceited or you will lose the bonds of trustnot too naïve or you will be deceivednot too diffident or you will fail to convincenot too talkative or you will not be heardnot too silent or you will not be heedednot too hard or you will be brokennot too feeble or you will be disregarded.

In Christ’s name, may God grant you power – the power of reason, the power of vision, the power of speech, the power of creativity, the power of movement. Amen.

At large ministers’ gatherings, the ‘ministers from large mega-churches sometimes ask how many are “on staff” at this church. I usually reply, “Oh about sixty.”

Everyone please stand for prayer in the form of another Celtic blessing:

May your work be faithful.
May your work be honest.
May your work be blessed.
May your work bless others.
May your work be unitedlike fingers on a hand

In Jesus name.

From the glory of epiphany to the cost of lent. Somehow it’s all tied up together. We need not be overwhelmed by either the glory or the cost. Let’s hear some good advice from Fr. Larry Gillick, S.J.

"Don't sweat the small stuff," we say, "and everything is small stuff." But there are some problems with these cute little ideas. We tend to stand in awe of the larger, more mighty things of creation: mountains, oceans, powerful persons. The word awesome is a popular response nowadays to anything exciting or pleasing. We are "megaficient" and "superific" in our expectations and searchings.

God, on the other hand, seems to have a pattern of making much out of little. God invited the youngest, the one who stuttered, and the unimportant to be "significant." God chose a young woman to be the first to receive the Body of Christ. This human person, Jesus, called fishermen, tax collectors, the unimportant to be "significant." This word is packed with the spirituality of reverence.

Signum is the Latin word for "sign" and facio the word for "fashioning." The importance of all creation, and especially human persons, is that they are significant. All are signs which point beyond themselves. The journey toward a more reverent spirituality begins with deciding which way we point or direct our actions. Mountains point upward, trees and even we ourselves grow upward, pointing to the beyond. Reverence is a way of looking at all creation as an invitation, bearing God's fingerprints, with a little RSVP at the bottom. Reverence is how we receive the invitation and join our fingerprints to those of the Creator, Who reverences us.

If the wonder of the season of Epiphany awoke such reverence within us, the daunting task that lies ahead with its sometimes mundane and vexing demands can do no less.

Ordinary folk, extraordinary light

2008-01-28T02:30:00.000+09:00

Author: Dennis Ryle

Epiphany 3 - 27 January 2008

Matthew 4:12-23

12 Now when Jesus heard that John had been arrested, he withdrew to Galilee. 13 He left Nazareth and made his home in Capernaum by the sea, in the territory of Zebulun and Naphtali, 14 so that what had been spoken through the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled: 15 “Land of Zebulun, land of Naphtali, on the road by the sea, across the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles— 16 the people who sat in darkness have seen a great light, and for those who sat in the region and shadow of death light has dawned.” 17 From that time Jesus began to proclaim, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”

18 As he walked by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea—for they were fishermen. 19 And he said to them, “Follow me, and I will make you fish for people.” 20 Immediately they left their nets and followed him. 21 As he went from there, he saw two other brothers, James son of Zebedee and his brother John, in the boat with their father Zebedee, mending their nets, and he called them. 22 Immediately they left the boat and their father, and followed him.
23 Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and curing every disease and every sickness among the people.

The New Revised Standard Version, copyright 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

This, of course, is the Australia Day weekend, and one of the features of this season is the announcement of the names of those ordinary every day citizens who have been singled out by the Australia Day Council for particular honour and recognition for services rendered to the community. The selection process is rigorous, with a nomination process, references, investigations, and panel deliberations. The eventual recipients of the awards are notified of the honours to be conferred on them sometime before the official announcements on Australia Day and they are sworn to secrecy. From the list of recipients is chosen an Australian of the Year, a Young Australian of the Year and a Senior Australian of the Year. All recipients receive a kind of ambassador status, but especially those chosen in the Australian of the Year categories.

One of the notable facts in this whole process is that nobody nominates themselves.

You can’t fill out a form that says “I wish to apply for an Order of Australia” (well, you can, but it wouldn’t get very far!). These are community awards and they need to be identified, recognised and affirmed by the community in which one participates.

Compare this process with the way that Matthew’s gospel presents the process of becoming a follower of Jesus.

