A Welling Up of Life!

Tiddalik, the largest frog ever known, awoke one morning with an unquenchable thirst. He started to drink, and he drank until there was no fresh water left in the world. The creatures everywhere were soon dying and the trees were shedding their leaves because of the lack of moisture. It seemed that very soon Tiddalik the frog would be the only one alive. The animals could not think of a way out of their terrible plight, until a wise old wombat suggested that if Tiddalik could be made to laugh, all the imprisoned water would flow out of his mouth.

So everyone gathered by the giant frog's resting place. For a long time they tried to make him laugh, but in vain. The kookaburra told his funniest stories, so good that he could not help laughing at them himself; the kangaroo jumped over the emu; and the blanket lizard waddled up and down on two legs making his stomach protrude; but the frog's face remained blank and indifferent.

Then, when the animals were in despair, the eel, Nabunum, driven from his favourite creek by the drought, slithered up to the unresponsive frog, and began to dance. He started with slow, graceful movements, but as the dance became faster he wriggled and twisted himself into the most grotesque and comical shapes, until suddenly Tiddalik's eyes lit up and he burst out laughing. And as he laughed, the water gushed from his mouth and flowed away to replenish the lakes, the swamps, and the rivers. (“Tiddalik the Flood-Maker” from The Dreamtime Book: Australian Aboriginal Myths, Rigby, 1973, Text by Charles P. Mountford, p. 24).

The Aboriginal dreaming story of Tiddalik is a story about seasons: about the dry season when there seems not enough water for anything to live; and about the coming of the wet season in a bursting deluge. People who live in the north of Australia talk about the dry and the wet and the tension that builds in the environment and the human community before the rains come to break the spell of waiting and watching in heat and humidity.

Our Gospel story is also a story about seasons, about building tensions and about the release of that tension is flood of awareness of the promises of God.

In the Gospel of John, “Prior to this story of Jesus’ visit to Samaria, Jesus’ activity has centered on the people and places of official Judaism”: Jerusalem and the temple, Nicodemus the Pharisee. Now we find him in Samaria and away from the official people and places of Judaism, away from his tradition and its important institutional symbols. “At the time of Jesus, the Jews and the Samaritans were bitter enemies”, and the source of that enmity was religion. Specifically, it “was a dispute about the correct location of the [rightful] ... place of worship”. About 300years before the coming of Christ, the Samaritans had built a shrine on Mount Gerizim. The shrine stood in competition with the temple at Jerusalem: a second holy place for the worship of God. The shrine was destroyed by Jewish troops in 128 BCE. And the bitterness of religious difference had continued as only bitter religious divisions can.

So, “when Jesus meets the Samaritan woman at the well ... he meets someone who provides a striking contrast to all that has preceded” this story in the Gospel of John. “When Jesus speaks with Nicodemus in John 3, he speaks with a male member of the Jewish religious establishment. In John 4, he speaks with a female member of an enemy people.” Their conversation is a scandal and the woman knows it: “How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?”

Now the more popular recent interpretations of this story have generally emphasised both that the woman was from Samaria—a foreigner and an enemy of the Jews—and that she was a great sinner. The first emphasis is significant although not perhaps as significant as some have made it to be, the second emphasis is a misinterpretation of the story, and, in the process of that misinterpretation, the fact that she was a woman has not been made important enough. For while Nicodemus has name and a social position; the woman is unnamed and has no social position; and both can be accounted for by the customs of the time.

“The popular portrait of the woman in John 4” is of “a woman of dubious morals” who is “guilty of aberrant behaviour”. However, everything that is reported of her can be explained by the religious traditions of her people: traditions shared by both Jews and Samaritans. “There are many possible reasons for the woman’s marital history”. We should be wary of choosing the most popular and “dominant explanation of moral laxity”. “The text does not say, as most interpreters automatically assume, that the woman has been divorced five times but that she has had five husbands.” We are given no more explanation than that, but there are many more plausible for her time than sexual promiscuity. “Perhaps ... like Tamar in Genesis ... [she] is trapped in the custom of levirate marriage.” A woman was passed on to successive male relatives after the death of her husbands in the hope that she would eventually bear the first husband an heir by a male relative who gave up entitlement to his firstborn male child in favour of the dead previous husband. If she was indeed divorced, she would have been divorced by her husbands and the prime reason for divorce of a woman by a man at the time was on the grounds of the woman’s barrenness. The text is more about how the woman has been thrown on the scrap heap by the customs of her society—the customs of both the Jews and the Samaritans—than it is about the way in which she has wandered into some kind of fictitious moral degradation.

