On Being Children of God

An excerpt from “Anna’s Song” from An Outback Christmas (Words by Norman Habel):

Lift this child to the sun, raise this child to the sky;
God has come from above, come to earth from on high.

Lay this child on the ground, one with us, one with earth;
let God know in his Son, human clay, human birth.

Place this child in the shade, hang this child ‘neath the tree;
with his hand on the wood, may this child set us free.

Give this child to the world, let him be common folk;
God has come to be born as an ordin’ry bloke.

Lift this child to the night, to the silence of God;
let this child cry for us, and the silence be heard.

Well, it’s time to present Jesus to the world in the Gospel of Luke. The baby is taken to the temple, circumcised, named and heralded by two old prophets who are also there that day. As Kim Jong-un was paraded before the North Korean public and declared "supreme leader of party and army and people", heir to his father’s, Kim Jong-il’s authority; so Jesus is, in a sense, paraded before the people and especially the religious establishment as the heir—the heir of God’s promises of redemption to the people; the inheritor of God’s pledge to the people of Israel for them to be a light to the nations; the beneficiary of the hope in which Israel has lived for so long. Luke metaphorically lifts the baby Jesus up and presents him to his hearers: “Here he is. This is the One! The heir, the promised one of Israel! Jeshuah-Joshua-Jesus—Yahweh is our salvation! The one God is our redeemer! And this is God’s Son!”

But this son is a poor one—not rich and powerful or carefully groomed over a lifetime. This heir has doubts about his legitimacy hanging over his head; and his parents can only afford the offering for his presentation allowed of the poor. They offer birds rather than a sheep. “Here he is. This is the One! The heir, the promised one of Israel?!”

The moment is bitter sweet, as are the songs of Anna and Simeon—a child destined for great things; a child given for salvation—but a salvation which will expose all that needs saving to the open. Give this child… to the world!

Most inheritances of any value don’t come cheap. I wonder what the 28-year old Kim Jong-un thinks about his inheritance. Would he prefer to be focussing on finding his own niche in his society; or having the freedom to travel the world; or simply being another anonymous citizen? What regrets might a Lachlan Murdoch have about the legacy which is his?

I’ve managed to watch several episodes of Country House Rescued on the ABC recently. The children who stand to inherit those large English country estates have huge expectations, debts, problems and dilemmas facing them. Most inheritances of any value don’t come cheap.

And the inheritance for which Jesus is proclaimed as heir is an even more ambiguous one. The promises of this legacy are the fulfilment of hopes unrequited; the culmination of the final salvation of the people; the intangible, immaterial things for which we humans yearn so strongly and fail to know how to achieve so dramatically. And as we all know, where there are grand hopes, there are grand and competing expectations; and where there are grand and competing expectations, there is so much room for misunderstanding, miscalculation, misinterpretation and outright disappointment. Most inheritances of any value don’t come cheap.

“Here he is. This is the One! The heir, the promised one of Israel! Jeshuah-Joshua-Jesus—Yahweh is our salvation! The one God is our redeemer! And this is God’s Son!”

Here is God’s sacrificial lamb paraded before the people. The family cannot afford a sheep for his presentation; but there is no need for one—the sacrifice is the child himself! Give this child to the world!

The moment is bitter-sweet; and yet in this moment, we are meant to find our salvation, our redemption, our liberation. In this moment, we are urged to submit our hopes, our yearnings, our desires to the possibility that we might be set free. Here in this moment, way before we get to the cross—way before we know just what it means for God to submit himself to his Creation, we are asked to understand what the value of this inheritance really means. Give this child to the world!

And that brings us to our text from Galatians, where Paul is trying to unpack what Christ’s inheritance means for us. Paul writes:

My point is this: heirs, as long as they are minors, are no better than slaves, though they are the owners of all the property; 2but they remain under guardians and trustees until the date set by the father. 3So with us; while we were minors, we were enslaved to the elemental spirits of the world. 4But when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, 5in order to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as children. 6And because you are children, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, ‘Abba! Father!’ 7So you are no longer a slave but a child, and if a child then also an heir, through God. (NRSV)

Paul is begging us to let the baby Jesus grow up—to let God’s heir be God’s heir; and as a consequence to grow up as the heirs of God ourselves—co-heirs with God’s son, Jesus. This is our freedom. This is our salvation. This is our liberation. And this is our sacrifice. That we will allow ourselves to be utterly enfolded in God’s will.

According to Paul, God submits himself to his Creation. God’s Son submits himself to the religious Law in order that we, the people, might be freed from the Law—not because the Law has not been important or because we are not called to live ethical lives; but because really inheriting what God promises us means that the Law will be unnecessary because we will know and love and do the will of God without it.

New Testament scholar, Bill Loader puts it this way:

Paul [is] … convinced that the implications of God's action in Christ is that [the] … requirements [of the Law] are set aside and that now what matters is faith in Christ and living out that faith and only that… the Spirit [working within us] will … more than fulfil any legitimate demands contained in the law...

Paul assumes that when people enter into a relationship such as he describes, that of a grown up son to a father, then there is a oneness which generates continuity between what the father wants and what the son wants. It is a first century ideal of family life. [The heir inherits everything that is the ancestor’s in all its fullness.] Applied as an image to Christian living, Paul [argues] … that the Spirit generates God's life in and through the believer and it will show. By contrast, to perpetuate submission to the Law, even though it was given by God and is in the Bible, is to perpetuate a form of slavery which—and here he is quite daring—is not much better than serving other gods! [http://wwwstaff.murdoch.edu.au/~loader/BEpChristmas1.htm]

For Paul, the life, death and resurrection of Christ offers a relationship with God that was hitherto impossible—the relationship of fully adult heirs, co-heirs with Christ.

For Robert Hamerton-Kelly (Sacred Violence pp. 77-81 as interpreted in http://girardianlectionary.net/year_b/xmas1b.htm), the passage from Galatians is saying that:

Christ came to redeem us, to win us back from Satan's power that we might come to live under God's grace as children. Christ redeems us to become children of God. To do so Christ submits to the curse of living under the law, thus becoming a willing victim to its sacrificial mechanisms. Rather than the idea of taking the punishment of God's wrath for us, Christ reveals to us our own wrath and its violence, that we might live by God's true power, which is love, not wrath.

Here, there are echoes of Simeon’s words: “the inner thoughts of many will be revealed” (Luke 2:35). God’s submission to the world God created exposes our lack of submission to God.

This truly is a great Christmas season text… it … express[es] all the basics of the incarnation, of why it is that "God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law." … because Jesus could fulfill his mission as Son of God, that same Spirit of Sonship is given to our hearts that we might also truly become children of God, freed from the slavery of sin. http://girardianlectionary.net/year_b/xmas1b.htm

“Here we are. We are the Ones! The heirs, the promised ones of God! Fully redeemed, fully alive, fully liberated—Yahweh is our salvation! The one God is our redeemer! And we are God’s children!”

Go then to take up your inheritance!

Giving Birth to Jesus!

There’s always expectation around the birth of a baby: When will it come? Who will it look like? Will it be healthy? A boy or a girl? And just as there are expectations about the baby, there are also expectations about the mother: Will she be a good mother? Will she cope with the baby? Does she know what she’s in for?

There are all sorts of myths about motherhood and babies: motherhood comes naturally; if you’re a proper woman, you don’t have to work at being a mother; good mothers do this, that or the other; if you don’t do this, that or the other, you’re not a good mother; if you’re not a mother, you’re not a proper woman; whatever problems the child may have, it’s all the mother’s fault. You could probably add some of your own.

All kinds of messages are played in our heads about what motherhood should or shouldn’t be, is or isn’t, especially for those of us who are women.

Most of these myths are simply untrue: images created by the idealisation of both babies and mothers. Motherhood isn’t any easier than any other parts of women’s lives; neither for that matter is fatherhood for men; nor is being a parent a compulsory act. Just as marriages and all our relationships require decision, commitment and hard work so too does parenthood—even a very part time stepmother (and grandmother) like me knows that.

Yet in our world, we are swamped by pictures of perfection in parenthood. Gaily smiling, very together women swan platters of elegantly prepared food onto tables surrounded by perfect families to the strains of the margarine jingle “You oughta be congratulated, Mum.” Whiter than white clothes are produced immaculately ironed straight from the washing machine so that Joan and John can make the next sporting fixture just in time. Again you can probably fill in some more examples for yourself.

Even our images of Mary, the mother of Jesus, have been tainted by our unrealistic, ethereal mythical pictures of motherhood. The pristinely clean Mary sits immaculately dressed in blue and white in the middle of a stable full of contentedly lowing animals: no dirt or manure to be seen, the straw is fresh and clean. Can you think of any more unlikely scene than that? This woman, the legitimacy of whose child was seriously in doubt, having just arrived in Bethlehem after travelling along unsealed roads and borne her child in a stable, sitting immaculately and serenely? She is pictured as bearing her pregnancy and the birth of Jesus almost without a hair out of place and, of course, how could she have ever had trouble with such an angelic child who apparently never cried (well, at least according to the Christmas carol if nothing else).