There is no nomination process – but, contrary to understood contemporary practice, neither do you just rock up and say “I want to be a follower.”

It was the customary in the ancient Greco-Roman world for great teachers to have people coming to them, asking to be their disciples. It was also the practice in the great rabbinic schools of Judaism.

The students chose their teacher. Disciples chose their rabbi.

Jesus, on the other hand, does not allow tradition to get in his way. Not long after his baptism, he goes about recruiting his own disciples. He extends a call to join up with his movement. Four fishermen are the first to receive the invitation.
In the laconic details we have available, we learn that Jesus simply says, "Come, follow me."

These four fishermen are the first of twelve chosen by Jesus to be the vanguard of the movement giving expression to that which eclipses all national and historical allegiances – the foretold “great light” that comes to all who sit in darkness, the light that has dawned over the darkness of death.

Four rude fishermen!
One third of Jesus management team – selected by Jesus alone.

What? No nominations from their community?
What were their qualifications?
Where did they study theology?
Where are the testimonials to their moral character?
Were they regular attenders at the synagogue?
Did they tithe?

What criteria did Jesus use to pick these individuals? Did he know what a headache he was in for?

Anyone would no better than to put two brothers known as the "Sons of Thunder" with a working group. Why didn’t Jesus?

The only qualifications the first disciples seemed to possess was the ability to step behind Jesus when he said, "Come, follow me."

Jesus' call of Simon and Andrew, James and John, seems to be on an ordinary day.

It doesn’t even occur at a religious service with the gentle strains of “Just As I Am” playing in the background. There is no indication of a service of stirring hymns, riveting testimonies and a spell-binding sermon.

All we have is a simple imperative in the midst of an ordinary working day, “Come, follow me.”

Writer Nancy Sehested says:

God's epiphanies like to find their way into the places where people are living and working and sitting in the darkness. For those sitting in "the region and shadow of death," light is a dawning of hope out of a vast darkness of despair. When the choir is singing and the spotlights shining, it is harder to see the light of God. The manufactured moment is not God's preferred time to make an appearance.

Maybe Jesus chooses ordinary people because they are the ones who can best light the darkness.

Where are the dark places we ordinary people, followers of Jesus live?
What epiphanies might God be planning to reveal through you and me as we walk through these dark places?

Answers to such questions are best revealed by stories. We hear them and we recognise their truth in our own stories. Listen to this one from Bart Campolo, an urban minister, who writes for Sojouner’s Magazine:

I Hate It When All You Can Do Is Pray
by Bart Campolo

I'm not friendly with the white-shirted drug dealers who work the corners near my house yet, but at least they acknowledge me as a neighbor now, instead of looking me over as a prospective buyer or an undercover cop. It's not fear that keeps me away from them, I think, but rather cold, hard realism. Until they fall, those hardcore guys simply are not "get-able" for anything less viscerally exciting than street life. I hate to break it to all those Christian rappers out there, but loving God and loving people does not qualify in that category.

The fact that I don't walk up to those guys doesn't mean that I don't keep them in mind or pray for them when I walk by. On the contrary, I am fascinated by what goes on, and careful to notice if and when the kids we know start hanging around with the wrong people. And I am always on the lookout for Shareef.

I first saw him on a drug corner two years ago, when we moved here. Shareef is 16 now, but back then he was 14 and looked even younger. He always seemed more like the dealers' mascot than one of them, but he was a hard-looking mascot at that, and he was out there all the time.
Everybody told me Shareef was a bad kid, so it wasn't surprising that I only got to know him when he tried to sneak into one of our by-invitation-only dinner parties. I turned him away from that one, but, against my better judgment, I invited him for the following week and, to my great surprise, he turned up again, right on time.

As soon as I greeted him, he handed me his cell phone and told me his grandmother wanted to talk to me, to make sure he was welcome. We'd never met, but as soon as I confirmed his invitation, she spoke directly.

"You can feed him if you want, but don't turn your back on him for a minute, or he'll steal from you," she said wearily. "I don't care if it's a church, he'll steal or he'll get in a fight if you don't watch out. Understand, I love the boy … but I've got to warn you. He's not right. He's never been right."

