Arrivals and departures

The Sixth Sunday of Easter, 5th May 2013

John 14:23-29

14:23 Jesus said to his disciples, "Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them.

14:24 Whoever does not love me does not keep my words; and the word that you hear is not mine, but is from the Father who sent me.

14:25 "I have said these things to you while I am still with you.

14:26 But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you.

14:27 Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.

14:28 You heard me say to you, 'I am going away, and I am coming to you.' If you loved me, you would rejoice that I am going to the Father, because the Father is greater than I.

14:29 And now I have told you this before it occurs, so that when it does occur, you may believe.

Life is full of arriving and departing
But it is more than just getting on and off trains and planes
Every day we come and we go,
and others do the same in our lives.
Some of these are bigger experiences than others
When someone close to us dies, gets married, leaves home
or has some other radical change to their lives
something passes away 
that is not necessarily going to be able to be replaced
Yet these times
are laden with the opportunity
to understand more about life and love.

Equally well, babies are born,
new relationships are formed
and so the coming and going fills our life

So it was for the disciples of Jesus.
He went from them.
And, like our lives, we realise that as sad as it is
when someone goes, or circumstances change
there is also a necessity about it.
It causes us to grow and mature.

What might Jesus have been drawing out of his disciples
that required him to go away?

There are a number of things:

• We only realise when we are independent what we can do of our own accord
• The disciples (us) were pretty pathetic when it came to over-relying on Jesus
• This has a tendency to make us inactive and lazy

In a way, this analysis is too simplistic, because Jesus also points us to a "life in the Spirit"

which is more than just object lessons on how to be independent.
This is an important dimension of the promise of life in Christ
which is not realised simply by overcoming our natural indolence.

For thought and prayer this week

How is God calling me to be open to the Holy Spirit?
Spend some time praying for the increase in God's Spirit in my life

Where is love?

John 13:31-35

13:31 When he had gone out, Jesus said, "Now the Son of Man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in him.

13:32 If God has been glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself and will glorify him at once.

13:33 Little children, I am with you only a little longer. You will look for me; and as I said to the Jews so now I say to you, 'Where I am going, you cannot come.'

13:34 I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.

13:35 By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another."

Anyone who has studied another language knows that words don't translate uniformly.
We had an experience in Indonesia of wanting to work out how to ask for a milk shake to be "thicker".
My, then, wife asked the taxi driver "What is the word for 'thick'?"
He had some difficulty understanding what she meant,
 but after she had gesticulated the word she was talking about 
he finally gave her a phrase.
I realised that he seemed to have understood 'thick' 
to mean more 'wide'
 than 'viscous'
so, when she next asked for a milk shake she got a really wide one!!!

The point of that diversion?
Well the word that we translate as 'love' 
is often a number of different words in the Gospels.
There are 5 or 6 Greek words agape, eros, philos...etc 
several Latin words caritas, amor...and so on
And we often just call them ...love.

John plays around with these words a bit,
 and we don't always undersstand the subtlety of it.

This passage however gives us a pointer...
Jesus says 
"You should love as I have loved"
We do not need so much to understand the words as know the quality of life

How has Jesus loved?The love of Jesus is shown in two related ways.
First 
he gives up his Godly status to be born as a human being
(see my reflexion on Philippians 2 here which explains this).
This character of his life is humilityHe doe not use his power to manipulate 
or to get his own way
but rather lays it aside.
We often simply want to bludgeon our way to success,
whether it be at work
 or at home
maybe we are sometimes more subtle than this
and try not to look like we are doing this

BUT if we take these passages seriously
then the way we are to love
is by emptying ourself!

The second way we see Christ loving
is by giving up his life.
This is really hard 
for those of us who live in a world that says
look after yourself and take care of your own life


There is almost a reckless abandon
to Christ's gift 
of the life that is lived at the disposal of others.

It is such a radical gift 
that it transforms not only his own life
but also the life of others.

There is a promise 
that living one's life 
with such radical obedience
will bring new, 
resurrected life to bear.

For thought and prayer
Where do I use my life to manipulate 
and how do I need to stop doing this?
Where is God calling me 
to put aside my giftedness,
 my authority 
and to live out of the risk of not using it?
Where can I lay down my life for others?
Pray for the courage to do this!

