Review of A.J. Jacobs,

By Elizabeth

Jacobs is an agnostic Jew living in a New York apartment with his wife, Julie, and two-year-old son, Jasper. Having read all of the Encyclopaedia Britannica in a year and writing a book about it, he decides to spend a year trying to follow the laws in the Bible (NT as well as OT), and keep a journal of what happens over that year. As he is a freelance writer, he spends most of his time at home and looking after Jasper. He begins with his appearance: a huge black beard (which cannot be trimmed) and white clothes, white trousers, shirt, and hat, being OK, but a white robe shocks the unflappable New Yorkers. He decides to pray with uplifted arms and eyes. At first this is meaningless for him, then he becomes addicted to thankfulness. He has a ‘board’ of mentors, so he calls in an expert whenever he needs direction, such as having his clothes examined to see if there is any linen mixed with wool.

At sunset on Friday, he closes his computer and does not open it again until sunset on Saturday. Keeping the Sabbath is pleasant. Stoning someone who does not keep the Sabbath is not so pleasant, so he compromises by to dropping pebbles on the offender’s shoes.

It is easy not to curse, but not lying is hard. He dances with Hasidim, sacrifices a chicken, and experiences counselling by a youthful fundamentalist Christian. When a Christian is transcendent while handling a copperhead snake, he prays the man will find another path to transcendence. The highlight of visiting the Sinai desert is joining a real shepherd in tending his flock of sheep. He shoos a pigeon off its nest before taking its egg – which he then replaces.

Ezekiel bread, containing honey and wheat germ

He finds a willing, proactive slave, who bakes Ezekiel bread. The slave is not treated as advised in Exodus 21.

At the end of the year, he finds he is now a reverent agnostic. He now believes that everyone follows cafeteria religion: everyone picks and chooses from the Bible, but assuming the Bible is an end in itself smacks of idolatry.

What I found interesting is that his mentors’ interpretation of the old Law for modern times – such ingenuity! The big puzzle is that he has his year of living biblically alone. He is not part of a community. He encounters individuals and communities, but is not part of one.

Now I am undecided whether to read his book about reading the Encyclopaedia Britannica or his favourite book: Reading the Bible Again for the First time by Marcus Borg.

delivered on 3 July 2011
by Rev. Dr Wes Campbell

Genesis 24: 34-38, 42-49, 58-67 Isaac and Rebecca
Song of Songs 2: 8-13 A song of the beloved
Romans 7: 15-25a Living ‘under the Law’’
Matthew 11: 16-19, 25-30 ’My yoke is easy’

Last Sunday Bev and I went to an Anglican service. I noticed, as we sat down, three panels facing us: the Lord’s Prayer, the Apostles’ Creed, and the Ten Commandments.

I understand that the Ten Commandments are there to remind us of the claim of the Law, even to remind us of our failure to keep the law.

That puts a finger on the very uneasy feeling we have about law.

In previous generations great stress was placed on duty. Doing what is right was crucial. We see that now in cultures which stress a person’s obligation to their family, and the shame that falls on them when someone breaks the law. And for us? – the sense that we need to be moral, to be socially just.

It was like that in the Victorian era: very strict rules were applied, high codes of morals were laid down. But, lift the lid and we learn that underneath the appearance of good conduct was a seething cauldron of bad behavior.

So, that leads us to be suspicious of the law. Surely we would do better if we got rid of all laws and restrictions. The law is the problem – so, let everyone live as they want to. Do your own thing. We are living through such a time, when each person is supposed to fulfill their own potential, to achieve their dream. A glance at TV on any given evening will confirm that this is the creed of our time.

On the one side, law is a series of commands; on the other, is a law which serves your self interest.

But those who stress the commands of the law, know how we fail. And those who stress the law of their own desire end up disappointed.

We heard the echoes of this disappointment in Paul’s words: he speaks as someone who is committed to the law, but fails. The admission of failure is expressed in the lament:

‘I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate…I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do.’

Perhaps we recognize that struggle in ourselves.

What are we to make of this?

Martin Luther (1483-1546)

Some biblical scholars have listened to the verses we read today and hear Paul as a tortured soul, wracked with guilt at his failure: like Martin Luther who, as a young monk, was obsessed with keeping the law. He detailed his failings to his father confessor so often and in such detail that he was told to get a life!

The problem, on the face of it, seems to be the law.

But the problem is deeper. The problem, Paul says, is sin. That is, deep within us, our life is distorted. We have turned against our Maker, and we have turned against our neighbor. We are caught in a web of distortion. We produce bad fruit. And it is not simply the fruit that is bad: the tree is diseased.

The Law was introduced into this environment. Paul actually sees the law as a good gift. But he likens it to a teacher, who examines us, lifting the hem on what is going on in us.

And in the verses we heard today, Paul describes what is it to be ‘under the law’.

Does Paul think that is our experience as Christians?

Rudolf Bultmann (1884-1976)

If you were a Lutheran brought up on the tension between Law and Grace, you may think that is where we end up: constantly failing, constantly in need of grace. The German biblical scholar, Rudolf Bultmann, interprets Paul as telling us what life is like: for Christians too: a constant experience of aspiration and disappointment – even for Christians. That is what leads to the cry of despair:

‘Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?’

