Let All Creation Praise God!

Let all creation praise God! Let all creation praise God! It’s such a strong message in the Christmas season. The angels sing it. We sing it. And we want so much for the whole world to join in. Let all creation praise God!

The Psalms frequently testify to creation singing God’s praises. The Psalm for today (148) does just that... This Psalm calls on Earth, sea and sky to be filled with celebration and singing… [T]he psalmist calls on all the components of creation to praise God because all creation has the creative impulse of the Word of God as their source [In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God.] The psalmist calls on Earth, the elements of Earth and the creatures of Earth to praise God. This colourful list includes sea monsters, fire, wild animals, humans, and birds. Everything from ants to atoms seems to be included. [Excerpted from Kinship with Creation by Norman C. Habel as found on the Season of Creation website. Seasons of the Spirit Year A Advent/Christmas/Epiphany 2010-2011]

But tragedy is never far from the Christmas scene; just as it is never far from the scene of creation, the very scene of our life. The cross looms over the horizon of our celebration of the birth of Jesus. The real world of pain and hunger, sickness and need is barely hidden below the surface of our celebrations; and the very day after we celebrate the joyful birth, we hear the story of the slaughter of the innocents. Let all creation praise God! But in Ramah, there is “wailing and loud lamentation, Rachel [is] weeping for her children; [and] she refuse[s] to be consoled, because they are no more." (Matthew 2:18)

How can we sing the Lord’s sing in this foreign land?

And yet that is what we are called to do: to sing God’s praise, to honour God in the midst of life whatever that is. Perhaps it is not easy for us in our comfortable setting to understand this calling, this vocation as it is for those who have less, who know their need more closely.

Taizé is a village in southern France that is home to an ecumenical Christian community. The community began in 1940 by Roger Louis Schütz-Marsauche (Brother Roger), a Swiss born theological student studying in France. When it first began, the Taizé community offered a safe haven to refugees during the Nazi occupation of France. After World War II, the community slowly established a mission to promote peace across Western Europe and eventually around the world. This mission is most evident in the international, ecumenical gathering of thousands of youth each week in the summer. Daily worship includes short, musical selections that are sung repetitively and often use a variety of languages. [Indeed, many of the songs are sung in Latin, a language that belongs to nobody now.] It is said the meaning of the songs transcends any particular people represented by the language, furthering the evidence of peace within all creation. Many congregations use Taizé prayers and songs in their worship, some offering a monthly service of Taizé prayer. The minister of one church tells how people ask him why the church continues to offer such a prayer service, as the attendance is low. [After all, why do we bother to continue to praise God when our numbers are small or when the world is in need of such proactivity?]

“Two of the brothers took part in prayers in many cities in Germany throughout nearly the whole of November. After the prayer in Hanover, a woman doctor shared this story: ‘I’ve just arrived today from Faluja, Iraq. I accompanied a seriously wounded American soldier. After these very difficult weeks in Iraq, I wanted to see something beautiful: a concert, a theatre performance, or something in a church. During the flight I asked the pilots what was on in the city this evening. They told me there would be a prayer with songs from Taizé. ‘I have never been to Taizé. These last weeks I have been working as a doctor in the emergency service in Faluja. One day during the fighting I had to operate on a man who would probably need to have both legs amputated. During that difficult operation I heard a melody with words in Latin. I didn’t understand, for I had to concentrate on the operation. The song became louder and louder; it sounded like a chorale; my colleagues – French, British, American, German, and Iraqi – were singing together. ‘Carried by the melody, I calmed down, and could even see a chance of saving the man’s legs. And finally, we succeeded. After the operation was over, I heard the French doctors saying that it was a song from Taizé. I had never heard of Taizé until then. From then on, the Taizé songs often accompanied me during operations and I felt protected by God in very dangerous circumstances. This evening, I discovered that the song I heard for the first time in Faluja was Laudate omnes gentes. [Let all the people praise God!] And there were others that we sang back there too. I am so grateful.’” [Fraser MacNaughton has been minister of St. Magnus Cathedral,Kirkwall, Orkney, Scotland since 2002. He also has served as minister in Ayrshire, University of Dundee, and Glasgow. Seasons of the Spirit Year A Advent/Christmas/Epiphany 2010-2011]

The prayer and praise of God’s people sustains them in hope. It forms them in love and it upholds them in the most extreme of difficult times when in Ramah, there is “wailing and loud lamentation, Rachel [is] weeping for her children; [and] she refuse[s] to be consoled, because they are no more." (Matthew 2:18)

Even in the midst of life, let all Creation praise God! Because as we turn to God and recognise that we are created and sustained by God, we may catch a glimpse of the reconciliation that God desires for the whole of creation—wherever there is need; wherever there is conflict; wherever there is illness; wherever there is pain, it is in recognising the God who calls us to something beyond the immediacy of our own situations towards God’s promised realm of justice, love and peace, begun in Jesus and being brought up through us the people of God as part of God’s mission in God’s world. Truly, may all creation praise God!

God Has Sandy Feet!

“From a distance, God is watching us,” Julie Gold wrote (1985) and Bette Midler (among others) sang. The song described the way in which a beneficent, a good, a caring God envisioned the world that God had created—a world of peace and harmon and environmental sustainability. It hinted at the disappointment that the real world may have become for God, with its litany of conflict and pain.

From a distance we all have enough, and no one is in need.
And there are no guns, no bombs, and no disease,
no hungry mouths to feed.
From a distance we are instruments
marching in a common band.
Playing songs of hope, playing songs of peace.
They're the songs of every [one].
God is watching us. God is watching us.
God is watching us from a distance.

Even at Christmastime, God can seem somewhat distant from our lives, hoping for something grand and being disappointed with what God has ended up with. Sometimes, this picture of God seems the only possible one when we claim God’s goodness and look around us at the mess of God’s creation; or experience something particularly traumatic and difficult at a time when we’re supposed to be celebrating.

Have you watched children on a beach playing from a distance? It can all look so idyllic, so pleasurable, so inviting… and then you walk over and get involved… and the scene is not nearly so serene. There’s a need for give and take—whose road goes way and which tower gets built and how? From a distance, the castle rises from the beach; but up close the builders are not just working with their hands, but also with their hearts and their hopes and their dreams; and different designers clash, and sometimes there’s tears, and maybe even a temper tantrum or too. Watching from a distance is not where the real action is, although it can sometimes be somewhat more serene.

But watching from a distance can also be lonely and boring. If you don’t get down on your hands and knees on the sand, you can’t discover the feel of the building material; and the way that you can gently drip mixtures of sand and sea water to make walls and towers of astonishing complexity and beauty. And you can get so much more done before the tide comes in when you have helpers—a small sand castle can mushroom into a medieval city in no time at all when a few people get together to work the sand.

Another song-writer, Eric Bazilian (1995), and another singer, Joan Osborne asked a slightly different question from Gold and Midler. Not “What is it like watching from a distance?”, but “What would it be like for God to be in the sand with us?”

What if God was one of us?
Just a slob like one of us
Just a stranger on the bus
Tryin' to make his way home?

This is a God in the midst of the construction of sand castles with the kids—in the joy, in the tears, in the tantrums, in the sense of achievement, in the disappointment when the waves wash it all away, and in the anticipation of the next sand castling building expedition tomorrow. This God is with us! This God is in the midst of it all, getting hands and feet sandy and messy, windblown and sun-tanned, in the fun and the learning to share, and the discovering of injustice and the trying to get along with each other.

In reflecting on the lyrics of the song “One of Us”, liturgical theologian, Brian Wren writes:

What if God was one of us? Not watching from a distance, but taking the risks and having the inside knowledge of being born, being human, living and facing death? This is the good news of Christmas… Every one of us, and everyone on earth, is born into a particular time, a particular place, a particular language and tradition. It is the only way of being human... In the song refrain… the line “just a slob like one of us” seems to have a slightly self-mocking tone. It suggests that the singer and her peers, or human beings in general, are average, ordinary, and unappealing. More often the word “slob” is an insult, a term of abuse for someone who is coarse, lazy, dirty, or rude... the adult Jesus was a controversial prophet, loved by many but also insulted and abused, treated as worse than a slob… (Advent/Christmas/Epiphany, pp. 126, 127, 130-131).

But even as a child, the story isn’t such an idyllic one.

God, fully human, fully with us, fully within God’s own created order—as a vulnerable child, at the mercy of authorities who take censuses and kill potential rivals, in inadequate housing and facing an uncertain childhood—the incarnation (God becoming human) is the great doctrine (teaching) of the church that we celebrate in the Christmas season.

This doctrine is one to blow our minds—God becomes human—the Creator enters the creation—the all-powerful becomes all vulnerable to the vagaries of creaturely existence. God just doesn’t watch us from a distance; God lives our life. God just doesn’t empathise with us, God knows what it is to live as a mortal being.

When I was a small child, on holiday with my family at the beach, one evening as we were walking along the beach, we were writing with sticks in the sand. I wrote in the sand what nearly everyone writes at some time in their lives, "I was here". It was a celebration of the great event in time of which I was a part, walking along the beach with my family without a care in the world.

A man came up to me. He was smartly dressed. He even had shoes on his feet as he walked along the beach. I don't think he really saw me or really understood what my sign was saying. For he gravely bent over to read the words and jauntly said, "Ah, but where are you going?" Politely, I responded, "I don't know" but I felt terrible inside. Didn't this man see this wonderful place we were in? Why did it seem not to matter to him?

The man smiled smugly and without another word he continued his walk along the beach. As he walked away, I wondered to myself, how differently he might have reacted if he had bothered to take his shoes off to walk along the beach so he could feel the sand and the water on his toes.