It was a strange beginning to what continues to be a strange relationship, with a woman who's had her heart broken again and again, and with a kid who's had every card stacked against him from the beginning, save one. Shareef may be a streetwise, bi-polar, learning-disabled orphan with ADD, a drug habit, and a well-deserved criminal record, but he is so vulnerable and so oddly charming that his grandmother and lots of other good people keep trying to help him.

Unfortunately, at this point, it seems we're overmatched.

Sometimes, when we meet on the street or when he stops by our house, Shareef is energetic and funny, and he talks about getting a job, staying clear of his dealer friends, and doing positive things with his life. Other days, when I see him hanging with the older boys, his eyes are glassy and he barely acknowledges me.

A few weeks ago, after going to the church where his grandmother serves as treasurer, he stole the offering before she could deposit it at the bank and disappeared. Knowing betrayal comes cheap on the street, she and his social worker posted signs around the neighborhood offering $50 to whoever brought him home.

A few hours later, there he was, literally kicking and screaming as three of his "friends" carried him around the corner and threw him onto her front yard in front of a laughing crowd of bystanders. At that point Shareef's uncle, a muscular ex-con just home from prison, pinned him against a fence and scared away the crowd. I was there, too, doing what I could to help, trying to talk sense to the boy while his grandmother called the police. They locked him up for his own good, but it was ugly.

I hate it when all you can do is pray. I don't understand prayer very well, and around here it often feels like a waste of time. I know that's wrong, or at least wrong to say, so you don't have to write back to me about it. Better that you should pray for me, eh?

Anyway, yesterday I was sitting at the dining room table searching for a way to start this letter when I heard someone knocking at the side door. When I opened it, there was Shareef, grinning from ear to ear.

"Hey Bart!" he exclaimed, "Can you come over to my grandmother's house with me? I've got a new foster family, and I'm back on my medication, and I'm doing real good, and the man I'm living with is named Charles Smithson, and he wrote a book about overcoming drugs and police brutality, and in two weeks I'm going to a real high school, and I'm only visiting home for a little while so … can you come right now?"

So I went, and got the whole story and more. We sat on Shareef's grandmother's front porch, me and him and her, along with his uncle and his social worker, talking about Shareef's good news and about Michael Vick (trust me, animal lovers, folks in the 'hood see that one way differently than you and me) and about a bunch of other stuff that I never dreamed I'd be talking about a few years ago. I think I even got a relational "in" with the ex-con uncle. It was beautiful.

Before I left, I asked everyone for a favor. We put our hands on the boy, and I prayed out loud, thanking God for what was happening and asking for more. At the end of the day, I may not understand or often enjoy prayer, and I may hate it when it's all you can do, but I'm definitely not above it and I never hope to be.

Earlier this month Robyn Quintana sent me some photos from Cusco in Peru. We know of the presence of the Quintana family amongst the rural and urban poor. Although health services and hospitals are there in Cusco, they are difficult to access when you are on the poverty line.

Robyn tells of how they became involved in advocacy for poor patients who had to sell their own blood in order to meet hospital expenses. This also led to a simple hospital visiting ministry. Here is Robyn’s story:
(Pictures not available for web version of sermon)

1. This is little "Blanca" ( means white) (Snow white = Blanca Nienve) Blanca and her mummy are from high in the mountains and Blanca has been malnourished from birth so now has trouble standing or even holding her head up. She is 4 but the size of a 1 year old. She loved seeing her photo as she had never seen herself in photo before and her mum looked everywhere for her special hat to make her even cuter!

2. This is the head nurse and she has said for us to come whenever we like and even more whenever we can.! Initially it was a little hard for rules as we bring the children to play with the kids but she not only makes us feel so welcome but rang ahead to trauma and told them to welcome us with open arms "no questions asked!"The words above her read. GOD IS IN YOU...LOVE HIM ABOVE ALL THINGS.The little yellow bears were given to us from a group from the UK and they are the BBC Children in Need Bear with a bandage on his head so we thought the hospital was the perfect place to give all 80 of them!We always take a little something for the nurses as keeping up their spirits is important in working conditions that are often frustrating and heartbreaking!

