Richard Holloway, the former Anglican Bishop of Edinburgh in his recent memoir, Leaving Alexandria: A Memoir of Faith and Doubt observes that the opposite to faith, is not doubt, but certainty. Doubt on the other hand is wrapped up with our coming to faith.  Faith emerges through a tussle with our doubts and questions. Faith does not give rise to the easy road – there will always be the twist and turns and speed humps our path.

Faith however, is not just some intellectual exercise in which the evidence and argument is finely balanced and somehow faith emerges. You are not argued into the faith. Somewhere along the way there needs to be the experience of God’s presence and peace. In this I am not suggesting there is no intellectual rigour, or somehow it is all experience and there is no reflection and analysis. As the Hebrews themselves determined we are to “love the Lord our God with all our heart, and all our soul and with all our strength and all our mind”. The mind is important – but unless we feel, experience – even enjoy something of God’s peace, or as we heard in our reading from I John, “God’s love” faith becomes just an arid exercise, and it is continued by the sheer force of our will, and not in the joy of a transformed life.

How that happens for you, I am not the one to say. But it could through this service today – the celebration of the sacrament of Holy Communion, it may come as you quietly read the bible or even other literature. It may happen in quiet contemplation, or in the midst of seeming chaos and noise – who knows? It indeed may be infrequent – or it may be intense, all the time.

Today I want to refer to an account from the early church – the conversion of the Ethiopian eunuch  – as a story which is typical of how the earliest Christians intensely, and even dramatically, experienced the presence of God , to the point that that Jesus – the one previously killed – they believed was still there, helping and guiding them.  So are there things here in this story we can recover and learn about the presence of God in our lives? Indeed if you want an analysis of what was happening in this story it is that with hindsight the early church could see God acting – here named as the Holy Spirit – in a series of remarkable coincidences. This whole experience pushed them to thinking in a different way about their faith, task and mission.  But perhaps we first need a bit of background to the story.

The church in the Acts of the Apostles began in Jerusalem. It was in Jerusalem where the disciples received the Holy Spirit at Pentecost; it was in Jerusalem that Peter and John healed the lame man and were arrested for their troubles.  It was in Jerusalem the early church made its first administrative decisions about who would preach and who would serve; and how it would structure itself. In this regard there were divisions between the Aramaic speaking Christians and those who spoke Greek – the language of commerce and trade. The Greek speakers  – the Hellenists – had been feeling excluded and so they were appointed to help the apostles with tasks of service. The two most famous were Stephen and Philip. Stephen, an eloquent teacher, was for his trouble martyred. Indeed, as the beginning of chapter 8 says “that day, the day of Stephen’s death, severe persecution began against the church in Jerusalem, and all except the apostles were scattered throughout the countryside and Samaria.” (8:1)

The first coincidence emerges. Because of persecution, the church was forced out of Jerusalem and thus   paradoxically began the spread of the gospel. This was a make or break time for the Christian church; life was personally dangerous and the spread of the message of Jesus was very shaky. However, Philip escapes and  goes to Samaria – the home of the Samaritans, those who are very antagonistic towards the Jews. There a religious charlatan is operating – Simon by name. Amazingly Philip’s preaching found success – and the apostles even came out from Jerusalem to baptize these new followers. Then we come then to this encounter with the Ethiopian.

Now when we read this account we are struck how Luke describes it all. It has a mystical quality and at critical points in the narrative the main actor is in fact not Philip but the Holy Spirit. From beginning to end it appears as a long list of amazing co-incidences – which with hindsight are interpreted as being the presence of God. So we are put on notice right at the outset  “the angel of the Lord said to Philip, ‘Get up and go toward the south to the road that does down from Jerusalem to Gaza’”. Of course Philip would not want to be seen back in Jerusalem where  Stephen had just been murdered – and south was as good as any direction, but with what was about to happen,  it did seem like that this was all directed by an angel of the Lord.  So what are then the amazing features of this story.

1. It was in the wilderness. Luke several times makes it clear that this encounter happened in the wilderness. The wilderness out of which so many critical and life forming events have taken place – from the birth of the nation itself wandering in the wilderness of Sinai to the very experience of Christ  first tested beyond the Jordan, and then latterly killed beyond the city walls – again this is the scene.

