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!

One Body

One Spirit, one Lord, one Baptism, one body, one hope, one faith, one God—this is where our unity lies. This is the bond of our peace. This is the glue which holds us together. This is the core of our identity.

Some of you will have read the installation sermon of the Uniting Church’s current president, Andrew Dutney, in the “Assembly Highlights” brochure. In it, he notes some of the preliminary results from the most recent National Church Life Survey conducted in 2011. In response to the question, “Which of the following aspects do you most like about the Uniting Church as a denomination?”, 71% of nearly 20 000 Uniting Church attenders ticked the “inclusiveness of all types of people”. The next most commonly chosen option with under 25% of the vote was the "provision of community services". The inclusiveness, the diversity of the Uniting Church is a much lauded attribute. As Andrew reminded us, we are one flock with one shepherd, one people of God.

The diversity of the Christian church has been one of its markers since its very beginnings; and one of its challenges. The Pauline epistles, the letters associated with the apostle Paul and the emerging church communities influenced by him, are full of references to it.

In Galatians (Ch. 3), Paul highlights the very significant social differences that existed within the Christian community:

²⁷As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. ²⁸There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.

In the first letter to the Corinthians (Ch. 12), the imagery of the many members of the one body is used:

¹²For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ.¹³For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and we were all made to drink of one Spirit.

And again the letter to the Ephesians (Ch. 4),

¹⁵…we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, ¹⁶from whom the whole body, joined and knitted together by every ligament with which it is equipped, as each part is working properly, promotes the body’s growth in building itself up in love.

Interestingly, it is generally not so much the diversity that the Pauline literature is worried about or interested in. It is the challenge of unity within it. And that too has remained a perennial issue for the Christian church—unity within, despite and because of our diversity.

One Spirit, one Lord, one Baptism, one body, one hope, one faith, one God—this is where our unity lies. This is the bond of our peace. This is the glue which holds us together. This is the core of our identity. And this is what we have to hold on to when the going gets tough.

But what is it? What is the thing that keeps us together? That keeps us from losing our way in the midst of all our differences and variation and diversity?

Sometimes it’s easier to say what it isn’t.

It isn’t that we just like being together, that we get on well, that we all get along merrily, because we don’t. We do have our differences. We disagree. We argue. We debate. We drive each other up the wall. It certainly isn’t because we just like being together. Sometimes it’s just hard going.

It isn’t that we all interpret the scriptures in the same way, because we don’t. Some of us read them as history and some us read them as literature. Some of us like reading the detail and some of us are more interested in the big picture. We all think that they’re important, but we probably disagree on how and why. Whatever keeps us together, it’s not because we all read the Bible in the same way.

And it’s not even that we all come up with the same set of moral or ethical principles from our understanding of what it is that holds us together. Some of us are very sure of what is proper and correct behaviour; and some of us are equally as certain that there is a whole lot more grey in the world than black and white. No, we do not all share the same moral or ethical approach.

So, just what is it? What is the thing that keeps us together? What is the thing that keeps us from losing our way in the midst of all our differences and variation and diversity?

Whatever it is… it is encapsulated in the story of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus—the story of a God who creates a world, who loves that world, who wants so much to be in relationship with that world that God enters the world in order to demonstrate that desire, in order to bring us into real relationship with God and with each other; the story of the God who continues to journey with us as the people of God in all our differences, in all variations, in all our diversity; the God who holds us together as one people, one flock with one shepherd; who works within us to maintain a unity within, despite and because of our diversity.

One Spirit, one Lord, one Baptism, one body, one hope, one faith, one God—this is where our unity lies. This is the bond of our peace. This is the glue which holds us together. This is the core of our identity.

The classical marks of the church are that it is one, it is holy, it is catholic (or universal), and it is apostolic (it is commissioned or sent on God’s mission). None of these marks is understood as belonging to us as the humans whom we are. All of these marks are understood to be part of the nature of the one in whom we are enfolded, Jesus Christ. As Christ’s body, we discover our apostolicity, our sentness as the people of God, on the mission of God. As Christ’s body, we discover our catholicity, our universality, the applicability of the good news, of the Gospel, for the whole of God’s Creation. As Christ’s body, we discover our holiness, our set-apartness for the sake of God’s mission in the world. And as Christ’s body, we discover our unity within, despite and because of our diversity.