In Jesus, God has taken off his shoes to experience our life. Everything we experience, Jesus experienced. God was prepared to give up all the perks of divinity in order to show us just how much we are loved—in order to stand in utter solidarity with us, God’s creatures, God’s beloved children. God knows the frailty and the fragility, the vulnerability and the suffering, the wonder and the joy of being human just like us.

Julia Esquivel from Guatemala puts it this way (Bread of Tomorrow, pp. 46-48):

The Word, for our sake, became poverty clothed as the poor who live off the refuse heap. The Word, for our sake, became a sob a thousand times stifled in the immovable mouth of the child who died from hunger. The Word, for our sake, became danger in the anguish of the mother who worries about her son growing into manhood. The Word cut us deeply in that place of shame: the painful reality of the poor. The Word blew its spirit over the dried bones of the churches, guardians of silence. The Word awoke us from the lethargy which had robbed us of our hope. The Word became a path in the jungle, a decision on the farm, love in women, unity among workers, and a Star for those few who can inspire dreams. The Word became Light. The Word became History. The Word became Conflict. The Word became indomitable Spirit, and sowed its seeds upon the mountain, near the river and in the valley, and those of good will heard the angels sing. Tired knees were strengthened, trembling hands were stilled, and the people who wandered in darkness saw the light… The Word became the seed of justice and we conceived peace… The Word made justice to rain and peace came forth from the furrows in the land. And we saw its glory in the eyes of the poor transformed into real men and women. And those who saw the Star opened up for us the path we now follow.

For God indeed is one of us! Our God has sandy feet... and hands... and there's quite a bit of sand in God's hair too!

Glory in the Wilderness!

In the midst of a Venetian orphanage for poor and illegitimate children, Antonio Vivaldi and his choristers (all female) produce the dramatic and weighty proclamation of God’s greatness, “Gloria”—a version of the great doxology of Christian tradition. Modelled on the song of the angels to the shepherds in the Gospel of Luke, the song proclaims;

Glory to God in the highest,
and on earth peace to people of good will. (ICEL 2007)

The proclamation of the children and the “red priest” from this place of exile from their families and polite society—a veritable wilderness—declares the significance of the God who comes into the midst of God’s own people, God’s own creation. It announces and celebrates weighty matters indeed.

Isaiah, too, is intent on celebrating the weightiness of a God who brings new life to landscapes apparently barren; new hope to people afflicted and infirm; and a God who dares, not to wait for people to travel God’s way, to come in search of them in order to save, to liberate.

The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad, the desert shall rejoice and blossom… They shall see the glory of the LORD, the majesty of our God… He will come and save you (Isaiah 35:1-2, 4c).

This glory is a weighty matter indeed—the Hebrew word, kebod, refers to its heaviness. These are matters of significance. God is a God who matters. God is a God who acts.

From the Babylonian Exile, Isaiah proclaims the significance of God in the wilderness of a people without a place; and the proclamation asserts that God is well and truly aware of the heaviness of the burden born by the chosen people; and of the weighty promise made generations before to Abraham and Sarah and the descendants—the promise of a great land and a great people. And God will do something about it!

The people have been in the wilderness before; and even then magnificent songs proclaiming God’s greatness held God’s promises before them. Miriam and Moses sang in the wilderness: “Sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously” (Exodus 15:21). They celebrated God’s significant delivery of the people from Egypt; but the people still had a long way to go. The wilderness stretched before them. God’s glory, God’s weightiness, wasn’t just about the previous triumph but the journey ahead. It would accompany the people on a pilgrimage that would test their spirits, their faith, their lives. God deals in weighty matters indeed.

From another kind of wilderness, Mary sings her song, proclaiming the significance of God’s action even in the midst of her own intolerable predicament—an unmarried women with child:

My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour, for he has looked with favour on the lowliness of his servant... He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty. He has helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy, according to the promise he made to our ancestors, to Abraham and to his descendants forever." (Luke 1:46-55)

These are weighty matters. God will bring new life to dry land; new hope to desperate people; and God will not stand back waiting for all this to happen. God will come to bring it about. God will enter God’s own creation. God’s glory, God’s substance, God’s significance will be made known.

The poetry of Isaiah’s proclamation draws attention to its central claim: “Here is your God… God will come and save you.” God is with the people in creation. God is among the people in their despair. God is coming to the people to save them. God is a God of substance who concerns God’s self with substantial matters—the plight of God’s creation and the welfare of God’s people.

Such weighty actions of God deserve a weighty response. Don’t just stand there—start travelling—out of exile back to the land; out of despair into hope; out of waiting for someone else to do something and into taking responsibility for being part of God’s mission in the world now! Take the road made for God’s people through the wilderness towards the promise. This is a journey of significance; a expedition of substance.

I’ve been enjoying the local wetlands coming back to life in the midst of the lovely rain we’ve been experiencing. You can’t actually get into the bird hide at Dangar’s Lagoon because the entrance is under water. I didn’t think I’d get to see that!

The ebb and flow of the waters we share are weighty matters indeed—they are matters of life or death. They affect what birdlife will prevail; what food we can produce; what parts of this country will continue to be habitable. The things of God are equally as weighty. Indeed the ebb and flow of the very creation is a thing of God.

The ebb and flow of God’s living water is also a matter of substance—a matter of abundant life out of desperate death. It affects who we are and what we do; and where we stand before God.

Here in the midst of our own wilderness—the wilderness of living—there will be times when we are tempted to give up the hope of God’s promises. But it is precisely in those times when it is even more important to hold them before us; to remember God’s weightiness, God’s significance, God’s glory; to give God, God’s due; and to be prepared to sing “Glory to God in the highest!” Our God has significance. Our God has substance. Our God is present. And our God is coming to save us! Gloria in excelsis! Glory to God in the highest and peace to people of good will!

Waiting Patiently

Year A Advent 1—Matthew 24:36-44

I’m not a very patient person really. I like things to be done in good order and on time; and I’m not averse to getting annoyed with myself or with other people when they’re not. Yes, patience is definitely a virtue that I’m still working on.

So, I’m not all that patient about the promises of God either. I want God’s realm of justice and peace right now! Why are we waiting and what are we waiting for? It’s all very well to talk about “the final consummation of all things which Christ will bring”, which the Basis of Union does, and about the “promised goal”; but just when is this promised end going to materialise—after all we Christians have been waiting for 2000 years already and the Jewish people have been waiting for a lot longer than that. Why are we waiting and what are we waiting for?

Of course, I’m not much interested in the end of the world as the movies have it—lots of chaos, havoc and destruction; nor am I much looking forward to the kind of scenarios that appear to be described in our Gospel reading for today—two people working together and one disappears; and I’m definitely not interested in the that rather dubious theological concept popularly known as the “rapture”. I really have no idea what some of our Christian brothers and sisters think that has to do with our shared Christian theology and the wonderful promises of God’s reign. Who on earth would think that that was worth waiting for?

In our shared Christian story, we wait with expectation the coming of the day of the Lord Jesus, i.e. we wait for the fullness of the relationship between God and Creation that Christ embodies, inaugurates and prefigures. But we do not agree on how that will happen, what it will be like, and the means by which it will come about.

The scenarios in today’s Gospel reading have tended to be popular around significant dates like turns of the millennia. Those stories were made very popular in the 1970s by a book called The Late Great Planet Earth by Hal Lindsey and Carole C. Carlson and by songs like Larry Norman’s “I wish we’d all been ready”. More recently, in the 1990s, the Left Behind series by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins resurrected them again for popular conception, with the same distortions of meaning that have plague this text for a very long time (but especially during the 19th century and a particular kind of what’s called “dispensationalist” doctrine).

The scenarios from Matthew are put together by “rapture” devotees with equally and even more gruesome tales from other apocalyptic literature in the Bible, i.e. with stories that predicted great disasters and even total destruction in the face of the coming reign of God. And this rather indiscriminate matching of biblical texts with its highly judgemental interpretative approach produced a rather dubious understanding of the Christian expectation that Christ will come again. The return of Christ was envisaged as a three-stage process: a time when “true believers” are caught up into God; a waiting period “in which the rest of humanity struggles to comprehend its situation and find faith”; before Christ’s final return (Vicky Balabanski, “A Surprise Ending!”, Seasons of the Spirit 28 Nov 2010).

New Testament scholar, Vicky Balabanski points out that, in this text from Matthew, we aren’t even told whether being taken is good or bad. Are the people taken rescued or are they taken away for judgement?

What is important is not the what will happen, but its relative predictability. Jesus is saying to the disciples in his “farewell discourse”, and Matthew is saying to his readers after the destruction of the second Temple that, if they think they know what is going to happen, they’d better think again. If they think they know what is going to happen, they’d better think again.

The disciples and the early Christians are warned against speculation. They are warned against thinking that they can control or even understand the future. In fact, probably the most important verse of the passage today is the first one, v. 36: no-one knows the day or the hour… except God. No-one knows the day or the hour except God. No-one knows the future. No-one can control events. No-one can predict—no-one except God. And we’re kidding ourselves if we think we can.

But if you think that’s about scaring us into submission, about frightening us into being good, so that we won’t be found wanting, then you’d also better think again. Any visions of the end times, any notions of what the fulfilment of all things in Christ will mean that are intended to instil belief in God through fear miss the point entirely. Waiting is not about doing good because we’ve been scared into it; or don’t want to end up eternally damned. Waiting is about taking the time to explore our relationship with God, about learning to love God and to love God’s creation. That’s what we’re called to do in this time of waiting—to explore our relationship with God; to get to know God. Not in order to win a place in some far off paradise; but because that is the very best that is offered to us right now.