But the biblical picture of Mary as the mother of Jesus is not that type of frivolous, froth and bubble falsity of our modern media nor of the immaculate and pristine woman of sixteenth century Italian painters, from whom most of our popular images of Mary come. The biblical picture of Mary is far more down to earth.

She is a Jew living in a land ruled by Romans. She is a woman living in a time in which women were not considered to be as important as men. Her status in the society is somewhat ambivalent. She is betrothed but not married, in transition from the “protection” of one man to another, her father or other significant male in her family of origin to her future husband. She becomes pregnant without the complete legitimacy of marriage. She endures the birth of her first child in a difficult set of circumstances denied the usual support of her family.

It’s certainly not the stuff of margarine advertisements and yet it is a picture of beauty and of strength, but not because Mary is a carbon copy of a supermodel or because she endures everything while remaining sparklingly clean; but because in this simple yet profound everyday experience of the bearing and birthing of a child, Mary participates in a deeply prophetic action. She expects and brings to fruition the coming of Jesus in all the pain and joy, mess and disorder, that a birth can bring.

Mercy Amba Oduyoye, an African woman theologian, writes about such a birth:

At the age of sixteen I watched an eighteen year old woman having her first baby. From that time I understood why an Akan woman was said to have returned safely from the battle front when she had successfully pulled through that whole experience and returned with herself and her baby.

In this culture into which I was born, if news gets to a woman that another woman has not returned from this battle, she is expected to shake the words off her ears. They are not words that a woman should allow herself to hear—defeat at child birth spells the presence of evil. Birth pangs should result in joy, not sorrow.

For the biblical Mary, the pregnancy and birth are joyful experiences, but not because there is no pain, discomfort or difficulties. For Mary, the new life in which she is involved in bringing to birth, is a sign of life not just for one family but for a whole community, in fulfilment of a prophecy given a long time ago. And that new life was indeed birthed in pain as well as in joy, in the earthiness and ambivalence of human life itself.

When we place our ideas about Mary in the biblical context of the story of Jesus as expected, anticipated, joyful, painful birth and trial, then the words which are recorded as Mary’s song of praise in the Gospel of Luke (the song known as the Magnificat), those words become a powerful and prophetic affirmation. They do not come from the mouth of a television representation of a mother whose only concern is that of the appropriate margarine to serve her family. Nor from the mouth of a woman who seems unaffected by the realities of human life. They come from the mouth of a woman who is involved in the struggle of the reality of life.

The words of the Magnificat are not the platitudes of Christmas carols praying “God rest you merry people all, let nothing you dismay.” They are precisely the opposite: disturbing words announcing something new and different, heralding God’s new action in the world for God’s people, and echoing the words of the prophets uttered many years before:

My soul rejoices in God who is doing many wonderful deeds. God feeds the hungry and sends the rich away to fend for themselves. God scatters the proud and remembers the humble. God remembers those whom nobody thinks are important in fulfilment of the covenant promises.

It is the song of someone with great joy in her heart, joy from deep within, a profound sense of wonder and awe at the graciousness of God being brought to fruition and a profound understanding of the pain that is involved in that action: God becoming present through an ordinary woman and the dangerous, precarious act of the birth of a child.

Mercy Amba Oduyoye writes of the uncertainty of the birth of the child in Akan society:

The new life is waited for with prayers, sacrifices and medicaments. But no material preparations are made for the expected child. No amount of that will ensure safe delivery of mother and child from this encounter between life and death. The mystery surrounding the arrival of life cannot be resolved or even minimized with busy buying of pink, blue and white ribbons. It is awaited with fascination and wonder and, above all, with prayer and right living. The birth itself is in the hand of God. The woman, the bringer of new life, is at this point severely alone with her God and the hope of the new life. Others, especially the leaders of the family, are expected to be at prayer, calling all the relations in the other world to join in interceding for her. Others will stay by to encourage and guide but the parting is between mother and child alone.

The labouring mother, as Jesus observed, is at her most vulnerable and miserable, but her suffering is the prelude to the birth of a new life, a new beginning.

As the people of God, we are called to bear the Christ child into the world again and again (and not just at Christmas) but every day. If we were to imagine that we could do this with froth and bubble, or without getting our hands dirty, we would be mistaken. The birth of the Christ child in the hearts of God’s people again and again is exactly like the birth of Jesus two thousand years ago, and exactly like that of the birth of any child. It is painful, it is filled with expectations, it is joyful, it is worrying. God enters the world in vulnerability: a mother bearing a child; a child needing the protection of its mother; a follower of Christ coming to grips with the vulnerability and ambiguity of human life.

It is a story and an event which demands wonder and awe, and a deep sense of joy from within which is only possible from the other side of pain. But it is not quite the sort of entrance that most people envisage for God. Many people will still ask for the froth and bubble. Many people will still search for the immaculate Mary. They will be disappointed.

When the baby finally arrived, Mercy Amba Oduyoye was disappointed:

Is that all? She was neither beautiful nor cuddly; in fact, I did say that she was ugly. That is birth. But what potential! The mother smiles. “The ugly bundle” will be nursed into a beauty, with a pair of hands that may one day design cathedrals or perform experiments that will result in health for all [or become the saviour of the world].

This is the miracle of the birth of the Christ child, that God came and comes in pain and with joy, that God came and comes in the vulnerability and ambiguity of human life, that God came and comes to each one of us again and again in the earthy, messy, painful, joyful reality of our lives in Jesus. Is it any wonder that Mary sings with such courage and strength and joy in the midst of Luke’s story of the birth of Jesus in ambiguity and vulnerability? This is a real birth, and in that birth, new life has surely been stirred. Mercy Amba Oduyoye concludes her account of the birth of the Akan baby:

For the present at any rate, the labour pains vanish. God who mysteriously breathed the breath of life into her will supervise and direct that life. The chaos and darkness of the labour ward, the screams, sweat, swearing and the piercing cries are given a new quality. A new Adam has been stirred into life.

And the last word goes to the writer of our Gospel for today: “But Mary kept all these things, pondering them in her heart.” (Luke 2:19).

Teach Us Where the Bucket Is

O God, we gather at your waters, as a hot and bothered crowd
gathers on the beach on a sweltering, summer day.
O God, we drink at your fountain,
as a parched dog laps at the fresh,
running water of a bush creek.
O God, we await your refreshment,
as a tired worker watches for the change of shift.
Quench our thirst, satisfy our longings.
May we be refreshed and restored in you.

It’s one of the Calls to Worship from Uniting in Worship 2, the Uniting Church’s book of model orders of service. I wrote it about 15 years ago when Russell and I were in Stanthorpe in the middle of a drought. We were yearning as people, as a community, as a nation for relief from that drought.

It’s not quite like that here in Armidale today and yet, we yearn too. We yearn for relief—from the continual overcast skies and above average rainfall; from the demands of the lead-up to Christmas and our busy lives; from the uncertainty of a world economy in turmoil and the threatening results of climate change. We want things to change. We want some relief.

The people to whom the passage in Isaiah we read today is aimed were also yearning for relief; and they were yearning for the fulfilment of a promise. Isaiah describes a regime of justice promised to the people of Israel in the Torah, the first 5 books of our Old Testament, the so-called books of Moses. Isaiah describes a community who engages in the practice of Jubilee—a just economic situation where the poor were never to be left bereft for generation after generation.

This passage comes to us from the part of the book of Isaiah that scholars call “Third Isaiah”. The people of Israel are back in Judah again; but the hope of the justice and peace of the promised land has once again been dashed. Stan Duncan, the chair of the Jubilee Justice Network of the United Church of Christ Massuchusetts Conference in the US writes:

The immediate occasion of the writing of this particular poem is an economic crisis brought about by the financial dealings of the wealthy returnees who used their status and wealth to grab more land and income from both their deported brothers and sisters and from those who had been left behind. They used their economic and class power to influence the application of tax and finance laws of the emerging nation to their advantage, causing huge increases in their own incomes, but also tremendous poverty in others. For example, they would make agricultural start-up loans during times of drought at exorbitant rates, which violated the Jubilee laws of Leviticus 25 and Deuteronomy 15, but which was allowed because they could buy off courts and lawmakers in case anyone complained. If the poor borrower was not able to pay the entire amount in one year, the next year the unpaid portion would be rolled over into a second loan, thus doubling the interest rate. After two or three years of doubling and quadrupling the interests, the poor farmer was effectively bankrupt and had to give up his farm and often his freedom to the loaner. (http://jubileejusticetaskforce.blogspot.com/)

You would have thought that the people would have learnt after their period of captivity in Babylon which Second Isaiah interpreted as punishment from God for the sins of the people. (Remember last week’s passage and God’s promise of comfort because the people had been punished enough!) But no! The hope of God’s realm has been violated again by those who are greedy and ruthless.

In a week when we have seen the nations of the European union trying to work out how they stand together or apart in the face of the economic crisis of nations like Greece, Italy and Spain; in a week when we have seen the 4 major banks in Australia have to be challenged to pass on an official interest rate cut to ordinary borrowers; in a year where we have seen the haggling over a resources tax be dominated by the voices of large multinational companies—what does this passage have to say about where we’re at now? Where is our dream of God’s realm in our world now? What is it that we can hope for; or have our hopes been dashed too?