One Spirit, one Lord, one Baptism, one body, one hope, one faith, one God—this is where our unity lies. This is the bond of our peace. This is the glue which holds us together. This is the core of our identity. This is who we are and this is whose we are—the whole people of God.

God's Grace is Enough! (or Don't Panic!)

Wouldn’t life be wonderful if… if it came with a perfect instruction manual that we all managed to follow perfectly and decently in order without fail? …If each of us came, not just fresh from our mother’s wombs, but well before conception with a neatly detailed business plan, accurate mission statement and realistic budget assessment? …If there were no contingencies, no need for “Plans B, C & Z”, no unforeseen consequences, no accidental mishaps? Or would it?
We all want life to perfect. We all want to be perfect. We all want our leaders to be perfect. We all want our communities to be perfect. And we’re pretty good at not cutting anyone any slack, including ourselves.

Wouldn’t the church be better if there were more young people, if everyone could have their favourite music every week, if there were simply more people, more money, more time, a better minister or Elders or Church Councillors? Wouldn’t life be wonderful if…?

It’s at this point that I’m reminded of a book, a fictitious book, but nevertheless a book—not an instruction manual but an omnibus of information about the universe: The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy from Douglas Adams’ trilogy in four parts of the same name.

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is described in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy as a “wholly remarkable book” supplanting…

the great Encyclopedia Galactica as the repository of all knowledge and wisdom, for though it has many omissions and contains much that is apocryphal, or at least wildly inaccurate, it scores over the older, more pedestrian work in two important respects.

First, it is slightly cheaper; and secondly it has the words DON’T PANIC inscribed in large friendly letters on its cover.

Perhaps it would, in fact, be better if we were all issued not with an instruction manual but the words “Don’t panic!” neatly stamped on our foreheads and our wrists and perhaps the back of our heads for those who follow us—“Don’t panic!” in large friendly letters, of course.

Don’t panic because you’re not perfect! Don’t panic because you don’t experience the world around you as perfect! Don’t panic because everything isn’t the way that you think it should be or would like it to be! Don’t panic!

Don’t panic that good things come in flawed packages! Don’t panic that life is ambiguous and everything can’t be put into a neat box and shelved properly in its right place somewhere! Don’t panic that we’re all still learning, still feeling our way, still trying to find God’s will! Don’t panic!

“Don’t panic!” is essentially what Paul is saying to the Corinthians in today’s epistle reading. Don’t panic that you don’t have ecstatic visions like that other person you’ve heard about! Don’t panic that the message of the Gospel has come to you in an imperfect vessel! Don’t panic that you’re still finding your way! Don’t panic!

Don’t panic because all this journeying and imperfection and finding our way is precisely what the Gospel is all about!

If you want the sort of religion that promises to make everyone into a clone of each other, that promises to fix everything and make life one long cruise-boat ride, that promises to have leaders without flaws and clear unambiguous rules, that promises untold riches and carefree luxury, then Christianity is probably not for you. Christianity is probably not for you because at the heart of the Christian story is the revelation of the love of God not in might and power, but in weakness and humiliation. At the heart of the Christian story is not a quick fix, an easy solution, a click-of-the-fingers magic trick. No, at the heart of the Christian faith is the revelation of a God who is willing to give up anything, to go through anything, to be utterly powerless and humiliated in order that somehow, someway we would really get the message that it’s not about power and might and possessions and conformity. It’s about love, and grace, and mercy, and hope.

“God’s grace is sufficient. God’s grace is enough.” Ecstatic visions and perfect lives are not the stuff of the life-giving power of the good news we have in Jesus Christ. Perfect leaders, the right kind of music and financial security are not the lynch pins of success in the Christian story. The very nature of God is—the very nature of God revealed to us in Jesus Christ; and in which we are enfolded by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Don’t panic! Don’t panic because it’s not about what you do or what your neighbour does, it’s about who God is and what God has done and is doing. Don’t panic because it’s not about getting it right, it’s about accepting God’s love. Don’t panic because it’s not about being perfect, it’s about being open to God’s will. Don’t panic because it is precisely in our weakness and our vulnerability that we are open to the possibility of catching just a glimpse of God’s amazing love. Don’t panic because it is precisely in and through God’s weakness that we have relationship with God and with each other—real relationship, not some kind of Hollywood or Bollywood picture of what life should be—relationship that’s about being in things together, working with and for each other through the ups and downs of life, struggling to find the way ahead together on difficult issues, and knowing that it’s not about the goal but about the journey that we take together on the way.