3. This is Milagros (Miracles) who has been in the hospital now for 10 weeks and so we have met her a few times. Her mother and 2 younger siblings were staying in the hospital next to her bed on steel chairs as they no longer could afford to stay even in the simplest place in Cusco and live too far away to enable them to travel. We had something special for each of them (as howd ya be sleeping on your school chair for a month.) Last time we visited she was very lonely as her mother had to return to Abancay with her brother and sister so she was very pleased to see us! She is a little angel and so brave!

4. This is Zulma and like all the kids love the activities we take for them to do. This is such a simple idea but makes a big difference for the kids. Zulma also has no one to visit her and so loved the kids visiting! This activity was a felt board of the Nativity scene and you should have heard some of the stories that came from it. It is a simple way for us to share the good news as well!

5. This is Mayra and Mathew with Zulma. Mayra is one of the girls from our Saturday activity mornings we have in the Hotel Marqueses Chapel. It is quite strange here using a church for anything else than mass or something "religious" ...."but let the children come unto me" is being used a lot more these days here!

16 the people who sat in darkness have seen a great light, and for those who sat in the region and shadow of death light has dawned.”

And Jesus employed a strategy of choosing ordinary people who in all their rawness and ordinariness, best fit his strategy for Epiphany – revealing light in dark places.

January is a Strange Month...

2008-01-21T02:30:00.000+09:00

Author: Dennis Ryle

Epiphany 2 20 January 2008

John 1:29-42

29The next day he saw Jesus coming toward him and declared, “Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! 30This is he of whom I said, ‘After me comes a man who ranks ahead of me because he was before me.’ 31I myself did not know him; but I came baptizing with water for this reason, that he might be revealed to Israel.” 32And John testified, “I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it remained on him. 33I myself did not know him, but the one who sent me to baptize with water said to me, ‘He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain is the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.’ 34And I myself have seen and have testified that this is the Son of God.” 35The next day John again was standing with two of his disciples, 36and as he watched Jesus walk by, he exclaimed, “Look, here is the Lamb of God!”
37The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus. 38When Jesus turned and saw them following, he said to them, “What are you looking for?” They said to him, “Rabbi” (which translated means Teacher), “where are you staying?” 39He said to them, “Come and see.” They came and saw where he was staying, and they remained with him that day. It was about four o”clock in the afternoon. 40One of the two who heard John speak and followed him was Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother. 41He first found his brother Simon and said to him, “We have found the Messiah” (which is translated Anointed). 42He brought Simon to Jesus, who looked at him and said, “You are Simon son of John. You are to be called Cephas” (which is translated Peter).

The New Revised Standard Version, copyright 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

January is a strange month. Nothing is ordinary. Routines familiar with the remaining 11 months are absent. This has a double whammy effect of increasing the perception of leisure time which is quickly filled by a variety of tasks, concerns and relationships that routine has allowed one to neglect. This season of the year is typically high with regard to domestic violence, criminal activity psychotic episodes and suicide.

Open the newspaper and one is typically assaulted by the bizarre and banal.
A 15 year old Melbourne schoolboy becomes an international anti-hero for throwing a party that gets out of control.

For a whole week the media fusses over who said what to whom in the World Test series.
While we in the great south land slip into the lazy hazy days of summer, the rest of the world blithely continues its intriguing and often tragic antics.

Wars, assassinations, long stretched out political campaigns, stock market dives, whaler chasing and natural disasters keep us simultaneously intrigued and fatigued.

In the meantime, the season of Epiphany challenges the January Australian church while she slumbers.

“The light of Christ has come into the world!”

The great and impressive figure of John the Baptist walks up and down the aisles and the rows – shaking us awake, shouting and pointing to his younger cousin, Jesus of Nazareth, declaring,

“Behold – here is the Lamb of God!”

January is a strange month. Nothing is ordinary.

Expect to be startled. Especially if you respond to John’s rousing declaration – if you look up and follow to where his finger is pointing - if, in fact, you do “Behold!”

Maybe you become like one of John’s disciples in the story. You look up and you begin to trace the steps of the one whom John is indicating. Your curiosity is piqued. You don’t want to lose this person – you discern that this is a moment of opportunity – a time to get a handle on John’s flowing and disturbing commentary on the day’s current events – and the radical challenges to become engaged in society shaking manner.

You follow him as he makes his way through the crowd.

He stops. You also stop, trying to keep a discreet distance. He turns, he gazes on you. It’s as if he can read both the confusion and the hunger that has risen in your soul.