Does Paul see this as a description of Christian life?

I don’t think so! Go back and read the early chapters of this letter, then go to chapters 9 to 11. That dismal reading of Paul does not fit. Paul begins his letter with the bold statement that we are set free by the grace given in Jesus Christ. And his whole letter (indeed all his letters) drives this point home: we are set free by grace.

So, Paul looks back on the person he was under the law; before his encounter with Jesus, and his conversion to Christ. He knows what it was like for the person who knows the high demand of the law, the law which exposes us. Paul describes the person who has been exposed by the law – and knows that they cannot save themselves: Their cry is a longing for rescue: to them Paul gives his answering shout;

‘Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord.’ WHO WILL RESCUE US FROM DEATH? Who will heal the diseased tree?

Jesus Christ.

This is Paul’s strongest answer: Jesus deals with the underlying distortion in us. How does he do that?

He uncovers the basic goodness of God. He declared an end to condemnation, as he says in the first verse of chapter 8:

‘There is therefore now no condemnation for those in Christ.’

That is what the Gospels tell us. They show us Jesus who welcomed people called sinners, and ate with them.

When good law-keeping people protested, calling him a ‘glutton and a drunkard’! Jesus insists that he has come to welcome those who are on the outer. But, as Matthew makes clear, Jesus does not want to abolish the law: he does refuse the approach to the Law that makes a heavy weight which crushes us. He does not want legalism. He does not want to abolish the law, but to fulfill it:, he goes deep into the Law, and shows what it is really meant to be: a good gift.

Jesus, as Paul and Matthew know him, is a giver of wisdom, a teacher of the Law. He welcomes all of us to eat together at the same table with him.

Now he asks us to take his yoke onto us.

You may know that the law was described by people of that time as a yoke. It is that carved wooden shoulder piece that is placed over the ox’s shoulders as it ploughed the fields, as it dragged a weight. The yoke was heavy and burdensome.

Now Jesus says: take my yoke upon you. He is making a claim on the hearer. Then he says: the burden he offers is light, the yoke is gentle. He comes with the generosity of God. He gives us a gift which lets us stand up, because he has taken the burden from us. By taking his claim on us, we are set free from fearing a condemning God . He takes us into the gracious gift of God.

How utterly different is that from the chains at the throats of our Aboriginal brothers. In the photo we see the sort of yoke of our laws which crush and tread our brothers and sisters down. Too many have burdensome yokes placed on them. In the world we live where so many are dominated and trodden down, they barely lift their heads because of the brutal yoke. How utterly different is Jesus’ offer!

We began this sermon by recalling the Ten Commandments posted. In the past century we have learnt something remarkably life giving about these Ten Words (Commandments). And also the 600 or so instructions in Leviticus:

Before the commandments are read out, there is a preface, and introduction: I am the Lord your God who brought you out of slavery…’ then follow the ten words, the commands. We have re-discovered that these commands are given as gracious teaching. God has set slaves free, made them a covenant people, and now guides them in their life together.

That is exactly what Paul takes up. The Law is God’s good gift; it holds for Jewish people. For Jewish people the Torah is God’s good teaching for life. And now so remarkably, people who were once excluded as sinners or unclean – including Gentiles – are now welcomed into the covenant community.

That’s how come we are here listening to the story of Israel and eating at the one table. A meal of grace. How liberating it is to hear that we are not condemned, but forgiven.

Can we be confident about this? If so, what a difference we could make in our Australian community. It is no secret that people in our society divide over the use of law. On the left, equality and regulation; on the right, individual liberty; a left wing action that uses law to foster our collective life, a right wing that emphasizes freedom. Often, to our dismay, the discussion that takes place in Christian congregations mimics the debate of the wider community, with people dividing down those familiar left-right lines.

You know that on every pressing issue, people divide along these lines: with drugs, say, some will push for harsher laws, others will seek decriminalization;

With asylum seekers, some want to regulate access to Australia by law; others want an open door policy.

On global warming some want facts and resist government action; others insist on government initiatives.

And we see the same with abortion, human rights, euthanasia, sex, cluster bombs, nuclear weapons, terrorism, neighbours who shoot at each other, abuse of children, and the list goes on. The debate circles endlessly around the same tree, and has a harshness to it.

What if the Christian community started from elsewhere? What if we engaged in these pressing challenges beginning with a confidence that begins with the grace of God? What if we started the discussion trusting that God who passionately loves us, gathers us around the one table. How different would it be if we trusted that Someone who knows us well, looks deeply into our fears and arrogance, and sets us free from these? What if we could see in the person sitting next to us – in the tram, in the crowd, in the hospital, in the school, in the office –someone who has been rescued for life by Jesus Christ? What if we started with a certain hope that our life together depends on a gracious covenant?

Not black letter law, nor legalistic rules, nor a contract, but a covenant that depends on a word of trust, and a gracious promise. If we Christians began to wrestle like this with questions, large and small, how different would it be?

Finally, we may notice that this affects what we bring to the discussion with neighbours among us who regard their law as crucial for their life. For example, food laws, and codes for clothing. And what will we bring to the discussion with Australian indigenous people who regard traditional customary law as essential. How shall we listen for the ancient wisdom offered here.