All this, all this is God’s gift to us—God’s gift to us in Creation when humanity was conceived as a partner for God for the welfare of the whole Creation; God’s gift to us in Redemption, in Incarnation, in Jesus, when all barriers between us and God were torn asunder by God’s throwing off of all the trappings of divinity; and God’s gift to us in the continuing process of Sanctification, of journeying with God as the frail, flawed, fragile creatures we are, finding our way, losing our way, and finding it again in the graciousness of God.

And so we cannot boast of any successes, and we cannot look for the perfect formulas for success or try to count success in numbers or figures or what we think is what other people want. The only thing we have to offer is what God has offered us… the gift of profound relationship in vulnerability, of the strength found in weakness which is the very grace of God.

There are no instruction manuals necessary to the Gospel, not even a galactic almanac with the words “Don’t panic!” printed in large friendly letters on its cover. All that is required is that we open ourselves to the rich and enduring grace of God and invite others to do the same—“God’s grace is sufficient! God’s grace is enough!”

The Household of God

The people of Israel had a chequered history with kings; and the stories of their recorded history show their ambiguity towards the office. They weren’t supposed to have kings, but they wanted them. They should have been able to make it together as a community with the occasional so-called “judge” to rise up and deliver them from their enemies, but for at least some them, this situation was never enough. They wanted more certainty, well at least apparent certainty, than that—they wanted a proper ruler, a Lord, an owner, a Baal, like the peoples who lived around them who always seemed to have it so much better than they.

Now at this point, you are meant to respond immediately with, “But Yahweh is their Lord!” Indeed Yahweh, the saving One was their Lord, the one who had brought them out of slavery into a new land, a land flowing with milk and honey, at least according the stories of their recorded history. But the past always seems so far in the past, and it’s always so difficult to keep your mind in the right frame for the present. The overwhelming possibilities of the future weigh heavily. What if they were overrun, if a “judge” failed to rise up at the right moment, or worse still was defeated? The story of Samson is a salutary tale. The people wanted far more security than that. So they looked for alternate Lords.

The book of Judges tells the story. It lays out the pattern and relates the familiar story in rhythmic and monotonous regularity. The people looked for other “lords”, other gods; Yahweh’s anger was kindled and they came under the power of their enemies; the people cried out in repentance; Yahweh raises up a judge for them; the judge delivers them from their enemies and the land is in peace for the lifetime of the judge; when the judge dies, the people look for new “lords” and the cycle begins again.

What a cycle of domestic violence! No wonder the people want an alternative. Surely, a proper leader, a king is what is required, for Yahweh as their king is not enough to keep them safe.

So, we come to the story of Samuel, the last “judge” of Israel, the last charismatic leader of the tribes who serves to unite them and bring peace, the last non-hereditary wise counsellor and military leader of the people. And the people do not want the same thing to happen that has happened before. This time, they want a proper ruler. They want a king. And they are not going to let Samuel die before a king is anointed.

On behalf of Yahweh, Samuel warns the people that they do not know what they ask. Their proper ruler will rule by confiscating resources, not by inspiring people to live and work together. Their proper rule will keep peace by subjugation and not by inspiration. Their proper ruler will rule.

But the people want a king!

I re-watched the movie Jesus Christ Superstar over the Easter weekend; and I marvelled again at the wonderful tension that Andrew Lloyd Webber creates when Jesus is presented to the people as a possible king, and the crowd cries, “We have no king but Caesar.” This moment captures the irony of the history of the chosen people of God very dramatically—an alternative ruler is offered to them as their leader, but it is not enough, a proper ruler is demanded. And lest we think that this is only part of the Israelite story and not part of our own as the chosen people of God, we should recall the times when we have looked for proper rulers and failed to recognise that we have one already in Yahweh God.

