The Word Breaks Through: An Act of Wisdom

In 1980, the workers in Poland had been struggling for a decade or more to establish the right to collective organising, the right to trade unions. Their struggle was not just to meet together or to be able to bargain collectively. It was the struggle to have their voices heard at all in a regime governed by a bureaucratic communist elite. On their own, the would-be trade unionists were small pieces in the Polish system of government. They and their families were at the mercy of policies and legislation completely out of their reach to influence. Together, there was the possibility of making a real difference.

The struggle had taken its toll. As a result of various strikes prior to 1980, workers had lost their jobs, the livelihoods and their lives. Lech Walesa was just another worker active in the struggle, although not very active at work. He’d lost successive jobs because of his activism.

In mid-1980, a further price rise on food led to desperate workers staging another strike at the Lenin Shipyard in Gdańsk. Walesa was not among them. He was not a worker at the yard. Some reports say that enthusiasm for the strike was waning. Certainly, the strikers would have been under immense pressure politically, economically and psychologically. Many recountings of the story suggest that the strike wasn’t going anywhere, but then…

On 14 August 1980, Lech Walesa climbed the shipyard fence to get inside to join those who were fighting for their rights, even though he was not at the time a worker there. He’d been fired for political agitation.

Well, any of you old enough to have lived through that period will have at least a vague idea of what happened next. Other workplaces joined the strike action. The Inter-Plant Strike Committee was established to coordinate the action. The workers won their right to strike (to collectively withdraw their labour in protest of unfair employment practices) and to have an independent trade union. The coordinating committee became the National Coordinating Committee for Solidarność (Solidarity) Free Trade Union. Wałęsa was chosen as its chairperson. And Poland was on its way to democratisation—all because someone outside of the action dared to climb the fence to become part of it. All because someone had the courage to make an intervention.

I remember hearing about Walesa’s unique ability to intervene in group action to direct or re-direct its purpose in helpful ways in my first year of sociology at the University of Queensland. It was nearly 30 years and just a few years after the birth of Solidarity. The story caught my attention. The ability to analyse what was going on in a group, the imagination to know what to do to achieve a re-direction and the courage to take that action to intervene in a group situation sounded like an act not just of knowledge and awareness, but of wisdom—a timely intervention that changed the course of history.

Interventions are all the rage today in politics and counselling, preventative medicine and social policy. They’re meant to stop people doing harmful things, change the nature of society or the outlook of an individual, fix things up, speed things up or slow things down—“an intentional intercession or act to bring about change” (Opt & Gring 2009).

Our world looks for interventions that will help us battle disease and poverty, redistribute resources, make our communities healthier, happier and safer. We look for interventions that will heal us, help us, make us well, that will save us.

Today, as Christians, we celebrate what must be for us the intervention of all interventions—the mother of interventions—an intentional intercession or act that brought and continues to bring about change in our lives individually, as communities, as the wonderful, damaged Creation of God. This act, this intervention, this intercession is literally an act of God. It is God’s intervention in God’s very own Creation in and for the sake of that Creation. It is incarnation—God becoming human, God becoming creaturely, God, the Creator entering the Creation in order to bring about change; in order that we might understand a little, just a little something of what God is all about; in order that we might turn again to God who is the author of our being and our redemption; in order that we might be enfolded into real relationship with God—“our God contracted to a span, incomprehensibly made [hu]man… [so] shall his love be fully showed, and we shall then be lost in God” in the words of Charles Wesley (Together in Song 305).

This intervention was and is a real breakthrough. God reveals God’s self completely in the person of Jesus, a vulnerable baby, a teacher and healer, a prophet, a persistent problem for the authorities, a victim of Roman crucifixion, and the firstborn child of the new Creation, resurrected from the dead. In God becoming one of us, we are enfolded again into God. We are redeemed as God’s glorious Creation and re-commissioned in God’s service. It is a real breakthrough and in it, we are offered real change—change that wants the world to honour God which means loving God, loving our neighbours including our enemies, and caring for the whole of God’s Creation; change that means we know that it’s not all about us or all up to us, but that everything and everyone is in the hands of God; change that means the whole Creation will know peace and reconciliation with God our Creator. This intervention is an act of Wisdom bar none.

This intervention is an act, a movement, an complete experience—full immersion in the very thing that God has made. “[T]he Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father's only son, full of grace and truth.” (John 1:14) Theologians have wrestled with the concept from the very beginning of Christianity. God speaks and it happens. God’s Word, God’s intention is always embodied, always enacted, always alive and active. God’s Word is not just heard or seen, God’s Word is demonstrated and experienced.

And today, Christmas Day, we are invited to enter into the full experience of this intervention again—to dare to wait at the fringes of the birth scene, knowing that it is not just a glimpse that is promised, but a close-up encounter, a real life relationship with the Creator of All, a real life experience with the greatest intervention of all, the very Wisdom/Word of God; to dare to take a step forward into the scene and marvel that our God chooses to be made vulnerable in order to communicate God’s very self with us; to dare to pick up the baby and nurse it and comfort it for that is God demonstrating the greatest Wisdom of all; and even more to dare to let that baby grow up, to teach and to heal, to love and to care, to laugh and to cry, to live and to die on a cross prepared for the One who knew what any real intervention would take to bring real change for a wonderful, damaged, redeemable Creation—“our God contracted to a span, incomprehensibly made [hu]man” for the sake of the whole Creation.

A Funny Kind of Good News

“So, with many other exhortations, he [John] proclaimed the good news to the people” (Luke 3:18). With exhortations like "You brood of vipers!” (v. 7) and “one who is more powerful … will baptise you with fire” (v. 16) and “His winnowing fork is in his hand… the chaff he will burn” (v. 17), John proclaimed the good news.

Now, I don’t know about you, but being addressed as a “brood of vipers” hardly sounds like “good news” or does it?

John’s preaching is not the namby-pamby platitudes of a preacher who wants only to be liked by his audience. John’s preaching is not the preaching of a minister who thinks that pastoral care is only about making people feel comfortable. John’s preaching is challenging and threatening. John’s preaching makes people feel decidedly uncomfortable; John’s preaching demands that people examine themselves; and John’s preaching threatens the status quo. And the Gospel of Luke says, John’s preaching was the “good news”. And maybe is the good news that we really need in a world where being comfortable is proclaimed as value for which to aim; where we get so caught up in examining others and finding fault, we neglect to face up to the realities of ourselves; where those asked to monitor our laws and our finances seem to be more concerned about making those things work just for them.

This good news challenges the powerful to use their power responsibly. It challenges the rich to use their resources for the good of the community. It challenges the financial monitors to act ethically.