2. The person is an Ethiopian and a eunuch. Here is a character who is far removed from the vision of the scope of God’s love and power you could possibly imagine. This is an unlikely a convert as you could imagine – as say a gay Ethiopian today becoming the prime minister of Australia. This person is beyond the pale in so many ways. Probably he is a proselyte  – a person who is convert to Judaism – but his status as a eunuch would mean that he always would be on the outer. As we subsequently see through this chance encounter, the very boundaries to understanding the scope of God’s love are pushed to undreamed of points of welcome and hospitality.

3. What do you do when you see a car parked by the road – it most probably would depend on where that road is, and what that car is like. 99 times out of a hundred you will assess nothing is wrong, there is no need to stop, and you drive on by. But if you were on a wilderness road, and you came upon someone it may be different. Again here – it was the Holy Spirit that directed Philip to stop and wander over.

4. Of all things this Ethiopian eunuch is reading aloud from the prophet Isaiah – obviously engrossed. Why one would stop in the middle of a wilderness to read anything, apart from perhaps a map – is amazing; but to be reading the most quoted passage of the Old Testament, now found in the New Testament is more amazing. This is a passage central to our understanding of the cross and what Jesus means for us. Here our Ethiopian friend was reading it and Philip was obviously also amazed and so asks if he understands what he is reading.

5. At this point this chance encounter could have gone pear shaped. No go away – I am all right thank you very much, could have been the reply. However, really a main purpose of the story emerges at this point when our Ethiopian says “how can I understand, unless someone guides me.” Indeed. And there is Philip is to do the guiding.

6. However, that is not the end of the story. They start travelling again. The Ethiopian has been moved by this teaching of Philip – and there in the middle of this wilderness; and as we see nightly on our screens when it comes to Gaza – we can say desert – there is some water!  And of course the rest is history – the Ethiopian is baptized. And just as the story begins with the angel of the Lord directing Philip, this time the Holy Spirit snatches Philip away and he continues with his preaching mission in that region.

Today we would regard this as a series of coincidences – although they are not recorded as co-incidences. It is a story about a person who we do not really hear much more about – this Greek speaking Jew called Philip. But his story became a part of the story of this infant church of how first God was present in the most improbable circumstances of persecution, but more than that – God was addressing even a wider context than just Aramaic and Greek speaking Jews. Placing boundaries on the love of God through experiences such as this, was being challenged, in fact overturned.

So back to my question – how do we experience God’s love in our lives? Here is a possibility  – through coincidences and hindsight,  we too can see the hand of God at work.

Now it is true co-incidences do happen.  How many times have you found yourself  at a particular place, at a particularly times and could offer help or advice. Or you might meet a person for the first time one day, and the very next day you run into them again – and you begin to have the feeling you have known this person all of your life.  A friendship may even begin. My life as a minister is a basically a list of co-incidences from beginning to end.  Many times I have been visiting someone in hospital , and only to run into someone else who at that time needed to someone like me.

When I was in Maryborough, Queensland there was a profound experience that affected not just me , but the whole of the congregation at the time. Late one afternoon, while working at my desk in the manse, next to the church, which in turn was on a busy intersection, there was the tell tale sound of a car crash. An older man in a four wheel drive was involved. No one was hurt – however, it was clear he was not keen to have his vehicle towed away .I noticed it had Western Australian plates. I introduced myself as the local Uniting Church minister, pointing out the church behind me. He asked if he could just leave his vehicle for the night until he worked out what was happening.  That was fine I said,  and we swapped names and some details. He was driving around Australia retrieving Flying Doctor collection tins from pubs and other venues. He had a cousin living near Maryborough. He didn’t know where – but he would try and contact him. But then it occurred to me.  I had just visited in our hospital – that congregation yes ran a hospital in those days – and there was a person by his surname who I had that morning just visited. Could that be his cousin? To cut this amazing story down. Yes it was his cousin, Peter, the man’s name, stayed in a caravan we organised through the congregation just behind the church until his cousin was well enough to go home  and his car had been repaired. In the meantime Peter – who was an artist – became an important part of our children’s and youth programs and of the congregation itself. The congregation had this mysterious “Christ like figure” to relate with and provide hospitality for, while he just quietly helped us. All because there was a string of amazing co- incidences.

In fact they probably were not  really co-incidences, and they were more like Philip and the Ethiopian. An opportunity opened up, and with the mind of Christ, a movement of the Spirit , even an angel of the  Lord – however, you describe it, we were led into a deeper understanding of ourselves and were called on to show love to others.  We experienced the presence and peace of God. Did God direct that there be a car accident at that corner? No, I don’t think so. But with an openness of the Spirit we were lead in a particular way. And were blessed and were a blessing. We experienced God.