“Significantly, the reasons for the woman’s marital history intrigue commentators, but do not seem to concern Jesus.” Nowhere in the story is there an exchange about sinful behaviour. Instead, the discussion is about the truth and meaning of life and the worship of God. It is a theological conversation entered into by a foreign woman with the one who identifies himself as the Christ, the Messiah. And their discussion is about the transcendence of the customs of both the Jews and the Samaritans. It is about a religion of “spirit and truth”, not of institutional rigidity. The Samaritan woman “is the first character in the Gospel to engage in serious theological conversation with Jesus” and when she does so, she shows that she is up with the issues: “How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?” “Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob?” “Where is the proper place to worship God?”
“Many commentators have dismissed the woman’s words to Jesus as a psychological ploy, as a classical act of evasion to change the subject from the [supposedly] embarrassing truth about her morals. Commentators have doubted whether this woman would have been able to understand the substance of Jesus’ words to her.” But “the text presents the woman as ... unafraid to stay in conversation with Jesus [as competent in contributing to that conversation and as recognising] Jesus as [at least] a prophet [and] ... the perfect person of whom to ask her question about worship.

It is in the asking of the question and the receiving of the gift of the revelation of Jesus’ messiahship that the floodgates are opened and the woman is restored to a position of significance in her community as the one who brings her community to Jesus. It is in the asking of the question and the receiving of the gift of living water the boundaries of convention are broken and the message of Jesus that the grace of God is for all people everywhere is given. The seasons have changed and it is her time to laugh. (Quotations come from Gail R. O’Day “John” in The Women’s Bible Commentary pp. 295-296)

The gift of baptism draws us into God’s season of grace—God’s promise and present of reconciliation between us and God, God and the whole created order. Today we celebrate the gift of baptism—the season of the overflowing grace of God; and we are reminded of our baptism—our incorporation into the mission of God and the ministry of Christ in the world. We are invited to open our mouths and our lives to allow the outpouring of God’s love through those same mouths and those same lives.

Some of us want to hold God’s graciousness to ourselves; and some of us haven’t yet fully grasped that that gift of grace is fully ours. All of us are called to hear again the promises and purpose of God that

By God’s grace, baptism plunges us into the faith of Jesus Christ, so that whatever is his may be called ours. By water and the Spirit we are claimed as God’s own and set free from the power of sin and death. Thus, claimed by God we are given the gift of the Holy Spirit that we may live as witnesses to Jesus Christ, share his ministry in the world and grow to maturity, awaiting with hope the day of our Lord Jesus. (“The Meaning of Baptism” from “The Service of Baptism”, Uniting in Worship 2).

As the baptised people of God, we are called to celebrate the welling up of God’s life not just for us, but for all.

On the Mountain-Top!

There is a famous painting of the Transfiguration by Raphael. The painting depicts Jesus floating idyllically in the air above a mountain with light shining all around him. Beneath the mountain is a valley. The valley is filled with people fighting and scuffling.

Mountains and mountain top experiences have been considered to be important from very ancient times. In the Bible, many significant experiences are depicted as occurring on mountains: the receiving of the law by Moses, Moses’ call from the burning bush, Elijah’s defeat of Baal’s prophets. In ancient times as well as in not so ancient times, it was the mountains which offered protection for defenders and a vantage point for the offense; it was the mountains in which the Hebrews were forced to live while they fought the people of the plains for the promised land; it was the mountains which were seen as reaching up to God who was depicted as living in the sky. The people on the plains were vulnerable and open to attack; the people on the plains were open to the temptations offered by prosperity; the people on the plains were seen as being farther away from God in a spacial sense. Mountains were considered to be important and mountain top experiences were coveted and desired.

But when Jesus comes the message is turned on its head. When Jesus comes, the experiences of the plain and the valley are recognised as the stuff of real life. Mountain top experiences are to be enjoyed and learnt from but not lived out of because there is a danger that if you try to live out of the mountain you will miss the view all together.

In one of the most famous of his addresses, Martin Luther King Jr. talked of going to the mountain top. He spoke of having a vision of a changed world. He spoke of the effect which this had had on his perspective on life and in particular on the Civil Rights’ struggle with which he was involved. For Martin Luther King, that mountain top experience had been a reassurance of his understanding of God’s will for the world. It was a reassurance that meant that in the midst of the continuing struggle for the rights of Black Americans, Martin Luther King was able to affirm: “I’ve been to the mountain top and I don’t mind.”

At the time of his speech, there was still much change in American society to take place before black and white people could truly stand together as equals. (I guess that that is still true.) But Martin Luther King had received a glimpse of that possibility, in the community of those who were working towards that vision and this led him to say the day before his assassination: “Well, I don’t know what will happen now. We’ve got some difficult days ahead. But it doesn’t matter with me now. Because I’ve been to the mountain top. And I don’t mind.”

Martin Luther King believed that he had seen a glimpse of God’s realm in the lives of the people who were working for justice in American society in the 1960's. This glimpse of God’s community of justice and peace had given him a renewed hope, a renewed vitality, a renewed strength with which to continue in the path to which he believed that God had called him. He could continue to walk through the valley of racial hatred forging a new path for the people of God to walk along because he had seen from the mountain top a glimpse of the God’s vision for God’s people.