Anzac

One of the things I am deeply proud of is being an Australian.
I have lived 46 of my 60 years in this great land
and there is not a day when I do not wake up
and feel free.
What ever we make of the ANZAC.....I would prefer to call it STORY.....rather than myth or legend
there are many such "stories" of heroism, mateship, bloody-mindedness, loyalty,
This seems to me deeply Christian...it is probably deeply Muslim too...and certainly indigenous!
I am in you and you are in me.
I pray God's blessing on the living
and on the departed
on those who struggle
and those whose struggle goes unnoticed.
I am deeply, deeply proud to be an Australian.

How long will you keep us in suspense?

Readings for today the 21st April 2013 include Acts 9:36-43, Psalm 23, Revelation 7:9-17, John 10:22-30

People ask Jesus "How long are you going to keep us in suspense?"
They want to know who he really  is?
His response is a rather incredulous:
"I have already told you, and you do not believe."
Now we are often told things
and we don't hear them
we don't hear for two reasons largely:
1. Because we are not listening
2. Because we don't want to hear.

Both of those things probably apply to you and me, at least some of the time.
We don't listen or we don't like what we are being told.
Today is often called Good Shepherd Sunday, because it opens up something of the intimate image of John 10, in which Jesus talks about caring for us...like the Shepherd of a small flock of sheep.
I know my sheep, and my sheep know me.
My sheep hear my voice, and believe.
We believe in this relationship
in which God cares for us.
The assurance that we have is not that we are kept in suspense
but rather that we have eternal life
and God will never let us go.
We will never perish.

Maybe this is not what we would like to hear
maybe we are not listening.
This is the surest way we have
of being unsure
or in suspense

John Henry Newman (see God has created me below)
reminds (along with many others)
"He has not created me for naught"
we may not always get it
we may not always understand
and this is what Faith is about.

Trusting that God is doing it right
we might be impatient
and think that God is being slow
we want to reach the end quickly
and skip the necessary middle
(see Teilhard's poem Patient Trust here)
but the Good Shepherd idea calls us
to faith.
To faith that Jesus knows us
that he calls us by name
and that we will never perish.

Can we allow that idea
this pastoral image
the Shepherd and the sheep
to strengthen us this week?
To speak
but perhaps more
to listen
"My sheep hear my voice"
What might Jesus be saying to me
about forgiveness
love
kindness and other things which challenge me.

If we do not listen
we will not hear
I we don't want to hear
we will not hear.

That will resolve nothing.
It will keep us in suspense!

God has created me

God has created me to do Him some definite service;
He has committed some work to me
which He has not committed to another.
I have my mission—
I may never know it in this life, but I shall be told it in the next.
…I am a link in a chain,
a bond of connection between persons.

He has not created me for naught.
I shall do good;
I shall do His work;
I shall be an angel of peace,
a preacher of truth in my own place, while not intending it,
if I do but keep his Commandments.

…Therefore I will trust Him.
Whatever, wherever I am.
I can never be thrown away.

If I am in sickness, my sickness may serve Him;
in perplexity, my perplexity may serve Him;
in sorrow, my sorrow may serve Him.

…He does nothing in vain.
…He knows what He is about.

John Henry Newman 

Catch a big fish!

(this incidentally is my Great nephew....quite the fisherman!)


This Sunday, 14th April 2013 is the Third of Easter and the readings are 
Acts 9:1-6, (7-20); Psalm 30; Revelation 5:11-14; John 21:1-19

[ for the boffins:   This chapter of John's Gospel is a question of some debate, many commentators think it is not part of the original and is drawn from Luke's account of the big haul of fish.

Personally, I like the nature of the story where Jesus calls to his friends in a personable way  and says "You mob of losers how come you haven't caught any fish"]

There is in this passage a mixture of the historical and the symbolical
this is not to denigrate either of these important aspects of literary style.
Quite to the contrary, they rather work together
to give us a more complete picture.
John's gospel always seems to offer a richness
which is worth pondering on 

as there is usually more there than meets the eye.