And yet, this passage in Isaiah is not one of despair, it is one of hope. The prophet still proclaims the hope of a just world in the face of the injustice that engulfs a re-emerging nation: “The spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me… The spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me… [God] has sent me to bring good news” (Isaiah 61:1).

And this good news is for those in need of it most—those who are despairing; those who are prisoners; those who have lost their land; those who mourn for what has been lost. The “year of the Lord’s favour” is the Jubilee year when justice will be done; the land of the people restored to its rightful holders; and a time for the earth to rest. That is the vision not just of Isaiah but of the Law, the Torah, and the book of Leviticus—but as far as we can tell, it has never ever been celebrated—at least not by a whole nation or community—it is just a promise; it is still a dream; it is only or at best or at least, a hope—the hope of justice, peace and freedom for the whole Creation.

The people in Judah are being asked not to expect that they should have already found liberation—not to regret what hasn’t been done by the original returnees. They are being asked to expect that they are the ones being called to work for the promise now.

“So, you expected a land of milk and honey; but that doesn’t come without work. It doesn’t come without attention to that which God has called us. It doesn’t happen simply because we yearn for it to happen. You have to be the ones to do the right thing and to make sure the right things are done.”

Now those with good memories will recall that the words of Isaiah are not just found in Isaiah, they are also placed in the mouth of Jesus reading the scriptures in the synagogue in Nazareth in the Gospel of Luke: “The spirit of the Lord is upon me… [God] has sent me to bring good news.” (Luke 4:18) For at the time of Jesus, the people are still waiting for that just world; and probably still looking for others to bring it about too.

So is that what we are doing today also? Waiting for that just world and for others to bring it about; hoping that governments and nations and communities and companies and people will do the right thing when we already know that human beings have never been very good at acting in and for the common good or working for the dream of justice, especially when that means “just us” might miss out on something that we understand to be our right, or our deserving, or at least what we want very, very much.

Isaiah challenges us again to look around at our world; and not just simply to yearn for justice; but to work for it—never, ever giving up the hope of the promise of God’s realm.

O God, we gather at your waters, as a hot and bothered crowd
gathers on the beach on a sweltering, summer day.
O God, we drink at your fountain,
as a parched dog laps at the fresh,
running water of a bush creek.
O God, we await your refreshment,
as a tired worker watches for the change of shift.
Quench our thirst, satisfy our longings.
May we be refreshed and restored in you;
and teach us where to find the bucket and how to carry it
so that we might draw that water for those who most need it.

Advent Prayer

Beneath the evening sky, weary pilgrims wait for the stars
to give them light and show them the way.
In this season of Advent, we dead-beat disciples
wait to be refreshed in Christ’s presence.
Under these southern skies, we exhausted envoys of God
look for the fullness of the reign of Christ.
Come, Lord Jesus, come.
Come, Lord Jesus, come soon!

Looking for a Cataclysm!

Hey God! What do you think you are doing? Where are you? Why aren’t you here helping us out? Can’t you see what’s happening? The western world is in financial crisis. There are acts of terrorism everywhere. And we can’t even control domestic violence in this country, let alone the civil, religious and political violence elsewhere on the planet.

We thought we were doing so well. Didn’t everyone want to be like us? We had dreams: everyone can own a house and build a future and be somebody and be left alone. Everybody can have their 15 minutes of fame. We can all be on Big Brother or Australia’s Got Talent or Australian Idol. We can all have what we want. Sure we overlooked those that couldn’t, but please they didn’t really want it, did they?

Then all of a sudden, the rug is pulled out from under us. And we don’t know about our futures anymore and we worry about the futures of our children and our grandchildren. What are we going to live on in our retirements? What jobs are going to be available? How will we maintain our lifestyles, our security, our society? How do we even know that we’re going to be around tomorrow to enjoy what we have? How do we know that we’re safe?

So God, what do you think you’re doing? And just where are you? After all, it’s not as if you haven’t shown your face previously? It’s not as though you haven’t pulled out a miracle or two for the sake of your chosen people before. Remember the Exodus: what a show!

Come and sing unto the Lord for we have triumphed gloriously:
the horses and the riders are thrown into the sea!

Aren’t we half as good as them? Aren’t you just as interested in us as you were in them? Think about the stories of you meeting with people like Hagar and Moses and Elijah, Jacob and Mary and Joseph.

You know it’s all your fault that we’re in the state we’re in, don’t you? We wouldn’t have done any of it, if you’d been around. That’s why we’re in the hole we’re in. Don’t you know that our churches would be full and our communities would be vibrant, if only you would make yourself clearly known? But you, you hide, and we suffer. When you’re not there, we easily fall away and do everything but we should do. It’s all your fault. So, what are you going to do about it?

We’d like to see a cataclysm: a great outpouring of wrath where all the bad guys get their comeuppance. And, of course, we know who the bad guys are: everyone but us! It’s those people who gambled too much on the stock market; and those others who can see how wealthy the West is and who will do anything to be like us; and if they can’t be like us, they’ll pull us down. It’s those people who don’t like other people; it’s people who aren’t like us. So what are you going to do about?

We want a cataclysm. We were promised a cataclysm. The Gospel of Mark has you talking about a cataclysm; well at least your Child, Jesus, talking about a cataclysm, but if in seeing Jesus, we see you, it’s as good as you promising one (even after all that guff with Noah). Yes, you promised us a cataclysm; and we expected one; and we expected to be the onlookers to that glorious event, the ones saved from your wrath, watching the entertainment as you routed your enemies.

The communities behind the Gospel of Mark, of course, would have known about cataclysm. The power of Rome depended upon the might of its armies. The Markan collection is gathered together just about the time of the destruction of the Temple at Jerusalem. It was a cataclysm; and they so much wanted the end of the world and the beginning of the new one. Can we blame them? The hope was that, in the midst of such cataclysm, despite such cataclysm, even because of such cataclysm, the purposes of God would be revealed, more than be revealed, would be achieved; that God’s reign would finally come to fruition – the reign that had been glimpsed in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus.

Yes, that was it, the Christ event. That event was so cataclysmic that the people just knew that God was near: any threat to an imminent triumph must surely be a sign that God would be acting soon.

But, the Gospel of Mark is more circumspect. It isn’t about preparing for the end or predicting the future. It isn’t about watching for the unleashing of the wrath of God. It’s about preparing for God’s reign; it’s about living God’s reign; and that is entirely different.

The reign of God glimpsed, begun, inaugurated in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus is about anything but the wrath of God. This cataclysmic event which we now describe as incarnation, as embodiment, as being made flesh, is cataclysmic, but it’s not about the wrath of God destroying God’s enemies, nor is it about the destruction of the world in order to bring about a new one, rather it is about God entering the world which we already have, which has already been gifted to us by God. It is about the Creator entering the created order. And that is cataclysmic: the God who is above and beyond and around us is with us, becomes one of us – knows what it is to strive for something worthwhile in a state of limitation and to be defeated; knows what it is to give of oneself to something important to the point of the loss of self; knows what it is to know the depths of being human, of being created, of being mortal, frail, fragile, broken...

And in the process, asks us, not to expect God to be any different from who God is, and not to expect to watch the cataclysmic outcome of the wrath of God destroying God’s enemies (because there’s a fair chance we’d be among them if that happened), but to be about our living as the people of God in the hope that all things will work together for good because of this God who wants to be in relationship with us so much that nothing, nothing, not one thing will prevent God from doing just that.

And yet still we wait for the cataclysm. Surely, the financial world will realise its folly in the face of the current situation, and review its practices. Surely the great powers of this world will see what the problem is in the face of successive waves of terrorism and wipe it out. Surely, whatever we want can happen; and whatever we dream about can be.

But that is not the promise: it is not the promise given in and through Christ… no matter how hard we lament or confess or plead, no matter who we blame or what we look for. The promise to us in Christ is that God is the one who reigns, that God’s reign is both our gift and our calling, and that the God who gifts and calls us is primarily a God of love. In Christ, God has decisively acted to demonstrate utter acceptance of us, utter care for our wellbeing, utter willingness to be in relationship with us – the type of relationship that is not coersive, or abusive, or violent; the type of relationship that is offered, and not forced upon us; the type of relationship that invites our response and accepts whatever that response may be. That action is cataclysmic. It is cataclysmic because it everything (past, present and future) in its embrace as we discover that it is in and through the Christ event that we are who we are in relationship with God: accepted, loved and free.

Why would we look for more? In Christ, God became human. Not to erase our experience; not to obliterate our experience; nor even to over-write our experience; but to enter into it, to know us, to know it and still to be in relationship with us, still offering us relationship despite what we do, what we’ve done, who we are.

So we find ourselves in Advent, still waiting for the “consummation of all things which Christ will bring” to quote the Basis of Union; and still called both to prepare for that coming and to live in the reign already begun in Christ.

Come thou long-expected Jesus!
… Now thy gracious kingdom bring!

Shooting the Messenger?!

“Well done, good and trustworthy slave; you have been trustworthy in a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master.” (Matthew 25:21)

It sounds wonderful doesn’t it? And we can all imagine ourselves in this role: the good and trustworthy servant. Well done! After all haven’t we been faithful, haven’t we followed even when the going got tough! Haven’t we worshipped regularly, served diligently, lived our lives well as witnesses to Jesus?