The kind of scenarios envisioned by the “rapture” crowd shift the attention off God onto us; and even more than that they create a God-shaped image that is nothing like the God-shaped revelation we have in Jesus. Bill Loader, another New Testament scholar, reminds us that “it is a Jesus-shaped God who is our hope”: a God who empties God’s self for the sake of the Creation; a God who loves sacrificially; and stands in solidarity with the world God has made (Bill Loader, Advent 1 www.staff.murdoch.edu.au/~loader/MtAdvent1.htm).

As the people of God, we are called to wait attentively and patiently—not in an empty space, but in a God-given time for relationship with God and with one another. It isn’t about twiddling our thumbs, but being engaged. It isn’t about always looking for the next thing, but being present in the world in which we find ourselves, the world that God has given us.

It’s about being aware of what the God of future promises is saying and doing right here, right now, today. It’s about seeking God’s “perspective on the issues of today”—personally, environmentally, communally, nationally, internationally. It’s about making ourselves open to the vision of God now. That’s the patience God asks for in our anticipation of the fulfilment of all God’s promises already begun and accomplished in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus.

Now is God’s time—our time to wait in anticipation of the fulfilment of all God’s promises; not by trying to predict the future, but by seeking relationship with God know—by proclaiming justice, feeding the hungry, comforting the sick and bereaved, and announcing God’s reign in God’s world. Our left-behindness is not to be found in some future apocalypse but in the opportunities which exist now right before our very eyes—the opportunities to explore relationship with God and the whole of God’s creation. And that sort of patience is a virtue, I'm going to need to do a lot more work on.

Great Faithfulness!

Increase our faith Jesus! Make life easier for us! Don’t make it such a leap for us to believe, to act, to live in the hope you have given us. Increase our faith! Make it easier for us to pray, to focus on you, to give our lives in your service. Surely following you wasn’t meant to be such an effort of the will. We understand about it being difficult, but surely you could at least give us some more motivation; a greater sense of purpose; a clearer drive to get involved and keep going.

So you disciples think it’s all about being highly motivated and generally keyed up—like a rock concert or a political pep rally—everyone raring to go with no doubts or second thoughts—when actually it’s really more like cooking. It’s a very ordinary, everyday thing. You don’t expect to be thrown parties just for doing your everyday jobs, do you? You have to put the effort into it, to get the benefit out of it. But just like in cooking, you don’t need much spice to rev up a dish. You know if you put a little bit of pepper, just a little bit of mustard, in a casserole, it will add a whole lot of zing. And even if you only have the faith of a mustard seed, you will be faithful servants.

The faith of a mustard seed—now that’s a familiar phrase and we’ve been told often enough that that means that you just need a tiny thing to produce a huge tree; but mustard seeds are pretty ordinary and they’re certainly not the smallest seed, nor are they the tallest tree. Mustard seeds and mustard bushes are fairly ordinary in the world of the Middle East, more like prolific weeds than the cedars of Lebanon which were so easily logged out. Mustard is a very ordinary plant; but when you put it into a cooking pot, even just one seed, the stew is livened up. And overdoing it can ruin everything.

Faith wouldn’t be faith if it came without a second thought. Asking the questions and living with them gives a strength that a naïve gung-ho approach can’t touch.

It’s not in great achievements that the people of God show their faithfulness, but in the ordinary, everyday sharing, caring, persisting and enduring that God’s enduring mercy is embraced, demonstrated and discovered by others.

The covenant relationship of marriage is such a good metaphor for the covenant in which we find ourselves with God. We want it to be all champagne and roses, but really it’s more about tea and toast—it’s about the ordinary, everyday stuff of continuing to learn to listen to and work with one another.

God’s faithfulness to us, as extraordinary as it is, is all about God being with us in the everyday, the ordinary. And God’s call to us to faithfulness is the same—a call to listening to and working with God in the everyday ordinariness of our lives, whether we feel like it or not, whether we are motivated or not, whether we feel the buzz or not. Faith wouldn’t be faith if it came easy.

And yet it’s a miracle that God believes that we can believe; that God expects that we will be faithful servants, being and acting for God, just as our employers and our families expect us to be the people that we are to them—parent, child, grandparent, uncle or aunt, niece or nephew, sister or brother—and to do the work that we are employed to do. And if that’s all we do, surely we have done something as miraculous as saying to a mulberry tree, “Move and be planted in the sea.”

Faith, just takes a modicum of ordinary, everyday living, to demonstrate its truth, its effectiveness, its reality.

Increase our faith! Surely we have already enough to achieve what it is that God asks of us; because after all, all that we need has already been achieved by God. Faith, like an ordinary mustard seed, spreads like wildfire, like weeds and extends God’s realm to the ends of the earth.

Just Peace!

So Jeremiah goes out to buy a field, and you’d have to wonder why. As King Zedekiah points out, Jeremiah has prophesied, in the name of God, that the land of Judah will fall to the Babylonians, and, as we know, it did. But Jeremiah goes out to buy a field.

And it’s not just any field that Jeremiah buys. It’s a family field—the field of a cousin. And that’s significant for not only does Jeremiah have a right to buy the field to keep it in the family, he also has something of an obligation. He is a possible redeemer—a member of the family who is able to bail another member out in order that all members and all the property of the family stay in the family.

But still, why buy the field if the whole community is about to be uprooted—if there is little hope of avoiding the Babylonian captivity, and little chance that the land will not be taken over by others?

King Zedekiah may be at a loss in the story, but Jeremiah knows God’s plan, for God also is a redeemer and will not let the people of God be taken away completely, nor the land which God has given them be lost to them entirely. Well at least that’s the hope that is embodied in Jeremiah’s action. Jeremiah redeems a field ensuring that the title deeds will be safe for a long time—whatever the length of time there is for the people of God to be redeemed by God. Jeremiah is acting out his hope in the promises of God in an ordinary commercial transaction, and a common family practice.

The Babylonians may be besieging Jerusalem, but Jeremiah is acting out his hope in God’s peace, God’s restoration, beyond the battle raging and the captivity expected. In the midst of this chaos, Jeremiah buys a field.

I imagine that Jeremiah was not the only person doing ordinary things in the middle of the siege. People needed feeding; babies needed tending; water needed fetching; clothing and tools needed mending. Undoubtedly, anxiety and fear and insecurity were in abundance. But still the ordinary things needed doing.

It is the ordinary practices of everyday living that show where we place our hope. And Jeremiah buys a field expecting that God’s promises will be fulfilled beyond the chaos of the siege and a captivity. That’s the story of Jeremiah’s prophesy and hope—through chaos to peace.

The everyday practices of the rich man in Jesus’ story also revealed a hope; but this hope is not in a future beyond conflict and captivity. This hope is in the good things of life: fine food and fancy clothes—purple was the most expensive dye. This hope is not in sharing in community or helping out your neighbour. This hope is in status and power.

You would have thought that he might get it—Lazarus was just outside the gate with his sores and his hunger. Surely, this everyday sight was a powerful sign. And if that wasn’t enough, wasn’t the whole society based on the traditions of the Law and the Prophets, and didn’t these also speak of mercy to the widow, the orphan and the stranger—those in need of sustenance and support because they were disconnected from their families and communities.

The rich man has missed these everyday signs. He had been looking in the extraordinariness of the good life.

It’s easy to think that the signs of important things come with loud fanfares, glossy covers and rich clothing. It’s easy to look for cataclysms and Sydney Harbour fireworks displays to tell us where things are at and what’s important in life. But the real stuff of who we are and where we place our hope is in the ordinary, everydayness of routine family, community and business interactions.

Leo Tolstoy told the story of a cobbler, Martin Avdyeeich, who, having lost both his wife and child, was left in despair of life until someone pointed him to the stories of Jesus. Martin was engaged by the stories of the hospitality given to Jesus by Simon the Pharisee and the woman who anointed Jesus’ feet. He wished for the opportunity to afford such hospitality to Christ; and dreamed that he would be given it.

The next day, he avidly watched out for the coming of Christ, but there was only the old soldier Stepanuich, and Martin made him a cup of tea.

After Stepanuich left, Martin continued to look out for Christ, but there was only a woman and a child dressed too thinly for the cold, and Martin offered them some hot food.

When they left, Martin continued to look out for Christ, but there was only a widow and a young scoundrel trying to steal her apples, and Martin intervened, buying an apple for the boy and watching the boy assist the widow with her burden.

And still Martin watched for Christ until the end of the day. But he dreamt that night that Christ had come in the old soldier, Stepanuich, the woman and child dressed too thinly for the cold, and the widow and the young scoundrel.

So many times we look in the wrong places for the signs we seek when the hope we are promised is found in the routine everyday actions of an ordinary life. Jeremiah bought a field, but the rich man missed the poor man sitting at his gates.

This year’s Social Justice Sunday Statement from the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference asks Christians to ask themselves a series of questions about their everyday practices in order to counteract violence and promote peace.
1. How do we acknowledge the dignity of others?
2. How can we respond positively to anger?
3. How attentive are we to prayer and our spiritual development?
4. Are we prepared to seek help when we are not coping?
5. How can we foster strong families?
6. What can we contribute to the life of the community?
7. How does the community meet the needs of all its members?
8. How do we support and celebrate our cultural diversity?
9. Does our community reject violence?
10. Can we provide a meeting place [for reconciliation]?
11. Are we engaged in the life of our nation?
12. Are we aware of the most vulnerable?
13. Are we prepared to question assumptions and misinformation?
14. Will we defend the rights of others?