And lest we think this good news is not for us. Let’s remember the riches we have, the power we have, the responsibility we have, in relation to many, many others—our families, our friends, the people we work or volunteer with, the billions of people in nations that have much less in terms of resource than we do in Australia. The thing is that even if we think we are acting responsibility, this good news asks us to think again, and to think harder, and to act even better. And essentially it makes that challenge in the context of community. So you may have the power to buy what you want and spend what you like, but is that what is the best thing for the community not just in which you live, but the community of the whole Creation? So you may have the power to make others acquiesce to your opinions, but is that what is the best thing for the community not just in which you live, but the community of the whole Creation? So, you have the power to demand what you like of others by force of the authoritative position you hold in a community (whether formally or informally), but is that what is the best thing for the community not just in which you live, but the community of the whole Creation? This good news is not news of individual rights and freedoms. It is good news about the common good. And for those who have power and money and position, that good news is threatening. And whether we like it or not, that means that good news is for us. It is for us who live in a wealthy nation. It is for us who are used to seeking our own way. It is for us who think we know and understand; and who believe we therefore have the right to dictate to others—not just individual others, but a whole community. This good news is for all, because it is for us.

The Gospel of Luke says the crowds flocked to John. For some reason, they were energised by his preaching. Maybe they really were from the poor and the downtrodden. Certainly, they were looking for a new freedom from the lives which were theirs. But what if they were really the middle classes, the ones who found themselves between rocks and hard places—neither very wealthy, nor very poor—the very place that we tend to see ourselves occupying. What if they flocked to John because they didn’t think the good news was them, but for others? What if they saw the good news as another way of getting what they wanted, of having what they felt entitled to, of telling others how manipulative and power-mongering they were? What if they were really just humans like us?

The good news is for all, not for them. The good news is for all, not for some. The good news is for us, not just for others. And this good news is challenging and threatening. This good news makes us feel decidedly uncomfortable. This good news demands that people examine themselves. This good news threatens our status quo.

It’s easy to jump on a bandwagon that appears to be in our interests. But we are being asked to jump on a bandwagon that, in times of many of the values of today’s world, is not our own interests. It will not make us rich. It will not bring other people under our control. It will not justify lifestyles of consumption. It will not justify claims to the rights of individuals to do what they like and to hell with others. This good news is not in our own interests. It is in the interests of the community of the whole Creation; and that is the reason it is for us—not that it justifies ourselves, but that it frees us from self-preoccupation; not that it frees us to operate as we like, but that it opens us to act for the common good; not that it allows us to use our power as we want, but that it asks us to use our power in the interests of others. This is the good news; and because it is good news for us, it is good news for all—good news for the whole of Creation.

“So, with many other exhortations, he [John] proclaimed the good news to the people” (Luke 3:18). It’s a funny kind of good news in the values of today’s world that demands more of us, rather than less; that curbs our power, rather than expands it; that challenges and questions us, rather than comforts us and leaves us complacent. But this is the good news of a Saviour who comes with a baptism of fire. And this is the good news that we say is for us! May it be so in this Advent season!

All Flesh Shall See the Salvation of God!

The “word of God came to John son of Zechariah” (Luke 3:2). John proclaimed “a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins” (v. 3). It was just like the prophet Isaiah said: "The voice of one crying out in the wilderness: 'Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways made smooth; and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.'" (vs 4-6)

“All flesh shall see the salvation of God”—all flesh, all humanity, all mortal beings, all material things, all physical existence, all Creation--“All flesh shall see the salvation of God.”

This is a grand vision—a big picture: “Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low…; and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.'" (vs 5-6)

“All flesh shall see the salvation of God”—the deliverance of God; the redemption of God; the reconciliation of God—a process, not an event; an activity, not a completion—a grand vision of a grand course of action—a promise, a proclamation that everyone and everything will be involved in the very action of God.

John is caught up into God’s word, God’s action in the world, and John proclaims that that is the destiny for all of God’s Creation. “All flesh shall see the salvation of God.”

This is what the prophet Isaiah proclaimed: “the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all people shall see it together, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.” (Isaiah 40:6) The mouth of the Lord has spoken and God’s speech is never just words. God’s words are living and active—God says and it happens; God speaks and it is God’s action; God expresses God’s self and it is the very nature of God.

This is what has been happening—the salvation of God—the process of God’s deliverance of a Creation made by God, loved by God, and in continual relationship with God. John proclaims the living word, the living action of God. And all flesh has been witnessing it, is witnessing it and will continue to witness it for it is God’s intention and God’s work and God’s nature poured out in and through Creation.

We are waiting for its completion; but, more importantly, we are involved in the process of its happening.

This process, this action is bigger than any idea of individualised salvation, of single creatures being brought closer to God. This promise, this revelation, is about what God is doing with and for and in the whole Creation. “All flesh shall see the salvation of God.”

John invites his listeners into this bigger picture, into this broader understanding of God’s purposes for everything they are and everything they know.

But entering the vision, entering God’s vision, the grand vision proclaimed by God involves a profound word/action of our own—not a word/action to ensure our salvation (salvation is of God!); but a word/action that opens ourselves to the big picture—a word/action of humility; a word/action of responsibility; a word/action that indicates a change in our worldview, a change in our understanding of ourselves, of Creation and of God—an acknowledgement, a recognition that we do not see what God sees, and we do not understand how God acts, and we cannot determine how God works—an act of repentance, of metanoia, an act of changing our minds, in order that we might be open to catching a glimpse, just a small glimpse, of the mind of God—a word/action that makes it possible for us also to be witnesses to and proclaimers of the action of God; for us also to be proclaimers of the grand vision of John, son of Zechariah, and of Isaiah; a grand vision that is most fully and completely revealed in the very entry of God’s Word into God’s Creation in the person and work of Jesus. “All flesh shall see the salvation of God.”

And John is proclaiming that God is about to make it as easy as it can be to catch that glimpse of God’s work--through the profound gift of Jesus; God’s personal entry into the Creation itself.

Now we sit on the other side of that profound revelation and the words of Isaiah, and of John, echo down the ages to find us still waiting, still looking, still hoping, still expecting something grand to happen; and still being asked to see that it is, that it is and has been happening, that it is and will continue to happen as the work of God goes on in and through Creation, in and for the sake of the whole Creation.

What does it take for us to see? What does it take for us to catch a glimpse, just a small glimpse, of what God is doing?

Let’s not look for the grand cataclysms, the spectacular apocalypses, the special effects end of the world. Let’s open our minds to a change. Let’s open our eyes for a different revelation. Let’s at least suspect that we may not understand it all. Let’s wait quietly and hopefully for a God who has been and is at work in our midst—a God who comes in vulnerability, not in triumph; a God who begs us to notice, not demands our attention; a God who enters our world in the pain of childbirth, and the wonder of a baby’s first cry. Let’s dare to open ourselves to the profound word/action of God--“All flesh shall see the salvation of God.”

A Different Kind of Kingdom

Grace to you and peace from him who is and who was and who is to come, and from the seven spirits who are before his throne, and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth. To him who loves us and freed us from our sins by his blood, and made us to be a kingdom, priests serving his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen. (Revelation 1:4b-6)

Jesus Christ—the one who “made us to be a kingdom”—a kingdom, but what type of kingdom? What type of government operates in this place?

At first glance, we might say an “absolute monarchy” of course. Jesus is king. What Jesus says goes! That’s what it’s all about—autocracy—one king, one ruler, one way of doing things, one will which commands and all are forced to obey.

There are 2 problems with that, well actually 3. Firstly, what happens with the other 2 persons of the Trinity if Jesus is that kind of king? The very nature of our God is to be relational. The nature of God is not to have one part of God reigning absolutely over another; but that God, God’s self, is actively engaged in relationship all the time—and calls the people of God to be similarly engaged. The nature of God is not to be an absolute monarch—the Creation would have been a very different place if that were the case.