“What are you looking for?” is the deeply disturbing question he asks you.

“What are you looking for?” What kind of question is that? How can I even know how to begin to answer it? Yet the question itself goes to the nub of the matter. The question is a challenge. There is something in my pendulum swing between restless activity and stupefied narcosis that shouts loudly and clearly that there is a something I’m looking for – but what is it?

Not wanting to avoid the question but equally not wanting to display my ignorance I answer Jesus question with my own question – “Where are you staying?”

Why would I ask a question like that?

January is a strange month. Nothing is ordinary.

“Where are you staying, Jesus?” This question buys me some time. Not knowing how to answer the question, “What are you looking for?” perhaps my question in reply is the more sophisticated version of, “ummm….errrr…could you repeat he question?” And the genius of it is that I can, for the next little while at least, locate Jesus at my convenience. There is something very insistent about his presence, and I’m not sure I can receive it all at once. If I can pin him down to a location, perhaps I can visit him at will and take him in small doses as it suits me.

But this is the gospel of the Apostle John. Bill Loader says,

There is always a lot happening in John’s gospel with multiple meanings and layers of interpretation. But out of the complexity emerges a clear theme. It is in this Jesus that we encounter the being of God in invitation to us to belong. That belonging is not something static but a relationship with an agenda: ‘that they might have life and have it in abundance’. Its obverse is also clear: taking away, getting rid of, confronting, disempowering the sin of the world. ‘The sin’ by definition is what destroys life and relationship. When we let that note linger, we can hear through it not only the cries of the human heart but also the cries of all humanity in the pain of violence, injustice and evil.

John’s gospel is like that: giving us key central themes of life and light, death and darkness, but we have to unpack them if they are not to remain remote and abstract.

http://wwwstaff.murdoch.edu.au/~loader/MtEpiphany2.htm

“Where are you staying?” could just be an enquiry about which motel are you at? Where can I find you so that perhaps I can make a breakfast appointment and ask you a few questions?

Or it could embrace a larger concern in John’s gospel – “Where are you abiding?” That is a soul question. It is the question a soul would ask when its mentor declares, “Behold, the Lamb of God,” and points out a figure that arouses your soul’s curiosity and hunger.

This not someone you just want to visit out of curiosity – this is someone to whom you may want to become welded. His abode becomes your abode – and in answer to his question “What are you looking for?” your soul’s deep answer is, “I am looking for where you are abiding” and it comes out, “Where are you staying?”

But Jesus knows that, hence his answer “Come and see.”

And that is the beginning of the story of engagement with the Light of the World, engagement with others as Andrew seeks to introduce Simon to the One he has found, and the inner change that Simon, under his new identity, Peter the Rock, begins to experience as he begins the journey of “”abiding in Christ.

January is a strange month. Nothing is ordinary.

Baptism: Ministers and Members

2008-01-14T02:30:00.000+09:00

Author: John Somerville

Last Sunday Sandra used a prayer from an Anglican resource which included the phrase: Ministers and Members.

Today we celebrate the baptism of Jesus and reflect upon our own baptism and what it means.
You will notice that I have a pile of old books with me. This is because I asked Dennis if I could preach one Sunday in January as it is 50 years since I went to the College of the Bible (COB) in Melbourne in 1958. John Oman concerning the ministry says: "to continue to bring forth things old and new, your treasure cannot be too well supplied" and as Paul said to Timothy (1Tim 4:13). “Give heed unto reading.”

As I look back over the past 50 years I note that there have been a great number of changes in our lives, but at the same time some things are and will continue to be certain, and constant.Frank Boreham was a Baptist preacher in New Zealand and Australia who wrote many books like this one: The Luggage of Life. He died in Melbourne in 1959. He loved watching cricket and one of his essays was titled Clean Bowled and included the following:

One thing has impressed me, as I watched these splendid contests the startling suddenness with which calamity swoops down upon a player. A man may bat most brilliantly for half a day. You watch him hour after hour...bowler after bowler is tried, but their task seems hopeless.

THEN A DOG YELPS BEHIND YOU. YOU TURN YOUR HEAD TO SEE AND IN THAT FRACTION OF A SECOND THERE IS A CLICK AND A CRY AND A CHEER....