At the very least we will need to reflect on words that are now to be included in the Uniting Church constitution:

The First Peoples had already encountered the Creator God before the arrival of the colonisers; the Spirit was already in the land revealing God to the people through law, custom and ceremony.

We began with the Ten Commandments on the church wall. I understand that in some Eastern churches, not the Ten Commandments but the Beatitudes are written there. Blessings. Blessed are the poor, the merciful, the peacemakers, the humble, they will receive the blessing of God. When we begin here, with such blessing, then we can also join with Paul in his exclamation:

‘Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord.’

God hovers over the waters and creates light -- a 12th-century mosaic in the Palatine Chapel, Palermo, southern Italy

delivered by Rev. Pam Kerr
Sunday 19 June 2011

Genesis 1:1-2:4a
Psalm 8
2 Corinthians 13:11-13
Matthew 28:16-20

Today is Trinity Sunday: how do we explain this mystery, which the church calls the doctrine of the Trinity? What does it mean in our lives? Does it make any difference to our faith?

I want us to start by reflecting on our own experience of God. How do you imagine God? Do you think about/pray to God, or Jesus or the Holy Spirit? Share with neighbour.

Of the four readings set in the lectionary for today, two (the blessing at the end of 2 Corinthians and the command at the end of Matthew’s gospel to baptise in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit) explicitly mention the trinity. In fact, they might encourage us to think of three independent persons each with their own task: God the Father as Creator; Christ as the one sent to enable people to believe in God – and the Holy Spirit.

But the biblical picture is more complex than that. In the Genesis story, we read that a wind from God swept over the face of the earth. The Hebrew word, ruach, means not only wind, but also spirit.

And God created by the word: God spoke, and there was light. John’s Gospel talks of the Word becoming flesh in Jesus, and living among us. The Wisdom literature, in particular Proverbs, speaks of Wisdom (a name Matthew in his Gospel associates with Jesus) being God’s co-worker in creation. And when God creates humans, God says: Let us make God according to our likeness. We cannot simply say that God the Father is Creator.

Perhaps the Psalmist has it right when he doesn’t try so much to give answers, but resorts to praise and wonder. He does ask questions: “What are human beings, that you are mindful of them? What are mortals that you care for them?” Implicit in those questions is the question of what God is like, that God should care for us. But he ends, not with answers, but with the exclamation: “O Lord, our Sovereign, how majestic is your name in all the earth!”

So why spend time considering this rather mysterious concept?

If we think only of God as Creator, what has God to do with us?

If we think only of Jesus, is he any more than another good man?

And the Spirit? Whose Spirit – or is the spirit no more than a vague idea that there is something beyond the material world we see? (Many people today want to claim that sort of general spirituality without much content to it).

If we focus only on God as Creator, what relationship, if any, does God have with us? How do we know what this God is like, except that we can wonder at creation itself.

When one of our children was very young, she asked me what God is like (just the sort of question you’re ready for when you’re in the middle of making the bed!) How do you answer that for a three year old? I had a go: God loves us, God is very kind, God is very fair. Off she went, and I breathed a sigh of relief.

But back she came with another question: Mummy, what are you like? Well, I could have said I loved her a lot, that I was kind and fair, couldn’t I?! Instead, I asked: What do you think I’m like? Her answer astonished me. “You’re inside your skin”.

So, she could know me and what I was like, because I was inside a skin. But God? Isn’t that what the incarnation is about? We can know God so much better because God came inside Jesus’ skin. We could see God’s kindness and fairness and love in the way Jesus treated people.

But we see in Jesus also the truly human: subject to weariness and thirst; struggling with temptation; in anguish about his fate as he realises where his obedience to God has led him.

All of that, yet fully obedient to God. So we talk of Jesus as fully human and fully divine: in him we see what God is like and we see what we humans are meant to be like.

Because this Jesus is God’s self incarnate, Matthew is able to say that the risen Jesus has all authority in heaven and on earth. He shares in the sovereignty of the God whose sovereign power brought the world into being.

And the Holy Spirit? This is not just a vague notion of a non-material aspect of life. This is the Spirit who was active in creation; the Spirit of Jesus, poured upon his disciples at Pentecost. So this Spirit doesn’t just give us a warm glow, or add an other-worldly dimension to our hectic lives. This Spirit urges us to live as Jesus lived; sends us out into the world to engage in God’s transforming work as Jesus did, and gives us the sort of courage and power we see in the disciples after Pentecost.

When St Paul wrote to the church in Corinth, he wrote to a church divided: some thought they were better than others because they believed the Spirit had given them ‘better’ gifts, like speaking in tongues. Some were disregarding others in the community when they came to communion.

At the end of his second letter to this church, he offers a blessing: the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God; and the communion of the Holy Spirit would be with them. This triune God, an expression of the ultimate relationship in community, would bless them with unity. Only imbued with the love of God, graced by Jesus, and moulded into community by the Spirit, could they live as the sort of community they were called to be.

I don’t think we can ever fully explain the Trinity. But this mysterious relationship between God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit saves us from a disembodied faith, and calls us in powerful ways to engage in the world around us.