The second problem with the idea of absolute monarchy as the government of the kingdom is that we know that Jesus is not that kind of king! That kind of king does not make himself vulnerable to the vagaries of the world by giving up what he has and undergoing the kind of passion that Jesus undergoes. That kind of monarch does not enter the world of his subjects as an ordinary child, at the mercy of the will of others. That kind of monarch does not seek to persuade through love and mercy and openness and vulnerability, because only love and mercy and openness and vulnerability can bring about the type of kingdom that Jesus in on about. An absolute monarch rules absolutely and no dissent is permitted, because dissent and unrest are a threat to the reign. Jesus is not a king who is worried about such a threat to his reign.

The third problem we have with the idea of Jesus as an absolute monarch is that we know that we are not those kind of subjects. God did not create us to be automatons—robots to follow directives without any thoughts or initiative of our own. We are rebellious and dissenting and God does not bring us under control with water cannons and riot shields, but with invitation, and care, and love. No, the imagery of Jesus as absolute monarch is not the way to understand the kind of governance model operating in the kingdom made by Christ.

So, then is governance in the kingdom of Jesus democratic. Do we all get our say and the majority rules? Is it just what you or I think is good as long as we have the numbers? That idea doesn’t sound right either. Majority rule doesn’t guarantee that the reign of Christ is in place. We are a varied and disparate people. We are a stupid and wayward people. Democracy is a secular system of government that assumes that the collective opinion of people will give us the best possible governance result and perhaps that is true for nations of people (as long as popularism doesn’t hold sway), but it doesn’t help us to understand the kind of governance that operates under the reign of Christ.

Right now, you might be wondering why we would even want to persist with the question. Isn’t government in the kingdom of Christ some kind of future reality that really has no bearing on what we’re doing now? Isn’t it just an esoteric question—something akin to how many angels can you fit on the head of a pin?

Well, no, the question of governance in the kingdom of Christ is a question of what we are called to be engaged in now as the foretaste of that kingdom which is the body of Christ, the church. And we only need to look around at our sister and brother Christians to be reminded that the church chooses to operate under a variety of human governance systems, because the question is not so much how we organise ourselves as what we think we’re engaged in as we do so.

Whether a particular part of the church chooses to operate under an episcopal system (a system of personal authority) or a conciliar system (a system of collective authority) or some kind of combination of both is not what is at stake here. What is at stake is, “How is it that Christ reigns in our hearts, our lives, our communities, our families?” And that has almost nothing to do with the question of who gets to vote! It has everything to do with what we think we are aiming to achieve.

In the Uniting Church’s Manual for Meetings (Section 1.1), we are reminded that “When a council of the church makes decisions, it is aiming to discern the guidance of the Spirit in response to the word of God.”

Our deliberation and decision-making as the people of God is never made in a vacuum, or from off-the-top-of-our-head how we are feeling now. Our deliberation and decision-making as the people of God is always done in the context of our understanding of who God is and who we are before God. In that, we are guided by our theological tradition—the church’s understanding of God and everything in relation to God. We are guided by good and deep reflection on that tradition in the light of “the inheritance of literary, historical and scientific enquiry which has characterised recent centuries” in the words of the Basis of Union Para. 11, i.e. in the light of our contemporary human experience also reflected upon deeply and critically.

When a council of the church makes decisions, it is aiming to discern the guidance of the Spirit in response to the word of God... [The Manual for Meetings continues] discernment is not something for which we can set down the rules.

But the processes we use to create community and communicate in our meetings can themselves assist in the discernment process. This will be enhanced if people come expecting to be open both to the Spirit and to each other. By creating and sustaining effective communications in the context of a Christian community, we will be more likely to discern the guidance of the Spirit and reflect this in our decision-making.

That is not to say that community should be ‘nice’ all the time. We will struggle through pain and difficulty together as well as experiencing the joy of open and honest communication, being unified in our brokenness and our common identity under God. When members are left hurt or the community is broken, poor decisions are likely to be made and the church has failed to be true community. (Manual for Meetings Section 1.1)

A professor of mine used to talk about this type of governance as “Christocracy”. It cannot be brought about by any particular kind of human system of governance. It can only be the product of the work of God amidst a people who earnestly and sincerely submit themselves to the task of seeking God’s will and not just the expression of their own desires. Its presence is not determined by whether you or I like the outcome of any particular deliberations or decisions. As the Manual for Meetings says: “In retrospect …some decisions are considered to have been visionary and innovative, others inappropriate and destructive, whether or not they were seen that way at the time.” (Section 1.1) Nor is the presence of the reign of Christ determined by whether you or I have had “our say”. The presence of the reign of Christ is signified in our midst by our willingness to participate in the process as determined by our church for the sake of the community of Christ, in pursuit of God’s will for our world, and under the promise of God’s reign. And that is what we are called to do today, as we meet as one of the councils of the Uniting Church, the Congregation.

Grace to you and peace from him who is and who was and who is to come, and from the seven spirits who are before his throne, and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth. To him who loves us and freed us from our sins by his blood, and made us to be a kingdom, priests serving his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen. (Revelation 1:4b-6)

Only God Builds God's House

Unless the LORD builds the house, those who build it labour in vain. (Ps. 127:1a)

And in the book of Ruth, God is intent on building a house, a particular kind of house of God’s own—not a building of stone or wood, or even a tent, but a people, a dynasty; and not a house of new and perfect pieces, but one of imperfect and mixed ancestry—not pure, not wholly of the chosen people, but chosen nevertheless. And the Gospel of Matthew understands the intent because it is that Gospel that carefully remembers the story, the dynastic line of the house of David, and of Jesus according to that Gospel—the dynastic line of Ruth, a foreigner, an alien, and a part of the family, the house of God.

Unless the LORD builds the house, those who build it labour in vain. (Ps. 127:1a)

Ruth is the foreign daughter-in-law of Naomi, widow of Elimelech of Bethlehem. Ruth is a widow too. All the men in the family have died. Naomi attempts to release Ruth from her commitments, to send her back to her family in Moab; but Ruth re-commits herself to Naomi, to Naomi’s people, and to the God of that people. But they are widows and they are on their own.

Unless the LORD builds the house, those who build it labour in vain. (Ps. 127:1a)

Financial independence for women at the time was rare, although not completely unheard of in the upper eschelons of society. Ruth and Naomi were not of that class. Generally then, women were required to be and needed to be under the protection of a male—a father, a husband, even an uncle would do. Not only that but women were generally not seen as independent people, they were always considered as someone's wife or mother or mother‑in‑law or daughter‑in‑law.  The worst position for a woman to be in was to be a widow with dependent children and no other family or at least no other family who would take seriously the role of the "go'el".

The "go'el" was the next of kin—the one who according to Jewish law was responsible for caring for the widows and the orphans. The responsibilities of the "go'el" even extended to marriage of the widow, if that was possible, and the procreation of children on behalf of the deceased husband in order that the family line might be continued. In a world where women and children were treated as possessions, it was the go'el's task to redeem these people just as one would redeem property which is in danger of being lost to someone else or lost altogether to the family.