Or perhaps we hear the alternate words more loudly: “As for this worthless slave, throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” (Matthew 25:30)

And we beat our chests and cry mea culpa, “my fault, all my fault”—we are unworthy. Even though we have tried we have failed—God have mercy on us; God save us from what we imagine might be our reward.

The parable from Matthew’s Gospel which we’ve heard today (25:14-30) is generally read in one of those two ways. Either, we hear it as an ethical instruction (“Use your talents”) and we feel affirmed either in what we are doing or what we might do; or we hear it as an eschatological warning (“Be prepared for the end times!”) and we quake in our boots wondering whether we have been good enough.

But parables are enigmatic stories! They are meant to confront our comfort and our complacency, our well-worn ruts and usual patterns. They are meant to open our hearts, expand our vision, and loosen our limbs in the face of the unexpected nature of God’s realm.

So, noted New Testament and historical Jesus scholar, William Herzog invites us to hear this parable from a different perspective in his book, Parables as Subversive Speech (1994), and in the Seasons of the Spirit material for this week. He asks us to read it from the perspective of the oppressed; and he asks us to read it with a critical eye to the accepted capitalistic assumptions that underlie those two traditional interpretations. He asks us not to assume that the one “going on a journey” is God or Jesus. He asks us to explore the story a little more in the context of its time; and in the context of what we understand now about who God is and who we are before God. He asks us to find the confrontation for us now in this parable.

And I don’t know about you, but I simply want to jump at this chance, because I know that God who is shown to us in Jesus is not a harsh master, reaping where God did not sow or gathering where God did scatter seed. I know that God who is revealed to us in Jesus is not a master who expects us to be afraid, who keeps us quaking in our boots. I know that the God who entered our world in Jesus wants to be in relationship with us.

So let’s follow Herzog’s invitation for a while by beginning with the servants. Herzog argues that:

The head of an elite household could not stay home if he intended to protect his interests and expand his influence. Not only would he travel to his estates but he would travel abroad in hopes of increasing his investments, initiating new business schemes, building patron-client networks, currying favor with imperial overlords, or perhaps representing his city in some official capacity. For the accumulation of his wealth, the basis of his power and prestige, to continue in his absence, he needed to entrust important portions of it to his household retainers. These powerful figures were not household slaves (oiketeria), although they may have very well have been called [servants], (douloi) to emphasize their dependence on their patron-master.

…the phrase… “to each according to his ability” …[may also] be translated “to each according to his power,” where power indicates rank or status.

So, we have a group of three household retainers, who have different ranks or statuses in the household. The most important one is given the most money; and the least important, the least for which to be responsible.

So, just how did the master (and therefore his retainers) make their money? What was the business in which they were engaged? Herzog continues:

The elites used their wealth to make loans to peasant farmers so that the farmers could plant the crops. Interest rates were high; estimates range to 60 percent and perhaps as high as 200 percent for loans on crops. The purpose of making such loans was not so much to make a large profit, at least by the standards of the ancient world, but to accept land as collateral so that the elites could foreclose on their loans in years when the crops could not cover the incurred indebtedness. Had the servants sought a more lucrative return, they might have contracted with a small manufacturing operation specializing in luxury items, because the only “markets” in the ancient world were the urban elites; to make money meant pandering to their lust for luxury. By combining the talents they had received with the raw goods extracted from the peasants who were controlled by their household, the servants had the means necessary to increase wealth. But to do so, they had to exploit the peasant or village base of the household, the merchants with whom they entered into a common venture, or the peasants to whom they made loans.

That sounds like these servant-retainers were placed in a very difficult position—not really of the elite; neither were they of the village because they had to do the master’s business with the people of the village in an exploitative system. The parable does not dispute that this is a master who reaps where he has not ploughed and gathers where he has not sown. But we all have to make a living, right?!

The first two servants got to work “at once” and doubled their investment even though the master is gone for “a long time.” Their industry reveals the zeal with which they work the system to make a handsome turn for the master, but it also reflects their desire to use some portion of that endowment to feather their own nests. First things first: the owner’s initial investment must be secured, then doubled; after that, the retainers can make their profit.

The first two servants were sucked into the system; and probably they didn’t have much choice—they needed to feed and clothe themselves and their families; but the system was exploitative; and just because one is a victim of a system doesn’t mean that one might not also be a perpetrator, or at least a perpetuator.

The third servant is different; and clearly the third servant is the “focus of the parable”. Obviously, the third servant “enjoys [something of] the master’s trust”. He is given some responsibility thought not nearly so much as the other two. Perhaps it is a test of whether he can bear the weight of further responsibility. It is certainly a test of what he values; and where his loyalties lie.

Herzog suggests that there was “a repertoire of scenarios available to Jesus” for the work of the third servant. Jesus could have had the servant entering “into partnership with the poor”, an act “greater than… charity” “according to the rabbis” of which Jesus was one. Instead Jesus depicts the third servant burying “the talent in the ground”. By doing this, according to Herzog, the third servant “takes the best available precaution against theft and liability”. He makes sure the money is safe because he knows he has a hard taskmaster; and he does not enter into business which might exploit others.

And yet, even though the third servant takes the safe option with the master’s money (and the non-exploitative one), he does not take the safe option when the master confronts him. The third servant does not use the fancy language of the formal exchanges that have just happened between the master and the first two servants. The third servant tells it like it is. The actions of the third servant would have astonished Jesus hearers, just as they are astonishing to us now—doing nothing with the money entrusted; and then speaking forthrightly with the master. Herzog puts it this way:

The third retainer cuts through the mystifying rhetoric that has dominated the exchange between the elite and his first two retainers, and he identifies the aristocrat for what he is, strict, cruel, harsh, and merciless… he shames his master through his unexpected attack...

In his wrathful retort, the aristocrat [master does not deny]… the truth of the servant’s description, [perhaps] because he understands [this way of business as acceptable]… But the third servant has named the master and his occupation from another point of view. He [has] exposed the sham of what has transpired and places it under the unobstructed light of … prophetic judgment…

The master’s judgment is immediate. Having spoken the truth, the servant must be vilified, shamed, and humiliated so that his words will carry no weight.

“You wicked and lazy slave! You knew…”

For Herzog,

The hero of the parable is the third servant. By digging a hole and burying the aristocrat’s talent in the ground, he has taken it out of circulation. It cannot be used to dispossess more peasants from their lands through its dispersion in the form of usurious loans. By his actions, the third retainer dissociates himself from the system he has so cleverly exploited to attain his position of power and influence. No motivation is given or needs to be; a figure is known by his actions, not by his internal ruminations. When the hero speaks, he utters in the full light of day what he has learned in the dark; he reveals what has been covered beneath the public rhetoric of praise and promise, made known what has been hidden beneath the mystifications of the elites, proclaims clearly what has only been whispered among the elites and their retainers. The whistle-blower is no fool. He realizes that he will pay a price, but he has decided to accept the cost rather than continue to pursue his exploitive path.

“You wicked and lazy slave! You knew…”

The hero of the story is the third servant—the one who stands up to the domineering master who expected them to exploit their friends and neighbours for monetary gain. The parable becomes a story of the prophet who stands up to power and is punished for it; of a servant who shows to the truth to power and is destroyed for it.

In this reading of the story, the third servant is the Christ figure.

This reading of the story carries a different sort of warning—not an eschatological one, but a warning about expecting to be rewarded for following the way of Christ. Doing God’s will doesn’t mean riches and prosperity. It means standing against the corrupting influences of powerful people and the lure of money or prestige; and copping the results of that audacity.

So what does that mean for how we understand mission—God’s mission in the world and our part in it.

It doesn’t paint a picture of the grand success of wealth, popularity and status. It doesn’t affirm that if we do the right things we will get want we want. There is no prosperity gospel in this reading of the parable. Instead, it cautions us that the result of speaking the truth to power is destruction, but that is what we are called to do.

God’s mission in our world is not about the people of God being wealthy or popular or adulated. God’s mission in the world is about the reconciliation of Creation—all Creation. And that means the powerful need to be called to account; and the powerless given their status as the beloved children of God.

Through God’s graciousness, we are enfolded into God’s work in our world—it’s not our work, it’s God’s—but it’s not God’s if it’s not God’s—if it does not demonstrate the values of God’s realm—justice, peace, reconciliation.

How then do we assess our role in the mission of God? It’s got nothing to do with how many we are, how much we own, how popular we are, how much money we raise… It’s all about how we act in and for God’s world… and for that, we can never have any expectation of reward!

You wicked and lazy slaves! You know that there are those who reap where they do not plough, and gather where they do not sew; and you dare as God’s people to challenge that?

Reign of Christ Sunday

This is the last “feast day” of the Western liturgical (worship) calendar in the Revised Common Lectionary which the Uniting Church follows. It’s a fairly recent addition to Christian celebrations. Pope Pius XI instituted it in 1925 in the face of the rise of nationalism and secularism. It was included in Pope John XXIII’s revision of the church calendar in 1960; and in 1969, Pope Paul VI placed it on the last Sunday of the liturgical year—just before the beginning of the new year and Advent.