In the Gospel reading for today, we hear about another mountain top experience. We hear about Jesus going up a mountain together with Peter, James and John. For Jesus, it was a mountain top experience. He is depicted as communing with two of the great leaders of the Israelite people and afterwards we hear that powerful and wonderful affirmation “This is my son, my chosen; listen to him!” “This is my son, my chosen; listen to him!” Whatever happened, it must have been a mountain top experience.

For Peter and James and John, the three disciples depicted, the experience seems a little frightening, somewhat disarming and ultimately embarrassing. I mean, here Jesus is having this wonderful spiritual experience and here the disciples are, asleep. Then when they wake up, they think that they had better get in on the act so Peter rushes in with his usual foot in mouth caution and says, “Hey Jesus, let’s set up three tents—one for you and one for Moses and one for Elijah. We’ll stay here awhile. This is really great! Haven’t done anything this exciting in months.” But according to the story, he might as well have been talking gibberish because he really had no idea of what was going on. He wasn’t really in the action at all. He was just looking on.

Then, as the story goes, a cloud comes over and a voice speaks and by this stage in the story, the disciples who at first wanted to stay there, now just can’t wait to get down because this is all a little weird. Sure, they’ve been on the mountain but they really don’t understand their mountain top experience. This isn’t going to help when they go back. This mountain top experience hasn’t helped them one bit. For the disciples, this mountain top experience only leads to confusion and fear. They have no idea what to do, how to react, what the vision on the mountain top really means for them and for their lives with Jesus. Jesus, recognising their confusion, asks them not to mention the vision to anyone until “after the Son of Man has been raised from death”.

Mountain top experiences are only useful if they help us to walk through the valleys and live on the plain. If all mountain top experiences do is make you want to retreat to the safety of the hill or to pretend that you can always live on the mountain, then what use are they? The reality is down here on the plain.
When I read the story of the transfiguration of Jesus and especially about the disciples who are mentioned, I am always tempted to ask about the others—those disciples who were not depicted as experiencing this vision on the mountain. And of those people, mostly women, who are never depicted as participating in the mountain top experiences of Jesus’ life.

These ones must and do deal with the realities of day to day living without the glimpse beyond the mountain. They are the ones who are constantly there subtly and often imperceptibly woven into the tapestry of Jesus’ life. They are the ones who participate in the mundane and the distasteful. They are the ones who prepare Jesus’ meals and they are the ones who wait at the foot of the cross. They have not been to the mountain top, they are not described as seeing God’s vision in the same way that Peter, James and John are. They have not seen the vision yet they are the ones who are faithful to God’s realm. They are the ones who participate in the struggle without the glory, the mundane without the extraordinary. They too are the heirs of the God’s community of justice and peace, the children of God.

And it is not just in the story of Jesus, that we find important characters who do not experience the mountain top but who remain faithful. Moses was met by God on the mountain but pulled out of the bull-rushes by women; Elijah was champion of God on the mountain but sustained through drought on the plain by a widow.
Jesus, too, knew about mountain top experiences but he was not afraid to walk through the valley and the plain and finally to another hill where we discover that the mountain top experience and the valley road are all one in a true pilgrimage with God.

Yes, we need mountain top experiences but we cannot live on the mountain.
And for many of us, mountain top experiences are few and far between. For many of us, the valleys seem like bottomless pits and the plains like neverending steppes. For most of us, the mundane seems to be our lot. But it is here in the valleys and the plains, in the mundane that we truly encounter Christ.

On the mountain the disciples see Jesus but they cannot be with him. On the mountain, the disciples see the vision but they cannot participate in it. On the mountain, the disciples hear God’s words about Jesus but they are unable to respond to them. It is only when they return down the mountain that the disciples are again able to begin to participate in the struggle for life and to work towards the coming of God’s realm.

Mountain top experiences are useful only insofar as they equip us for our continuing journey on the plain and in the valley. Mountain top experiences are important only insofar as they give us the hope, the strength and the vitality to endure the valley path. Mountain top experiences are significant only insofar as they confirm for us God’s plan and God’s will for our lives. It is in the valley and on the plain that much of the stuff of life is worked out.

We need mountain top experiences but we also need people who are willing to translate those experiences into the valley and the plain, who can truly say that their experiences have equipped them to be effective disciples away from the wonder and awe and glory in the ordinary and even in the distasteful, who can say with Martin Luther King, “I’ve been to the mountain top and I don’t mind” because they see the stuff of eternity in the fragile world around them.

Hold fast to the mountain for what it is but remember there is much work that remains on the plain. On the mountains we may see visions, but on the plain we participate in the work of God.