'Pentecost' by Giotto (1320-25)

delivered 12 June 2011
by Rev. Hon. Prof. Brian Howe

‘How is it that we hear, each of us in his own native language? Parthians and Medes and Elamites and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabians, we hear them telling in our own tongues the mighty works of God.” (Acts 2:6-11 RSV)

The theme of the Canberra Assembly of the World Council of Churches in 1991, 20 years ago this year, was: ‘Come, Holy Spirit: Renew the Whole Creation’.

‘When the life giving power of the spirit poured into the faithful, they saw a vision of a new world:
‘where there sons and daughters shall prophecy
where their young men shall see visions
and their old men shall dream dreams
and where their women and slaves shall prophecy.’ ( Acts 2:17-18)

The rush of wild wind and fire for life from God called them out from their culture of silence, violence and death and called them into speech, the language of their own. They no longer need to communicate with the language of their colonizers, rulers and imperialists. They can hear the good news in their own native languages. The common language they had in the greedy tower of Babel was restored in a radical new way in Pentecost. Now they can hear each other and understand one another, not in the mono language of the Roman Empire, but with the diversity of languages of their own.

It was a language of liberation, connection and unification from below. The wild wind of God breaks down the Babel tower and all the division it produced within us, among us and around us. The wild wind of life calls us to be passionate lovers and workers for the new creation.’

Cappadocia, Turkey

Renate and I, only a week or so ago, were in Cappadocia, climbing down into caves to examine ancient churches and places where early Christians had had established refuges and often underground communities, designed to escape marauding gangs and other sources of terror and persecution. The churches were lined with mosaics that recited biblical stories and were often located close to underground monasteries that both preserved and taught the Christian faith. Cappadocians are mentioned in the Pentecost story in Acts celebrating the universality of the Christian message in a Roman world. As we moved around Turkey we read a book on the journeys of the apostle Paul. We were impressed at the extent of his missionary journeys (facilitated by Roman roads) and the diversity of people and languages that he must have talked with and communicated to them the Christian message. We were reminded of the incredible courage of the early Christians as well as of the transformative power of their message.

Reading again, in the last week, reports of the Canberra Assembly I was impressed by this point

‘Now they can hear each other and understand one another, not in the mono language of the, Roman Empire, but with the diversity of languages of their own. It was a language of liberation, connection and unification from below.’

I thought that is so right. We do tend to echo the language of our society or culture. Theological students in the 1960s were very aware of the complacency of the Church in its unthinking absorption of what was described as middle class values of respectability. There seemed to be little sense of the Church as being in tension with society, suggesting alternative values to those values accepted in Australian suburbia. One book that I read avidly then had the title, The Suburban Captivity of the Church.

I think our concerns then were about the way that one might define spirituality. I think we felt rightly or wrongly that spirituality was seen then by many people in our congregations very much as being about a kind of piety that was expressed very much about Church-centred activity rather than how people lived their daily lives in the world. Much of the conversation about matters of faith tends to be within the congregation and not a conversation that we have about the things that concern people may have in living their lives, whether at home, at work or in the various communities that occupy so much of our time in daily life. We saw this then as a reflection of a Church that is turned inwards, not as a Church oriented outwards.

There is no way that the early Church could have grown as rapidly as it did in the Roman world if it had not been focused on the world around it. It was constantly translating the language of faith into the language of every day life across the Roman Empire , challenging not only traditional religious beliefs, but also challenging attitudes to women, to slavery as well as recognizing the rights of the very diverse groups of people that made up the Roman Empire.

We do, in my view, need to be engaged with the culture translating the meaning of our faith in terms that will resonate with those with whom we live and work and share our daily lives. That was the miracle of Pentecost.”

‘Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we hear, each of us in his own native language?’

Rev. Lorimer Fison (1832-1907)

In Australia, early missionaries, such as the Methodist Lorimer Fison, recognized above all the importance of translating the Bible into the languages of Australian indigenous people. The importance of the language spoken by indigenous people is only now being recognized central to preservation of culture, building the confidence to participate in multicultural Australia. The work done by Christian missionaries on language is now recognized as being important around the world in recovering a sense of how indigenous people lived, as well as being important in our understanding of culture and our ways of life.

It is for this reason that we are having our ‘Conversations at the Clare’ – to help us find the language with which we can communicate as well as hear and dispute language that is alien to the Christian message.

I think that the Pilgrim Uniting Church in Adelaide is proceeding in the right direction in its recognition of the need to communicate through a range of media not just in words.

Our prophets are often artists, poets and musicians, opening windows to the sacred, exposing the frailty of being human, and envisioning a new creation – a world being re-birthed into wholeness.

Spirituality and imagination seem inextricably linked, for faith and hope require openness to the unknown, leaps of intuition, and unlikely trust. Rather than seeing a life-giving spirituality as other-worldly’, one needs to understand the Spirit as making the Kingdom of God real on earth.’

Communication is not only about words – words only express a small part of our collective consciousness.

The Canberra Assembly expressed it like this:

‘The wild wind of God breaks down the Babel tower and all the division it produced within us, among us and around us. The wild wind of life calls us to be passionate lovers and workers for the new creation.’