We have been reminded this week of the changes that have come to the game of cricket over the years.

When I went to college in 1958, TV had just come to Melbourne for the 1956 Olympic Games. Think then of the changes in COMMUNICATION that have taken place during the past 50 years. For example now we can see instant replays during test matches.

This second book was published in 1957 and written by Lyle Williams, the principal of the COB when I was there. He was born in 1906 the same year as my father. It was he who told me of my mother's death at age 50 just six weeks after my getting to Melbourne. He taught me in lectures, using this book during my second year, what being a Christian meant and how best to serve Churches of Christ and much, much more. In relation to our theme : Baptism :Ministers and Members he writes (p.132):

We would emphasise that ordination is setting apart for a TASK rather than an office. One is set aside for a task as long as, in the judgement of the community(congregation) , he performs it diligently and effectively. The office is not something that exists in the form of status and privelege, but in terms of responsibility and effectiveness in a task.

This book is the bible I used over many years . The RSV which has been replaced by the NEW RSV . But verse Matt 3: 15 is still the same.

But Jesus answered John: LET IT BE SO NOW; FOR THUS IT IS FITTING FOR US TO FULFIL ALL RIGHTEOUSNESS.

I turn to another book by Eric Heaton, His servants the prophets, for a clue regarding RIGHTEOUSNESS.

Basically righteous means normal. To be made righteous (that is to be justified) means to be restored to normal...In Jeremiah 9:22 we read...I am the Lord who exercises loving kindness, judgement and righteousness , in the earth; for in these things I delight, says the Lord God.
Is not Jesus then affirming that for him his baptism is a sign that he represents God among the people called to show mercy and to bring God's judgement as to what is the way, the Truth and the Life, and to restore to normality the people of God .We as members of Churches of Christ, having been baptised into Christ are also called to be ministers, servants of Christ in our normal daily lives,whether we be ordained or not.

Perhaps it is worth noting that we set apart for special ministry elders, members of the board, carers of children, and others, they are given a task to perform on our behalf, rather than a superior status.

I turn now to the certainties the things which do not change.

I hold now in my hand the exercise book in which are found the wedding and funeral services which I have led since 1992.

On the occasion of Bruce Brown's mother in 1992 I used some words of William Wordsworth which I had used from time to time over many years before:

That best portion of a good person's life the little nameless , unremembered acts of kindness and of love.

It seems to me that this is what gives significance to any person's life.

I have been engaged in some special and memorable events at local, state national and international level and have heard great sermons and enjoyed marvellous music but what made most impact on me has always been the meeting of people who have shown kindness and love to others. This is what being a Christian requires of us day by day, in fact every day.
The other certainty is that in Jesus we have the best clue as to the character and purpose of God for this world.

Shortly, we are to sing a favourite hymn which I first came across in this book, the worship book for the 1975 WCC assembly in Nairobi, the same city that now features in the news from Kenya Africa. Among the resources is an affirmation of faith from the United Church of Christ in USA, drafted in 1959.

We believe in God, the Eternal Spirit, Father of our Lord Jesus Christ and our father , and to his deeds we testify.

He calls the worlds into being, creates man in his own image and sets before us the ways of life and death.

He seeks in holy love to save all people from aimlessness and sin.

He judges men and nations by his rigthteous will declared through prophets and apostles.

In Jesus Christ, the man of Nazereth, our crucified and risen Lord, he has come to us, and shared our common lot, conquering sin and death and reconciling the world to himself.

He bestows upon us his Holy Spirit, creating and renewing the church of Jesus Christ, binding in covenant faithful people of all ages tongues and races.

He calls us into his church

to accept the cost and joy of discipleship
to be his servants in the service of others
to proclaim the gospel to all the world and resist the powers of evil
to share in Christ's baptism and eat at his tableto join him in his passion and victory.

He promises to all who trust in him

forgiveness of sins and fullness of grace
courage in the struggle for justice and peace,
his presence in trial and rejoicing and
eternal life in his kingdom which has no end.

Blessing and honour , glory and power be unto him.

AMEN

In 1968 Disciples adopted a similar Affirmation of Faith including:

We confess that Jesus is the Christ the Son of the living God, and proclaim him Lord and Savior of the world.