If we wait for a big sign to tell us what to do, we will wait in vain and miss out on it all together, but if every routine everyday interaction is an opportunity for living out our hope, we may just have peace, and a peace that is just!

God's Grief!

So the God of Jeremiah is still grieving in today’s reading. And this grieving has all the hallmarks of Elizabeth Kubler-Ross’ stages of grief: there’s denial—this God looks everywhere to see if there are any signs that the people have not simply abandoned their faith; there’s anger—this God threatens devastation and desolation in the face of intense grief over the betrayal of the people; there’s bargaining—this God threatens to lay waste, but not completely to make a “full end”; and there’s depression—this God is desolate in the face of the people’s foolishness. This God is heart-broken before a people who do not know God, who do not understand, who do not know how to do good. This God is in a very sorry way. This God is grieving. And this God is looking for some recognition that the people of God have not forgotten what is means to be the wonderful creation of God, the beloved children of God, the chosen people of God. This God is aching in and for relationship with God’s own people.

“I think it really pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don’t notice it.” I think it really annoys God when we don’t see the wonder that is in front of our faces. It think it grieves God when the people of God fail to understand who God is and what God does. That’s the sentiment that Shug Avery shares with Celie in the novel The Color Purple by Alice Walker. “I think it really pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don’t notice it.” (p. 167)

Shug is an African American jazz singer alienated from her family and the community of faith, largely because of her exuberance for life. But Shug still knows who God is. Celie is a woman beaten down by her stepfather’s incest, her husband’s harsh treatment and the loss of the 2 children she has borne. She is still part of the community of faith, but she is struggling to know who God is. We listen in on the way in which Celie relates conversation (pp. 167-168). Shug says:

Listen, God love everything you love—and a mess of stuff you don’t. But more than anything else, God love admiration.
You saying God vain? I ast.
Naw, she say. Not vain, just wanting to share a good thing. I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don’t notice it.
What it do when it pissed off? I ast.
Oh, it make something else. People think pleasing God is all God care about, But any fool living in the world can see it always trying to please us back.
Yeah? I say.
Yeah, she say. It always making little surprises and springing them on us when us least expect.
You mean it want to be loved, just like the bible say.
Yes, Celie, she say. Everything want to be loved.

Everything wants to be loved; and God wants to be loved most of all; because God wants to be in relationship with us; to be loved as God loves us. God is aching in and for relationship with God’s own people.

That’s why God is so intent to go to such lengths to pursue us, to seek us, to find us—even when we try so hard not to be found. We are worth everything to God: “I think it really pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don’t notice it.” (The Color Purple, p. 167)

And that pursuit, that search for even, or more significantly, especially, the littlest, the lowest and the least is not a habit, or a formality, or even just something to do. It is God’s very nature—God’s very nature is to seek us and to want so badly for us to seek God—just as it is the shepherd’s very nature to care for the sheep with the corresponding result that losing a sheep is a loss of something of the shepherd’s being, a loss which must be avoided at all costs, and remedied if at all possible. It is God’s very nature to seek us and to want so much for us to seek God—just as the marriage dowry which a woman wore in the form of coins was part of that woman’s very personhood; and the loss of even just one coin, a loss to be avoided at all costs and remedied if at all possible. It is God’s very nature to seek us and to want so intensively for us to seek God—that when we turn our back on God, God grieves. “I think it really pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don’t notice it.” (The Color Purple, p. 167)
 

Many years ago, three students were walking in the French countryside. As they walked they spoke boldly to each other of their passionate atheism. How foolish the idea of God was! How much harm was caused in the name of religion!
When they came upon a small country church, two of the students turned upon their friend, daring him to test his courage of conviction by entering the church and telling the priest about their conversation. And the third student did.
“Well,” said the priest, “you have been bold enough to accept the dare of your friends? Would you accept another challenge from an old priest?” And the student did.
“What I want you to do,” said the priest, “is to go to the sanctuary of the church, look at the crucifix, and say 3 times ‘Jesus Christ died for me and I don’t give a damn’.”
Reluctantly now, the student did as the priest challenged. Looking upon the crucifix, twice, the brash, young atheist repeated the words: “Jesus Christ died for me and I don’t give a damn. Jesus Christ died for me and I don’t give a damn.” But he was unable to continue, unable to make the bold proclamation a third time as he faced the effigy of God’s search for him. He returned to the priest, asking him to hear his confession. [An adapted story]

That young, brash atheist student was the soon-to-become famous Sri Lankan evangelist, D.T. Niles, the author of the hymn “The great love of God”:

The great love of God is revealed in the Son,
who came to this earth to redeem every one.
It’s yours, it is ours, O how lavishly giv’n!
the pearl of great price, and the treasure of heav’n.
Daniel Thambyrajah Niles 1908–70

Listen, God loves everything you love—and a mess of stuff you don’t. But more than anything else, God loves admiration. Is God vain? Not vain, just wanting to share a good thing. I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don’t notice it.

I think God grieves for us to pursue God as much as God pursues us; and that when God finds us and we find God, when even just one of us is found by God and finds God, “there is joy in the presence of the angels” for God aches in and for relationship with God’s own people, us.

Jeremiah's God

So Jeremiah goes down to the house of a potter to listen to God; and snatches of the chorus “Have thine own way” fill our imaginations.

Have thine own way Lord, have thine own way.
Thou art the potter; I am the clay.
Mould me and make me, till all shall see
Christ only always living in me.

It’s such a beautiful little melody that lulls you into a sense of safety and security about being in the hands of God. But safety and security are not what Jeremiah finds at the potter’s house!

Jeremiah hears the words of a God prepared to wreak destruction upon a disobedient people; as well as to build and encourage a people who orient themselves towards God. This is a God whose rule is absolute; and to whom absolute obedience is required. It’s the sort of God that we’re not very comfortable with in the twenty-first century with our emphasis on God’s love and maybe even our bland sense of who God is. But the God that Jeremiah confronts is a jealous God; a demanding God; a God who will brook no turning back.

I have decided to follow Jesus (3 times).
No turning back (2 times).

All of the commitments we make to love and serve God, and the people of God, and God’s good creation; all the promises we make about doing what God wills and ignoring our own; all the covenants we make about being put to God’s use without any thought for ourselves—all these words sound hollow in the face of the words of a God who promises retribution if we do not fulfil the oaths we make.

Thus says the LORD: Look I am a potter shaping evil against you and devising a plan against you. Turn now, all of you from your evil way, and amend your ways and your doings. (Jeremiah 18:11)

Have thine own way, Lord (not if we can help it). This God sounds far too terrifying and for our modern and postmodern sensibilities. We want a God who is meek and mild—a gentle Jesus who wouldn’t hurt a lamb. But the God that Jeremiah confronts is a tough-minded and tough-acting God. Have thine own way, Lord? O God, what have we let ourselves in for? Did we really sign up to this?

Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come, your will be done,
on earth as in heaven.

The familiar words roll off our tongues; but it’s not Jeremiah’s God that we’re usually envisaging as we pray them. We want a cuddly God, a SNAG God, a sensitive new age God, a God who knows the way around the kitchen, and is emotionally attentive. We don’t want Jeremiah’s God. We’re afraid of Jeremiah’s God. We’re maybe even angry at Jeremiah’s God. And with good reason!

Jeremiah’s God is a patriarchal God. There is only one authority—God; and all else quakes in God’s wake. There is only one rule, one regime with this God; and that is God’s rule, God’s regime. There’s little opportunity for complaint, or is there…? Or is there?

Because Jeremiah’s God is also the God who hears the people’s lament and who acts. Jeremiah’s God is a God who is determined to protect God’s people in the face of a hostile environment. Jeremiah’s God is a God prepared to make some tough decisions in order to shepherd the people of God in the right way.

There are some things that we are no longer comfortable with about this patriarchal God. We are suspicious of the type of authority that apparently brooks no dialogue. We are rightly concerned about the type of human authorities that will claim power for themselves on the basis of such a God.

But there are also some things about this patriarchal God that we need to bear in mind. The world which depicted God in this way was a very different world from our own. Family and community were everything; and family and community leaders carried great responsibilities for the welfare of those groups. There was no choice involved in that. If the patriarch did not protect the people, who would? If the patriarch would not make the difficult decisions to lead the people to safety, who would? And sometimes getting to safety meant crossing deserts, and meeting hostile peoples and fighting for survival in a harsh environment.

The family, the community, relied on staying together in order to survive. There was only one rule, the rule of the patriarch, the regime of the family, the cohesiveness of the community. Without the family or the community, you were literally on your own—on your own for food, on your own for shelter, on your own for comfort, on your own for protection.

Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come, your will be done,
on earth as in heaven.

O God, we acknowledge your rule, your oversight, your guidance. We want your way to be the way that we do things here. We want to align ourselves with you. We want to give your allegiance to your rule, your regime, your pattern of family organisation, for we know that you are the one who can protect us.

It is “patriarchal” in the sense that it is modelled on the traditional Jewish family structure where the patriarch provided the guidance and oversight for an extended family group. But for us, it cannot be patriarchal in the sense that it sets up hierarchies where men have authority over everyone else; or where power is concentrated in the hands of unquestioned authority figures.

God’s rule is one of justice, peace and the integrity of creation. God’s nature is love. And God’s hope and call is for the whole creation to be in relationship with their Creator, and thereby with each other. We are uncomfortable with a God who will apparently destroy for nothing; or is it for nothing…? Or is it for nothing?

Because Jeremiah’s God promises destruction upon those who will not live within God’s rule, will not live within God’s regime, will not acknowledge God’s way of being and doing.