There are two simple things immediately apparent
The first is (as noted in my earlier commentary)
that John is providing the logical development and conclusion
to the story of Peter's betrayal.
Peter, who has betrayed Jesus
not once but three times
is given the opportunity to make it up
....not once, but also three times.

At the very least, this shows the way God deals with us,
not just matter of factly
but with care and consideration
attending to the depth of the restoration
that is needed;
and not just going through the motions, however thorough.

There is also an abundance of material flowing out of John's pen (or quill I suppose)
which is providing the closure of his treatise on the gift of eternal life.

We see being concluded in these final chapters of John
what is posited in the opening chapters
that the Word made flesh
is drawing people
in their human lives into the relationship with God
we called abundant and eternal life.

The mystical fish that are caught...153...
sometimes taken to be all the nations of the world
a sign of the universality of this eternal life
that is being offered:

God so loves the world not just a select handful of initiates
or one tiny little nation

we sometimes miss some of this important symbolism.

But if we bring the two together
we recognise that 

nor is it just about understanding 

the mystery of faith

it is struggling with how this is worked out in our lives.
It is not secret mystical knowledge - Gnosis

It is the fleshliness of our lives
it's the emotional trauma we get into
because of failure, weakness, betrayal

This is the world in which the Divine Word has been made flesh.

The very ground in which God's salvation will be worked out
is not mysticism
it is life.
Not that we should treat this lightly
or even assume that we understand it terribly well.
We often muck it up.
Or run away from it.
We need to plummet its depths,
with Jesus for sure
and encounter the woundedness of the risen Christ
as we also open our own woundedness up to him..

This week
Where is God inviting me to be deeper?
Where do I need to allow Christ to meet me and restore my life?
Can I pray for courage to attend to the most difficult depths 

and to allow Jesus to bring eternal life to me there?

Why bother to worship?

For Easter 2. Reading include: Acts 5:27-32, Psalmm 118:14-29, Psalm 150, Revelation 1:4-8; & John 20:19-31

Many years ago a very saintly (yet perhaps obstinate) Bishop wrote a book
defending, promoting and encouraging
the ancient worship of the Anglican church
It was entitled "what mean ye by this service"
Itself a quotation from Exodus 12...in which children are invited to ask their parents
what worship means
it is particularly linked to the Passover
that mysterious meal when God's saving events are recounted
and rendered present in this world as they were in the past

It may seem strange for a priest to say that he gets a little freaked out by worship but what worries me is that we make a disconnect

between:

• worship and the scriptures and 

• worship and real life

If some how we have forgotten

that worship does not exist for its own sake

then  we have rather lost the plot.

There is a sense in which people 

(outside the church community)

come and find us

doing something that 

neither connects with God

nor connects with life.

This is very serious stuff.

But if for a moment there is an element of truth of it then the Church is in deep trouble!

What might we then think about?

Easter is a good time for us to think about worship
It reminds us that we gather together to link our story with God's story.
We can at least least ask:
What do I hear in the Scriptures?
And what do I feel through the prayers?
And how does this connect with my life.

The readings at this time of year are almost too much
The Gospel alone speaks of "Peace be with you!"
Immediately sparking the question
....what is PEACE for me?   What do I hope Jesus will bring if he brings me peace...
I have a few clues about my life...how do you go when you think about yours?

As we think about our worship...does it help or hinder me to hear how God speaks this into my life

There is also much about woundedness
and about what we do with doubt

Is there space for this in our worship
do we come out feeling enriched 
or diminished
with these important questions?

Some how "going through the motions"
isn't going to cut the mustard
is it?

Or detaching ourselves 
from reality for an hour or so.

We are seeking  to be honest 
with God, each other and ourselves
anything less just misses the mark.

Turn, turn turn

I am glad that we are spared in the Southern hemisphere the incessant link of Easter with Spring.
Almost everything we do symbolically and liturgically
is redolent of the Northern and Western hemsipheres
Yet here in the south, it is dry, dusty and dying
as autumn sets in
Rabbits are not fun little bunnies
they are an agricultural pest!.
So we do not have to grapple too much with the idea that
Easter is just a sort of universal principle
of death and rebirth
like the bulbs that are planted
and come back to life
or the lambs which skip in the fields
and the chickens that hatch on the supermarket shelves!!