Through the liturgical renewal movement, spawned by the ecumenism of Vatican II, Protestant churches took it up and so it forms part of our lectionary (bible reading) cycle which is used by many mainline Protestant churches around the world.

It’s a radical feast that makes a definite political statement. Christ is the ruler of the cosmos; and the realm to which we owe our loyalty is God’s. Think of what is happening in Europe between the World Wars when the Pope instituted this feast. Think of what this feast was saying to would-be Kaisers, Kings and Presidents. This feast is a provocative one; and it should still be provocative to us. Where do our allegiances lie? What claims on our lives try to compete with the claims of God? Where are we being challenged to proclaim the reign of Christ?

In the Roman Catholic calendar, this feast is ranked with days like Pentecost and Trinity Sunday—days which make statements about important things that we believe: the work of the Spirit and the nature of God. So too, the Reign of Christ reminds us that the most important claim on our allegiance is that of the God revealed to us in Jesus Christ who claims us as the body of Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit.

White (or gold) is the colour for this important day in keeping with its focus on honouring the work of Christ. It’s the same colour that we use on Easter Sunday and Christmas Day!

I’m not sure what an appropriate greeting on this significant day might be; but perhaps part of the acclamations of praise from the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper might be suitable: “Blessed is the One who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!”

What Does Mission Mean?

The parable from Matthew’s Gospel today (25:14-30) is generally read as either an eschatological warning (“Be prepared for the end times!”) or ethical instruction (“Use your talents”). William Herzog (Parables as Subversive Speech 1994) asks us to read it from the perspective of the poor.

In this reading, the hero of the story is the third servant—the one who stands up to the domineering master who expected them to exploit their friends and neighbours for monetary gain. The parable becomes a story of the prophet who stands up to power and is punished for it; of a servant who shows to the truth to power and is destroyed for it.

This reading of the story carries a different sort of warning—a warning about expecting to be rewarded for following the way of Christ. Doing God’s will means standing against the corrupting influences of powerful people and the lure of money or prestige; and copping the results of that audacity.

So what does that mean for how we understand mission?

It doesn’t paint a picture of the grand success of wealth, popularity and status. Instead, the result of speaking the truth to power is destruction.

God’s mission in our world is not about the people of God being wealthy or popular or adulated. God’s mission in the world is about the reconciliation of Creation—all Creation. And that means the powerful need to be called to account; and the powerless given their status as the beloved children of God.

Through God’s graciousness, we are enfolded into God’s work in our world—it’s not our work, it’s God’s—but it’s not God’s if it’s not God’s—if it does not demonstrate the values of God’s realm—justice, peace, reconciliation.

How then do we assess our role in the mission of God? It’s got nothing to do with how many we are, how much we own, how popular we are, how much money we raise… It’s all about how we act in and for God’s world… and for that, we can never have any expectation of reward!

You Have Made Us Your Friends!

We lift our eyes to you, O God:
it’s what seems natural to worship the great Creator,
the faraway God of our beginnings
and so that is true, but it is not all of you.

This tendency to look up searching for you
means that we miss a lot of who you are.
What would happen if we just looked a little sideways,
or perhaps down—would you become more real then?

Have mercy on us, God, we cry as your servants,
and so we are, but that is not all of us either;
and it is certainly not all that you would have us be.

In Jesus, you have called us friends.
In Jesus, you have made us look sideways to our neighbours
and to our enemies.
In Jesus, you have made us see you in humility
and even squalor.
Nothing is too depraved; no-one is too despised
to be your dwelling-place.

And when we look up, because of Jesus, we see,
not an arrogant god on a ridiculously majestic throne,
but a life given for our sake,
and the healing of your whole Creation.

Forgive us when we fail to speak truth to power
and miss out on authentic relationship with you.

Forgive us when we bemoan our own predicaments
while neglecting the plight of the oppressed.

Forgive us when we spend so much time congratulating ourselves that we are your servants,
that we completely miss your invitation to companionship.

When arrogance masks itself as humility,
Lord, have mercy.
Lord, have mercy.

When self-pity blinds us to real poverty,
Christ, have mercy.
Christ, have mercy.

When fear pretends to be prudence,
Lord, have mercy.
Lord, have mercy.

Expand our vision of you to a 360⁰ view
that we might find ourselves in the sort of relationship with you
that you envisaged at our creation, right there in the beginning,
when you dared to make creatures who would speak with you.
Through the influence of your Spirit,
help us to be friends and partners, not slaves or crazed fans.
Work through us as your colleagues in creativity and compassion
for you have gifted us with your image,
and in Jesus, you have made us your friends. Amen.

Lift Your Eyes to God!

Lift your eyes to God:
in the highest heavens, we see your glory, Great Creator.
Reach out your hands to Jesus:
in the compassion of an enemy, we know your love, O Christ.
Feel the breathe of the Spirit:
in our sinews and in our souls, the Spirit whispers hope.
Let us worship the God who reigns,
by entering the depths of our humanity
and setting the humble soaring on the wings of the Spirit
for the sake of eternity.

What does it mean to be Christian?

Christians are people who have accepted God’s unconditional love for themselves and for the whole Creation; and, in response to God’s graciousness, have responded to Jesus’ call to costly discipleship. Through the sacrament of Baptism, they have been incorporated into Christ’s body, the Church; and seek to follow in the way of Christ every day of their lives.

Christians are not perfect. We have received the message of the Good News (gospel) in Jesus Christ that God loves us despite ourselves and God forgives us no matter what. All we need to do is to acknowledge our dependence on God, Holy Trinity, Creator, Christ and Spirit; and, in the power of the Holy Spirit seek to live out our new life in Christ everyday.

Christian discipleship calls us to love God with our whole hearts, minds, bodies and souls; and to love our neighbours (whether friends or strangers, allies or enemies) as we love ourselves.

The Christian Life is one of worship, witness and service. As the body of Christ, we worship God together and, through that worship, are formed as God’s people. In the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, we are fed as God’s people on the way.

In the whole of our lives, we are called to live out our identity as the people of God. Being Christian has implications for how we live in our families; the way we do our work; the issues that are important to us; our hopes for our children, our friends, our communities… Christians seek to live out the values of God’s realm—justice, peace, reconciliation and the integrity of Creation. The Beatitudes (Matthew 5:3-12 NRSV) have long been understood as a powerful and poetic statement of what that might mean:

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
for they will be filled.
Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.
Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you
and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.
Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven,
for in the same way they persecuted the prophets
who were before you.

Servants Not Slaves

Alan Joyce, the CEO of Qantas, has announced that the company is grounding its entire fleet and locking out its employees in the face of union demands for pay increases and better working conditions, and workers’ fears about the threat of jobs being outsourced to overseas labourers at lower rates of pay. Wasn’t this the same Alan Joyce who was granted a 71% pay increase earlier this week, putting his annual earnings over $5 million? Who is Alan Joyce serving—the company, their clients, their employees or himself? And what does it all mean for a society increasingly influenced by a corporate culture where profit is everything, people are nothing, and everybody seems to be in it for themselves, particularly if you’re a CEO earning an obscene amount of money per annum?

In the meantime, other parts of the media have been in a bit of a frenzy around the royal visit with the big news for at least a while being Julia Gillards’ failure to curtsey when, in fact, contemporary royal protocols do not require that particular act of deference to the sovereign anymore.

And let’s not even mention the hoo-haa around the Melbourne Cup, fashions of the field, and which celebrities will be attending the cup and why.
Our society seems to have some funny ideas about what is important and who matters, as do the religious leaders of whom Jesus speaks in today’s Gospel reading. Despite being important teachers and significant mentors in the faith, as Jesus acknowledges, even they too get what’s important wrong in their actions. They are concerned with knowing the things of God; but miss the incredible irony of those things when they seek to show just how godly they apparently are.

Jesus describes religious leaders who are trying very hard to live out their ideas of what being faithful to God is all about; but who, in the process, only tie themselves up in knots—taking on themselves unnecessarily heavy burdens. They wear extra long fringes on their prayer shawls, and large phylacteries (small leather cases holding passages of scripture) during prayer times. They seek places of honour at banquets and in synagogues, and signs of respect in market places. They want people to know and to acknowledge their godliness.

But according to Jesus all this play-acting is futile. It means nothing in the values of God’s realm for “All who exalt themselves will be humbled, and all who humble themselves will be exalted.”

“All who exalt themselves will be humbled, and all who humble themselves will be exalted.” The message is a disturbing one.

Partly, the message is disturbing because we know we can’t live up to it. Partly, it is disturbing because it is a message that has tended to be distorted in various ways. The message of the humility of discipleship in Christ is a familiar one, but I don’t think it’s really an easy one for us to understand.

Sometimes people have claimed humility for themselves while furthering their own interests at the expense of others. Sometimes people have heard the message of humility as an order to humiliate themselves--to treat themselves as less than the valued children of God whom we all are. And probably we all do a little of each of those things most of the time, because we are the frail, fragile, fallible human creatures we are.

But when we interpret the message about humility and exaltation in these kinds of ways, we’re pretty much heading in the direction of the scribes and the Pharisees ourselves—we think we know, but our actions belie our claims.