Now at the beginning of the story of Ruth, the situation looks hopeless, Ruth and Naomi are on their own left to fend for themselves, a feat they do achieve rather well given their circumstances. But at the beginning of chapter 2, we read the fateful words "Now Naomi had a relative on her husband's side, from the clan of Elimelech, a man of standing, whose name was Boaz."  And here although the story doesn't say it yet, you must think with a Hebrew mind and say, "Ah, is Boaz the one who is supposed to take on the responsibilities of the go'el. If that is so, why hasn't it happened?  Sure, Naomi is old but the responsibility must be filled." And the intrigue begins and the story continues.

Unless the LORD builds the house, those who build it labour in vain. (Ps. 127:1a)

Ruth, relegated to the role of gleaning, of the picking up the leavings of the harvest, so that she and Naomi might live, determines to go to the fields and glean after the harvesters. Naomi suggests that she go to the fields of Boaz. Whilst in the fields, Boaz notices Ruth, discovers who she is, and offers her his protection. Via the threshing-room floor incident, Ruth and Naomi persuade Boaz to take on the role of the "go'el".

Eventually we discover that Boaz is not the closest kin of Naomi but that another person who is, has not performed the role of "go'el" either. Boaz takes on the task, marries Ruth a child is born. A Moabite women has been welded into the Hebrew people through the ancient and honourable tradition of the "go'el" even if the women had to do a bit of work to call their own family to task to achieve it.

Unless the LORD builds the house, those who build it labour in vain. (Ps. 127:1a)

So God builds an unusual dynasty of odds and sods to produce the great King, David, and to establish the Davidic line.

And the Gospel of Matthew understands it so well, when Ruth is included as one of only 4 women in the genealogy of Jesus.

Unless the LORD builds the house, those who build it labour in vain. (Ps. 127:1a)

And there’s a lot of labouring in vain observed by Jesus at the treasury—scribes parading looking for respect and places of honour; rich people making great shows of the money they give. But none of these attract his attention so much as the widow who contributes so little and yet so much out of her poverty, not out of abundance.

Unless the LORD builds the house, those who build it labour in vain. (Ps. 127:1a)

And when you have so much that you think you’re building the kingdom of God on your own, you’re completely missing the point; but when you recognise that you like everyone else are in need of God’s love, God’s redemption, a proper Redeemer, a proper “go’el”, then you have been enfolded into that house of odds and sods, of lepers and the lost, that is really the household of God. Because it is not what we do or who we are, but what God sees in us, and the way in which God claims us that gives us life. 

Being in Conversation with God

In the last chapter of Job, Job speaks, recalling some of the words that God has spoken out of the whirlwind: “Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge?”; “Hear, and I will speak; I will question you, and you declare to me.” In recalling these questions and declarations from God, Job addresses the God who has spoken out of the whirlwind. He enters into dialogue with God.

Job speaks a number of times throughout the book: to curse the day of his birth; to tell his friends that he would prefer that God would kill him; to resist entering into conversation with God about the justice of his situation; to complain about his torment; to suggest that perhaps if he could find God, he would argue with God; to capitulate, to back down before the God who speaks out of the whirlwind; and finally, finally…

And there is our problem… What does Job finally do? The end of the book of Job continues to be an enigma, a puzzle for scholars and ordinary people of faith alike. Is it a bid to repentance? Is it an admonition to silence? Or is it something else…? What does Job really do?

In order to think about that question, we need to re-visit the speech of the God who speaks out of the whirlwind and to have a bit of a conversation with that God ourselves.

Who measures the dimensions of the earth? Who knows on what its bases were sunk? Who knows what it was like “in the beginning”? God inquires of Job.

Let’s see how we would respond: Well, actually God of the whirlwind, we have a pretty fair idea what the beginning of the universe was like and what we don’t know, we probably will one day. It’s only a matter of time.

Who causes the floods? Who is able to send forth lightning? Who can number the clouds and shift the waterskins of the heavens?

Well, actually God of the whirlwind, we’re not bad at affecting the weather and the climate either, and pushing around or hoarding water supplies willynilly is something you’d have to say we’ve excelled at in recent times, even if on some days, we’re prepared to admit that more in shame than in honour.

Who provides for the wild beasts? Who knows what endangered species need? Who seeks to provide for their wellbeing?

Well, actually God of the whirlwind, we do. Yes, actually, we do.

The questions that the God of the whirlwind asks aren’t questions that frighten us or drive us into submission or send us to our knees in awe and admiration any more. In fact, they spark our imaginations and scientific inquiry. We know so much, and what we don’t know we expect that we will some time. We know that we are doing things that once were thought of as only belonging to God. And what’s more, we know that we can no longer shrink away at that reality, or shrug our shoulders at that possibility, or even act as if it somehow were an act of defiance against God. It’s just our reality: that we play God and know that we are doing it. That we offer answers to God’s questions out of the knowledge and skills we have been given; and we seek out the possibility to respond to yet more difficult questions. But Job did not get to that point until the very end of the book.

The blind man by the roadside at Jericho who called out to Jesus was there. He was certain that Jesus could do something about a situation that was patently unfair: “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” You who represent God, you who stand in the line of the God’s chosen ones, you who understands the ways of God, surely you will look at me and see that I am in need of mercy. I need help. It is not just that I am this way; and furthermore, it is just that I should challenge God on this situation.

The people around him are not so sure that this is a conversation that should happen. They want the man to be quiet. But Bartimaeus, the blind beggar, does not cease wanting to enter the conversation with Jesus. He persists: “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” And eventually, Jesus hears him, continues the conversation with a question “What do you want me to do for you?” and acknowledges the faith of this one who has dared to enter into conversation with God.

Surely, God does want to engage us. God does want to be in conversation with us. And God does want us to be real conversation partners. God asksquestions not to belittle or silence us, not to gobsmack us or smack us into submission, but to be in conversation, to be in dialogue, to be a part of our world, our work and our play. When I was a small child, my mother used to read me a story about that: The Way of the Whirlwind by Mary & Elizabeth Durack

Nungaree and Jungaree had a baby brother called Woogoo. One morning, Nungaree and Jungaree decide that Woogoo “was old enough to go with them on their walk-about to the river”. They had a lovely time playing together and feasting on bush foods. Early in the afternoon, they “curled up in the shade of the river trees and went sound asleep”. When Nungaree and Jungaree awoke, Woogoo was nowhere to be seen. They looked “for his footprints in the river sand, but they saw nothing, for a wind had come past as they slept and swept the sand clear of all marks”. They looked and looked along the river, “but Woogoo was nowhere to be found”.

To cut a very long story quite short, a crocodile takes Nungaree and Jungaree to Old Father Bremurer, “the spirit father of all the children of the dream country” who suggests that the wind that wiped away Woogoo’s tracks was the Whirlwind who actually took Woogoo away. Now they must find “where in all the world … the Whirlwind [goes] to sleep”.

“Here-and-there [the Whirlwind] was one of the most unpopular sprites in the whole of the dream country. He was a thief and he was a tease and he carried his mischief far beyond even the dark people’s idea of a joke.” “Even though he had never been known to steal a child from them before, they always believed him quite capable of doing so”. So Nungaree and Jungaree set out to find this much feared and illusive baby thief.

