Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost-Year B - Br Simeon & Br luke

 Homily preached by Br. Luke at Springwood Sunday 13th September 2015

Andre-Rublev's Saviour

SIXTEENTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST. YR B.

Gospel:  Mark 8: 27-35

Along the way Jesus asked his disciples, “Who do you say I am?”  Peter said to him in reply, “You are the Christ . . .”

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart, be acceptable in Thy sight, O Lord my strength and my Redeemer. Amen.

This week's reading is quite interesting and even a bit odd. It shows how Our Lord teaches those who believe in Him and is quick to correct those who follow when their human thinking gets in the way.

Caesar Philippi was a bazaar of worship places and temples, with altars erected to every concept of the divinity from the gods of Greece to the godhead of Caesar. Amid this marketplace of gods, Jesus asks Peter and the Twelve, “Who do people say that I am? . . . Who do you say that I am?”  This is a turning point in Mark's Gospel:  Until now, Mark's Jesus has been reluctant to have people believe in him only because of his miracles.  Jesus talks, for the first time in Mark’s Gospel, about dark things ahead: rejection, suffering, death and resurrection (concepts that the disciples are unable to grasp).

In this incident (recorded by all three synoptics), Peter immediately confesses his faith in Jesus as the Messiah -- the Messiah of victory and salvation. But when Jesus begins to speak of a Messiah who will suffer rejection and death, Peter objects. Peter’s reaction is ours, as well:  We prefer to follow the popular, happy Jesus, the healing and comforting Jesus – but we back away from the suffering, humble, unsettling Jesus of the cross.

Every moment we live, every decision and choice we make, every good thing we do is our most revealing and telling response to the question, Who do you say I am? Our love for family and friends, our commitment to the highest moral and ethical standards, our willingness to take the first step toward reconciliation and forgiveness are, ultimately, our true confession of faith in Jesus Christ as the Love and Word of God incarnate.

Only in “denying ourselves” in order to imitate the servanthood of Christ do we experience the true depth of our faith; only in embracing his compassion and humility

in our lives do we enable the Spirit of God to renew and transform our world in God’s life and love.

We cannot belong to the company of Jesus unless we embrace the Crucified One’s spirit of selfless servanthood; we cannot stand with the Crucified Jesus unless we unconditionally and completely love and forgive others as he did; we cannot hope to share in the victory of the Risen Christ unless we "crucify" our fears, self-consciousness and prejudices that blind us from seeing him in the faces of every human being.

So my friends, I stand here before you at this pulpit and my question is to you and of course for me today...Who do you say that Jesus is? Of course, he is the Christ. But what does that mean to you? Do you want a Jesus for anything other than what he is? Are you looking for Jesus the healer? Who will always cure your diseases? Are you looking for Jesus the therapist? Who will help you work out all your “issues”? Are you seeking Jesus the job-provider, Jesus the child-rearing-advice-giver, Jesus the marriage counsellor, a Jesus who comes to simply solve your problems and answer your questions? Then you will not find him.

But in his word, and in his sacraments, you will find Jesus who is the Christ. And a Christ of the cross. A Jesus who suffered and died, for your forgiveness, a Jesus who rose from death to guarantee you life, a Jesus who ascended to heaven to rule for you there, and a Jesus who will come again to bring final victory and peace. A Jesus on his terms, not ours. A Jesus who deals with sin, the root of all our other problems. A Christ that we need, not that we think we want.

Nor do we come to this answer on our own. It is God who shows us, leads us, and brings us to faith by his Spirit. He gives the answer that we confess. We confess, like Peter, in our words, who Jesus is and what he has done. “Jesus Christ, God’s only Son our Lord… who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, crucified, died, was buried, descended into Hell, rose on the third day, ascended into heaven, sits at God’s right hand, and one day will come again to judge the living and the dead.

Asking the right question is important. So is getting the right answer.
“Who is Jesus?” “He is the Christ.” “What kind of Christ?” “A Christ of the Cross – a Saviour from sin – your saviour and mine.” Good questions, and good answers – all given by God.

Amen.

Written by Br Simeon

Preached by Br Luke

Waking Up! Live Well, Live Blessed!

“Moses said to YHWH, “But, never in my life have I been a man of eloquence,

either before or since you have spoken to your servant.” Ex 4:10

Thirteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B: 

Waking Up! Live Well, Live Blessed!