Of course, in our contemporary world, we know that people who like to make a show are generally looking for support and encouragement, for affirmation. They don’t need to be noticed because they are successful. They need to be noticed to prove that they are successful. Their problem is usually not pride. More often, it’s lack of self-esteem. When you don’t value yourself, you have to keep proving to others how significant you are by wearing and having the right things, and by doing the proper things, or the daring things, or the trendy things, in the biggest and best possible way.

The religious leaders about whom Jesus speaks are really a very sad bunch indeed. They are a sad bunch because they don’t know that they are important to God as themselves not for what they do or who they are in their society. They are special to God because they are God’s children, unique yet fallible and frail human creatures.
When you don’t feel very good about yourself, it’s hard to get your priorities right. When you don’t feel very good about yourself, it’s hard to remember that it’s okay not to know everything, not have everything, not to be everything that you think you should know, have or be. But Christian discipleship has never been about knowing or having or being more than you are. It’s never been about being honoured or respected or showy. It’s always been about being the beloved children of God—God’s frail, fragile, fallible human creatures.

In 1960, Valerie Saiving wrote what is now regarded as a ground-breaking article. In it, she suggested that the reason there was so much emphasis on sin as pride, and love as selflessness in Christianity was probably due to the fact that much of Christian theology had been written and devised by men. She suggested that for women, in their tendency to give up themselves completely to the needs of others, it was probably necessary to regard sin as self-effacement, and love as the need to value one’s self. She also suggested that as our society was becoming more feminised, it was likely that the issues of self-effacement, or lack of self-esteem would not simply be a female concern, rather it was a concern for the whole of contemporary society. Further comments on Saiving’s work have been made since that time, and it seems that she was probably right, that in emphasising sin as pride in the Christian church, we have failed to recognise the underlying impetus for what presents as pride, and that is not the overvaluing of self, but the undervaluing—perhaps those male theologians just got it wrong for themselves as well rather than actually being guilty of being proud. When people have no internal sense of self-worth, they seek it from external sources, making bigger and bigger displays of who they are and how important they can be.

That kind of information puts a different slant on our Gospel reading for today. If when we talk about people who exalt themselves, we are really talking about people who don’t feel very good about themselves, who do not know their worth as children of God, then of course, it is likely that they will be humbled, because it is impossible to receive the kind of external affirmation required to keep them feeling good. If when we talk about people who humble themselves, we are talking about people who do not need to prove their place as beloved children of God because they have accepted it—they have accepted God’s love for them, then of course they will be more comfortable with themselves, and more ready to try new things, and to take new steps in discipleship with Christ. It’s common sense really. If you feel secure in your identity, then you feel able to try new things, to learn new things, to risk being laughed at or ridiculed or considered a fool. Wasn’t Jesus just such a person? Ridiculed and derided and considered a fool, because he didn’t have to prove his worth before God.

Humility is not humiliation or neglect of either self or others, rather it is learning to value ourselves and each other as the beloved children of God and frail, fragile, fallible human creatures. In Christ, we are called to confident but not overconfident discipleship, to humility but not self-effacement.

Self-esteem and the way we see our world are BIG issues for our time. They are integrally involved in the suicides of young men in rural communities (perhaps because they see themselves as failing to attain the right way of being male in our society). They are involved in issues of domestic violence where women, and sometimes men, allow themselves to be abused because they are unable to accept themselves as the people whom they are and to make different decisions in order to protect themselves; and where men, and sometimes women, abuse others as a way of taking out their frustrations about their own apparent inadequacies. The issues of self-esteem and the way we see our world are probably even involved in the kind of corporate culture that has developed in our society—a culture where bigger salaries, greater profits, less costs are somehow a marker of the worth of the CEO or the Board or the Senior Management etc.

Attempts at grand displays of worth are not confined to religion. They are present in every aspect of human life: government, business, community, social and sporting organisations. People are people. Wherever we are, we like to be noticed, acknowledged, and recognised. Unfortunately, a lot of our fussing comes from the fact that we really do not think a lot of ourselves, and have to keep proving ourselves to ourselves and to other people.

The text in Matthew seems to be talking about pride, but when you know that some people’s attempts at getting attention are really cries to be loved and cared for and needed, then this passage is also about knowing our value in God.

In Christ we are called to recognise our value to God. As children of God we are called to be servants not abused slaves; and that cannot be achieved through self-abasement. You have to value what you have to offer in order to serve. Nor can it be achieved through self-aggrandisement even when that comes from a poor sense of self-esteem. You have to recognise your limitations in order to offer the service that you can offer and not something other than that. In Christ we are called to know how God sees us—yes, frail, fragile, fallible and sinful; but the very much beloved children of God.

And when we are able to accept our worth before God, then we just might understand what it means to be humble and yet be exalted, what it means to be the greatest and yet a servant. And we will no longer need to seek others’ acknowledgement that we are of worth.

The Labour is God's!

God remembers your labour, brothers and sisters;
you work night and day, so that you might not be a burden
as you proclaim the Word of God.
God is our witness:
we have sought to be upright and blameless.
You urge and encourage the leading of a life worthy of God.
Like a father with his children,
we call each other to God’s glorious realm.
You have received the Word of God,
not as a human word but as what it really is, God's Word,
which is also at work in you as believers.
We pray that God remains at work in us
for it is not we, but God who labours
and brings God’s realm to birth.
It is indeed God who gives birth to new life within us.
Let us proclaim our God!

Your Coming Is Not In Vain!

Sisters and brothers, you’re coming here is not in vain!
Though our faith is ignored and rejected by others,
with courage, we worship God!
You do not come with deceit or impure motives.
With God as our witness, we come to worship God!
So deeply do you care for each other
that you come to share the Gospel again and again.
God calls us to gentle witness as apostles of Christ.
So, let us worship God!

Theology is Not a Dirty Word!

Lots of people in the church are uncomfortable with the word “theology”. Perhaps that’s because theology has often been seen as something that the big names do: Karl Barth, Thomas Aquinas, Pope Benedict VI, John Calvin, John Wesley… But theology is actually how we as the people of God are called to think through who we are, what we are on about and where God is calling us.

The word “theology” can be very simply broken down into 2 Greek roots—theos meaning “God”; and logos meaning “study” or “words about”. In simple terms, theology is God-talk. But good theology is not just any talk about God. It is talk about God that understands the Christian story and thinks about the nature of God within what has already been discerned by the church over 2 millenia.

Did you notice that the Greek root logos meaning study or words about is also one of the key titles for Jesus in the Scriptures? In the first chapter of the Gospel of John, we read: “In the beginning was the Word…” The Greek word here is logos. Now one of the significant features of the early Christian idea of logos and the Hebrew idea of words is that words are never just words, they are always active. In the first chapter of the book of Genesis, we read: “In the beginning, God said… and it was…” When God speaks, things happen. Words are not just words. They shape who we are and what we are becoming. Notice how the first chapter of John connects with the first chapter of Genesis and the idea of God’s creative action in the world continuing in Jesus.

Thinking about who we are as the people of God and working as the body of Christ is not simply about our emotional intuitions or even about our grand visions. It is about trying to understand who we are as the community of the Spirit, God’s called out, called forth, called together people in the light of a continuing understanding of the nature of God and God’s action in the world.

Yes, it means we need to use our brains as well as our bodies; but then aren’t our brains part of our bodies; and isn’t all that we have been created to be a gift from God.

Yes, it does mean that we need to listen to the tradition and learn from it as well as seeking to discover what the good news of Jesus Christ has to say in our time. Both are important!

Just like the connection between the first chapter of Genesis and the first chapter of John, we need to be looking for the continuity of God’s creative action in our world; and we can only do that by recognising where God has been at work in our past.
Theology is not a dirty word. It helps us understand who we are in God, who God calls us to be and how God is still working creatively in and through us and the world around us.

Hidden Potential!

[Jesus] told them another parable: "The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed in with three measures of flour until all of it was leavened." (Matthew 13:33)

Yeast—it’s an ingredient only used in small quantities compared to the whole mixture in which it is placed. Just a little bit has quite an effect. And once it is mixed in, it’s completely hidden—for all intents and purposes, it is gone; but it’s effect is not. Yeast is a hidden talent—something small, barely noticeable; but very evident if it is missing; and very potent, very powerful in its effect.
"The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed in with three measures of flour until all of it was leavened."

In the parable, the yeast is mixed with quite a large amount of flour—three measures—probably enough flour to make as much dough as any one person was able to knead at a time; probably enough flour to make enough bread to feed quite an extended family, perhaps up to a 100 people.

The yeast is hidden in the flour. Its presence is known only by the rising of the dough.

In other biblical passages, yeast is a symbol of evil or corruption. We need only look as far as the 16th chapter of Matthew to find Jesus warning about the yeast of the Pharisees and the Sadducees and in Corinthians. Paul exhorts his readers not to celebrate with the old yeast of malice but with new unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

Think about the Passover story. In this most significant feast of the people of Israel, the bread was to be unleavened, a sign of the haste required in preparation for the departure of the Hebrews from Israel. But because of its significance in this significant feast, unleavened bread became a more important sacrifice than leavened bread and yeast, therefore, was seen in some way to "taint" the dough.

And in some ways, yeast does work as an irritant, a catalyst to the rising of the dough, a prod to provoke the chemical reaction that produces not flat, but risen bread. Yet, according to the parable, Jesus says that the realm of heaven is like yeast in flour rising to make the dough which, when baked, will be bread.