Working from the Whole Plan

So, I’m sure you’ve heard the story about the men who can’t see and the elephant. It comes in various versions from a variety of religious traditions: Hinduism, Jainism, Islamic Sufism, Buddhism… I’ve heard it often enough in Christian contexts and it’s even been used in scientific contexts to talk about the way in which different perspectives on the same phenomenon produce different theoretical tools, such as the need to understand light as both waves and particles.

The story isn’t exactly the same in every version. The versions differ as to whether the men are blind or simply in the dark; the way in which the body parts of the elephant are described; how aggressive the conversation between the mean becomes; and whether the problem of their varying experiences is resolved or not.
Perhaps the most famous version of the story in the Western world is the poem by 19th century American poet, John Godfrey Saxe:

I.
It was six men of Indostan
To learning much inclined,
Who went to see the Elephant
(Though all of them were blind),
That each by observation
Might satisfy his mind.

II.
The First approached the Elephant,
And happening to fall
Against his broad and sturdy side,
At once began to bawl:
"God bless me!-but the Elephant
Is very like a wall!"

III.
The Second, feeling of the tusk,
Cried: "Ho!-what have we here
So very round and smooth and sharp?
To me't is mighty clear
This wonder of an Elephant
Is very like a spear!"

IV.
The Third approached the animal,
And happening to take
The squirming trunk within his hands,
Thus boldly up and spake:
"I see," quoth he, "the Elephant
Is very like a snake!"
 
V.
The Fourth reached out his eager hand,
And felt about the knee.
"What most this wondrous beast is like
Is mighty plain," quoth he;
"'Tis clear enough the Elephant
Is very like a tree!"

VI.
The Fifth, who chanced to touch the ear,
Said: "E'en the blindest man
Can tell what this resembles most;
Deny the fact who can,
This marvel of an Elephant
Is very like a fan!"

VII.
The Sixth no sooner had begun
About the beast to grope,
Than, seizing on the swinging tail
That fell within his scope,
"I see," quoth he, "the Elephant
Is very like a rope!"

VIII.
And so these men of Indostan
Disputed loud and long,
Each in his own opinion
Exceeding stiff and strong,
Though each was partly in the right,
And all were in the wrong!
 
Moral.
So, oft in theologic wars
The disputants, I ween,
Rail on in utter ignorance
Of what each other mean,
And prate about an Elephant
Not one of them has seen!

Jesus is in the middle of a dispute with the religious people of his day about just such an elephant. This particular elephant is God’s Law—God’s plan for the people of God; and in our Gospel reading for today, in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus is talking to the disciples about his approach to that elephant. And it’s a very particular approach.

It’s not about coming up upon the elephant groping in the dark from one side or another and making judgments from a limited perspective; it’s about getting a whole picture—working off a whole plan—to understand what God’s requirements are all about.

Now it’s easy even today to get bogged down in one part of God’s plan just as Jesus was observing that the religious people of his day were doing. We pick and choose which bits we like and which bits we don’t. Maybe when we were listening to the Gospel reading today, we were feeling particularly uncomfortable when anger seemed to be equated with murder, looking at another person was likened to adultery, and oaths of any kind were compared with making false declarations. And if we were to pick any of the interpretations of the Law that Jesus is offering and not look at the big picture of what he is doing with his interpretations, we would be just as in the dark as those 6 men trying to work what it is that they have discovered.

Jesus uses a familiar rabbinic pattern: “You have heard it said…, but I say…” These are interpretations that have been offered of God’s Law; and my considered reflection is… And in each and every case, Jesus’ interpretation does not discuss mitigating circumstances or generous loopholes, rather it points to a stricter and more rigorous interpretation than what has been offered previously. Is this the same Jesus that defies the Sabbath laws to heal wounded people?

Well, of course, it is—because in both situations, Jesus is trying to raise people’s visions, broaden their outlooks, open up the whole plan for them; rather than allowing them to stay stuck in one particular rule or regulation, law or precept. It’s not about the laws; it’s about the Law. It’s not about the individual, practical guidelines that have been provided for us; or that we have written ourselves to help us understand what being part of the people of God is all about—it’s about understanding the big picture, the whole plan—catching a glimpse of who God is and what God wills for the whole of God’s creation.

It’s never been about following rules because the rules have been laid down. It’s always been about searching for, seeking after, aiming for the justice, love and compassion of God—the justice, love and compassion that God gives us and that we are called to offer to others. And if we ever think that working from the whole plan is easier than following the rules, then maybe we don’t understand just what an extraordinary hope that it is that God calls us towards.