 In Marks gospel (5:21-43) this week we meet two desperate people who took a risk on Jesus. One is Jairus "a synagogue official" whose 12 year old daughter had died and the other "a woman who had suffered from a haemorrhage for 12 years" poor and ostracised because of her condition. Both these people took a risk on the healing power of Jesus. The young girl's father, an important synagogue official, puts aside the possible official prejudices against Jesus and goes to him, even falling down on his knees before Jesus, to beg for his daughters life. Sickness and death have a way of cutting through the veneer of our self-importance and social standings. They touch us at our most vulnerable place, stripping away our illusions and reminding us that, no matter how important we are in our own or others' eyes, we are still limited and temporary here on earth. On the way to Jairus' an 'unnamed woman' in the crowd reaches out and touches Jesus' cloak and is healed. She had a need (possibly endometriosis), she saw a solution, she believed, she reached out, deed done. Jesus recognises that and asks "Who touched me?" The woman comes forward "frightened and trembling because she knew what had happened to her, she fell at his feet and told him the whole truth." Jesus recognised that she had risked possible stoning by even being in the crowd of men. I am sure he turned to her, and far from wanting to confront or condemn her, I think, he simply wanted to look into her eyes to affirm that she had indeed been healed through her faith. Her faith had conquered her fear of social consequences. Jesus says (and I para-phrase); "My Daughter, you took a risk in faith, and now you're healed and whole. Live well, lived blessed! Free of your complaint." "Live well, live blessed," were his words of praise and encouragement. Where are you or I in this story?
Now we turn to the raising to life of the 12 year old girl. Mark sandwiches the healing of the 'unnamed woman' inside that of Jairus' need to shine a light on the miracle to come. The Christian community saved this story and passed seeing more than a resuscitation in what Jesus did for the young girl because it is important and relevant for us whose lives are often touched by the death of loved ones. Can what Jesus did for the girl have meaning for us today? Our ancestors in the faith believed so. They point to the resurrection in telling this story. Jairus simply asks that his daughter be made "well" (make her better) and "live" (save her life). Both words had special meaning for the early church as they were used to indicate "salvation" and "eternal life." Our faith ancestors believed that in performing this miracle, Jesus shows that he gives "salvation" and "eternal life" to the dead. We need this faith story in a world of stories not about salvation and life but of loss and destruction through violence and addiction. Recently, I spoke with parents of an ice drug addict. They want to help their son get him off drugs, to find spiritual meaning for his life and the love and support that they have found in their faith-community. Like Jairus they want Jesus to take their sons hand and raise him from his "sleep" so that he can be "well" and "live." What Jesus says to Jairus, he says to the parents of the ice addict and to all of us "Do not fear, only believe." To have faith - which is the opposite of fear - is to have life.
There is a spiritual phenomenon described by the mystics as "waking up" or experiencing a deeper conversion. It may go like this. We get very busy with activity or we sedate ourselves too much television or social media. We give no time to cultivate an inner life until something usually something painful interrupts this deadening routine of dissatisfaction. The possibilities are many: maybe it's a moment of deep insight or perhaps someone close dies or gets very sick. Until an event like this happens we seem to be 'sleep walking.' We want "interesting," "exciting," "relevant" and "important" to make our live relevant, but we wake usually through pain from our deadly sleep. Someone has reaches out a healings hand and raises us up. Resurrection can happen, for the ice addict and for us. The crisis we experience proves to be a 'wake-up' call. To Jesus, death is as sleep to him and what he does for the girl he will awake us from our sleepiness. With faith in him, we can face our own death with courage. We live in a culture of death dealing and yet it denies death as it worships youth, health, success, and power. Death unveils these idols and exposes their false promises. It looked like it had the last word over Jesus as well but His resurrection reminders us that Jesus has the final word. We can look at life differently now that we believe our death is really a "sleep" from which Jesus will wake us.
Jesus says, "give her something to eat" as a convincing proof that the girl has returned to life? Her eating is not just a sign she has her bodily functions back. In their culture, eating in the family gave a strong sense of belonging and having life. We have life, not just as individuals, but as part of a community. The girl is given food by her family, and so she has been restored to full life. Who knows how long she had been sick and away from the family meal. When we have been "asleep" or "dead" to God because of sin, the living Christ "wakes us up" by forgiving our sins. We then restored as a living member of the faith- family the church. We can again come to the table for the faith-family meal, to take the life-giving body and blood of Christ. At this meal we put aside our superficial differences as we gather together and reach out for him. But he reaches back, takes our hand saying once more, "Time to get up, sleepy head."