The yeast is mixed with one of the staples of our diets, flour or meal, the carbohydrate base for a filling meal. The yeast is mixed with an ordinary ingredient, something that would have been used every day and the effect of that yeast is to add something extra to the ordinary to make it the staple food that it needs to be. But the reaction doesn’t occur immediately, it occurs over time. Breadmakers know that the dough needs to put aside, to be allowed to rise before it is kneaded (and perhaps allowed to rise again), before it is finally shaped and baked.

So what is the yeast doing in this parable? The parable of the yeast is a parable about the unexpectedness of the form of the realm of heaven. We know neither the day nor the hour and we may not even recognise it for what it is. We may see it as an irritant. We may discount its presence. We may simply not notice that it is there in the mix. But it is there and it does have an effect. The realm of heaven is not easy to discover or to discern. It is not easily recognised and it may even be misrecognised. We humans don’t always know what we are looking for.

But this promise of the extraordinary power and presence of God in our lives often seems just a small presence in our ordinary lives; and we wonder what effect it will have; what effect it does have. Yeast has a huge effect on an ordinary mixture of dough. And as the people of God, we are called to watch out for the extraordinary presence of God in those the life that we take for granted. And more than that, we are called to take the gift of that yeast and to place it in the abundance of the life that is ours, and to watch it have the effect that it will have because it is the very presence of God.

"The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed in with three measures of flour until all of it was leavened."

Discussion Starters
1. In what ways was yeast described?
2. Where have you caught glimpses of God’s presence in the ordinary?
3. What does it mean for the people of God to place God at the centre of our life?
4. In what ways is the body of Christ like yeast in our everyday world?

No Condemnation!

If you were to ask me what my favourite book in the Bible is, I’d say Romans. Then, if you were to ask me what my favourite chapter in that book is, I’d say chapter 8. In this one chapter, there is such a wealth of theological truth, that you could spend your whole life just studying this one chapter. Indeed, in reading this chapter, it’s not very hard to simply become preoccupied with verse 1. Verse 1 of chapter 8 of Romans holds so much hope: “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (v. 1).

As you know, Paul has been talking a lot about the Law—about the way in which the Law makes us slaves to sin and death. It makes us slaves to sin and death, because when we try to follow God’s Law in our own strength, we are doomed to failure. You and I can never be good enough, never be whole enough, never be humble enough to fulfil everything that God calls us to be. And if we think we have a hope, we’re kidding ourselves. And if we think we might actually do it, we’re stark raving mad!

But I guess most of us are a bit mad, at least just a bit. I am. I made a commitment to Jesus when I was 8. I was certain I was going to be good after that; but of course I wasn’t; so I felt guilty and the more I tried to be good, the more I failed, the more I felt guilty. So, at the same camp, the following year, I made another commitment. And this time I just knew I was going to be good; but of course I wasn’t; and I felt guilty and the more I tried to be good, the more I failed and the more I felt guilty. And so on… I’m not sure when the message sank in; but eventually it did. It wasn’t that trying to be good was wrong. It was just that I’d missed the point completely: “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (v. 1).

It’s not that trying to follow God’s Law is wrong; it’s just that trying to do it ourselves is futile; and, as it turns out, completely unnecessary. “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (v. 1).

God’s gift is that we are not required to prove ourselves, not required to justify ourselves, not required to get it all right, because we can’t. No, God’s gift is that in Christ, through Christ and because of Christ, we are never, ever pronounced guilty in the first place. In Jesus, God sets us free—not free to do anything; but free to rest in God’s love and God’s grace and to trust God to work in us and through us, despite us. And in that handing of everything over to God, that submission to God, we just may discover that God’s Law of justice, mercy and grace has been fulfilled in us because it was fulfilled in Jesus.

Jesus fulfilled God’s Law and that meant death on a cross. Because any way you look at it, fulfilling God’s Law or rather trying to fulfil God’s Law means death to self—death to our sense of wholeness and wellbeing because we are consumed by getting things right; death because God’s Law has never and can never be embraced fully by humans on their own; and death because we don’t like it when someone seems to be coming close to making it on their own and we like to make sure that they know that and know that they can’t. But we don’t have to be neurotic, and we don’t have to be guilty, and we don’t have to be jealous, and we don’t have to fulfil God’s Law on our own because… “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (v. 1).

What a gift—to be set free of guilt, and sin and death—to really fulfil God’s Law because we have been incorporated into the resurrection life of Christ through the power of God’s Spirit. Charles Wesley was just one hymn writer who got pretty excited about that one powerfully brief message at the beginning of chapter 8 of the letter to the Romans:

No condemnation now I dread:
Jesus, and all in him, is mine!
Alive in him, my living Head,
and clothed in righteousness divine…
(Charles Wesley 1707–88 alt.)

Accepting God’s gracious, loving embrace of us as the very human creatures which we are is, I think, what the parable of the sower is on about, too. We can hear the message that we are called to love God and love others; but if we do not comprehend that loving God means accepting that God loves us, God’s Word has not taken very deep roots in our hearts. We are hearing the good news only as seed spread on rocky ground—very superficially.

We can hear the message that we are loved by God, but when we keep getting caught up in the competitive, individualistic and consumerist priorities of the very human culture in which we are immersed, we have not really understood the good news that God really does love us, and that that means we are really released from the unhealthy systems in which we find ourselves. We are like seed choked by the thorns.

No, we are called to drink deeply, breathe fully, and understand completely, to let the roots of the good news that God loves us grow deep—nothing else matters; and when we open our hands and our hearts to accept that love, we may just find that loving God and loving others is much, much easy than we ever thought it could be. “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (v. 1).

[T]here is … no condemnation when we enter the sphere of Christ's influence and power ([When we are] "in Christ"). Why? Not just because there is forgiveness; nor just because we have someone else to reinforce the authority of the Law in telling us how to be good—[in fact] not at all the latter! Paul explains immediately what achieves the difference: "For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has liberated you from the law of sin and death" (8:2). (Bill Loader)

In Christ, God doesn’t just provide a marvellous example of idyllic servanthood; nor does God only provide a substitute sacrifice for the sin which binds us. No, in Christ, God says, more powerfully than words… in God becoming human, in incarnation, God communicates that God utterly loves us.

God takes “the initiative to bring about liberation” (Loader). God enters right into the middle of the human predicament in order to restore the broken relationship between humanity and God; in order to disempower the effect of sin in our lives; in order to set us free.

And that freedom—if we choose to accept it—will bear fruit:

…by opening ourselves to God's Spirit which brings transforming love we are transformed to become loving people. When that process starts happening we more than fulfil what the Law intended. Its goals are achieved [not through slavish observance], but on the basis of a loving relationship. Love … reproduce[s] love. Human experience tells us that this really does work. While there is a role for behaviour modification and rules, nothing changes a person so much as the experience of being loved. (Loader)

That is what Paul is on about. And that is what sets the agenda for Christian life. If we truly believe that God loves us, we cannot help but love others, even our enemies.

When we operate out of sin and fear, we reproduce sin and fear. When we operate out of love and hope, we reproduce love and hope. In both cases this is more than living by ideals. (Loader)

It is about a choice of systems: one that highlights sin and failure; and another that embraces love and gives life. Love and life are our hope. Love and life are our calling. Love and life are our inheritance in Christ.

Paul holds out the hope of us all one day being free “from the negative aspects … [that are] instilled into our human condition”, our slavery to sin and death. For Paul, that hope “means a resurrection body”, a new embodiment, a new incarnation of God’s love and God’s grace.

Until then we need to face the reality that we carry about with us both systems and can easily lose focus and surrender ourselves again to the sin syndrome. The ruts and routines don't magically disappear! (Loader)

Our fear and guilty and jealousy and neuroticism have deeper roots for us as humans than the victory of God’s love over all that would bind us to sin and death. For Paul, there is:

no liberation in people with plagued consciences. Paul's gospel lifts people beyond such self preoccupation so that they are now free to "get on with the job" of living. Death does not reign. Life does. There is now no condemnation. There is the Spirit of life. As we allow ourselves to enter this powerful new way of being set free, we ourselves have some chance of also embodying such good news and being good news for others. (Loader)

“There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free …” (vv. 1-2). Or as Jesus says in other places, “Go now and sin no more.”

God Welcomes!

So what does it mean to be Christian? In the letter to the Romans, Paul is wrestling with issues that he either knows or suspects other Christians are wrestling with too. What does our Baptism mean? How do we cope with the reality of our lives where, despite our best intentions, we still do wrong? What does the graciousness of God really mean for us now? It is perhaps the most influential book in the Christian scriptures. Some of our most important Christian theologians have found the core impetus for their understandings of who God is and who we are before God in this letter.

But these days, we often hear these profound passages through the lens of a kind of Enlightenment individualistic moralism: “Sin is bad.” “Don’t sin.” “Sinners are bad.” “You are all sinners.” The blame is on us. The guilt is on us. The onus is on us to do something about it. It’s all about us!