As one does in stories such as this, they consult many other of the dream country inhabitants on their way: grandfather flying-fox; the stick-man; the brolgas, Bubba Piebi “who fished by night to feed the terrible spirits, and had the power of turning human beings and animals into fish”; Mother Mopoke; an old lizard; kangaroos… Until, at last, Father Bremurer, the rainbow serpent, provides a rainbow bridge to the end of somewhere where Here-and-there the Whirlwind sleeps.

There, they find Woogoo, but not sad, afraid and crying, gurgling, chuckling and playing with Here-and-there the Whirlwind. They discover that Here-and-there is lonely, not scary, and that Here-and-there really only wants to play and be loved. Nungaree, Jungaree and Woogoo cannot stay in the place at the end of somewhere, but they promise to play with Here-and-there whenever the Whirlwind comes “twirling and twisting … whirling and swirling … laughing and rustling and hissing with joy in the long yellow grasses”. Because it is play, not fear that is the way of the whirlwind.

In his book, Playing God, Andrew Dutney reminds us that we live in a “risk society”: a world where we know a lot about the challenges that confront us, where risks “can be predicted, calculated and, consequently, reduced or possibly even eliminated by the decisions we make now”. Whatever their probability, those risks require management because of our knowledge. Our knowledge calls us into a different relationship with the world around us. In the past, the kinds of things we do to “manage risks” have been called “playing God” and the term has been used derogatorily, as if “playing God” is a bad, unfortunate, even sinful thing. In our contemporary context, for Dutney, it is simply what we must do, what we do do and what we are able to do. Dutney writes his book out of the background of the death of his and his wife Heather’s only child in very early infancy from a disease that is not yet preventable, not yet curable, but can be managed to a certain extent.

Because of the knowledge we have and the ability to make choices that comes with it, we do play God, but play, in this context, for Dutney:

is not a frivolous waste of time or simply a rest from work, but a necessary part of the way we fit and re-fit ourselves for effective living—whether or not we know we are doing it. In play we take the exercise we need—physical, emotional, intellectual, creative, social and cultural—to tone and maintain the selves we become through the living of our lives. In play we also tend to our abused or damaged selves, finding comfort and healing. In play we keep our selves open to inspiration, experiment and new growth, making us ready for the unforeseen developments and unprecedented challenges of a life and a world that is in constant change (p. 27).

Play demands relationship with our world, with other people, with God. We cannot rehearse who are in the world without a world. We cannot rehearse who we are in relation to others without being in relation with others. We cannot rehearse who we are in relation to God without being in relation with God. When we dare to respond to God’s questions, we dare to enter into play with God. We dare to be in relationship with God and to be adults in that relationship, not simpering children, or submissive slaves, or spineless lackeys. We dare to prompt hard questions and to respond as best we can, even when we may not know all that our response will entail. We dare to enter the way of the whirlwind, out of which our God speaks. And that just might be what Job actually does at the end of the book, to turn towards a God who wants to be in a real relationship with him. Is this not what God wants for us too?

Open up!

Ephphatha! Be opened! Open up! ‘Then looking up to heaven, [Jesus] sighed [or perhaps Jesus groaned] and said to [the deaf man who had an impediment in his speech] , "Ephphatha," that is, "Be opened." (Mark 7:34 NRSV) Ephphatha! Be opened! Open up!

There are a few times in the Gospels where we have words not in the koine Greek of the Gospels nor even in the Hebrew of the Old Testament, but in the Aramaic that is probably what Jesus and his disciples actually spoke. Aramaic is a Hebrew variation. Like Hebrew, it is one of those languages that belongs to the Middle Eastern family of languages which includes Arabic.

In our Gospel story for today, we hear one of those times when Aramaic is used: Ephphatha! Be opened! Open up!

Now when we run across these Aramaic words, scholars have been inclined to think that perhaps it is in these stories that we come closest to hearing something of the actual words that Jesus spoke: Ephphatha! Be opened! Open up! Because if the word is there in Aramaic, then perhaps it has been transmitted from its first use and the first observers of the ministry of Jesus.

Ephphatha! Be opened! Open up! Here, in this story in the Mark, the command is firstly to a deaf person with a speech impediment. It is a story of physical healing. Open up! Be healed! Be whole! Participate in the world around you fully!

But the fact that those words seem to have endured would indicate that they don’t just relate to one particular incident—however miraculous that incident may have been. The fact that the Aramaic word has persisted in the Greek text suggests that it had and indeed has a powerful, symbolic role in talking about and explaining the significance of Jesus, not for that one person, but for all of humanity, for us.

That word would appear to have said something and indeed say something not just about what Jesus might have done on one occasion, but something about what the ministry of Jesus offered and offers as a whole. Ephphatha! Be opened! Open up!

There are people who look into Christianity from outside who don’t see what that Aramaic word is all about. They see Christianity as something that doesn’t open things up, but rather closes things down. They may understand Christianity as being about being put in a straight jacket, rather than wearing practical, comfortable clothing that protects and allows for good movement. They may think about Christianity as a set of rules, rather than a way of living that is open to God and the things of God.

But this Aramaic word preserved in the Markan text speaks of a different understanding of what Christianity is all about: Ephphatha! Be opened! Open up! It speaks of an approach to life with God that is freeing and healing; that brings hope and wholeness; that prompts the full participation of people in the life with which we have been gifted.

Just prior to the use of this word in the text, we have heard another story of freedom: the story of a Gentile woman who claims for herself and her daughter a place at God’s table; and of a Jesus who opens himself up to the possibilities that God offers for all people and not just for some. Ephphatha! Be opened! Open up! This life is for all!

Christianity is about opening up: opening up to God; opening up to others; opening up to those who are most closed off; opening up for those who are most closed off; opening up those who are most closed off. The imagery of the healing of a man who is deaf and mute is also the promise of giving voice to the silent and opening the ears of those who do not listen. It is a picture of people being able to enter fully into the life for which they have been created. Ephphatha! Be opened! Open up!

So, what does that mean for us now? Where are we being called to be open in our lives? In what ways are we being called to open up to the fullness of the life with which we have been gifted?

The Ephphatha rite is part of the sacrament of baptism. When today, I said to Archer, “May the Lord open your ears to hear God’s Word and your mouth to proclaim God’s praise!”, and touched his ears and his mouth, I was technically doing the Ephphatha rite, the ritual that is drawn from this very Gospel text. None of you thought that what was happening was a physical healing, because we know that Archer is a healthy baby who can hear and can speak, or at least make his voice heard, very well! Rather, we were offering God’s blessing upon Archer to participate in God’s life fully, to hear God’s Word and do it, to know God’s goodness and proclaim it in word and deed.

And that is what we have been called to in our baptism—the hearing and doing of God’s Word, the knowing and proclaiming of God’s goodness—in order that others might also hear and do and know and proclaim; in order that others might fully participate in the life with which we have been gifted by God. Ephphatha! Be opened! Open up!