6th Sunday of Easter year B - Br Luke

Andre-Rublev's Saviour

I know ! – Br Andrew will be happy with me - I've written this homily down. 

Homily preached by Br Luke at Blaxland 10th May 2015

6th Sunday of Easter year B

Gospel John 15:9-17

Well I have a slight dilemma, which of John’s passages do I choose?

Both speak of love and of salvation.  In the second reading John links Jesus’s death, baptism and the Holy Spirit as a threefold witness for divine actions.  He goes further and says that God’s testimony regarding Jesus is this:  “Whoever has the Son has life, whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life”.  He can’t make it any clearer than that!  But what does this mean to us?  Do we have the Son of God? Indeed is this a question we have ever asked ourselves? Or do we think that because we call ourselves Christian this is enough. We assume that we have life? It really looks like a black and white question doesn't it.

In the Gospel, John records Jesus as saying: “If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love”.  And then Jesus says “This is my commandment: that you love one another as I have loved you”.  Oh dear, - I suspect there are some in this world who would like to ask Jesus to rephrase that commandment.  Something along the lines of: um can we have a discussion about this Jesus? Do we really have to love one another?  I suspect he’d just silently look at us and then give us a ‘think about what you just said’ smile.

But we humans are an inventive lot, perhaps if we look hard enough, or explore the words in more detail, or interpret them differently we could find some little gap to squirm out of? Some nice loophole so that we can wander through and not concern ourselves with this instruction?  Yes, strike a chord with anyone?  After all loving one another is hard work.  Especially if the other person is - well you know - ‘not like us’.

But Jesus doesn’t let us off lightly, he tells us we are his friends if we do this.  Not his servants, not his slaves, his friends.  He tells us this because he loves us and not because he orders us to do it. We will voluntarily follow the commandment because of his love for us and our love for him.  After all, we are his friends – right? Sounds like an “O bugger” moment doesn’t it.  You know that point when you suddenly realise with absolute clarity that you’ve got no excuses, no wriggle room, you’re committed to a course of action.

“You did not choose me, but I chose you. And I appointed you to go bear fruit, fruit that will last”.  Hmm remember last week’s gospel? It was about the vine.  We are the ‘grafted in’ branches and we bear fruit.  If we do not produce fruit then we get pruned out?  And here Jesus tells us, we are picked by him.  He calls us to go and work in the vineyard.  He is telling us so that we can “love one another”.  Sorry people there is no wriggle room here.  This is a divinely authored action.  Now of course the reality in our lives is that we do not follow this commandment.  Sadly we do not love one another.  If we did there would be violence, there’d be no war or conflicts, and we’d have universal peace and goodwill among the peoples of the world.

So do we just throw our hands up and say ‘it’s all too hard’.  Well no, that’s not what we do, because of we did, then as John told us earlier; “Whoever has the Son has life, whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life”.  So our job, is to call out to the world, that love of neighbour, is not an illusion or a fanciful theory, but a real possibility.  One that we can achieve, if we stop and think. If we pause and realise that the other person is really no different from us.  Sure they may look different, they may speak a different language, they may have a different gender, or a different sexual orientation to us, but they are just like us.  They bleed if they are cut, they cry if they are sad or distressed and they laugh if they are happy – and perhaps more importantly they love, just as we do.

So my challenge for you this week, is to look for someone who is different from you and ask yourself – not them – yourself, can you see yourself in them. Can you envisage a time, when you could talk to them and perhaps even regard them as a friend, not someone to be shunned and marginalised, even harmed?  I caution you, it won’t be easy, but try anyway and then tell us about it at our Bible study on Friday.

Remember, Jesus loves us, he command us to love each other and when we do that, then we have life eternal.  Amen.

Holy Thursday: Practice Makes Perfect!