This a God who will lead the people through difficult terrain in order for them to reach the promised land. This is a God who will prod and push a wilful people in the right paths. This is a God who will not let us turn back for our own sakes.

The commitment has been made and the allegiance has been given. This is a God who knows what it is to carry a commitment through. This is a God who knows what it is to carry the cross; who will see the project through to the end. This is a God who will not let us go—from before we were born until after we die. This is a God who knows us utterly as a potter knows the clay that is worked and the pot that is made from it.

Have thine own way Lord, have thine own way.
Thou art the potter; I am the clay.
Mould me and make me, till all shall see
Christ only always living in me.

This is the God who provides guidance and oversight, love and care. This is the God who longs for relationship with the whole creation; and this is the God from whom, through Jesus, we receive our inheritance as children of God.

Facing God's Judgement

These days we don’t like the image of a wrathful God—and with some reason. The wrath of God has been called down by the people of God on all sorts of people who very likely didn’t deserve it. It’s been used to make us quake in our boots; and to scare us into believing. It’s been used to justify military action against peoples who are seen to be other than ourselves.

But if we ignore the God who is angry in the scriptures, we miss a lot of the story. In particular, we miss the God of justice, the God who demands justice, the God who will not let humanity rest in apathy, but who propels us into just action, if not for the sake of God’s love, then in the face of God’s righteous indignation.

Yet, we must be very careful when we interpret this imagery. The stories which we have handed down to us are complex and situated. They come from particular times and particular places; and they come from very human hands—human hands attached to human hearts and human minds with their own particular perspectives, and biases, and prejudices, and outright hatreds.

It’s been easy for the people of God to take hold of God’s wrath when we believe it to be directed at others. We have often missed the point of God’s righteous laments when they have been proclaimed over us and our unjust behaviours.

Be appalled, O heavens, at this, be shocked, be utterly desolate, says the LORD, for my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living water, and dug out cisterns for themselves, cracked cisterns that can hold no water. (Jeremiah 2:12-13)

“O people, you have turned your back on the water of life which I offer and looked for alternate sources in places that are barren,” proclaims Jeremiah in the name of God. “You have deceived yourselves and neglected your calling.”

“Who us? Surely, not us? We’re good people. We’re righteous people. We’re the people of God.”

And yet certainly, it is us! It is us who looks upon the devastation of our world, apparently powerless in the face of natural disaster, and economic folly, and global warming. It is us who try as we might still manage to identify enemies and threats, and chase after shadows. It is us who pick the best places; and leave the worst to the littlest and the least. It is us!

If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us… If we say that we have not sinned, we make [God] a liar, and [God’s] word is not in us. (1 John 1: 8, 10 NRSV)

O God, we are not the people we pretend to be. We say, “I do not lie, I do not cheat, I do not steal.” Yet, this cannot be true, for we hide our real selves from others, we compete with our friends for position and prestige, we take praise and honour that is not ours. In human frailty, we confess to you that our sin is so deep that we cannot even recognise it.

O God, we are not the people we want to be. We say, “I am not racist, I am not sexist, I do not offend anyone.” Yet, this cannot be true, for all around us people are in pain. Unintended, unrecognised injustices stem from our sin as individuals, as a community and as a nation. As the letter to the Romans reminds us:

I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do. (Romans 7:18b – 19)

If God is angry, and God’s anger is righteous, then we must face the very real possibility that it is direct at us. It is directed at us who say we know God. It is directed at us who claim to follow God’s will. It is directed at us who dare to think that we might know or understand or recognise that which is of God and that which is not.

God’s anger is not directed against the stranger. It is not directed at those who have no inkling that there is a greater call on our lives. God’s anger is directed at those whom God has called—at us!

And perhaps that doesn’t sound much like good news to us! But it is to those who know they have nothing, who have no idea where the next meal or the next coat will be coming from. It is good news for those who are the poor and the humble, the littlest and the least. It is good news for the homeless, and the landless, for the destitute and the weak.

In the scriptures, God is depicted as being angry when the people of God turn away from God; and when the justice of God is transgressed by ill-treatment of those in need—those without the necessary social support required for survival and for thriving. In the scriptures, the classic picture of those most in need is “the widow, the orphan, and the stranger”—the ones who do not have any family or community to support them; the ones who rely on the kindness and goodwill of others; the ones who know their need and must throw themselves of the mercy of others.

God’s call to the people of God is to provide hospitality to the stranger, having received hospitality from the God who is strange to us. God’s anger is not directed towards the people with whom we feel uncomfortable, or whom we find different. God’s anger is not directed at those who do not know any better or who are at their wits’ end. God’s anger is directed at the people who should know better—the very people of God; and it is directed at the people of God when we turn away from God’s call to hospitality, and God’s offer of hospitality in our own wretched states.

In our readings for today, we have 2 pictures of God’s judgement. In Jeremiah, God is lamenting a people who left the God who loves them behind. And in the Gospel reading, Jesus warns about thinking too highly of ourselves and too little of others:

For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted. (Luke 14: 11)

To be sure, God is always merciful, but merciful has never meant wishy-washy. God is concerned about what happens in God’s creation. God is concerned with our world. And God has every reason to be angry.

If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. (1 John 1:8b)

But we do know the state of our predicament. We do know that we don’t always see what is wrong and what is right. We do know that even when we try to get it right, we can get it wrong because we don’t see the big picture. And we can choose for ourselves the place of humility rather than exaltation. We can recognise who we are and humbly offer ourselves to God, for…

If we confess our sins, [God] who is faithful and just will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. (1 John 1: 9)

O God, in the depth of our sin, we ask you to grant us forgiveness for the wrongs we have done and the good we have failed to do. Help us to recognise and receive your mercy that we might help others to do the same. And hold us as a loving parent holds a wayward children until we have found again the love and security we have within your will.

The God of Jesus is an exceptional parent. Love and mercy do not overlook the need for justice and reconciliation. Acceptance is not given without direction and boundaries. God loves us; and we know it. Therefore we have a responsibility to the people who need God most. So…

When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, in case they may invite you in return, and you would be repaid. But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you… (Luke 14:12-13)

But God will see and God will know, because this is exactly what God has done for us!

Our Father

Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as in heaven.

The familiar words roll off our tongues; but they are words of great significance. When we pray “Our Father” we are indicating our allegiance to living within God’s rule, God’s regime, God’s pattern of family organisation.

It is “patriarchal” in the sense that it is modelled on the traditional Jewish family structure where the patriarch provided the guidance and oversight for an extended family group.

But for us, it cannot be patriarchal in the sense that it sets up hierarchies where men have authority over everyone else; or where power is concentrated in the hands of unquestioned authority figures.

God’s rule is one of justice, peace and the integrity of creation. God’s nature is love. And God’s hope and call is for the whole creation to be in relationship with their Creator, and thereby with each other.

The imagery of God as Father places heavy responsibility on human fathers. The ultimate picture of God sets an impossible standard for ordinary, human beings. And that sometimes is not very helpful either. But God’s call to live and work within God’s rule is a call to everyone, not just fathers.

On this Father’s Day, we remember that human fathers are just that--human: that they love and care; worry and get angry and frustrated; get it right and get it wrong. And that together, as the people of God, we are travelling with each other, learning and encouraging one another to live and work within God’s family where everyone is important and all are called to authentic relationship with one another.

We also remember that we are called to acknowledge the God who provides guidance and oversight, love and care, longing for relationship with the whole creation; and who, through Jesus, we receive our inheritance as children of God.

Turning to God

Human pride begins with turning our backs on God.
Wisdom begins with facing God in humility.
Those who hate God cringe before God’s judgement.
Those who receive God’s love with openness
are fed with the finest wheat
and, from the rock, honey which satisfies.
God overthrows the powerful abusers
and sets the humble in their place.
For all who exalt themselves will be humbled
and everyone who humbles themselves will be exalted.
(Cf Psalm 81:10-16; Sirach 10:12-18)

Facing God's Wrath

These days we don’t like the image of a wrathful God—and with some reason. The wrath of God has been called down by the people of God on all sorts of people who very likely didn’t deserve it. But if we ignore the God who is angry in the scriptures, we miss a lot of the story. Yet, we must be very careful when we interpret this imagery.

God’s anger is not directed against the stranger. God’s call to the people of God is to provide hospitality to the stranger. God’s anger is not directed towards the people with whom we feel uncomfortable, for they are strangers too.
Rather, God’s anger is directed at the people who should know better—the very people of God; and it is directed at the people of God when we turn away from God’s call to hospitality, and God’s offer of hospitality.

In the scriptures, God is depicted as being angry when the people of God turn away from God; and when the justice of God is transgressed by ill-treatment of those in need—those without the necessary social support required for survival and for thriving. In the scriptures, the classic picture of such people is often given in terms of “the widow, the orphan, and the stranger”.

In our readings for today, we have 2 interesting pictures of God’s judgement. In Jeremiah, God is lamenting a people who left the God who loves them behind:

Be appalled, O heavens, at this, be shocked, be utterly desolate, says the LORD, for my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living water, and dug out cisterns for themselves, cracked cisterns that can hold no water. (Jeremiah 2:12-13)

And in the Gospel reading, Jesus warns about thinking too highly of ourselves and too little of others:

For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted. (Luke 14: 11)

To be sure, God is always merciful, but like a good parent, mercy is not given without direction and boundaries. God loves us; and we know it. Therefore we have a responsibility to the people who need God most.