We can’t rest on our laurels just because we know we’ve never physically killed or injured someone, we have to think about the injuries that we cause each other each and every day simply by being the people we are in the families and communities that we try to build. We can’t pretend we are perfect, simply because we’ve apparently lived in a faithful relationship for a long time, we have to remember that the going hasn’t always been easy, that sometimes we probably could have cheerfully killed each other for some minor hurt or another. We can’t think that because we’ve never made a false declaration, we are completely upright, we have to remember the times when we have made promises that we have been unable to keep, for any number of different reasons. We have to remember that we are no better than anyone else; that all of us are under the judgment of God’s Law which calls us to a world of ultimate justice, perfect love and unfailing compassion.

And that bring us to the other side of the whole plan that we cannot forget. God’s judgment is heavy; and the more that we are confronted by the heaviness of God’s judgment, the more we will understand the amazing depth of God’s love, God’s mercy, God’s grace.

God’s Law calls us to not to a world of human ideals and standards but to God’s world—a world that only God builds, only God plans, only God brings to fruition. Confronting God’s judgment forces us to confront God’s love. And maybe, because of that, we catch just a glimpse, unfold just a little more of the whole plan, we understand just a little better what God’s Law is really all about.

VIII.
And so these men of Indostan
Disputed loud and long,
Each in his own opinion
Exceeding stiff and strong,
Though each was partly in the right,
And all were in the wrong!

Moral.
So, oft in theologic wars
The disputants, I ween,
Rail on in utter ignorance
Of what each other mean,
And prate about an Elephant
Not one of them has seen!

Jesus is daring us to unfold the whole plan, to see the big picture, to capture an impression of the elephant, not in its parts, but in its totality. And that whole plan is both far more demanding, and far more freeing than we might ever imagine, especially if we become obsessed with just one small part.

Today, we are going to say together the Nicene Creed. It is one of the 2 ecumenical creeds shared by the whole church. It is traditionally recited when the Eucharist or Holy Communion is celebrated because it recounts the story of our faith—the big picture of who God is and who we are. It is our agreed understanding of what the faith is all about. And yet I know that for some of you, it is an uncomfortable statement of faith.

At various times in our faith journeys, each of us can get bogged down in part of that faith story. Perhaps we are concerned about the historical reliability of the story, or the scientific possibility of it. Perhaps we find some of the language archaic. We certainly don’t want to buy into left-handed discrimination by interpreting the “right-hand” where Jesus sits too literally. Nevertheless, whether we want to read the story literally or metaphorically, historically or symbolically, this story is the big picture for us; and yet it is only a vague impression of the whole story that is who God is and what God wants. It is only part of the whole story, and it is written in the limited language and concepts that humanity has at its disposal; and had at its disposal at a particular time in history.

It is more a narrative than an historical treatise. It is about theology and not about science. It is about trying to catch something of the big picture of who God is and who we are before God. It asks us not to give 21st century intellectual assent to a set of scientific principles; but to enter the story of a God who is always far more demanding, and far more gracious than we can ever fully grasp.
Sometimes the most complex things can only be shared in the simplest of language forms – that of story – because from a story there is always more to be drawn, more to be shared, more to be interpreted, more to be explored. And if we only ever relied on our own explanations of what the story itself means, we would lose the story all together.

That is what Jesus is warning against in a very roundabout way in the Sermon on the Mount and our Gospel reading for today. Don’t get lost in the outworkings; don’t get lost in the interpretations; don’t lose your way in trying to be perfect or get things perfectly right and in order in your head. Rather, remember that the whole plan, the big picture is always about the justice, and love, and mercy, and compassion of God—a justice, a love, a mercy, a compassion that we can never hope to emulate fully; and that we would gravely misrepresent if we thought it was only about following a few rules.

Let us affirm our faith in our God who is just, loving, merciful and compassionate beyond our ability to describe and our capacity to be.

You have heard it said... but we say...

You have heard it said,
“There is no god; existence is a matter of chance”;
but the people of God say,
“Praise our God, the Great Creator!”
You have heard it said, “God is dead or never was!”,
but the body of Christ says,
“God is with us—Emmanuel!”
You have heard it said, “God is a figment of the human mind!”,
but the community of the Spirit says,
“Come Holy Spirit. Great is the faithfulness of God!”

A Different Country?!

They came in to the little town
A semi-naked band subdued and silent.
All that remained of their tribe.
They came here to the place of their old bora ground
Where now the many white men hurry about like ants.
Notice of estate agent reads: “Rubbish May Be Tipped Here”.
Now it half covers the traces of the old bora ring.
They sit and are confused, they cannot say their thoughts:
“We are strangers here now,
but the white tribe are the strangers.
We belong here, we are of the old ways.
We are the corroborree and the bora ground.
We are the old sacred ceremonies, the laws of the elders.
We are the wonder tales of Dreamtime, the tribal legends told.
We are the past, the hunts and the laughing games,
the wandering camp fire.
We are the lightning-bolt over Gaphembah Hill
Quick and terrible,
And the Thunderer after him, that loud fellow.
We are the quiet daybreak paling the dark lagoon.
We are the shadow-ghosts creeping back
as the camp fires burn low.
We are the nature and the past, all the old ways
Gone now and scattered.
The scrubs are gone, the hunting and the laughter.
The eagle is gone, the emu and the kangaroo are gone
from this place.
The bora ring is gone.
The corroboree is gone.
And we are going.”
(“We are going (For Grannie Coolwell)” by Oodgeroo of the tribe Noonuccal)

The Matthean community, the community to which the Gospel of Matthew speaks and out of which the Gospel of Matthew arises, was a community on the edge of their society. They were being pushed out by the religious leaders, by their social groups, but most of all they were being pushed out by their families.