What then is Easter for us?

It is caught up, I suggest with the rumour of Easter
that spreads amongst the early disciples
that things can be made new
that things will change
that life will be different.
That difference is spelled out
in the focus on baptism
that is so much for us the focus of Easter.
Baptism is offered as a way of living life differently.

In saying
I turn to Christwhether as a baptismal candidate
or renewing our promises
we are seeking a radical re-identification
of our lives with something that is important.
We don't just want life to be the same
we want it to change.
That is not to say that we are called to flit around from pillar to post
never settling at anything or anywhere,
but rather that there are aspects of our lives
which need to change.

The baptismal vows invite us to repent of sinwho of us in our right minds would not do this
I don't want to be a thief, a liar, a cheat, an adulterer.
Easter says, then don't.
Live differently.

I am invited to reject selfishnessa hard ask in today's world.
We all know that
piles of stuff, and an endless supply of everything
will not give us what we want.
That "looking after number one: is a vain and empty philosophy
Strangely as we look at families bringing babies to be baptised
we see a radical challenge to selfishness
right in the most obvious place.
People commit themselves to live with each other
not selfishly
but giving their lives to each other,
parents to children, wives and husbands to each other.
We reject this mystery of the unselfish life at our peril.
We are understanding on a global scale
that we need to live cooperatively
with each other, with our environment
if we do not live unselfishly, then we will not live at all


And finally I renounce evil that pattern of life
which will say principally
that other people are for my use and benefit.
This is is both a "micro" pattern and a "macro" pattern.

Micro evil exists, for example, when I think that I can use other people
for my own fulfilment.
This is a warped view of relationships.
It is the parent who enslaves their child through guilt
It is the boss who exploits the worker.
It is the friend who use their friendship to manipulate their friend
rather than to set free.
This is the level at which most of us seem to choose to operate most of the time.

There are bigger patterns.
Where wealthy countries (like our own)
exploit the resources of the world disproportionately
where we abuse our power so that we get wealthier
whilst the poor get poorer.
There are iniquities like prostitution, pornography and the drug trade
which treat people like commodities.
Easter says there is a possibility to say NO!
I reject evil
If we appreciate nothing else at Easter
we are called to appreciate that
the bold words
I turn to Christare words of change and words of action.
They are the possibility that things will be different
an end to sin, selfishness and evil.
We make an individual commitment to this.

Of course there is a sense in which this will all go pear-shaped.
That is not the point.
because we can come back and make this commitment
again and again if necessary.
It is a freedom to understand that things can and will be different.
I am part of that.
And so so are you.

Do you turn to Christ?

Death all around us!

We are obviously reticent to talk about death.
Yet, Good Friday it cannot be escaped.
St Paul spends much of his writing in the letters
explaining to Christians
why Jesus died
what we imagine God might be doing by allowing this to happen.
Some of this theory and theology
is difficult to understand
and doesn't resonate easily
in today's world
Pastoral
What Good Friday does speak to us
is that death cannot just be brushed aside.
The very importance with which we take it
even the difficulty we have understanding it
speaks volumes
about why we should take it seriously?
St Paul in writing to the Philippians about the Death of jesus
tells us that God is not playing games with the universe,
the sign of this is that Jesus enters the human condition
in its absolute state
to the point of death.
The writer of Hebrews reminds us that it is not as if we have someone who is not able to understand suffering
but rather one who suffers as we do.
This is the image of the crucified Christ,
he identifies with us
and shares our suffering.
We cannot take suffering away but we can stand alongside others in solidarity

So it is at the death of others
without being trite
we cannot control this experience
or make it go away,
it rattles us to the very core of our being.
But we discover when our mother, father, sister, friend or child
dies
that we are some how able to be more human
Death touches our humanity and transforms us.

It is very easy when we look around the world
to see so much death in the world and to turn away from it,
but none of us misses the injustice of what happens to Jesus
we should not avoid making the connexion
that there is cruelty and injustice like this in our modern world.
In so far as we turn our backs on this
we are missing the message of Good Friday
that we need to face up to death and suffering.
It is perhaps a great temptation for us in Australia to dismiss the suffering of those elsewhere.
Or to lack compassion when some reach our shores.
Or simply say that none of this is my business.