Witness to Grace

Each week, whether we celebrate Holy Communion or not, we gather around Christ’s table, the table of the reconciliation of all creation. As we focus on Stewardship from Thanksgiving, I invite you to remember both the promise of this gift of reconciliation and the vocation that we have within it—to worship, witness and serve as God’s people for the sake of God’s world. The following litany from Brian Wren captures that promise and vocation. It is a meditation on 1 Corinthians 11:17-29 which includes the Narrative of Institution, the telling of the story of the beginning of Christ’s thanksgiving meal.

What do you bring to Christ’s table?
We bring bread,
made by many people’s work,
from an unjust world
where some have plenty
and most go hungry.

At this table all are fed and no-one turned away.
Thanks be to God.

What do you bring to Christ’s table?
We bring wine,
made by many people’s work,
from an unjust world
where some have leisure
and most struggle to survive.

At this table all share the cup
of pain and celebration
and no-one is denied.
Thanks be to God.

These gifts shall be for us
the body and blood of Christ.
Our witness against hunger,
our cry against injustice,
and our hope for a world
where God is fully known
and every child is fed.
Thanks be to God.
(From Wendy Robins, ed., Let All the World, USPG, 1990)

Where Your Treasure Is

In Luke 12:32-40, we are again confronted with questions about our priorities, our orientation, our focus. Are we oriented towards God, or towards the pursuit of things that are not of God? “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (v. 34).

A couple of weeks ago, in the sharing about Emmaus, Armidale Congregation was reminded of the importance of facing up to our real priorities: where our money, time and energy actually goes, not where we think it goes, or want it to go, but where they are actually directed, and what that means for what is our real focus in life? On Sunday 22 August, we’re going to focus on Stewardship from Thanksgiving. We’ll share lunch, give thanks for God’s work in the life of our congregation, and re-consider our own priorities.

In creation, God calls us to be stewards of the resources of creation. In the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, God invites us to be partners in healing and reconciliation, stewards of God’s grace. The Spirit works within the people of God as God’s stewards for the benefit of all creation.

If we experience stewardship as acting out of guilt or fear, then we may as well not bother: guilt and fear are not our calling in God. If stewardship is an act of thanksgiving for God’s gracious gifts to us in creating, reconciling and sustaining us as God’s people, then we just might be part of God’s building of a new commonwealth of justice and peace in our world.

So what is it that you are thankful for in your life, the life of the people of God, the life of the world? And do your real priorities reflect your thankfulness; or are they directed towards the “musts” and “shoulds” of other people’s “priorities” and preoccupations?

“Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is God’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom” (v. 32). Focus then on the things that are of God: the good creation; reconciliation in Christ; and the gift of the Holy Spirit enfolding us into very life of God. Your priorities, your real priorities will follow this focus as you celebrate the life we have in God.

Signs of the Times

In Luke 12:49-56, Jesus exhorts his disciples to interpret the signs of the times. Would that it were so easy? It’s hard to know what are the significant social, cultural and economic movements in our time. In this election season, we are presented with many claims and counter-claims about what’s important and what will make things better (or worse).

As Christian people, we begin from a particular perspective in our analysis. We begin with our understandings of who God is, who we are before God, and what is God’s will and purpose, not just for us, but for the whole of creation.

The Twelfth Assembly of The Uniting Church in Australia (July 2009) adopted the statement An Economy of Life: Re-Imagining Human Progress in a Flourishing World. This statement describes how the Church understands God’s will for the reconciliation and renewal of all creation and what this means for how we understand human progress. It considers the values and goals of the current global economic agenda and suggests that a Christian economic perspective would be based on different values and aim to achieve the wellbeing and flourishing of all people and the planet. Pre-election materials have been prepared based on this statement by UnitingJustice (http://assembly.uca.org.au). That resource reminds us:

Like all citizens in a democratic state, Christians have a responsibility to actively engage in the political processes of their country. As Christians, however, we have a particular responsibility to think about how we do this in a way that answers the call to be good news in the world: to bring justice, peace and hope to those processes and to seek justice, peace and hope as outcomes.

Let us pray that we may faithfully interpret the signs of the times in God’s terms and act within God’s will for the whole creation. Happy voting!

On Building Bigger Barns... Or Not!

Someone in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me.”

It seems a fair enough request to a Rabbi who might just know the law of inheritance or might just be willing to argue a different perspective for the rights of a younger son or a disinherited child. But we don’t know where the speaker comes in the family order, so we really can’t tell what he wants.
Still, it seems a fair enough request to a Rabbi who was interested in justice and fairness, who had told a story not so long ago in the text about a Good Samaritan who flouted the conventions of the time and the danger of a lonely road to care for a destitute stranger.

Yes, it seems a fair enough request…

Yet like a good Rabbi, frustratingly like a good Rabbi, the Rabbi does not answer with an answer but rather, another question, “Who set me to be a judge or arbitrator over you?” “Who set me to be a judge or arbitrator over you?”
What kind of question is this? Perhaps, it is a rhetorical one that really means “Get away with you. Why are you bothering me with this?” Maybe it is another invitation to identify the identity of this Rabbi like no other: “Well God, of course, gave you the right to judgement or arbitration!” Or perhaps, just perhaps, it is an invitation to think a little differently about the dilemma in which the person in the crowd seems to find himself. And yes, according to the text, it is a he; but then women didn’t get much of a look in in the inheritance stakes in first century societies.

But then, there is a diatribe about the pitfalls of greed. Surely this is the judgement that the Rabbi questions his competence or right or responsibility to give. What’s really going on here?

If it is an invitation to think about the dilemma a little differently, then the Rabbi goes on to provide a judgement anyway. What is really going on here?
Someone in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me.”

It is the someone in the crowd who comes seeking a judgement but not upon himself, upon his brother. And the Rabbi produces a judgement upon the someone.
But it would be too easy to preach a sermon against the extravagances and injustices of greed. And you probably know all about that. I certainly do. After all, Australia comes about 12th in the worldwide prosperity stakes, and we’re pretty good consumers.
But morality barely touches the surface of the depth of this intriguing passage. And moralism would be far too easy.

No, the key to this passage doesn’t lie in the injunction against greed or the warning about bigger barns, although such a warning may certainly be warranted. No, the key to this passage lies in the tag, the sting in the tail, the reference to the superiority of being rich toward God—being rich toward God. But what does this really mean?

You’d think once we’d located the key, we’d be well and truly on track, wouldn’t you? But it seems that this key just raises more questions than it answers too. This key is more like another puzzle which needs another key, another solution, another answer, another response. But I bet if we asked this Rabbi, we’d receive another enigmatic response again.

What would we ask anyway? What must I do to be rich toward God? It sounds an awful lot like a question asked not so long ago in the text: What must I do to inherit eternal life? It was asked by a lawyer who, for his trouble, got an admonition about loving God and loving neighbour. Although, he wasn’t particularly satisfied with that, so he kept on asking and received a story about a man whom the lawyer might not have recognised as being a neighbour but yet was a neighbour to someone who needed a friend, indeed a rescuer, a saviour. Perhaps things are becoming a little clearer—or not.

The Rabbi is asked for a judgement: a judgement upon a brother; a judgement upon a neighbour. And the seeker receives a judgement upon himself; upon his seeking. And the judgement seems to be pointing back to something a little earlier about loving God and loving neighbour; and a strange story about a strange rescuer.

Judgement upon another was not a part of the parable of the Good Samaritan; mercy was. And this diatribe about greed too is not so much a judgement upon the someone in the crowd, but an act of mercy pointing to the “better part” chosen by Mary of Bethany while Martha is distracted. That wasn’t so long ago in the text either.
These better barns and this question about inheritance, are they distractions too? Or perhaps detours up wrong paths. The Rabbi seems to be saying that, even if we could achieve what this someone in the crowd might want to achieve: the laying up of ample goods, allowing a life of relaxation, eating, drinking and merry-making, it would be for nothing. Judgement may come before we have achieved what we want to achieve. Or it may come after we have achieved what we want to achieve. More likely, it will come while we are trying to achieve what we want to achieve. But whenever it comes, what won’t be significant is what we have achieved or not, or how relaxed and comfortable we are. It will be where we are at with God. And where we are at with God depends on us seeking the riches of God… or does it?

The riches of God have nothing to do with what we can or want to achieve. The riches of God have nothing to do with what we seek or what we find. The riches of God have already been achieved for us in the person of the Rabbi himself, judge and arbitrator, redeemer and saviour.

And then, what is required of us is not a striving for riches but a response to the riches already received and that response consists in the love of God and the love of neighbour. This response is not one that can be achieved or accomplished. It does not have a beginning or an ending. It is not all that complicated. It hardly seems possible that we might have missed it. Rather, it is just what it means to be overwhelmed by the gift of freedom that we find in Christ, by the gift of re-creation that we have been given in Christ, by the gift of renewal that comes to us through Christ.

Someone in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me.”

The Rabbi just might have said, “You already have what’s coming to you. Sit back and enjoy it which is to say, respond to this gracious gift by honouring the one from whom it comes and nurturing one another in the riches of this grace.” And that my friends, is now and always has been the guts of the Gospel, and the inheritance of eternal life.

On Taking Responsiblity

Someone comes to Jesus asking him to settle a dispute in the family. That is, after all, one of the things that rabbis could be called upon to do. And yet, in the tradition of the wise judges, a dispute settlement is never just that. It’s also a teaching moment. So, as is quite common in rabbinic discussion, the teacher turns the question back on the seeker, the student—“Friend, who set me to be judge or arbitrator over you?”

“Friend, who sets me as judge? Perhaps it is you. You are the one who seeks. But what is it that you seek? Do you come seeking wealth? Be careful of your greed. You might spend a lifetime seeking wealth, only to discover that you have never enjoyed life. What is it that you seek in this request for judgement? Is it worth more than your relationship with your brother?”