God may address us in many ways – but basically are we open to receiving these occasions? It was another Anglican bishop, John Taylor, in his book In between God who observed that he felt Christians experienced many coincidences when he endeavoured to describe the work of the Holy spirit.  Perhaps that is true, perhaps not – but are we always open to the coincidences, the interruptions and the surprises  that come our way and possibly see the presence of God.

If the proverbial Martian were to land on earth, they would be puzzled by the Christian faith. They would see Christianity being contradictory, or at best paradoxical. And our readings today illustrate well what I am getting at. On the one hand our faith is on about love and compassion . There is very much an ethical component to it.  So 1 John says:

“We know love by this, that he (Jesus) laid down his life for us – and we ought to lay down our lives for one another. How does God’s love abide in anyone who has the world’s goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help? Little children let us love not in word or speech, but in truth and action.” (1 John 3:16 ff)

The very image of the good shepherd also speaks of love and concern.

“I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep” (John 10:11)

An image of Jesus obviously has drawn from Psalm 23, which in this instance speaks of God being the good shepherd sustaining us – loving us – through obviously tough and difficult times. And in Acts we find the disciples – so soon after the events of Easter  - healing a crippled beggar. Here was a great act of compassion, albeit a miraculous act of compassion.  Christianity, if nothing else, does have this ethical component of “truth and love in action” as John calls it.

However, my Martian – even with the incidents I have just quoted – will observe these acts of kindness or love, will be greeted with open hostility and opposition.  The person espousing love or doing acts of love is not welcomed or appreciated but is opposed and criticized.  So Jesus having just said that he is the good shepherd, one would have thought that would have been greeted with approval and appreciation. The evangelist however records:

“Again the Jews were divided because of these words. Many of them were saying , ‘he has a demon and is out of his mind. Why listen to him?’”  (John 10: 19-21)

And indeed just a few verses later, where Jesus continues with this image of being the good shepherd and that his sheep hear his voice. We read

“The Jews took up stones again to stone him. Jesus replied “I have shown you many good works from the Father. For which you are going to stone me?”  (John 12:31-32)

Jesus is to be stoned for doing good work, and this also is what happens to Peter and John. They are not stoned, but arrested and thrown in prison for doing exactly the same. And Peter in response takes almost the same line as Jesus himself takes. He points out the ridiculousness of the scene,

“Rulers of the people and elders if we are questioned today because of a good deed done to someone who was sick and are asked how this man has been healed “ but then of course goes on to say it is in the name of Jesus of Nazareth he heals, and quotes from Psalm 118 “the stone that was rejected by you, the builders has become the cornerstone.”  (Acts 4:8 ff)

In both of these readings comforting teaching or compassionate deeds are vehemently opposed and rejected. Our Martian would be puzzled.  Perhaps we all are.  Both incidents however give us a clue as to the nature of this opposition. With Jesus those who want to stone him, then and there, cut to the chase pretty quickly

“It is not for a good work that we are going to stone you, but for blasphemy, because you, though only a human being are making yourself God.” (33)

And Peter and John similarly suspect that with the rulers of the people and the elders, it is not that they have healed a poor chap who was crippled as being the reason for their imprisonment, it was their claim  that it was done in the name of Jesus, and that in Jesus there is resurrection of the dead. Peter and John were taking no backward step here; this act of healing was because of their following of Jesus. Jesus was a continuing power and presence in their lives and indeed somewhat controversially they could see that salvation, or healing, was available from no one else.  As with Jesus – it was not the deed itself – it was the context, the background, the reason for the deed that was controversial. They were imprisoned for this view.

Here then is the great puzzle for the church today, for Christianity itself – does one just do the good deed itself and leave it; love the other and that is all. Or is there a whole package of ideas and thoughts, even theology, which has to go with that good deed  – and that has to be presented at the same time? Both Jesus and the post Easter disciples found themselves  in dire circumstances because they wanted to present the whole package.  It was this whole package that caused the offence.

Mmm. What and interesting issue. Can I reframe the issue. Is it good enough for the Church to be just involved in good works – or is there something else that needs to be said or done – like what Peter and John did?