Is the motivation for death-denying simply
that it confronts me about my own death?
Surely!
If we understand nothing else about Good Friday
is that we do not defeat death by ignoring or avoiding it.


there is no Christianity without crucifixion
people do not stop dying because we hope desperately that they will not
cruelty and injustice
will not stop if we just try to wish it away.
As we face our own mortality
we will discover that we are destroyed as a person,
but rather enriched
enlivened and deepened.

This is very serious stuff.
But this is very Good!

The last meal

We hold meals to be very important.
So if we were told
"This will be the last chance
we have to eat together"
We would no doubt
think carefully about what it is that we would do and say.
(I am conscious that my own father died in the middle of a meal)

No fish and chips on our laps
whilst watching the telly
or grabbing a sandwich to eat in the car
(some very strange things have happened
to our eating habits since life sped up!)

There are no doubt
speeches
some impromptu
some well rehearsed.

Where would it be?
What's on the menu?
What might we say ?

All this is meant to come together in our thoughts about Eucharist, the Last Supper, Good Friday

Jesus says to his disciples
"You should was each other's feet, as I your Master have done for you"

An important idea is that meals
Suppers, lunches, breakfasts
reflect what our lives might be like

The ideas presented to us in Eucharist
because we call it a meal
an important meal
a last meal

are words spoken to us by Godself

Become what you receive,
serve as I have served
my body is broken as an act of love and forgiveness
my blood is shed so that we may be united
drinking from the same cup

This is the very Communion with God
through Christ.

Take eat, this is my Body
Drink this my Blood

In your right mind

Crown of Thorns under the West Pier, Brighton, England- Graffiti Art

Reflection on Philippians 2 for Palm Sunday, 24th March 2013

While we know we are not very good at being Christian
surely God appreciates how hard we try
and takes that into account!

The whole idea of the Cross, crucifixion 
and the death of Jesus 
presents us with a lot to get our heads around.
Indeed as you read the New Testament,
particularly the letters of St Paul,
it could be argued that he spends a lot/most of his time
explaining the significance 
of the Cross.
It is, indeed a lot to get one's head around.


What do we think God is doing?
In one of those passages, Galatians 6:14
Paul says 

" May I never boast of anything except the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world."

This is picked up in the traditional hymn 

Forbid it Lord that I should boast save in the death of Christ my God 

This idea (and many others) often flies in the face of much of our heartfelt
religious ideas
 Paul is intent upon telling Christians 
to allow ourselves to know the salvation that Jesus has won for us
and not think we have to win it for ourselves;
either by being good
or by beating ourselves up for being bad.

When he talks to the Christians in Phillipi
he talks slightly differently

" Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus"

What ever we might think God is doing
Paul reminds us that we are being formed into something new
We are being formed to be (like) Christ, 
for God, in ourselves, and for the world.
And this, we are reminded,
is not because we are good
or clever, or socially privileged,
or even devout, spiritual or holy
...all that may or may not (probably may not)
be true
Yet even Jesus does not presume 
to act out of his Godliness

"but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave...and humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death"

It is the same sentiment that Paul is making to the Galatians.
The Cross is not about me...it is about God

What ever we think about ourselves 
we do not regard what God has done and is doing for us
as something to be presumed upon.

How easily we presume that God will forgive us
yet do not presume that we should forgive!

How we expect God to be there for us
but aren't there for others
or are only there for those who we like.

"Let the same mind be in you as was in Christ Jesus"
is a reality check
that says ...it is not what we do
it what God is doing in us
It is God who we are to present
to the world
not ourselves.

In this Holy week 
we ask ourselves
am I allowing myself to be formed into Christ?
Am I open to the radical vulnerability of one who will put aside his own life
and live for others?

Where is God asking me to do this in my life and relationships?

Is what I do with my time
is how I conduct my relationships
Christlike?
What might the "mind of Christ" look like in me,
what changes do I need to make?

How do I need to grow?