That opening up is an opening up for all people, not just for some; even for those people whom we sometimes wonder about. Everybody, Jew and Gentile; slave and free; male and female; gay and straight; married and unmarried; young and old and in-between; Anglo and Asian, African and Islander, Arabic and Aboriginal; Green and Labor, Liberal and Independent--the Ephphatha is a blessing for everyone and a promise for all. Ephphatha! Be opened! Open up! This is the freedom for which we were created; the freedom to which we have been called; the freedom which has been accomplished in Jesus for us; and the freedom into which we have been baptised—the freedom of full participation in the life with which God has gifted us!

Strengthened & Equipped!

Give up or keep going? Give up or keep going?! Give up or keep going…

How many times have you confronted that question in your life? That’s the question confronted by the disciples in our Gospel reading today—give up or keep going? And Jesus is the one who poses it.

When others who were following him decide that what he is saying is too hard and leave, Jesus turns to his inner circle and asks whether that’s what they want to do too. “What about you? You’re free to join them if you want to give up on me too.” “Have you had enough? Are you ready to give up too? Or are you prepared to keep going?” Give up or keep going!

Now that’s confronting! This is the rabbi they been following around for a while—someone who seemed to offer some hope for people who were really, really in need of hope. And now this guy is giving them a kind of ultimatum or at least the chance for them to get off the hook: “If you want to go, you can go too.”

And I know that there have been times in my faith journey when I’ve wanted to go, I’ve wanted to give up, because the story is too hard, the news is too difficult to convey, the messenger is so often misunderstood, and there’s so much baggage that has accrued to Christianity that what people sometimes think is Christian is hardly Christian at all. It’s too hard, too difficult—it’s like pushing a boulder uphill.

So just what has Jesus been saying that seems to have turned so many away? It’s pretty graphic stuff. Chew on me and I will become part of you, and you will become part of me. God is the source of my life; and I will be the source of yours; and not just the source of human life now, but of eternal life, of life in God forever.

This stuff is hard. This stuff doesn’t make a lot of sense. And maybe it’s hard for us to understand just how hard this stuff in the Gospel of John might have sounded because the imagery is so steeped in our Christian tradition; but in the first century it’s the emerging Christian story and it’s working with the Jewish story, but changing it, and change is hard!

Give up or keep going?

The disciples are confronted with a changing tradition; and it’s hard to know what’s the right way forward when the ground seems so slippery. What if you put your foot wrong? It’s not just about stumbling, it’s about whether you’re in relationship with God or not, whether you are walking in God’s way or not, so when things seem to be changing, how can you know what the right path is?

And when the way seems so uncertain, it can be very discouraging. We like nice maps, good directions, an accurate GPS. We like to know that we’re on the right path; we’re not being led astray; we are walking the path that has been set for us… by God.

Give up or keep going?

But Jesus has given them a clue—a clue to the discernment of the Spirit’s leading. He’s already given them (and us) a clue when he’s been speaking to those others who chose to leave and to those who remain, at least for the time being. “Everything I’ve said to you is life-giving. Everything I’ve said to you is life-giving.” That’s the clue! That’s the way to know the way! The good news of Jesus is life-giving!

Give up or keep going? What is the path that leads to life; and not just the sort of life guaranteed by bread, but the life guaranteed by God—life that is fulfilling and abundant and freeing—real life, the life that comes with freedom, proper freedom—not the freedom to do what I like, the freedom of acting in accordance with God’s intent without being afraid that you might not be on the right path—the freedom of being in God. Now that’s scary!

Because at first it sounds very much like I’m not in control, like I can’t plan my destiny, like I’m going to be in a straight jacket, but it’s not! It’s the only proper freedom there is. No wonder “When the people who had been following Jesus heard him say these things, many of them began to say, ‘Who can stomach what this man teaches? It is too tough by far.’” And the shutters were up! Because it barely sounds like freedom at all.

So Jesus wants to see if the disciples’ shutters have come up too. And Simon Peter responds and essentially his response is that the disciples who remain have caught on that Jesus’ words are life; and that Jesus’ life is God’s life; and that they are being invited to enter into the life of Jesus, the life of God.

And that is the invitation to us: give up or keep going? And when you’re making your decision, make sure you choose life, make sure you know what life you’re choosing—the only real life that there is, life in Jesus, life in God. Whether something is life-giving or death-dealing is the clue to whether it is of God! That is the struggle in which we are engaged—the struggle for that which is life-giving and the struggle against that which is death-dealing. That is the reality that Jesus is checking out with his disciples—do they know what it is that gives life? Do they know whom it is who gives life? Because if they don’t, they might as well leave now; because they will be defenceless. They will not be able to discern the life to which they have been called, let alone the armour which it provides them for the journey—an armour not of military might and physical strength, but of the things of God—truth and righteousness, peace and faith, and above all salvation.

So in order to keep discerning the right path, in order to keep connected to the way of life, we need to keep in relationship with God; and for the disciples, that relationship is firsthand with Jesus; and the disciples of Jesus that firsthand relationship is made possible because of Jesus who is God and did enter God’s world in order to show what real life is, in order to demonstrate what real life is, and in order to give that real life to all who only choose to ask. Give up or keep going? Live life or succumb that which hinders and even extinguishes life.

“Lord, who else could we turn to? Your words have opened our eyes to life without limit. You have won our trust and we are convinced that you are God’s Holy One.”

The Getting of Wisdom

In The Getting of Wisdom, Henry Handel (Ethel Florence Lindesay) Richardson’s great Australian novel, Laura Rambotham leaves the sheltered world of her mother’s home and tutelage and of her younger sister’s company. She enters a boarding school which is intended to extend her education and prepare her for the remainder of her life. Finding herself a little fish in a big pond (in contrast to being a big fish in a little pond at home), Laura struggles to gain a position and recognition in the academic and social life of the school. Some of the strategies to which she resorts don’t help her cause at all. She learns that she must work in order to succeed in her studies. Where up until now, she has excelled in music with little effort, she now finds she must practice extensively in order to keep up. Trying to earn her place in student social life, she pretends to have a grown-up beau, a married clergyman no less. When her ruse is discovered, she is “sent to Coventry”, ostracised, considered persona non grata by her classmates. Laura’s trip into wisdom is not an easy road. The path is bumpy and the wheels occasionally come off her buggy altogether. By the end of the novel, you are left wondering what is the wisdom that Laura has acquired?

The closing chapter of the book reflects on this question:

She went out from school with the uncomfortable sense of being a square peg, which fitted into none of the round holes of her world; the wisdom she had got, the experience she was richer by, had, in the process of equipping her for life, merely seemed to disclose her unfitness. She could not then know that, even for the squarest peg, the right hole may ultimately be found; seeming unfitness prove to be only another aspect of a peculiar and special fitness.

Quotations from the wisdom literature of the Hebrew Scriptures or the Old Testament accompany Laura on her journey. The epitaph of the book is a quote from Proverbs: “Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom: and with all thy getting get understanding. (Proverbs, iv, 7)”. Other wisdom literature in the Old Testament includes some Psalms, Ecclesiastes and the book of Job.

The journey of the wisdom literature of the Hebrew Scriptures has a particular shape. The quest for wisdom, for understanding the ways of God and the ways of God’s world inevitably leads the questor through a series of discoveries of which the first is: The world is not as God wills it to be. The world is not what I expected. The world is not what I hoped it to be. It is out of whack!