“Moses said to YHWH, “But, never in my life have I been a man of eloquence,

either before or since you have spoken to your servant.” Ex 4:10

 In all the great hero stories, it becomes clear who are the good and bad characters. So, the hero must do battle with the villains. Throughout John's gospel Jesus has been doing battle against evil and death. It has been a struggle; not the fake movie kind, but a life and death struggle against very real and powerful opponents. He has confronted sin and death in the surrounding world and in the resistance to his message by the religious leaders. Death's powers have come close to him, in the Lazarus story. We watched Jesus weep at his friend's tomb as he confronted death's power to inflict pain and loss. In today's gospel John (13:1-15) says that Jesus, "was fully aware that the Father had put everything into his power...." Then Jesus got up from the table with all that power available to him, and surprised his disciples as he continues to surprise us today. Jesus rises to wash his disciples' feet. This is not the way power is used in our world: nations dominate nations; one ethnic group purges its another; one religion proclaims its dominance over another; some parents by word and example, teach their children to succeed at any cost; businesses take over weaker ones. It does seem that when some nations, organisations, (religions and individuals) come to power, other groups suffer the consequences. Having power is not necessarily a bad thing and Jesus' life and today's gospel are examples of ways to use power to the benefit and for the good of others. His use of power is also an example to us.

As a musician I try to "practice" daily to maintain my flexibility and skill. Notice I have used the word "practice." It takes the perfectionist pressure off what I do, as I don't have to do it perfectly. What a relief for a type 'A' over achiever. I can be patient and tolerant when I let things slip or I don't feel a session went as well as I had hoped. I can say, "I am just a beginner with this piece of music and I will get it right eventually. Someday it will be easier and better, but right now I'll just "practice". Jesus asks his disciples to make 'foot washing' (humble service) their daily practice, because it will help them to deal with the worlds destructive approach to the use of power. As the three synoptic gospels had an account of the institution of the Eucharist, John does not have to repeat it. Instead, he narrates to his community and to us, THE WASHING OF THE FEET and in doing so, links it to the Eucharist. From now on, disciples cannot think of the Eucharist without Jesus' example and instruction about the service of others. Jesus tells his disciples, "...you should wash each another's feet. I have given you an example, so that you may copy what I have done to you."

The "practice" of foot washing reminds us that we are all recipients. In washing his disciples' feet, Jesus has acted as the lowly humble servant, giving his life in service for others. As Christians, we are who we are, because of Jesus' offering of himself. The foot washing reminds us that our baptism unites us to Jesus and his death. Our baptismal washing by water and words, is what puts us in touch with that life, "If I do not wash you, you can have nothing in common with me." So as Christ's disciples, we too are called to lay down our lives in humble service of others and to "practice" the life we have received. We learn our "practice" from him. And of course, as with any other "practice," we probably won't get it perfect, but we can keep at it. Each time we attend the Eucharist, we remember and receive THE ONE who helps us put into practice 'foot washing' - serving the needs of others. We try to act towards the world as Jesus acted towards us. Being his faithful witnesses we serve others, even to the point of giving our lives. So we ask ourselves, 'Is is my "practice" perfect yet?' The honest answer is - No! That is why we return time and time again to the table of the Eucharist so that with his life at work in us, we can keep practicing in our daily lives what we have learned from Jesus at the Eucharist. May the Holy Spirit lead us to 'take up the towel and basin'.

Words, Water and Wilderness!

Torah Scroll

“Moses said to YHWH, “But, never in my life have I been a man of eloquence,

either before or since you have spoken to your servant.” Ex 4:10

Lent 1B 2015: Words, Water and Wilderness! 