In Christ's name and by his grace we accept our mission of witness and service to all people....

Through baptism into Christ we enter into newness of life and are made one with the whole people of God......

In the communion of the Holy Spirit we are joined together in discipleship and in obedience to Christ......

In the bonds of Christian faith we yield ourselves to Godthat we may serve the One whose kingdom has no end.

To put it more simply, in the words of scripture as stated by Jesus our Lord and Saviour:

To love God and to love our neighbour is the secret of life.

By the grace of God so may we live.

So - What's With the Wise Guys

2008-01-07T02:30:00.000+09:00

Author: Dennis Ryle

Epiphany 6 January 2008

Matthew 2:1-12 The Visit of the Wise Men

In the time of King Herod, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, asking, ‘Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews? For we observed his star at its rising, and have come to pay him homage.’ When King Herod heard this, he was frightened, and all Jerusalem with him; and calling together all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Messiah was to be born. They told him, ‘In Bethlehem of Judea; for so it has been written by the prophet: “And you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah;for from you shall come a ruler who is to shepherd my people Israel.” ’

Then Herod secretly called for the wise men and learned from them the exact time when the star had appeared. Then he sent them to Bethlehem, saying, ‘Go and search diligently for the child; and when you have found him, bring me word so that I may also go and pay him homage.’ When they had heard the king, they set out; and there, ahead of them, went the star that they had seen at its rising, until it stopped over the place where the child was. When they saw that the star had stopped, they were overwhelmed with joy. On entering the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother; and they knelt down and paid him homage. Then, opening their treasure-chests, they offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they left for their own country by another road.

The New Revised Standard Version (Anglicized Edition), copyright 1989, 1995 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

As the smouldering backdrops hold up charred branches, silently testifying to the annual season of death in our bushfire season, we make our way with the flickering light of Epiphany. New Year hope makes its hesitant way through bleak landscapes of rising interest rates, African genocide and political hype. We are not surprised when hope stumbles and falters. But this is Epiphany. Manger danger is tempered by the visit of the magi. Their gifts are prophetic. There is promise and there is cost. The secret departure of both Magi and holy family reveal the imminence of that cost. In the words of Nancy Hested:

We still hold one arm around inconsolable Rachel, whose arms are empty and whose tear-filled eyes are looking back over her shoulder. Another arm is wrapped around Mary, whose arms are filled with the fragile promise of new life, and whose hopeful eyes are looking ahead. This journey into Epiphany is made slowly, for neither Sister Grief nor Sister Promise can walk quickly.

January 6 - the 12th day of Christmas - brings to a conclusion the season of the proclamation of the presence of the light. Today we dismantle the Bethlehem scene and pack away the Christmas lights. Babies grow up real fast. But January 6 is not the end of the light. Something begins to happen to the light proclaimed at Christmas. In fact today begins the season of Epiphany. Epiphany calls us to spread the light on the journey. Epiphany means "manifestation – a glorious and all pervading showing forth."

We see the light of Christ as it is manifest from the cradle of Jesus in Bethlehem to all the nations. "A light for revelation to the Gentiles" (Luke 2:32) says. It is Luke’s way of saying that Christ's mission is to the whole world. It comes with light that overwhelms and infuses all things. In this season of Epiphany, we can expect to hear again the stories that reach out to the world through the coming of the Magi, Jesus' baptism by John, the call of the first disciples, and the beginning of Jesus' ministry.
The welcome mat is set out. The lights are left on to welcome foreigners, local fishermen, city priests, Roman soldiers, Greek tourists, bankers, survivors and perpetrators of the Kenyan riots and aspiring politicians all.

Want a bit more background on this word – epiphany? Roman Catholic theologian, James Alison, has a good word for those of us brought up on the apostle’s adage, “Faith comes from hearing” (Romans 10:17):

We are used to the imagery of God communicating by God's word, and so we think of our responses to God as aural: we listen. And obedience (from obaudiens) can be translated as "intense hearing." Yet how much of the religion of ancient Israel was a priestly religion of presence! We forget that one of the central images of God's communication in the scriptures is that of the shining face. From the priestly blessing of Numbers 6 to the continuous references in the psalms, it is expected that worshipers will see the radiance of God's face, and that in its light they too will shine.