There are long dialogues of complaint, lament and even angry accusation towards God for injustice, conflict, physical pain and the state of the world generally. These dialogues are graphic and powerfully truthful conversations with God where humans say exactly what they think and God receives it all.

Inevitably these powerful truthful conversations are exhausted in the second of the series of discoveries: that God is still God despite the state of the world; and that indeed, the God who has been on the receiving end of the diatribes is wholly trustworthy of such authentic disclosure of the depths of people’s hearts and souls. God offers real relationship in the midst of the apparent mess.

The third discovery follows closely on the second: a profound sense that life, however messy and painful, is still a gift from God; and that that gift includes the freedom given to God’s creatures, a freedom enjoyed most authentically in the bonds of relationship with God and the responsibilities that implies.

Those 3 discoveries are again: the world is not as God wills it; God is still God despite the state of the world and utterly trustworthy in relationship with the creation and us as God’s creatures; life, however painful and messy, is still a gift from God and that gift includes the freedom and the responsibility given to us, God’s creatures.

We might put that in the terms of the closing chapter in The Getting of Wisdom. The world is full of square pegs and round holes. Despite this apparent incongruity, God is still God and wholly trustworthy in relationship with us and the whole of Creation; life is a gift and sometimes maybe square pegs are meant for round holes, or at least square pegs in round holes may just fit in a funny kind of way; or when everyone is a square peg and there are only round holes, we’re all in the same boat.

What on earth does this have to do with our scripture readings for today?

Solomon has become king. According to the story, he wasn’t originally the first in line for David’s throne after his death, but one by one his various rivals have died or been found unfit. So, it’s down to Solomon. In a dream, God asks Solomon what he wishes. Now, at this point, you’d think that Solomon should be asking for things that kings can use: like a good military force (it’s one battle after another in Kings); or maybe wealth and power in order to control his country and keep the surrounding nations at bay; perhaps even the chance to step down from the throne if the going was really going to be so bad. But Solomon chooses none of these. Solomon chooses wisdom: “Give your servant therefore an understanding mind to govern your people, able to discern between good and evil; for who can govern this your great people?” Okay God throws in a few extra trinkets, but in the story, Solomon asks for wisdom. It’s not what you would’ve expected of a king. You would’ve expected him to ask for things that would set him apart without a doubt: establish a clear position and possession of authority. But wisdom, that’s okay if you want to be a square peg in a round hole. But like as not, it’s bound to get you into some interesting situations, like wanting to divide a baby between two mothers. Wisdom has never really been a selling point for anyone wanting to make good in the ways of the world.

The wisdom literature of the Hebrew Scriptures informs a good deal of the writing about Jesus in the New Testament. In particular, Jesus is the Logos, the Wisdom-Word of God in the Gospel of John. A good deal of the wisdom influence in the New Testament is also bound up with the imagery of bread; and yet again in the last months series of Gospel readings, we have been reminded of just how fond of bread, the writer of the Gospel of John is. Jesus is the bread of life. Jesus is the living bread. But this bread is not the bread that you would have expected. Firstly, this bread is not the miraculous manna of old; it’s a human being; an ordinary vulnerable human being. The world is not as we would have expected. Secondly, this ordinary vulnerable human being is intimately connected with the nature of God: with who God is and who we are in relationship with God. God is still God. Thirdly, this bread is a profound gift of life involving freedom and responsibility. Life is a gift from God. Are there enough square pegs in round holes for you? It doesn’t quite seem to fit together… and yet it does. This is the wisdom of God.

The place where it makes most sense for us is when we as the people of God, the body of Christ, gather around God’s table. Here in this place, we are able to affirm these things: The world is not as God wills. God’s response to that is not as we would have expected. There are no great lightning bolts, just authentic and deep relationship. God is still God and life is certainly a gift from God. Here in this place, we celebrate the life God gives, we proclaim that life in God and we commit ourselves to serve God’s life in a world which is not yet as God wills.

Here in this place, we are able to acknowledge that we are all in the same boat—the church—and that in this boat we are fed on the very nature of Christ. This feeding is a gift from God. This is the place where life is found. And that life brings freedom. It may not be what the world expects us to be. It doesn’t guarantee us wealth or fame or even infamy for that matter. We will feel like square pegs in round holes, but God is God and God’s wisdom is not the wisdom of the world. God’s wisdom is discerned around the table in the body of Christ by the power of the Spirit, remembering that Christ has lived, died and been raised and calls us into a future of justice and peace in which we are involved already now. Here in this place: “seeming unfitness [certainly] prove[s] to be only another aspect of a peculiar and special fitness” in the life of God. Surely, it is only God who has the wisdom to “govern this … [God’s] great people?”

“Be careful then how you live, not as unwise people but as wise, …giving thanks to God the Father at all times and for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.” (Ephesians 5:15,20 NRSV) Amen.

Bread for Life

“Syrians flee as rebels plan counter-attack.” “Inequality widens as Indonesia’s economy booms.” “Troops lured to death with dinner invitation” in Afghanistan. These are just some of the headlines from the news of the past week.

And lest we think it’s all out there, here’s a few home-grown ones: “Doctor from ‘Dickensian’ hostel suspended” in Sydney. “Taxi industry putting profits ahead of safety” in Victoria. “States fail to regulate skills training” around Australia.

We’ve come a long way technologically since Jesus was first identified as the “bread of life” for the world. We live in a time of tremendous advances in health and medicine, communications, agriculture… in fact almost any field we might care to name. Yet we still live in a time which has great variations between rich and poor, between safety and threat, between those have what they need and those who do not. We’re a long way from the lifestyle of the people of Capernaum listening to Jesus and yet there is much hunger still… hunger for bread, hunger for safety, hunger for hope.

What does it mean to affirm in our time that Jesus is the “bread of life”?

Bread might be a common food, but it’s just one among many that form our basic diet. Some people lack bread and face starvation; others have plenty of bread, but lack the other food they need for good nutrition. Yet bread in the Gospel of John, and indeed in the sacramental meal of the Lord’s Supper which we will celebrate shortly, is most certainly a symbol of that which is the staple food of life—the thing that fills our bellies and keeps us going; that provides a core part of our diet around which other things can be arranged. For the Gospel of John, bread is life; and life is found in Jesus.

In preparation for the 5^th Assembly of the World Council of Churches held in Vancouver in 1982, people around the world were invited to participate in a series of studies entitled “Images of Life”. The 4^th theme of the study series was “Bread of Life”. In it, participants were invited to consider two stories and what life and the “bread of life” might mean in each situation. Listen to those stories:

A poor family. Mother serves most of the food left over from the previous evening to father, who leaves early in the morning for work in a factory. Mother distributes the remaining rice among the seven children and sends them off to school. Only some rice water remains for her. But she will get lunch at the building site where she works... In the afternoon, the children come home, and await the return of the parents for the evening meal. While mother cooks the food with the help of the older children, the younger ones fall asleep. The children eat and go to bed. Without eating, the mother waits for the father’s return. Late at night, she learns that her husband has been arrested by the police for taking part in a demonstration against the dismissal of a co-worker. She goes to bed hungry.