Whitsun Pentecost is an occasion in which we have the opportunity to define what we mean by the Holy Spirit and how we might our selves define spirituality.

In the Church Bulletin I quoted Karl Barth on the Holy Spirit and Spirituality.

‘The Holy Spirit is the spirit of Jesus Christ.’ In the outpouring of the Holy Sprit at Whitsun, there is a movement – pneuma means wind – from Jesus Christ to man. He breathes on them: Receive the Holy Ghost! Christians are those breathed upon by Christ. We can never speak soberly enough of the Holy Spirit. What is involved is participation of humanity in the word and work of Christ.’ (138 KB Dogmatics in Outline)

For myself, I like to think that we recognize the spirit when we are able to interpret our faith in what we say and do and in every day life. Life is never without its challenges and the reality is that we are never able to feel comfortable about our discipleship. On the other that is the role of Church in its preaching and in its sacramental life to keep sending us back in the knowledge that we live in the inspiration and power of Jesus Christ. It is in that inspiration and with that power that we seek to find the language that is an authentic expression of our faith.

Ephesians 1:15-23
Psalm 47
Luke 24:44-53
Acts 1:1-11

Last Thursday, forty days after Easter, we celebrated Ascension Day (as we do today this Sunday). Here we follow Luke’s calendar. He recalls the importance of forty in the biblical story: forty days and nights for the Noah flood; forty years when the Hebrews wandered in desert wastes; Jesus’ fast for forth days and nights in the wilderness (a long time).

And now, forty days after Easter, Luke records the ascension of Jesus twice. At the end of his first volume, the Gospel, Luke gives an account of the Ascension: it concludes the earthly ministry of Jesus. Then, to begin his second volume – the Acts of the Apostles – Luke gives a second account of Jesus’ ascension. Here the story of the church begins. With the ‘ascension’ Jesus goes ‘up’ to God.

Luke, along with the rest of the New Testament wants us to hear that Jesus has power over life and death.

The earliest Christians knew how odd that sounded. After all the Roman Caesar rule, the Roman Empire stretched in very direction; and Jesus had been executed in the name of that Empire.

Now, the tiny Christian movement declares that – not the Emperor but Jesus – has power over life and death! Jesus who had come announcing the coming reign of God, by healing, liberating, raising the dead, now rules with the God he announced. They are saying to the Empire and its emperor, if you want to know about power, look at Jesus who was crucified!

Jesus goes ‘up’.

In the first century it is likely that people thought of heaven as a place up there.

The early Soviet astronauts (in the 1960s) thought they had discovered something when they went up into space and did not see God there.

The new atheists, scientists like Richard Dawkins, use the same logic.

But the New Testament is smarter than that. Early Christian writers know that God is not to be seen by humans. And the church also knows that we follow Jesus, after he has ‘gone to God’.

The New Testament says Jesus has gone ‘up’.

Some would say that Kate, by marrying Prince William, has gone ‘up’ in the world.

We live in a society where people ‘aspire’ to climb the ladder of achievement. The successful direction is up! When the presbytery met at a Uniting church college recently the principal spent her allotted time telling us how the school promotes success!

In Aussie rules football a high mark is a thing of beauty. The spring, rising above the pack, to grip the ball, is the envy of those with feet of clay.

We know what it is to be up.

Height represents success, authority, power over others, the ultimate prize.

That is why the Ascension of Jesus all the more startling. Jesus who was crucified and buried in an unknown tomb is being given a status that exceeds anything or anyone else, above every other ruler and authority.

Early church creeds say his name is above every other name.

But we must not fall into danger. We must not start with our images of power, and then fit Jesus into them.

The great danger is that we will do this to Jesus: if we did that we’d say he gave up power for a little while, became weak, and then after that he was reinstated in a position of lordly power. He would be like Superman who conceals his power under the disguise of weakness (Clark Kent), only to throw off his disguise to become the invincible super hero.

That leaves our view of power unchanged. We have simply fitted Jesus into our usual models.

Start with Jesus of Nazareth. We must let him tell us what his power is.

He tips things upside down. When he was offered the opportunity to take power and to use his authority over others, he refused. His cross, a place of wounded powerlessness from the world’s perspective, is his power.

The ascension does not then replace his cross with a throne of gold: his cross is his strange power. His resurrection and his ascension don’t undo the cross: the ascension unfolds for us the message that his power seen on the cross is the vulnerable power of God. And Jesus is a Lord whose people learn the way of love, forgiveness and peace! If only the church had learnt that! Far too often the church has allied itself with the political powers of the empire and has served those interests, and sought even to bless armies and to seek military protection.

The earliest Christian witnesses – faced with worshipping the Emperor or staying faithful to Jesus – were willing to accept death for him. A film that has just opened is called Of Gods and Men. It tells of a community of monks who lived in Algeria. They did not proselytise. They simply lived and prayed and offered hospitality. During the war of the 1990s they were faced with the question whether they would leave and seek safety. They voted to stay and paid with their lives.

Here is the power of Jesus Christ at work. The New Testament often speaks of power: but always in opposition to violent force which traps, crushes and oppresses people. The power of Jesus is the power of God who gives life.