The proper ruler Yahweh journeys with the people in slavery and the wilderness. The proper ruler Yahweh journeys with the people in the mundane and the everyday. The proper ruler Yahweh seeks to inspire and be in relationship, not to subjugate and subordinate. But somehow this never seems enough for us.

We want someone who stands out, who looks good, who rules with a firm hand, who seems powerful and makes us feel that we might be powerful too. We look for the magic quick fixes, and fail to understand that transformation is a journey. We think that there is always something better for us to be, and fail to honour the people whom we have been created. We want someone else to make the hard decisions, travel the difficult journey, fight our battles, and keep everything calm and peaceful at home. We have no king but Caesar.

The coronation of Saul is a time of rejoicing for the Israelites, but we have to hear within it the strange, bitter-sweet sounds of lament—not the lament of the people but the lament of Yahweh and of Yahweh’s prophet, Samuel, that the people of God have once again failed to honour the God who created them, and redeemed them from slavery and has journeyed with them ever since—a house divided against itself cannot stand.

A house divided against itself cannot stand; and the nature of the house is not determined by the ruler, but by the people and the choices they make, particularly not in the household of God where participation is not enforced and compliance not ensured through subjugation. In Jesus, we are offered a household of living and working together with all the ambiguity that is involved in that: the working through of conflicts; the working together for the welfare of all; the working towards the promised hope of transformation that comes about as we open ourselves to God’s journey further and further. This is the household of God—where unity is gift and goal, peace is not silencing each other but working through the hard stuff together, and our brothers and sisters are those who work beside us, not the ones who lord it over us—not for our sakes or for theirs, but for the sake of our proper ruler, Yahweh God, and the welfare of Yahweh’s good Creation.

So, let us remind ourselves again of the nature of the household in which God enfolds us as we affirm our faith…

Life in Old Stumps

[This sermon begins with a reading of The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein.]

Have you ever been to Fraser Island off the south-east coast of Queensland? It’s an amazing habitat of old, ancient and even prehistoric plants. The history of Fraser Island (human and non-human) is multi-layered. It has been a place of life for plants and animals and people for not just millennia, but eons. Its history, its geography, its botanical beauty is impressive. And it’s not just its present state that's impressive. It’s what it must have been like and what it still has the capacity to be into the future.

It's really quite difficult to imagine the height of trees which would leave stumps in the ground two and three metres across. Human endurance and ingenuity is attested to by the simple marks left in the stumps which once supported planks winding up the tree like a ladder for the timber-getters to climb. There are trees that must have stood for hundreds of years and still stand. There are species found on Fraser Island and nowhere else in the world—the best marine timber, the Fraser Island Turpentine; and the Kauri Pines and the Satinars. In the face of these giants, you can begin to understand how nations and empires would choose for their emblems a tree.

The cedars of Lebanon are a case in point: huge conifers that once populated the mountains of Lebanon; the legendary beams of King Solomon's temple; biblical symbols of majesty and strength but also of earthly pride bringing upon itself divine wrath.

In the reading from Isaiah for today, there is mention of two types of trees of great stature: the oak and the terebinth. But on this occasion the trees are not mentioned in order to describe the strength or majesty of a population. They are mentioned in order to ensure that the readers of Isaiah 6 and the story of call of Isaiah have received the message about the type of call it is. These trees are recorded as stumps.

In the stumps on Fraser Island you can see what time has done to the remnants of those massive trees. Some of them have been burnt. Some of them have rotted. Animals and other plants have claimed them as home and refuge. Subsequent upheavals have pulled them from the ground so that they lie sideways, their roots exposed unceremoniously waiting to decay.

The stumps in Isaiah 6 aren’t promised much better. The prophecy over these stumps is that even if they are all that is left of a once tall tree, still they will suffer the trial of being burnt again: exactly what happens to stumps which are left after a tree has been felled.

But these stumps aren't just the stumps of trees, not even the stumps of very great and magnificent trees. These stumps are symbols of what is promised to happen to the nation of Israel, the covenant people of God. And this is what the prophet Isaiah is being called to announce concerning what God is to bring about. God says to Isaiah (6:9b-10):

‘Go and say to this people:
“Keep listening, but do not comprehend;
keep looking, but do not understand.”
¹⁰Make the mind of this people dull,
and stop their ears, and shut their eyes,
so that they may not look with their eyes,
and listen with their ears, and comprehend with their minds,
and turn and be healed.’