An affluent family. The children rush past the breakfast table barely stopping to pick up a piece of toast and to complain that the right cereal hasn’t been purchased. Mother and father sit without speaking, tired from the demands of their jobs and of their commitments, their family and their home. There is a mad rush as everyone leaves for school and work. The children say they hate school. They come home grumpy, quarrelling over afternoon tea. Father must work late again. Tea time is no better than breakfast. They go to bed having eaten but still hungry.

For people existing on the very edges of life, struggling to survive physically, life is as urgent as clean water, as simple as a nutritious meal, as significant as the right to human dignity. For people existing on the very edges of live, struggling to survive in the midst of armed conflict, life is as complicated as international conflict resolution, as difficult as finding a safe place to survive, literally life or death. For people existing on the very edges of live, struggling to find meaning in the midst of a world fixated on consumerism, productivity, efficiency and excitement, life is as elusive as the still place in the middle of the cyclone, as fleeting as a few moments of precious shared relationship, as mundane as learning to savour and to share the abundance which is ours.

What does it mean to affirm Jesus as the “Bread of Life” in the midst of all this?

Jesus is the centre of the Christian life and Christian understandings of life. Everything is arranged around the one whom we affirm as fully human and fully divine. It is in Jesus that we understand God to be fully revealed. It is in Jesus that we are confronted by a God who has created us, who loves us, who redeems us, who sustains us. In Jesus, we are confronted by a God who affirms human dignity, the value of the whole of Creation (even the parts that seem most flawed), and the importance of the bonds of relationship that ensure the sharing of resources and the proper flourishing of life. Jesus is the “Bread of Life”.

Recognising this bread, acknowledging this staple of the “good life”, of God’s life, invites us to re-evaluate our lives… invites us to consider whether they are organised around this staple of life, this bread that is so essential to our living and our survival. It invites us to work for the bread that is real food for those who hunger, and real safety for those in peril, and real hope for those in despair. It invites us to fully partake of the life that is offered in Jesus.

And that is the invitation offered to us as we approach the sacrament: to reach out our hands for bread and wine, and to hungry people; to hold the elements in our hands, and the pain of God’s groaning Creation; to receive the body and blood of Christ as the body of Christ, and to embody for the world the hope that is real life, real living.

Let us pray:

Eternal and gracious One,
though we live in a world of need,
here may we taste your goodness and hunger for a world more just.
Though afflicted by brokenness and division,
here may we hear your call to be a people of healing community.
Though daily we touch our limits,
here may we receive the fullness of your grace,
that we might embody your life in our world.
Through Jesus Christ, Bread of Life. Amen.
(Adapted from a prayer after communion by Peter Wyatt, Celebrate God’s Presence, ©1984 the United Church of Canada.)

Love Stands the Test

Temptation… testing… “O God, lead us not into temptation”… “O God, save use from the time of trial”… from the time of testing…

And yet testing, temptation is very much where we discover just what the Christian faith might be all about.

When life choices seem easy and being Christian seems to be about living in the community that we’re living in, it’s very easy for us to miss the depths of the calling which is ours through Jesus Christ.

Imagine yourself as that mother standing before the king forced to choose between losing her child to another woman or losing her child to death—forced to choose between a life for her child from which she will be separated, or certain death for that child. And before we think the decision is easy, we must remember that children for women on their own were life, were the future, were the only superannuation there was for old age. The choice is not just life and death for the child; it is the choice between maintaining a just claim, between being right, between maintaining some sense of who she was as a women, a mother, and losing it all, not just the child—losing everything status, future, hope. It would have been so easy to continue to make a claim for her rights as a mother, rather than to see the possibility of life for her child.

And lest we forget the other woman—this child is a possible future for her. She has nothing to lose. If she cannot have the child, she does not have hope, and if she does not have hope, then hope for another is simply a slap in the face.

Temptation… testing… “O God, lead us not into temptation”… “O God, save use from the time of trial”… from the time of testing…

And yet testing, temptation is very much where we discover just what the Christian faith might be all about.

Temptation and sin—they’re two words that we don’t like very much: perhaps because we’re afraid that the finger is pointed at us; perhaps because it has been and we have found ourselves denigrated and defiled before other people. Certainly, some of us have probably been on the unfortunate receiving end of the kind of evangelism that seems to have to remind us that we are worms, in order to provoke the sort of emotional catharsis that the evangelist is looking for—hardly good news at all.

But if we thought that those experiences meant that we could cast out sin and temptation from our understandings of ourselves and our awareness of ourselves before God, then we would be sadly disappointed. There is no way to tell the human story without speaking of failure and fracture, pride and arrogance, alienation and separation from the God who loves and longs to be in continuous and reciprocal relationship with us, who stands the test of loving us through thick and thin.

Our theological story, our God story, the story of God and everything in relation to God (including us) tells us that God created a good creation; and that something happened to change a good creation into a flawed one; and that something has something to do with the action of humanity. It is we who are the site of the problem.

However we describe what it is about us that gets in the way of relationship with God—it does get in the way. Whether it’s the thinking too much of ourselves called pride, or the thinking too little of ourselves called shame; whether it’s the wanting to be more than we are that is arrogance or the wanting to hide who we are that is fear; whether it is the seeking after many things that is gluttony or the failure to work towards that to which we are called that might be labelled sloth—however we describe it, it’s there; and it does get in the way of our relationship with God and with each other.

So we cannot simply ignore it, we have to face it; and facing up to sin and temptation costs. The story of Jesus in the wilderness speaks to us of that cost.

When tempted to fill his immediate needs without regard for his commitment to seek after the things of God, Jesus affirms the importance of God’s purpose, but he goes hungry.

When tempted to produce displays of power and force God’s protection of his life, Jesus affirms the importance of treating God with respect, but that means the journey that he walks is not an easy one—it is full of suffering.

When tempted to claim a position of power without reference to the purpose of God, Jesus affirms God’s authority over all things and God’s claim on our allegiance and our servanthood, but servanthood for Jesus means the cross.

Facing sin and temptation costs. But how much more does sin and temptation itself cost us—separation from God and from each other. And we find ourselves in a far more amenable position that Jesus. Because the good news is that it is precisely through Jesus’ facing of sin and temptation, through Jesus standing the test, that we find ourselves confronted by God’s grace, more abundant that anything we might ever claim for ourselves by ourselves—the abundance of God’s gracious declaration that we have nothing to answer for; that in God’s eyes, we are still and have always been the much loved children of God; that, because of God in Christ, we are called just, and called to work for God’s justice in our lives and in the life of God’s world.

The grace of God, the love of God, the gifts of God matter because we are a people confronted with sin and temptation—our own, and that of the whole of humanity. The grace of God matters because we can’t fix what’s wrong on our own. The grace of God matters because we are very human—frail, fragile, fractured, faithless—in need of God’s love, God’s mercy, God’s care. And God’s love stands the test!

Perhaps we can only really appreciate the abundant grace of God, when we really face up to the depth of the sin that is ours—not by pointing the finger at others; not by ticking off our good and bad points; not even by obsequiously grovelling before God; but by recognising who we are—human; and remembering who God is—utterly gracious, utterly loving, utterly merciful, utterly forgiving—a God who stands the test!