This week we begin the season of Lent which can help us to celebrate the very heart of our faith - the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. It is a time for penance and of hope. It is a time when we reflect upon the profound meaning of the word "covenant". The word covenant is an ancient word that speaks to the power of a promise spoken and made between two persons. In the Christian scriptures, God is the one who always takes the 'initiative' to make covenant with humans. We take up the Noah story in Genesis (9:8-17) after the Flood and read the words; "See, I establish my Covenant with you, and your descendents after you; and also with every living creature ..." and of Jesus taken by "The Spirit" into "the wilderness" (Mark 1:9-15) where he experienced temptation.
As in the time of Noah, the sights and sounds of evil are present in our society, seen in our exposure to the wilful abuse of one human being by another; the night time TV dramas that celebrate and act out violence against persons. The emphasis on sexual images does violence to the fully human nature potential in people. The documentaries on the events of war and atrocities, political corruption and commercial greed, can lead us feeling numb and down hearted. What about God's tolerance for the evil of human kind? God saved eight people from the evil generation around them by means of water. God saves us from the evil generation around us by means of water and Spirit through Baptism.
I have often wondered what thoughts ran through Noah’s mind after the flood, as he surveyed the scene before him. Did the destruction, loneliness and isolation terrify him? What did he think of the God whose divine power seemed to have caused such destruction? The Genesis text gives us only the basic details. What about Jesus, alone in the wilderness, with only "wild beasts" for company, was he to lonely, and frightened by his isolation? Mark’s account doesn’t give us any of the details. There is no reported conversation with Satan. We are left to fill in the blanks for ourselves about Jesus’ self-encounter. This type of self-encounter encounter can happen during Lent as we enter our lonely interior landscape. "The Spirit" can 'drive' us if we are willing into the wilderness through our practices of fasting, self-denial, and prayer. In our "secret" prayerful quiet times, we will find all that we tend to avoid through our busy frenetic routine days, that can hide our deep anxiety, insecurity, and fearfulness. Our authentic prayer can reveal our deep helplessness in the face of our sin and the chaos of the world in which we live. It is no easy work to make sense of the past or to face the claim that God has put on our lives through our baptismal covenant.
The good news of scriptures is that this is not the end of the story. The message of the Noah and Jesus story is not centered on either the chaotic devastation of the world or of the Satan (accuser) who threatens to undo us. It is centered on the promise and power of the One who not only created this world and called "it good", but the One who promises to protect, sustain, and restore the world and ALL who live in it. We can feel at times despair and doubt as we face our weakness, with temptations within and fears without. However, God remains loyal to the disloyal; faithful to the faithless. The "rainbow" sign says, that God’s intention for his creation is to end the cycle of violence and retribution with love and compassion. God is with us in our wilderness and like Jesus we are given strength beyond our own and "the angels" to care for us. Lent challenges us to come to terms with the fact that though devastation and the isolation of wilderness are far from God’s original intention for creation, it is through these terrible, harsh realities that God brings forth new life. The "rainbow" represents an unconditional promise, of God’s willingness to limit God’s power and freedom for the sake of the life of the world that God so loves. It is in the self-denial of the wilderness that Jesus confirms before God, his identity and the mission of life through death that flows from it.
The scripture readings of lent will remind us that being drawn through death for the sake of new life. They will lead us to a greater understanding of God’s compassionate presence, promise keeping, and self-denying love for a broken world proclaimed on the cross. When we enter into our personal lenten wilderness, we too can experience the power

Sermon Extra 4 - Did Christ have to die for our sins?

Sacrifice_of_Isaac-Caravaggio_(Uffizi)

The theology around Christ being sacrificed for our sins, is, I think as old as the faith.

There is another slant on this, which when I first heard it, made a light come on. It’s all about an ancient blood covenant.

You will recall that when God made the blood covenant with Abraham, that the people would inherit the land, God instructed the patriarch to slaughter animals and then divide them so that there was a path between the carcasses.  That night a smoking pot and a torch was seen to pass along the path. (Genesis 15).  As I understand the rules around covenant at that time, each person had to pass between the slain animals. Thereby each person was pledging that they would keep their part of the covenant. And the only way to break the covenant was the death of one of the parties. However in this passage Abraham does not pass between the animals, God does – twice.  Meaning that God was making a covenant with both Abraham and himself.  So if the covenant was broken then God has to honour his pledge, not Abraham.  God eventually did this, when he had Moses bring the people out of Egypt.

 Later on God told Abraham the sign of the covenant was circumcision – which again is a blood covenant.

After Moses read the law to the people in the desert and when they accepted the law, Moses then sprinkled blood from a sacrifice on them. (Exodus 24) – another covenant sealed with blood.

At the last supper Jesus said of the wine: this is my blood which will be poured out for many, so he was again initiating a blood covenant (albeit with a substitute substance) for the disciples and through them, us.  

The physical part of the blood covenant was his death on the cross. So it’s not so much that he dies for our sins, but rather that he was making a blood covenant with God for us.  As he was both human and divine he, like the old covenant with Abraham, was making a pledge, both as God and as man.

  His physical blood sealed the new covenant and thereby opened for us, our part of the covenant, which is salvation, forgiveness of sins and eternal life.  Hence the idea, that he died to save us.