In recent weeks there has been reporting of a difficult and sad dispute involving Dr Catherine Hamlin, literally a national living treasure, and her great fistula work in Ethiopia. There has been a falling out between the Ethiopian arm of this charity and the Australian arm. The Australian Hamlin Foundation basically will only receive donations from Christians and partner with Christian organisations; conservative Christian organisations at that. The consequence of this dispute has been that fine Christian woman Dr Catherine Hamlin, over in Ethiopia, has received no money from Australia in recent times. She has sacked the Australian arm of the organisation, but one can image the Australian arm is in their mind literally applying this verse from our reading:

“There is salvation (one could also say healing)  in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among mortals by which we must be saved.” (4:12)

A little more close to home, is the issue the church, and not her just the Uniting Church, but indeed any Australian church has when its community service arm receives government money to run its programs.  There are many reasons why an organisation, like say even ourselves at CAN may not want to receive such money, but an issue is that good works one can do with this money has to be separated from the reason and background to why the church is involved in such programs.  The church just has to do the “good works” and not do as Peter and John did and go into the reason, or background as to why and how those acts of love might relate to Jesus. Proselytizing is prohibited and the program must be presented in a value neutral sort of way. The church becomes secondary in the process of delivering the service – and can even feel excluded from its own operations. The question could be validly asked, isn’t it enough that just good works, acts of love and compassion are offered?

This is currently a major issue the Uniting Church is grappling with as it endeavours to understand the relationship between the church – worshipping congregations  - and its various agencies and institutions. It doesn’t take much imagination to see that a modern day Peter and John would also be thrown into  gaol if they too launched into a sermon like they did when they offered healing to this cripple beggar.

I must admit this is a difficult issue – and I am caught. I am wanting to say that random acts of kindness, love and compassion are good in their own right. Dr Catherine Hamlin with no religious test offers help to women afflicted with this condition following child birth: Christian, Muslim or whoever. There is a need there  – boundaries are broken down, community is formed. We at CAN similarly want to help all comers – and offer assistance. But we are constrained – and should we be constrained to say why we are, to take form 1 john,  showing “love in action”.

Jesus gives us a clue that as a good shepherd he wants to build a relationship with his flock: a personal relationship with his flock who will hear his voice and understand the love he shows for them. But then he says

“I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice.”

This opens the possibility we do not need just to relate to other Christians – there are other sheep, other flocks. They are recognised and are important. But does this get us past just doing good works – and not doing anything else? Is there nothing we can say or do so that we don’t offend others, and run foul of the state – who may be paying for us to do these good works?

My new best friend,  Alain de Botton, and his book Religion for Atheists (he is an atheist, so he says) actually has suggested to me why we might want to do more, and why perhaps Peter and John did do more.  He observes, surprisingly at first when I read it, that Christians are great pessimists. And he sees this as being a good thing. He suggests our surround culture is surprisingly optimistic. So we can through science, technology and commerce  – advance the whole of society and individual lives. Humans can do anything these days – just witnesses the advances in science, medicine and your own wealth  – in your  own lifetime. Only when there is a stray natural phenomena, like a tsunami or bushfire or an economic downturn we just lose our stride a little. Into this context, however, Christians present, not so much a pessimistic view, but a sober view.  It is not that all of this confidence, progress, and self assuredness will end in tears – but it will come unstuck because of human failing, and as even de Botton says, human sin. As he says

“Modern secular optimists, on the other hand, with their well developed sense of entitlement, generally fail to savour any epiphanies of everyday life (read of anything beyond themselves, or of God) as they busy themselves with the construction of earthly paradise.” (188)

In contra distinction to this, Christians will see “existence inherently frustrating and that we are ever hemmed in by atrocious realities” – and that as a result will point to hope, and a God – who is beyond us, or even to a so called afterlife where all will be well.

“Religions have wisely insisted that we are inherently flawed creatures: incapable of lasting happiness, beset by troubling sexual desires, obsessed by status, vulnerable to appalling accidents and always slowly dying.”  (189)

At this point a deity, God, is seen to help – either now or in the future. A good shepherd if you like. Even just doing random good works will help, but it will not ultimately get the individual who is afflicted, or the whole of that society – to a better place. Even doing good works can be a flawed endeavour. For Peter and John it was this bigger picture – beyond just the immediate need of that crippled beggar. They could see there needed to be salvation from beyond themselves. Jesus rising from death – death due to all of these human failings and difficulties that de Botton has catalogued, was not the last word. They believed there was in fact beyond this pessimistic life – new life. . .  and they needed to talk about that. Clearly such a view would clash with the prevailing power elite who believed they knew how to advance society and we might add advance their own cause.  Peter and John were therefore punished.