Kinship was everything in Mediterranean societies at the beginning of the first millenium. It wasn’t what you knew or who you knew, it was whose family you belonged to that counted. If you didn’t have a family support structure you were out on your own. There was no social security, no medicare, no superannuation, no welfare state. If you wanted to defy your family, turn your back on your tradition, or simply not do the right thing, you could find yourself in a pretty tough position without family support.

But it was probably never the intention of the Matthean community to put themselves in that position. They were so sure that they were part of the continuing tradition of the keeping and carrying of God’s law. They were so sure that they were part of the continuing movement towards the promised realm of God. That’s why it’s nearly four chapters or 82 verses into the Gospel of Matthew before we actually hear about the proclaimed message of Jesus. The first 81 verses have been establishing who Jesus is, how much he fits the tradition, and how well he fits into the spirit of the law of God—81 verses establishing Jesus’ credentials.

Now it’s always encumbent on a speaker to establish a rapport with their hearers before the meat of their speech is delivered, but 81 verses seems a little excessive even in Gospel terms. Mark has a very cursory introduction of 14 verses before we get to the all important message; John’s not so much interested in words as signs so in the very first chapter we get a run down on the signs which point to Jesus’ significance. Only Luke takes as much time on the introduction as Matthew, and you have to wonder whether it’s an historian’s love of story that’s playing a bit of a role there, or perhaps like Matthew, Luke is also speaking to an audience that needs to be wooed first. Yes, Matthew has very clearly and carefully set up the character of Jesus before his first real proclamation is made: "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near."

And significantly, immediately following this one sentence account of Jesus’ message, we are greeted by stories that assure the hearer that Jesus was not alone. He was not a lone messenger of this proclamation from God. He was part of a larger community, part of a greater family, surrounded by appropriate social support structures, albeit not necessarily by blood relatives. He was not alone. The collator of the stories of Matthew’s Gospel is very careful to show that the new community of Christ, like the Matthean community as part of that wider community, was a good family social support structure. They had what it took to belong to each other and, therefore, to their world.

Nevertheless, the Matthean community was fast becoming labelled by their surrounding culture as “deviant”. And in every culture, in every time and place, people who are labelled as deviant are always the target for attack. No wonder they are so concerned with arguing the case for Jesus and the community of Christ being in line with the truth of the tradition. This issue was a life and death matter in terms of identity, in terms of acceptance in their society, in terms of social and economic support, and perhaps even in terms of specifically targeted attacks against their presence in their region.

We may go home, but we cannot relive our childhoods. We may reunite with our mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, aunties, uncles, communities, but we cannot relive the 20, 30, 40 years that we spent without their love and care, and they cannot undo the grief and mourning they felt when we were separated from them. We can go home to ourselves as Aboriginals, but this does not erase the attacks inflicted on our hearts, minds, bodies and souls, by caretakers who thought their mission was to eliminate us as Aboriginals. (Link-Up NSW).

That’s part of the submission to the National Inquiry into the separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families by Link-Up NSW, an organisation which assists separated and displaced people in finding their families again.

Separation from community is not a matter to be taken lightly, even though many of us treat it as such in our increasingly mobile society. More and more people move house, job and community through choice and compulsion with very little thought for the actual disruption which that that creates in people’s lives. Even when we move from one similar community to another with all our family ties intact, the move can cause considerable stress and strain on individuals. Moving communities is right up on the stress scale just below the death of a spouse, because moving involves the loss of key support structures and entails the need to re-build them. People forcibly removed physically, politically, economically or socially and those who move between communities which are quite different, and may even speak different languages are confronted by yet greater loss of support.

So when we hear the story of the disciples who left their boats to follow Jesus, we are not hearing about an individual choice, we are hearing about a shift in communities and social support structures. Take their boats, that was never an option, they belonged to the family. For whatever reasons people left their familial situations to become part of the emerging Christian community, they were taking an enormous social step. And to leave a father, that was tantamount to blasphemy itself. You have to wonder what really was going on in that society at that time, and in Matthew’s Gospel we can only read between the lines.