And that’s precisely the opposite of where the focus lies for Paul. For Paul, it is always about what God has done; not what we have done or what we do: “ For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.” (Romans 6:14)

As New Testament scholar, Bill Loader, points out, we need to make sure we read everything in its proper context: “the wages of sin [may be] death, but the free gift of God is eternal life” (Romans 6:23). If we focus only on the first half of the verse, we focus on the system that God has not only called us from, but the very life from God has released us—the system from which God has set us free.

In the letter to the Romans, Paul has been talking about the reality of Baptism. He is challenging believers to take the promises of Baptism seriously—not the people’s promises which he probably thinks the people are taking too seriously by putting the onus on themselves; not the people’s promises, but God’s promise, God’s promise of liberation in Christ. “[W]hen we accept God’s generosity, celebrated in baptism, we enter a new way of life.” (Loader) “Ritual life [is] not virtual life; it [is] real life in its most basic form expressed ritually.” (GBoD) Baptism means something. In fact, Baptism means everything.

Our problem is not that we need to keep turning over new leaves and trying harder (Loader), but rather that we need to accept the new reality into which we have been enfolded. Our problem is that we do not live out of the reality that our Baptism declares and embodies (GBoD).

In Baptism, we enter a new way of being, a new dynamic, “a new set of possibilities”, “a new relationship with God where… by opening ourselves to God's goodness we not only experience forgiveness and hope but also begin a journey where [God’s] love produces love in and through us. God's goodness and generosity reproduces itself [in and through us].” (Loader)

[I]n the light of entering this new life with its dynamic generation of love and goodness … Paul declares [that we should not let ourselves] be ruled by the competing system which generates sin. (Loader)

Sin is the result of alienation from God; of the failure to live out of God’s free gift of mercy and love. Sin is the expectation that it’s still all up to us to get it right.

When we enter the new life with its new possibilities the old patterns and systems do not shut down. The destructive ruts and routines are still there, [but we do not] have to surrender to them [we do not have to live out of them] because [God’s] new life [lifts us] beyond them.

In [verse] 12, [Paul] identifies [sin] as having [its] roots in our human bodies, in particular in our appetites. In this he shares the views of many of his time [and perhaps of our own time too]. [Though] For Paul the body is not evil; nor are its desires, but when we allow our lives to be determined by satisfying our cravings without any thought for the consequences for ourselves or others—whether that is as unsophisticated as [violence and] … abuse or as sophisticated as ripping off the developing world through hogging wealth and resources—then we are caught up into a power network which produces destructive behaviour. Paul is thinking about two different systems: sin and death on the one side and goodness and love [and generosity] on the other. (Loader)

And Paul is reminding us to live out of the new system, not the old, the new dynamic into which we have been baptised. He is calling us to accept the freedom that God gives.

[Verse] 13 is about integration [in] and orientation [to the new life we have been given]. When openness to love becomes a possibility for [us], then [our] journey has just begun. That journey includes the process of bringing all parts of [our] being into the sway of this liberating power [by simply allowing ourselves] to be taken up into the dynamic goodness and generosity of God [by simply allowing ourselves to be open to God’s action]. That is what resurrection life is about. Baptism [means] death to the old system. Christian life means living that reality out so that it affects everything. As [verse] 14 puts it, [the new reality is that] sin no longer rules.

[That same verse] goes on to say that we are no longer under the Law but under grace. [You can almost hear] the hackles of [Paul’s] opponents rise. No longer under the Law, the [Scriptures] (as [they] knew [them])! What does Paul possibly mean? You can just hear them reiterating their argument: "all this talk about love is not enough; you have to have the commandments! That's the trouble with Paul." [But] Paul is being [very] courageous here. [He even seems to court] opposition. [For in verse] 15 he restates [his opponents’] … question for them: doesn't all this mean we should keep on sinning? It echoes the question with which he began [right back at the beginning of chapter 6]. Paul is not, of course, suggesting they dispense with scripture. But he is saying: when you live on the basis that you try to observe the commandments and keep on failing, then you are caught in a system which does not work. The Law treated in this way is bad news. [The next chapter of Romans continues this theme.]
… [God’s promise is freedom] from the old system, so it makes no sense to [keep] surrendering to it. To develop [t]his idea… [Paul] uses the image of slavery (6:16). [H]e refuses to reduce the discussion to rules about doing good. He is [much] more interested in the processes and what they do to people. So he repeats: the sin system produces destructive behaviour; the grace system, … the system based on God's goodness and generosity produces goodness and generosity. Here Paul plays with the [slavery] image: [in Christ] we undergo a transferral of ownership from sin to God and goodness (6:18). Some slavery! But Paul is wanting people to think in systems and the dynamics that they produce.

Ultimately the fruit of living a life which feeds on God's goodness and generosity or grace is not just goodness and grace in our lives (and surely that is even more than the Law demands and more than [what] fulfils it!); [ultimately, the fruit of God’s promise] … is … holiness or "sanctification" … not … withdrawal [from the world] or even [some puritanical perfection, but love].

For Paul God's being is not preoccupied with being untarnished and pure, but with being generous and self-giving, making something out of nothing, raising the dead, helping people from the sin-death syndrome into the goodness-life processes which love generates.

[Verse] 23 then is not primarily about sins leading people to hell, and about the gift of life as escape from hell into heaven… Paul is talking about something much more encompassing and [he’s] doing so with his back to the wall. He is contrasting two fundamental dynamics at work in human beings and their behaviour which had also become the stuff of conflict among Christians [and indeed still is today]. The way of sin and death shows itself in actions, but it is much deeper and stems from powerful forces within our own being which are generated through our alienation from God, from others and from ourselves. They are so destructive they can even take good commandments and subvert them to send us sinking further into the mire [by getting us caught in an impossible cycle of our failure to follow them exactly]. That [cycle] is … death - here and now and forever.

Against it Paul argues the liberating effects generated by the relationship of generous love which God's goodness offers people. [God’s grace transforms us for the sake of extending that] same goodness and generosity [to] the world. That is "eternal life" - beginning in the here and now [and extending beyond…] That is the good news of which Paul is not ashamed (1:16) because it is powerful and is rooted in God's goodness (1:17) [God’s graciousness, God’s generosity]. (Loader)

Baptism happens to us and changes us. We have been buried with Christ in baptism, and raised with Christ to walk in newness of life… If indeed we have been buried with Christ, we are actually dead to and freed from sin. If indeed we have been raised with Christ in baptism, we are actually freed from the power of death.
The key word here is "freed." Just as a captive is set free from bondage, so we have been set free from sin and death. …What former captive in his or her right mind would attempt to live lawlessly after being freed from captivity, unless the condition of captivity has become "home"? Likewise, given that we have been freed in baptism from sin and death, why would we give ourselves to the ways of sin and death again, rather than [opening ourselves to the graciousness ] … of God in which we now stand?

If we have been given grace and power to renounce the forces of wickedness, reject the evil powers of this world, repent from sin, resist evil, injustice and oppression in whatever forms they present themselves, why do we seem so timid and powerless in the face of these things around us? Is not our timidity a sign that we have resubmitted ourselves to sin and death, rather than, as our [Baptismal] vows [affirm, given our allegiance] to Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour in union with his living body, the church?

Put another way, if [in our Baptism, we renounced evil and claimed Christ, what is our calling now?] … Paul understood Baptism [to declare and enact] the very reality into which we have been initiated. (GBoD)

God’s free gift is already begun in us through Christ; and all we have to do is live out of God’s gracious promise.

An Invitation to the Table

This is the table of Christ, and of Christ’s body, the church.
Here we are formed as God’s people.
Here we are named as God’s heirs.
Here we are grafted to the vine of Christ.
Here we are empowered by the Spirit for service.

Come, not because you’ve made it
in our world or God’s realm.
Come, not because you’ve failed
yesterday or forever.
Come, because you have been enfolded into Christ,
and are God’s creative work in progress.
Come, because in Christ, there is no condemnation
and all are free as Christ is free.
Keep your eyes on Christ and your heart will follow.
Keep your face towards Christ
and your actions will proceed in the right direction.

Come share this meal in thanksgiving and honour and praise
for the God who needs no justification
to lavish unfathomable love and grace upon us
through Jesus Christ, our Redeemer,
and the Spirit who makes us holy.

Setting the Table

Grain is gathered from the field;
threshed and milled for flour.
We are formed from the grain of God’s harvest.
Flour is mixed with water to produce basic dough.
The water of baptism unites us.
Yeast is added to transform the mixture.
The vision of God’s realm draws us onwards.
Oil softens the dough and makes a new texture.
The Holy Spirit anoints us as the body of Christ.
A little salt improves the taste.
Jesus calls us to be the salt of the earth.
The bread is kneaded and shaped, moulded and baked.
It is God who makes us a holy communion.
Grapes are harvested and crushed for juice.
You are the vine, we are the branches, O Christ.
Juice and skins are mixed with yeast for fermentation.
God’s reign is coming. God’s hope is here.
There is a time of waiting; then a time of pressing.
God’s new life presses forth through the sediment of our lives.
And finally, the feast is here!
Let us celebrate the feast of our life in God.

Based on an idea by Simei Monteiro & Lindsey Sanderson, “A Communion Meditation” in What Does the Lord Require? Compiled by Francis Brienen, Canterbury Press, 2000.