As humans, we are often tempted to appeal to external authorities for gain. And yet, what is the gain that we seek? Jesus asks the seeker to really examine the priorities in life; and to consider the request that is made—“Friend, who set me to be a judge or arbitrator over you?”

This passage reminds us to be careful in our appeals to divine judgement and arbitration because we just may find that that judgement falls on ourselves because our priorities are skewed. It asks us to take seriously God’s call to relationship in the entirety of our lives—even in situations of the seeking of judgement and justice.

This passage also reminds us of God’s mercy, because surely if judgement was truly made, none of us would be found innocent in our actions and in our motives.
This passage invites us to focus on the things that are important in a life centred on God; and to set aside those things that don’t fit.

This passage invites us to take responsibility for God’s judgement, which is God’s mercy, in our interactions with others.

“Friend, who set me to be a judge or arbitrator over you? It is better that you take responsibility for your own decisions, because those decisions are what makes your life the life that it is—one centred on God; or one dedicated to building bigger barns.”

Persistence in Prayer

The Gospel reading (Luke 11:1-13) reminds us to be persistent in discipleship: persistent in prayer; persistent in bringing our case and the needs of the world before God. The model of what we know as the Lord’s Prayer is provided. So does God need our persistence, or is this something about the need to us to continually be enfolded in the persistence of God?

Prayer can so often be understood as our asking God to do something for us or others; but does God really need us to tell God what to do?

My absolute favourite chapter in the scriptures is Romans 8. That chapter reminds us that it is the Spirit who prays through us, and that the act of prayer is God’s action of joining our wills to God’s purpose. It is God’s activity of forming us as God’s people and enfolding us into God’s mission in the world.

26 Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words.

In the face of God’s persistent, we are called to persistence in opening ourselves to God in prayer for God to work in and through us.

Seeking One, you are the beginning and the end of our search.
Finding One, you are the alpha and omega of all discovery.
Asking One, you are the voice and the silence of our exploration.
Giving One, you are the fullness and the emptiness of all yearning.
Persistent One, you never abandon your search for us,
nor tire of our repetitive toings and froings.
Receiving One, you endlessly welcome us home,
and spread before us a feast
in the face of our constant requests for mere morsels of bread.

Search us, O God, and find within us the secrets we hide.
Ask us, O God, and receive from within us the pain we bear.
Keep knocking at the door of our lives
until we open our wills to your purpose,
our lives to your life, and our yearning to your hope. Amen.

A Prayer of Adoration & Confession

Seeking One, you are the beginning and the end of our search.
Finding One, you are the alpha and omega of all discovery.
Asking One, you are the voice and the silence of our exploration.
Giving One, you are the fullness and the emptiness of all yearning.
Persistent One, you never abandon your search for us,
nor tire of our repetitive toings and froings.
Receiving One, you endlessly welcome us home,
and spread before us a feast
in the face of our constant requests for mere morsels of bread.

Search us, O God, and find within us the secrets we hide.
Ask us, O God, and receive from within us the pain we bear.
Keep knocking at the door of our lives
until we open our wills to your purpose,
our lives to your life, and our yearning to your hope.

When we forget to seek you and discover that we have lost our place:
Lord, have mercy.
Lord, have mercy.

When we ask once and leave it at that:
Christ, have mercy.
Christ, have mercy.

When we draw back from knocking, lest we disturb you:
Lord, have mercy.
Lord, have mercy.

Strengthen our courage; bolster our endurance;
spur us onward in your way in our world
through the power of the Holy Spirit
and the name of Christ.
Amen.

Discipleship

The story of Mary and Martha (Luke 10:38-42) is an extraordinary one; not least for the ways that it has been used extraordinarily to suggest that busy people (especially women) are somehow less the servants that they appear to be. In this way, the story has often created a double bind for people who take responsibility for many tasks, only to discover that their sense of responsibility is not really appreciated, and may in fact be denigrated as “less holy” than the activity of another.

But in its context, this story was never meant to be another weapon to bludgeon busy people (especially women) over the head with. Rather, it was a story about the freedom of the service of Christ.

Mary is permitted to sit in the place of a disciple of a rabbi—“at his feet”, i.e. learning in dialogue with him. She is allowed a freedom not normally given to women. She is treated and accepted as a disciple of a rabbi.

Martha is offered the opportunity to try something different—not to be burdened by the responsibilities that fell to her because of her gender and her position in the household; but to accept the new responsibility of the disciple of Jesus.

This story is not a juxtaposition of the active and contemplative life. The responsibility of the disciple of a rabbi was the responsibility of engagement also. Rabbinic teaching and learning occurs in dialogue between teacher and student; and sometimes it may be that the student offers a new thought or insight to the teacher as well as vice versa.

Rather this story is an invitation to everybody to be Jesus’ disciples. Whether it’s a fishing net or the washing up that you have to leave behind to travel as a disciple; whether you are female or male; whether you are the eldest or the youngest; whether you are Jew or Gentile (as Paul reminds us in Colossians 1:15-28), you are called to be a disciple of the one who has reconciled all things in his very life, death and resurrection.

Who is My Neighbour?

Year C Ordinary Sunday 15—9.30 am, 11 July 2010—Armidale Uniting Church—Luke 10:25-37

The story of the Good Samaritan is a very familiar one. In fact, it’s so familiar that it’s a bit of a problem. It’s a problem because it’s a parable that has almost totally been reduced to a good moral story. So, it doesn’t quite have the impact of its original telling. It doesn’t quite have the impact of a story which challenges and turns upside down our understandings about life and about God. It’s a bit of a problem really.

But it’s not quite so much of a problem if we put the story back into its context. If we remember to read it in the context in which Luke puts this parable.
Someone well versed in the law of the Jews comes to Jesus to put him to the test. The lawyer’s intent is to check Jesus out. Perhaps he wants to catch Jesus out. Perhaps he wants to decide whether Jesus is someone who can be talked to and trusted, who can be regarded as really knowing the truth about life. For whatever reason, the lawyer is said to have asked of Jesus, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?”

Now maybe the lawyer has come searching and the question is an honest one and maybe the lawyer is just trying to make a point about the orthodoxy, the rightness, of Jesus’ views. But for whatever reason, the question is asked and an answer is given but it’s a cautious one. In fact, it’s not an answer at all, it’s another question, “Well what does the law say about it?” And before the lawyer can blink, he is providing the answer to his question himself.

“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your mind and all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbour as yourself.”

And Jesus responds, “You have answered right; do this, and you will live.”
Now it looks just a little bit stupid to have turned up asking a question of Jesus, giving him the respect due a Rabbi if you provide the answer to the question yourself. The lawyer wants to engage Jesus in a rabbinic discussion. This exchange is too short. So to save face, to prove that his question is legitimate or to show that he is honestly seeking the way of God, the lawyer asks, “Well then, who is my neighbour?” And before we can blink, Jesus has told the story of a man who was going from Jerusalem to Jericho.

Now I guess that you know that it was a rough road. And I know you remember that the story says the man was robbed, beaten and left for dead, that a Levite passed by and a priest but neither stopped to see what was going on. And I know that you know that in Jesus’ story it was a Samaritan who offered assistance to the man, who took him to an inn and who paid the man’s keep until the Samaritan could return.
But the story isn’t really an answer, so far as answers go. Rather, it is another question, a challenge to the assumptions which are behind the lawyer’s approach to Jesus. Thus the story concludes, “Which of these three, do you think, proved neighbour to the man who fell among the robbers?” “Which of these three, do you think, proved neighbour to the man who fell among the robbers?”

And the lawyer jumps in quickly and says, “The one who showed mercy on him.” And Jesus says, “Go and do likewise.”

Now the question that the lawyer asks is “who is my neighbour?” and the question which Jesus asks is “who was neighbour to the man?” And it would be easy to say that Jesus is making a point to the lawyer about the fact that rather than determining who are the neighbours who should be loved, he should be making neighbours by loving those around him and especially those in great need. That would make the story of the Good Samaritan a nice little moral tale with a good and reasonable message—a reasonable exegesis.

Or we could listen more carefully to the question that the lawyer asks is “who is my neighbour?” and the question which Jesus asks is “who was neighbour to the man?” and think about the lawyer being cast not as Levite or priest or even Samaritan but as the beaten and half dead man on the road. And then our story just might become a parable which challenges and turns upside down the presuppositions which the lawyer has brought to this conversation with Jesus.

You see, the lawyer has come as one who thinks that he knows or that he can know truth, that he can obtain eternal life, on his own, by himself, by doing certain things. Love of God and of neighbour are works which will unlock the door to eternal life as soon as he can understand how to do them perfectly.

But Jesus says, “Uh uh, see yourself for a moment not as the one who brings all the resources, all the knowledge, all the ability. See yourself as the one who has been beaten and nearly destroyed, who needs love and friendship, especially the love of a neighbour. See yourself as one in a position not to be able to choose who is your neighbour. See yourself as one who is chosen as neighbour by another. And not by someone in your own class, but by someone whom you would consider not to be orthodox, not to be right, not to be worthy, not to be able to receive eternal life, a Samaritan.”

“Then, see your neighbour as the unexpected one who offers you life without strings attached. See neighbourliness as being founded in grace and not in pedantics or legalism. Now tell me this, which one of those three was the man’s neighbour?” Of course, it is obvious and the lawyer replies, “The one who showed mercy on him.” And Jesus says, “Go and do likewise.”