Those who came to form part of the emerging Christian community would more than likely not have come alone. While they may have left more important or powerful connections, they would have brought with them those family members that had more connection with the leavers than the stayers. That’s part of the significance of the stories of the baptism of whole households in Acts. Households, extended families, which included servants as well in richer establishments, stuck together. The group was more important than the individual. There was no sense that someone should do what’s right for them. It was always about family obligations and family ties.

So what happens when those family ties are severed or damaged? You have to re-build. You have to create a new support structure for yourself and those for whom you have responsibility. The early Christian communities were not only building a new community for themselves, they were re-building their lives, re-making social networks, re-structuring family supports. This time those supports were not necessarily based on blood relationships. This time those supports were connected to the desire to follow what they believed was the authentic law of God, revealed in Jesus.

What made them leave their original support base? Perhaps they were already outcasts for a variety of reasons. Certainly, it is in Matthew that we hear about the acceptance of the kinds of people that might have faced ostracism in their society simply because they were who they were: Gentiles, women, the ill and diseased. Perhaps in their ostracism, they discovered the acceptance of Jesus, and perhaps when they heard the message of Jesus “Repent for the kingdom of heaven has come near”, they heard the promise of a new beginning and a new community.

When each person is reunited with their family, it’s the beginning of a slow process of getting to know their family and learning about their community. Support and counselling of the many underlying issues is normally required as an ongoing process for many years. (Link-Up Qld)

That’s part of the submission from Link-Up in Qld to the National Inquiry on the stolen generations.

Somehow, the early Christian communities were able to re-build themselves, to re-create the social support they needed to survive. For them, the message of repentance was a message of acceptance. It proclaimed the need to re-evaluate their lives, to see them in connection with a new community rather than the support structures which they had been denied.

The Greek word for “repentance” literally means a change of mind. Centuries of overlay has made us hear that word only in terms of personal guilt, but perhaps in its early context it meant something more like, “Don’t despair, change your attitude, change your understanding, the community of God is always with you. You are always part of it. It’s okay to leave your boats behind because there is safety with the people of God.” And perhaps it was also a call to the wider society to re-evaluate their tendency to ostracise those who did not fit certain criteria, to see the community of humanity as a community which could encompass all, and to understand the eternal law of God as a call to that kind of inclusive community.

Our story is in the land...
It is written in those sacred places.
My children will look after those places,
that’s the law.
Dreaming place...
you can’t change it,
no matter who you are.
No matter you rich man,
no matter you king.
You can’t change it.
My children go to hang onto this story.
This important story.
I hang onto this story all my life.
My father tell me this story.
My children can’t lose it.
When that law started?
I don’t know how many thousand years.
European say 40,000 years,
but I reckon myself probably was more because it is sacred.
(“Australia’s Kakaduman” by Bill Neidjie)

The community of Matthew is carving out a new country for itself, spinning a new story of identity—a country born out of the margins; a country steeped in the law and the tradition; a country that offered new hope, a new society, a new family; a country that the Matthean community understood to belong to God: "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near." This new country is God’s sacred realm and Jesus is at its heart.

Call to Worship for Year A Ordinary Sunday 3

The Lord is our light and our salvation:
whom then shall we fear?
God is the stronghold of our life:
of whom then shall we be afraid?
God gives us shelter:
a place to honour God and seek God’s way.
Just one thing we ask:
to live in God’s house forever.
In God’s house, we celebrate God’s beauty:
safe to ask questions and sing God’s praise!
Adapted from Psalm 27: 1,4-6 NRSV.

To Fulfill All Righteousness

“To fulfil all righteousness.” My mother used to say that when there seemed to be no other plausible reason for having to do something. “To fulfil all righteousness.” It’s the letter of the law not the spirit. We have to do it because there is some rule or other that says we have to do it, even if we don’t know why we have to do it. “To fulfil all righteousness.” But I don’t think that’s what we’re meant to hear when we hear those words in the story of the baptism of Jesus. I don’t think that that is what “to fulfil all righteousness” quite means here.

Because “righteousness” is really just another word for justice in the Gospel stories. The righteousness of God is about God’s justness. So the story of Jesus’ baptism is not about Jesus undertaking something that he had to do for no apparent reason. And the fact that the story is included in 3 gospels and alluded to in the fourth means that the early Christian communities and the gospel editors didn’t think that it was that kind of story either: a story about nothing, if you like.

No, the story is included in the early church’s memories of Jesus because it had significance for the early church. The fact that Jesus was baptised had significance for them: so much significance that baptism becomes a very important ritual in the early Christian community—the rite of initiation into the community itself.

But baptism was around long before Christianity. Water is such an important symbol for human beings. It lends itself so well to symbolic gestures. It is an ambiguous sign. Water has the power for life and the power for death. The power to cleanse and the power to sweep entirely away. Long before Christianity, baptism, the act of going under and coming up from the waters was used as a sign for conversion or new directions in religious faith. The word “baptism” comes from a Greek word meaning “to dip” or “to plunge”. The new convert is dipped or plunged into water to signify a cleansing, renewing, rebirthing into a new faith direction.