For all intents and purposes, God is out against the people. And Isaiah has been called to be the prophet of doom. The contrast of the message announced to the prophet with the visionary experience of the presence of God could not be stronger.

The prophetic message of God given to Isaiah is saying that God does not want healing for the people. God does not want them to be victors. God wants them to suffer. God wants them to find themselves in the very heart of the wilderness. This is not the sort of God that we like to tell our Sunday School children about. This God is truly an awful God—an awe-ful God—a God to stand before in awe.

In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lofty; and the hem of his robe filled the temple. (Isaiah 6:1)

It is an awe-ful sight—a vision commanding a sense of fearful awe in the face of such a mighty God. It is an awe-ful sight.

The king, Uzziah had died. He'd been suffering from leprosy a long time. His son, Jotham, and then his grandson, Ahaz, had been acting as regents for some time. Even so, his death was of some import. It marked a change in the political intentions of the nation of Judah, the southern kingdom of the Hebrew people. It left Ahaz free to implement his own plans in relation to the threat from the north, the armies of Syria and Israel (or Ephraim) in coalition against Judah in the Syro-Ephraimite War. Ahaz, himself, was interested in coalition with Assyria. Thus Uzziah's death was to mark the beginning of Israel's confrontation with Assyria and the eventual dissolution of both Hebrew kingdoms within a century and a half.

It is clear that by now the Hebrew idea of God had become much more coloured by their experience of kings than had their ideas of kings been coloured by their knowledge of God. So Isaiah envisions God as king in the manner of the kings which surround the Hebrew people—high and exalted above the masses, inflicting hardships and suffering upon the people. And God in true biblical tradition appears in a manner by which the people can understand the significance and truth of this revelation: a prophecy of doom from a King God which the people have made foretelling that they will not be able to return to the innocent faith of the Exodus until they have once again experienced the wilderness. And whom will this King God send with this message of despair—the prophet Isaiah says, "Here I am, send me." (Isaiah 6:8)

For God's sake, who on earth would want to go? Who on earth would want to take on a task like that? For God's sake, Isaiah does—for the sake of a God who loves the people and who wants to be in relationship with them but who is shut out by the images of their own making. For God's sake, Isaiah does: a prophet who sees his own part in the tragedy of the two kingdoms; a prophet who knows himself to be a part of the people who have banished God in favour of kings; a prophet with but one voice to speak into the clamour of the moment in order that the people of God might hear the still, small voice of God in the wilderness. For God's sake, Isaiah does.

For this God is not holy because God sits high and exalted. This God is holy because God enters into relationship with people, with the earth, with the whole of the creation. This God is holy because this God is the source and symbol and mediator of life. It's not just the people of Judah who are suffering in their self-inflicted affliction. It is God as well, cut off and yet continuing in compassion for the people who are part of God's very self.

When I first visited Fraser Island more than 20 years ago, I looked at the stumps there and the trees; and I wondered if God is not happier for us to see God as a tree, rather than as a king—a tree that can be hugged and touched and wondered at; a tree that is an integral part of the whole of the creation, breathing out and breathing in the very breath of life; a tree that is full of life and the ability to give.

And I remember the story of the Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein—the tree who gave all that she had to become a stump for the love of just one person. And I remember the story of the Hanging Tree on which the Christ was crucified for the love of the whole world. And I remember the pain of a God groaning with all creation, waiting for the fulfilment of history.

And I know that God would rather be pictured as a tree providing shade and provision in the wilderness than a king, high and exalted above the temple barely able to touch the people except by the hem of a garment. And I know why the prophet Isaiah responded to the call of "Whom shall I send and whom will go for us?" with the words, "Here I am, send me". (Isaiah 6:8) And I know why Isaiah was able to speak those words that seem so harsh about even the stumps of the people being burnt. I know it was because Isaiah knew that God was really the tree.

God was inextricably bound up with the people. God suffered when they suffered without understanding the fate they were bringing upon themselves. God suffered when they chose to run after kings and hurt themselves in the process. God suffered when they ran farther and farther from truth and integrity and closer and closer to death and destruction.

Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts:
the whole earth is full of God's glory. (Isaiah 6:3b)

The whole earth is God's. The whole of creation is God's—everyone and everything—and when the people are hurt, so too is God. So God sends a prophet with a message of doom which is also a message of hope—a message that God is with the people no matter what they think or feel or say or do; a message that God is with them whether in victory or defeat; a message that is the very ground of their being—that even if only a tenth part of the people should remain, God would still be there to bring fire to the stump; to show that God was God in relationship with the people whether they did or did not want God to be.

Whom shall God send and who will go for the council of God? Surely, we too can only say, "Here I am, send me" in the face of a God who dares to be depicted as the remainder of a tree ready once more to face the fire for “the holy seed is its stump” (Isaiah 6:13b).

The people of Judah are ultimately dependent on God and so are we. Do we dare with Isaiah say, "Here we are, send us" to a God who would rather be a tree than king; who would rather be a stump in the wilderness with us than a high and exalted monarch sidelined from the lives of God’s people?

Love, like a tree,
sends its roots down deep
so when the storms of life abound
and the winds of adversity blow,
it shakes and bends
and goes with the flow
but doesn't break or fall.

And during times of drought
it drives its roots down deeper
so whatever comes and goes—
summer, winter, spring, or fall,
the good times and the bad—
it stands the test of all.

“Love” by Dick Innes, http://www.actsweb.org/wordsoflove/love.php

God is Love!

Anthony B. Robinson, a minister of the United Church of Christ in the US, writes:

We have imagined that Christianity itself is a religion of virtue. But no, Desmond Tutu reminded us, “Christianity is not a religion of virtue; it is a religion of grace.” And there's a difference. A religion of virtue says, “If you are good, then God will love you.” A religion of grace says, “God loves you.” God loves you despite your foibles and failures, not because you're so good but as a sinner in need of mercy. God loves you; live then as one who is beloved, who has been forgiven. (http://www.inwardoutward.org 30/4/2012)

It is not our duty to love. It is our privilege. It is not our responsibility to care for others. It is our gift. It is not our obligation to honour God. It is our delight. Because love born of a sense of duty or responsibility or obligation is not freely given. It is a task, a requirement, a burden. Love born of obligation is love given out of fear; given for our own sakes that we will not be dishonourable or disreputable or punished for what we have not done. That is not the love that is God’s gift to us; nor is it the love that God calls out from us. The love that we receive from God is a gift of grace. We do not earn it. We do not deserve it. We cannot prevent it or hinder it. We can only respond to it. And if our response comes from a recognition of God’s love as gift, it will be a response of freedom, and thanksgiving, and love.

That is God’s message to us in Jesus—that God loves us utterly. God loves us enough to enter God’s own Creation in order to demonstrate that love. God loves us enough to participate in the whole of human life, even death, in order to demonstrate that love. God loves us enough that God does not withhold anything from us. We have all that God can give us. We are made in God’s image, gifted with the creativity of the Creator. We are people made for relationship with God and with each other, gifted with the very nature of our Creator God. We are invited, but never coerced, into relationship with God and with each, gifted with the very freedom to choose, to act according to our own wills, as God acts in accordance with God’s will. All this is gift from God. And it is in and through this gift that love begins and ends. “Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God” (1 John 4:7).

It is the very nature of God to have grace, to be gracious, to offer God’s self generously and without reserve to the creation that God has so lovingly made. Before we know anything about God, God has already been at work in our lives—creating us, forming us, shaping us.

Grace is the absolute, unprovoked, unconditional generosity of God. God creates us, God reconciles us and God makes us holy through absolutely no effort of our own. God is above all things, and beyond all things and precedes all things in God’s great works of creation, redemption and sanctification—making us, liberating us and sustaining us as God’s people.

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

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

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

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

And we are invited into and out of this graciousness to share that gift of grace with the whole Creation, in gratitude and thanksgiving, in freedom and by choice, in unconditional, un-coerced love, not for our own sakes, but the sake of the very nature of love itself—that graciousness which is always oriented to the Other, and open to the discovery of the gift in the very act of self-giving love.

Today as we present this year’s Alwyn Jones Community Service Award, we honour the self-giving love that members of our community have shown; and we give thanks to God for the graciousness and freedom to act in love which is God’s very gift to humanity.