“Now that you know that being a neighbour is a precious gift, a gift of grace, not something to be argued and defined or clarified with a hundred minor rules. Now you know this, go and be a true neighbour. Now you know that being a neighbour is not patronisingly offering the crumbs from your table but truly loving and caring unconditionally and without thought of reward, go and do the same. Now that you know that being a neighbour is recognising the worth of those whom you would reject, go and do likewise.” And we can only presume that the lawyer did because that is where our story ends.

But the story doesn’t really end there because that story is our story too. And we could easily ask the question that the lawyer asked “Who is my neighbour?” and look for the same easy answers, instead of hearing the question that Jesus asks “Who was neighbour to that man?” and seeing ourselves as the ones in need of neighbourliness, and seeing those others whom we had thought to be neighbourly towards as the ones who just might offer themselves to us. And perhaps in turning our assumptions upside down, we might discover something about real neighbourliness.

In our world, those neighbours who offer us something of themselves are not always the people we would wish them to be. They come from different cultural backgrounds. They have different beliefs. They have different ideas about the world and how we should live in it. They have different ways of living. They come from far away like the many asylum seekers in our world. They may be as close as our children and grandchildren who live different lives in different ways from the lives we have lived. They may be the people we pass each day in the street or those we only see on the television or read about in the newspapers.

All of these people have lives of their own, unique gifts of their own, unique contributions to make to us. All of those people are our neighbours—not because they need us, but because we need them to make our lives whole. We need them to share with us their insights, their ideas, their hopes, their dreams, their visions. Because together, not alone, we are called to be neighbours, part of the promised realm of Christ which is already being fulfilled in our midst.

“Who is your neighbour?”

“Who has been neighbour to you?”

“Go then and do the same.”

Prevenient Grace

Emmaus Walk--Northern Inland--July 2010

Sometimes I feel like a motherless child,
Sometimes I feel like a motherless child,
Sometimes I feel like a motherless child,
A long way from home, a long way from home.

I vividly remember the time when I first became aware that God loved me, God loved me just for who I was, not for who I could be or I should be.

I was a fairly anxious child, always trying to get things right and to do the right thing. In hindsight, I know now that perhaps just a little of that came from my parents being very busy and very worried about the world; and I caught that worry well and truly. I would cry myself to sleep most night worrying about all sorts of the things—the end of the world, whether I would be a better person tomorrow; and I didn’t really have a sense of being loved and feeling secure.

It was at an Easter Camp that somehow the message was given and I finally received it, that God loved me, not for the future and for my potential, but just because, just because I was me, a creature of God’s good creation.

It is the very nature of God to have grace, to be gracious, to offer God’s self generously and without reserve to the creation that God has so lovingly made. The very act of creation is an act of God’s grace.

Before we know anything about God, God has already been at work in our lives—creating us, forming us, shaping us.

In Psalm 139 (NRSV), we read:

13For it was you who formed my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. 14I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; that I know very well. 15My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. 16Your eyes beheld my unformed substance. In your book were written all the days that were formed for me, when none of them as yet existed.

All things come from God; and everything we know has its origin in God.

The Psalmist is Psalm 8 (NRSV) wonders at God’s interest in human beings in the context of the wonder of creation:

1 You have set your glory above the heavens… 3When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars that you have established; 4what are human beings that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them? 5Yet you have made them a little lower than God, and crowned them with glory and honour. 6You have given them dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under their feet…

The word “grace” comes from the Greek word charis meaning gift. Grace is not simply carrying yourself with style; nor is it overlooking something that might otherwise have bothered you. Grace is the absolute, unprovoked, unconditional generosity of God. God creates us, God reconciles us and God makes us holy through absolutely no effort of our own. God is above all things, and beyond all things and precedes all things in God’s great works of creation, redemption and sanctification—making us, liberating us and sustaining us as God’s people.

Now just as we understand there to be only one God—in 3 persons (Father, Son and Holy Spirit; Creator, Redeemer and Sustainer), so we also understand grace as one thing—the very nature of God—but we also think about it having 3 forms.

We think about God’s grace as being:
1. Prevenient (i.e. making and preparing the creation including us);
2. Justifying (i.e. accepting and saving God’s wandering creatures, us,); and
3. Sanctifying (i.e. sustaining and continuing to form us as the people of God for God’s mission in the world).

In this talk, we’re focussing on “prevenient grace”, but remember there’s only one grace, the very nature of God—we just like separating out the different ways in which that grace is at work in our lives.

The word “prevenient” comes from the Latin praevenire meaning “to come before”. God made us in God’s image for relationships. Just as the very nature of God is relational—to be in communion in 3 persons; so it is part of our very created nature to long and yearn for relationship. And the only satisfactory, fulfilling relationship is the one that we have with our Creator, with God. In this respect, we can talk about human beings as being “the glory of God’s creation” because we understand ourselves to be made particularly for relationship with God. And in that, we are also the hope of God’s creation—the hope of God being in relationship with the creation. God’s utter desire is to be in relationship with God’s creation and particularly with humankind, with us.

God’s grace comes before everything because grace is the very nature of God. Before we know God, God knew us. Before we fail God, God loved us. Before we honour God, God creates and awakens us for relationship. Everything we have comes from God; and everything we know has its origin in God. We have been gifted with all this through the graciousness of God—God’s utter, unprovoked, unconditional desire to share God’s self with us.

I remember when I was perhaps most fully able to accept just that—to accept that everything we have is God’s gift. I’d been working with a distance theological education college for nearly 7 years and the last 2 had been absolutely horrific in terms of workload—first as I oversaw the establishment of the postgraduate programs and then as I took on the role of Acting Principal. I was offered a preferential interview for the role of Principal and just before I was due to get on the plane to go to it, I realised that I could simply not sustain the intensity any longer. Taking on the role of Principal would be detrimental to my health. So I got on the plane to tell the interview panel that I couldn’t take on the role even if they decided they’d like me to continue. Of course, that left me with no place to go—I was looking at no job. I knew that I was too burnt out to even think about a congregational placement at that time; and I wasn’t really sure that anyone outside the church would want me in the state I was in. During the middle of that year, I had put in an application for the position of Lecturer in Liturgy & Theology at United Theological College in Sydney, more for my own sense of thinking about future possibilities than any real intuition that this was the job for me. I had already been knocked back on positions from the theological college in my own Synod. And then the position was offered, and Russell said to me, “This is the perfect role for you.” It was pure gift; and it helped me to understand those difficult final years at in my previous position as pure gift because of what they gave me; and it helped me to look back on so many parts of my life and say, “Even though I did not know it, God was there in my life and in the life God’s people.” Everything I have comes from God; and everything I enjoy or not, love or not, appreciate or not, has its origin in God.

Grace is utter good news for us. God created us. God loves us. God wants us to be in relationship so much that God is prepared to even enter God’s own creation in the person of Jesus (but that’s for another talk and someone else to tell you about). As creatures made in God’s image by God, we too are literally programmed for relationship—it’s in our “DNA” as human beings. And we are particularly created for relationship with God who will do all that God can to enable that relationship—all that God can except taking away our free will, our free decision to be in relationship with God. God will never force God’s self on us, because coerced or forced relationship is not relationship at all. God treats us with utter respect as unique and independent beings, despite the fact that God created us especially for God.

And this is God’s covenant with us. God created us for relationship. God promises us to always be open for and indeed enabling our relationship with God.

We are not alone,
we live in God’s world.
We believe in God:
who has created and is creating,
who has come in Jesus,
the Word made flesh,
to reconcile and make new,
who works in us and others
by the Spirit.
We trust in God.
We are called to be the Church:
to celebrate God’s presence,
to live with respect in Creation,
to love and serve others,
to seek justice and resist evil,
to proclaim Jesus,
crucified and risen,
our judge and our hope.
In life, in death, in life beyond death,
God is with us. We are not alone.
Thanks be to God.
(The United Church of Canada, General Council 1968, alt. 1998)

God’s covenant with us begins in creation; is present throughout human history, fully revealed in Jesus Christ; and present with us now through the work of the Holy Spirit. It is utter, unprovoked, unconditional gift—the eternal nature of God—God’s grace.

So, where do we get this wonderful gift? It’s not ours to buy or solicit, to beg or bargain for. God’s grace is fully revealed in the unique revelation of Jesus Christ, but it’s always with us; it’s encoded in our nature as God’s created beings, God’s creatures. And there are times when we just might catch a glimpse of just a slice of it as we confront the wonder of God’s good creation in the cycle of the seasons, of planting and growing and harvesting. And there are other times when we just might catch a glimpse of just a bit of it as we participate in Christian community, in the body of Christ, caring with and for each other. And there also may be those times when we are comforted, or challenged, or changed and we will know that it is God at work in our lives through the power of the Holy Spirit, working personally in us and interpersonally through others.

But it will never be something that we think we have brought about. It will never be something that we think we’ve earned or deserve. It will never be because of something that we could or should be. It will always be because of who we are and whose we are: God’s much loved, much sought, fragile, frail, glorious creatures—the ones that God wants so much to be in relationship with.

But mostly, of course, we will only recognise this truth in hindsight, as we look back on our lives and discover that God was there all along, even though we did not know it.

An anonymous writer in the Methodist tradition in the late 19th century expressed it this way:

I sought the Lord, and afterward I knew
he moved my soul to seek him, seeking me.
It was not I that found, O Saviour true;
no I was found of thee.

Thou didst reach forth they hand and mine enfold;
I walked and sank not on the storm-vexed sea.
‘Twas not so much that I on thee took hold,
as thou, dear Lord, on me.

I find, I walk, I love, but oh, the whole
Of love is but my answer, Lord, to thee!
For thou wert long beforehand with my soul;
Always thou lovedst me.

The only question left is “What is your response?” to this previous, gracious gift.