That’s why one of the suggestions for the reason why the story of Jesus’ baptism has been so significant has been to argue that Jesus’ baptism is the point at which he receives his call to ministry. This story is said to recall the moment when Jesus’ destiny was fully revealed. It’s a good suggestion, but not my personal choice.

The story itself, particularly in Matthew, doesn’t seem to see things that way. It’s a pretty definite Jesus that says “it is proper for us in this way to fulfil all righteousness”. And according to the preceding piece about John the Baptist, Jesus stands out from the crowd long before the act of baptism. No, the story of Jesus’ baptism is the Gospel of Matthew is not presented as the moment of the truth, the moment of his call.

No, for me, it’s the water to which I return in the story of Jesus’ baptism, and in Matthew’s Gospel, the Jewish-Christian Gospel, I think that it’s the water that’s quite significant: the going down and the coming up.

You have to remember that, at the time that the gospels are being put together, the early Christian communities are still in the process of becoming separated from their Jewish beginnings. The Jewish faith story still runs through their attempts to understand who Jesus was and why he was significant. And the defining story for the people of the Jewish faith is the story of the Exodus: the rescue of the oppressed people of Israel from the tyrannical Egyptian pharoah—the story of the Prince of Egypt as DreamWorks would like to tell us.

This story of going down and coming up, of descent and ascent, has already appeared as an echo in the Gospel of Matthew in the tale of the escape of Jesus’ family to Egypt after the warning from the wise visitors. And we are still meant to hear its echoes in the story of Jesus’ baptism. Because this story is yet another story about establishing Jesus credentials.

In chapter 1 we hear about his genealogy in the line of Abraham and David. We hear of his birth in fulfilment of the prophets. In chapter 2 we hear of his recognition by nations beyond Israel, and his appearance in fulfilment of the wisdom from the East. We also hear of the journey to and from Egypt, just like the ancestors of the Jewish people. And in the baptismal story we are meant to keep hearing these echoes of faith and tradition, placing Jesus in the line of the faithful and prophetic people of God.

To be a person of the Jewish faith means being able to recount the ancestral story as your story:

“A wandering Aramean was my ancestor who went down into Egypt and lived there as an alien, few in number, and there became a great nation, mighty and populous. When the Egyptians treated us harshly and afflicted us, by imposing hard labor on us, we cried to the Lord, the God of our ancestors; the Lord heard our voice and saw our affliction, our toil, and our oppression. The Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, with a terrifying display of power, and with signs and wonders; and brought us into this place and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey.” (Deut 26:5b-9)

This is the tradition to which Jesus is linked because this is a tradition of depth. In this tradition, there is a sense in which faith in God is discovered in the trials of life, in the moments of despair when even God seems far away—in the goings down before the comings out which only God can do. “To fulfil all righteousness.” To bring about all justice.

We don’t really know anything much about the life of Jesus. We don’t really know what his childhood, adolescence and early adulthood was like. We don’t know what prompted his ministry. We have only the records of the gospel writers, memories and re-tellings of a very short period in Jesus’ life. But they all include or allude to the baptism of Jesus, and for Matthew in particular, the image is attached to the powerful stories of the Jewish faith.

Jesus is the one who went down to Egypt and who came up again not to be saved, but to save. Jesus is the one who went down in the waters, not to be saved but to save. Jesus is the one who endured the pain of degradation and humiliation to continue his message of justice and peace. Jesus is the archetypal child of God—the one who discovers relationship in God in the depths of life, and who emerges from those depths to point others towards God’s love, to bring others into the realm of God’s love.

This is God’s righteousness. This is God’s justice. Jesus participates in the tradition, identifies with the tradition of the righteousness and justice of God “to fulfil all righteousness”, to fulfil all justice, to expand the community of the people of God.

And now we are the baptised people of God. Jesus’ story is our story. For we have participated symbolically and in reality as human beings in the goings down and the comings up of the human story. Our God is the God we have discovered in the depths, who is the one who brings us up out of the water into the light. Our God is the God who demands the fulfilment of all righteousness, not because there is no apparent reason for doing it, but because it is the will and the justice of God.

And as God’s baptised people we are called to bring others into the community of God: to help others stand in the tradition where God never leaves the people even in their deepest despair; to proclaim that the work of God happens in the goings down and comings up of a people of faith as they seek to fulfil all righteousness; to bring about God’s community of justice and peace; to allow ourselves to be baptised in the tradition, the continuing life of the people of God, and the continuing life of humanity as it cries out for justice and peace; to be prepared for our own goings down and comings up in our own journeys of life and faith towards the justice of God.