In the Letter to the Ephesians there is a very long sentence read to us today: it makes clear that Jesus who was crucified and raised from the dead is God’s power on earth. He is exalted above every other rule. But there is a twist: normally, a king or queen is addressed as Your highness. Take Jesus’ self-emptying descent seriously, and we will be given a different form of address for him: Your lowness!

That has something to say to us:

If we are lured into wanting to climb up a ladder of aspiration, we’d be wise to listen to Benedict who founded the monastic order of the Benedictines. He said that Jesus does offer us a ladder: and the direction is down! [You may recall Pope John Paul II remained as pope even though he had Parkinson’s disease. He became increasingly incapacitated. He wanted to let his condition of weakness speak: he wanted to declare the gospel in his own body: in weakness is strength.]

Finally, a question arises when we consider Jesus’ ascension: ‘where is Jesus’ body’?

The earliest stories tell us that he is not in the grave and he has gone from us.

Where is his body?

Exploring this question is a lifetime’s work. Two things can be said to keep us going.

One: Jesus has left his body on earth. The church is his body. He promises to make himself known in this community with earthly things we can see and touch: bread and wine. As Jesus presents us with his body in broken bread, he lets us touch and consume him. He feeds us with his life.

In the Letter to the Ephesians, we hear expressions of amazement that the great rift in humanity is being healed –and more, that in Christ – that is, in the church – the rift is already healed. An amazing thing was happening: former enemies were now friends; Jews and Gentiles were meeting together, eating and praying together. Those who had been at odds and afraid of each other are now at the one table.

This makes a huge claim for the church. And remember, those who made the claims in the New Testament were dealing with congregations like ours. Not numerous and powerful, but small and weak. There Jesus Christ is acting secretly, in hidden ways, to make us whole. If only all Christians were able to gather together at the one table, undivided and in one company! As the body of Christ. Then we could really declare Jesus Christ’s reconciliation in and to the world. As the church gathers around the one table, so we are a witness to his peace.

Secondly, the early Christian affirmations declare that Jesus has gone from us and is at the right hand of the Father. He shares in the future reign of God. He announced the coming reign of God in his ministry and has now gone into that reign. Jesus has already arrived in God’s future.

There is something strange in the appearances of the risen Jesus: when he met his disciples, they did not recognise him: because he is coming from God’s future! To make himself known, Jesus showed his hands; his wounds identify him: when he goes into God’s future Jesus does not leave his wounds behind: he still bears his wounds – they do not heal, nor do they fester.

As the crucified Lord he comes to us from the future of God where all things will be taken up into the life of God, where God is all in all.

Jesus, as the pioneer and perfector of faith, the first fruits, already shares in God’s glory where all things have been made complete and new. That is where his body is: with God.

Although we cannot see Jesus, he comes to us in the Spirit, he continues to announce the coming wholeness which he announced in his ministry of welcoming the sinner, feeding the hungry, healing the sick, raising the dead!

He speaks to us from God’s future, promising that our broken lives and our frail bodies, and the whole cosmos, will also share his wholeness with him.

For now he feeds us with bread, his broken body; and he calls us to be his body, the church. He wants us to be his witnesses, to carry the story of his power that makes life for all.

May we be those witnesses!

__________________

Prayers of the People

Living and gracious God, Source of all power and life,

We thank you for Jesus your Son, who has come to share our life, and announced your reign, healing the sick, liberating captives and opening the eyes of the blind; we you give thanks for the life-giving power he exercised in his self-giving death; we praise you for his resurrection from the dead and his ascension which declares him to be Lord of all life. So we pray:

Lord of life: hear our prayer

We pray for all people who are crushed by power, whose rulers dominate and oppress them, and destroy life. By the power you display in Jesus, set them free:

Lord of life: hear our prayer

We pray for all rulers, politicians, and others who exercise power; set them free from the lust for power and domination, and guide them into ways of justice and peace.

Lord of life: hear our prayer

We pray for the church. Bless all who have been baptized this Easter season; strengthen every member of the church as they live in the world and seek to be disciples of Jesus; guide Ministers and Elders and leaders of the church to exercise leadership with the self-giving power of Christ. And where we have failed to be faithful followers of Jesus, reclaim us, help us to make amends, and empower us by Christ’s crucified love.

Lord of life: hear our prayer

We pray for those who are in special need. Refugees and asylum seekers, people in prison, all who are sick; for those facing death.

In silence we pray for those we know.

Lord of life: hear our prayer

We thank you for all whose lives have been shaped by the power of Jesus crucified. We thank you for those who have died. Receive them into your resurrection Light, we pray.

All these prayers we offer in the name of Jesus our risen and ascended Lord. AMEN

The film features the work of Afghan NGO Mahboba’s Promise.  Rev. Simon Moyle has recently returned from visiting Mahboba’s Promise in Kabul.  Simon will be present at the screening in discussion with the filmmaker himself, Gary Caganoff.

All proceeds will go to support Mahboba’s Promise in Afghanistan.  We warmly encourage all members of the Carlton community and beyond to attend this important and deeply affecting film.