The Greek word for this radiance, this shining of the face, is epiphaneia, or epiphany, and it was by no means only a benign thing. Promises of the Day of the Lord warn that its coming will be exceedingly dreadful, or awe-full (epiphanhz). All this visual imagery is at the center of today's great feast of Epiphany.

The Magi, long known as kings since they were fulfilling Psalm 72, had been looking at a star, the very Star of David that had been prophesied by another foreign magus, Balaam in Numbers 24. This radiance had led them from the East to the land of Judah. The announcement to King Herod and all Jerusalem of the proximity of the radiance generated fear. Herod thereafter had to talk to the kings secretly. When the kings arrived at the place where the child was, the star stopped and they were filled with exceeding joy. Thus the radiance has a double effect—fear and darkness come upon those who oppose it, and blessing on those who seek God's face.

So it is at Epiphany, the feast of the shining, that we come to the end of the journey that began in Advent with the portentous announcement of the coming of the Lord, the streaming of the nations toward Zion, and the invitation to walk in the light of the Lord.
Six weeks later we find ourselves with an array of kings—Herod, David, the Magi—and a plethora of portents. Yet all this is directed to a simple dwelling with a newborn child. We have become accustomed to understanding that the One coming in will do so quietly, in vulnerability, in the midst of violence, prepared for suffering. So it is easy to forget that the whole point of all those kings is that they were left in the shade by the radiance of the King of kings. The Magi had come to worship a king.

Here, at the centre of this feast is a mystery not of hearing but of seeing!
(Place earth globe in nativity scene and ask what this visual imagery evokes- get feedback!)

Alison calls it a “mystery of looking.”

Who looks at whom? As adults we tend to focus on adult looks. Matthew, with his picturesque details, trains our gaze on the strangeness of the kings, the determination and persistence of their journey, their exotic dress, their laden beasts, their rich and symbolic gifts. What might this One be who is the desire of the nations?

We are taught by the Magi to value the One who lies in the manger. He acquires worth and splendor through their eyes. That is part of what the feast gives us: models for our desire, for our adoration. With each gift we are offered a way to shift the weight of our heart in an unaccustomed direction. When the Magi offer him gold, which indicates a king, we are invited to lessen the tribute we offer to the power structures to which we belong and on which we depend; when they offer him frankincense, which indicates a priest, we are invited to tiptoe out from under the delusions of our sacred canopies, to be drawn into the jagged-edged sacrifice of presence that this Priest will carry out; and when they offer him myrrh, which indicates a prophet's death, the Magi invite our hearts to lighten as death loses its hold over our drives and desires.

These, however, are not the only eyes at the nativity scene: there are other eyes that are looking, for the Magi have come into the presence of a face that is the radiance of the Lord—the face of an infant.

When he is not too tired, when his face is not screwed up with tears, the newborn is learning how to look, to receive the adult clues that will enable him to recognize, remember, identify body parts. He is undergoing the precocious working through of images and sensations that over time will socialize him, make him viable, responsive, subtle. Who could ever have imagined that "may he make his face to shine upon you" would one day be realized in an infant struggling to focus?

Our paintings capture the scene and back up the face of the baby with an aura, a halo. But will the Magi have seen a halo? Will anyone have noticed anything slightly shining about their faces, upon which the radiance has shone? Probably not. I imagine the reality of the halo as a radiance which dawned over time in the life of the Magi as in the life of all those who allow themselves to be looked at. As their gifts signify, the Presence who has come in will learn his way into being a project toward us. His whole living out of that project will become the face that shines. He will learn to look at us with the eyes of a king, and he will learn to look at us with the eyes of a priest, and he will learn to look at us with the eyes of a prophet. Our world will be relativized by those eyes, and we will sit in his regard and become radiant as he guides us into the way of peace.

Epiphany should be one of the brightest, loudest seasons of the church year. It is certainly the most evangelistic. What irony that it coincides, in this part of the world, with summer holidays, when everything has gone low key, is in recess and is all but shut down. Our summer heatwaves, adjustments to daylight saving and post Christmas lethargy may have us crying out, “Give us a break! We don’t need more light – we have an overabundance of it!” But why don’t we seize on this natural phenomenon and cry out in our streets and neighbourhood cul de sacs – “This is what it’s all about! Come and see the light!”