Click here for Info & application form for JCMA conference 3-6 July 2011

Email JCMA for further details: registrations@jcma.org.au

The film features the work of Afghan NGO Mahboba’s Promise.  Rev. Simon Moyle has recently returned from visiting Mahboba’s Promise in Kabul and he will be present to take your questions after the screening (concluding at 9pm).  All proceeds from the evening will go to support Mahboba’s Promise in Afghanistan.  We warmly encourage all members of the Carlton community and beyond to attend this important and deeply affecting film.

To:

Prime Minister, Hon Julia Gillard
Leader of the Opposition, Hon Tony Abbot
Leader of the Greens, Senator Bob Brown

We write to express our dismay at the policies and practice concerning asylum seekers in Australia.  We are distressed at conditions which have led to a death in detention.

A young Sri Lankan asylum seeker on her way to Australia, October 2009 (Photo by Oscar Siagian/Getty Images AsiaPac)

We know that many people who come to Australia are fleeing desperate and dangerous situations, some involving war in which Australian troops are involved.

We ask you, as our political representatives, to resist the exaggerated language concerning arrivals by boats and to make clear that Australia has to deal with relatively few asylum seekers when compared with other countries.

We believe that mandatory detention is failing both us as a community and the people seeking asylum. We urge that applicants be housed in open, community-based accommodation.

We urge that claims for asylum be dealt with as quickly as possible.

We believe that people seeking asylum must be given a welcome according to our international commitments, and must be treated humanely while their claims to asylum are tested. We are ready and prepared to welcome people seeking asylum in Australia, including those who arrive by boats.

Signed by 13 people present on Social Justice Sunday at the Church of All Nations, Uniting Church in Australia, Carlton 3053

Blood stains the streets of Burma

delivered by Rev. Dr Wes Campbell
26 September 2010

Jeremiah 32:1-3a, 6-15
1 Timothy 6:6-19
Luke 16:19-31

Today is Social Justice Sunday. It is a dangerous day. Not dangerous in Australia as it is in Burma or the Philippines, Fiji and countless other places; it is dangerous in those places to speak of justice for the poor, human rights for oppressed peoples. No, we don’t face those sorts of dangers. Even when we are at a conference of peace activists, or at a meeting of the Carlton Residents Association, or a rally for refugees, we do not have to worry about the threat of violent recrimination.

And when the peace activists who call themselves the Bonhoeffer Peace Collective and intentionally go onto military bases – prohibited spaces – they face the possibility of arrest and fines and perhaps time in prison, but they do not risk torture, kidnapping and disappearances, arbitrary violence and murder. (If we were asylum seekers it seems our lives would be under greater threat.)

Admittedly, in some congregations in Australia it is moderately dangerous to raise the question of social justice because it is seen as too left-wing, and will cause tension in the congregation.

But these are not the real danger we have to face here.

The danger is this: nominating one Sunday for social justice seems to suggest that there can be Sundays – and, indeed, other days – when justice is not included. There is a real danger that we separate justice from faith.

So we speak of faith AND justice. That AND is a real problem. It is as if we have two different things which have to be held together with that AND.

We find it in other couplets: faith AND politics; church AND world; belief AND action; theory AND practice.

This is a habit that is hard to shake. It is a habit we have picked up from the last 200 years or so.

And the real danger is this; we think we know what justice is; we know what politics is; we are familiar with the world; we know what practical action requires. So we start as if we know what justice requires, then we look around for a way of sticking faith onto it; we search for a staple gun to pin faith to what we think we know.

And that leads to real difficulties. It leads us to think that our church gatherings are sort of personal and private affairs, having to be dragged into the public square of our everyday life. So, it is said, we have to make faith and church ‘relevant’ to the current social issues.

That is just what we did not hear in the readings today. Or on any Sunday.

What we heard read today takes us into the world, and it is faith that leads us into struggles for justice.

The prophet Jeremiah, depicted by Michelangelo in the Sistine Chapel, Rome (c. 1512 CE)

Jeremiah, for instance, is set in a society which is wracked with war and superpower struggle. His task was to step into the conflicts of the day and to uncover the underside, the deep issues.

When his people are allying themselves with empires and their idols, he protests and calls his people to give up their idolatry; when Babylon threatens his country and people, where the people lose hope of any future and Jeremiah is in prison for subversive activities, in the face of a collapsing society, he buys a plot of land.

Jesus’ ministry was conducted out in the open; in public.  For him, there is no such thing as a private faith.  He declares the reign of God is coming; notice how political that is: the reign of God; the kingdom of God.

When Jesus speaks of the reign of God, he goes to the place where politics and life are shaped by money, and mistreatment of the sick, and abuse of the weak and poor.  Jesus speaks of God’s rule.  He declares that God’s rule begins with the outcast poor, with the outsider, the powerless.  That is where the revolution of God begins.

There is nothing private here.  It takes Jesus into economics: we heard it in the parable of the rich man and Lazarus.  Jesus tells this tale to ‘lovers of money’, religious people who have managed to separate questions of fairness, justice, generosity from their religious practice.

Lazarus at the gate

Lazarus is in desperate poverty, the filthy dogs lick his sores; and the wealthy man feasting on this wealth does not even see the man starving at his gate.  And, just as Mary’s song shouts in chapter 2, that the usual world will be tipped upside-down with Jesus’ coming, in this parable the filthy, diseased, poor man is welcomed into the embrace of Abraham, the father of faith.  Now it is the wealthy crying out for help.

There is a great abyss between them – the starving poor and the wealthy blind to their agony, says Jesus.  And he hints that his hearers will not get it.  They are with those who see Jesus, his death and his rising again, but do not get him.

Is the point clear enough?  Go to the letter to Timothy: a letter that is pastoral and personal. Perhaps it is removed from the tussle of the everyday.  Really?

The letter is certainly addressed to a Timothy.  It is a letter of greeting and instruction.  But there is no interest in speaking to this young Christian as if he is separated from the surrounding world.  Just the opposite.  The letter makes every attempt to shape this person’s character.  It certainly gives advice about behaviour.  Some recent scholars think that the letter is making too many concessions to the surrounding culture:

They read it as suggesting that women be submissive; and that slaves remain slaves.  We can discuss this; we can ask critically whether they lived out the faith – then we can turn the question onto ourselves, to ask how embedded we are in the capitalist consumer society that requires millions of desperately poor people to work in factories and production plants to produce luxury goods for us.  We might ask of ourselves how far we accept the billion of dollars spent on military equipment to keep us ‘secure’.  We would be pressed to ask why we Australians are so afraid of displaced people arriving by boats and seeking asylum.

Here is the rub: in chapter 2 of the letter, the reader is advised to pray for leaders in high authority, so that the Christian community might live a peaceable life.  Remember that is being said to people who are being persecuted for their faith.  And where does this take us?  To chapter 6 where the character of faith is spelt out for all of us, regardless of age.

Learn Jesus Christ.  Learn a godliness that reshapes your life.

You are in a society that does not know what faith is; a society that lives for itself; a society where love of money is destructive of good community.

Now I have heard too many sermons that now wander off into moralism, treating the unbeliever as an object of scorn, and proposing a self-help program.  It is the sort of figure you’d expect to meet in the novels of Charles Dickens: self-righteous, pompous, conceited, I am better than you!   We know that style of Christian.

And, dare I say it, I meet it among justice activists, people who say they are for peace, but then attack those who disagree with them, act bitterly toward those in power, and are so sharp and bitter that they no longer exhibit an invitation to life.

No, that is not the tone of this letter.  It is much more like a map in stormy seas: there are rocks where you can easily run aground: keep watch.  To what end?  Live a life that exhibits ‘righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance, gentleness’.

And then it uses dangerous words that can be so easily misunderstood: ‘fight the good fight’.  But no, this is not an appeal to be militaristic: it is the good fight of faith; it is the call to take hold of ‘eternal life’: that means, take hold of God.  Resist those things that enslave your spirit.

'Jesus before Pilate Again' by Duccio di Buoninsegna (Siena, 1308-11)

How is he to take part in that resistance?  See Jesus in the courts of the world standing before the court, questioned by Pilate, a witness to God’s reign.  Let those who have received life from him also stand with him as a witness before others in the courts of this world.

Such advice is only sensible – it is only possible — when we trust that Jesus who stood before the rulers and authorities will finally come — in his own time – as Sovereign, King of kings, Lord of lords.

Remarkably, this promises to free a person from that need to grasp and accumulate.

Or, as the letter says, such a person will no longer ‘set their hope in the uncertainty of riches, but will put their hope in God who richly provides us with everything, for our enjoyment’.

The letter insists: we have been given everything good for life.  We have been given enough.

Hearing this must make us ask about the society we live in.  Why is it that we are told that we do not have enough things and we must accumulate more?  As if wealth rests in piles of things.

The letter wants to get inside of us, to open up another option, to bring us to a way that builds character.  And to start that process of renewal it exposes the spirit of our society that wants us to be anxious about what we have, and what we don’t have.

The letter takes quite another path: it points us in the direction of Jesus who stands openly in the world, who lost all for his witness to his Father, and is now free to give us all we need.  He promises to break the hold of ‘riches’ on us.  Where does that lead?  The letter promises a different sort of treasure for those who go down this path:

‘As for those who in the present world are rich, command them not to be haughty, or to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but rather on God who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment.  They are to do good, to be rich in good works, generous and ready to share, thus storing up for themselves the treasure of a good foundation for the future, so they may take hold of the life that really is life.’ (1 Timothy 6: 17-19)

The letter brings us to the remarkable fact that in Jesus Christ who stands in our world, judged by our courts, God has stepped into our world, to declare a strange style of justice.

The letter wants us to know that God has moved toward us in Jesus Christ to display a surprising justice; Jesus has stepped over the great abyss to assert God’s claim on us.

So listen: the God who can claim power over all powers, and raises Jesus to be Lord of all lords, comes not with punishment but with grace, not with rejection but with the embrace of love, not with the withering fire we deserve, but with the flame of passion that seeks an answering passion.  Grasp God now, because in Jesus Christ God grasps us for life; and — even more important — has grasped the whole world.

What better guidance can we have for a celebration of Social Justice Sunday?

To Jesus Christ, who stood before the rulers of this world to announce the reign of God, be all honour, allegiance, praise and thanks, with the Father and the Holy Spirit, one God now and always.  AMEN