My conclusion is that certainly every random act of kindness does not need a sermon; but I do believe we still do need to be aware why we do these things, and why we are involved in the community here at Carlton. Ultimately our hope is not our own human work to build a new heaven and new earth through these acts of love. That will surely fail, but will do some good in the meantime. Rather our hope, through our belief in the death and resurrection of the Christ, is that there may the reconciliation of all things – as at least Basis of Union describes. There might be a new heaven and new earth as John of Revelation says.

1 John 3: 1-7

John Wesley, no less, writing in his diary for Thursday 1 September, 1763 says of the first letter of John “How plain, how full, and how deep a compendium of genuine Christianity!” Perhaps John Wesley  wasn’t thinking of our passage that we have today!  One commentary I read says there are nettlesome problems in trying to understand what was being said; another suggested “take a vacation form this text”.  Others note that the devisers of the lectionary have endeavoured to shield us from the worst of it, by ending the reading at verse 7, in mid stream as it were. So this is what we missed:

“Everyone who commits sin is a child of the devil; for the devil has been sinning from the beginning, The Son of God was revealed for this purpose, to destroy the works of the devil. Those who have been born of God do not sin, because God’s seed abides in them; they cannot sin, because they have been born of God. The children of God and the children of the devil are revealed in this way; all who do not do what is right are not from God, nor are those who do not love their brothers and sisters.”

If you want a short summary of this omitted part and the part we have: those who believe do not sin, indeed should not sin. They are a children of God.  Those who sin are of the devil.

Clear? Understood – comfortable with all that? Of course we know we all sin.

What is going on here, and does this have any relevance to our faith today – let alone is there a message to people beyond these walls. We might indeed think if this is a “deep compendium of genuine Christianity” as John Wesley suggested, I don’t want any part of it. . .. a vacation form the text looks good.

If we were to ask people to describe what Christianity is, apart from increasingly puzzled looks today, we might get answers like, “it is something to do with Jesus”, even “it is belief in Jesus”  and people may then offer information about his miraculous birth and the events we have just celebrated, his death and resurrection.  Some will see “Christian” as being just a good, useful adjective that describes loving and compassionate behaviour. They will immediately be able to say to you that the behaviour of priests, ministers and others involved in sex abuse cases – is NOT Christian. In other words, somewhere along the way Christianity is seen to have an ethical component. A Christian will behave in a certain way.  The Christian faith has a moral component.

Now what we have in this first letter of John, our author is addressing the circumstance in which faith and mattes of behaviour, ethics, have been separated.  In the three general letters bearing the authorship of John, there seem to be many controversies and problems just lurking below the surface which the letters in turn go on to address.  Having clarity on what those problems and issues were is difficult to discern. However, what is clear is that this letter has a decided polemical edge to it, and as such it pulls out all stops in the field of argument including hyperbole and exaggeration (like we have in our reading today). So, for example the third letter of John obviously revolves around the offer and then refusal of hospitality within the Johannine circle. In I John there seems to be a claim that belief in Christ does not assure a follower they are born of God.  Indeed in Chapter 2 there are said to be many “antichrists”, “false prophets” and just plain “liars” who peddle false doctrine and teaching. And coming close to what our passage addresses – one of those “lies” is that a person can claim “sinlessness” but actually disobeys the commandments  (1 John1:10 and from our passage today), or  professes  a love for God but hate other Christians (I John 4:20).

It would seem that this Johannine community had suffered a pretty severe split over issues like this.

“The went out from us, but they did not belong to us; for if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us” (1 John 2;19)

And one thing that had separated these two groups was conflict over the relationship between faith and action. Those who have left the community believed that faith in itself secured salvation. They , possibly taking their cue from John’s gospel itself, and the claim of John the Baptist in that gospel when he says “Behold the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world”, insisted that those who belonged within the flock were saved and could not again be threatened by evil. Actions and how one lived one’s life were a matter of indifference. One’s ethics was irrelevant.

In this context we can thus sort of comprehend the stridency of the language used. Sin is sin – and we cannot escape its reality in human life even for the Christian. And so just to make the point – the reality of the ongoing presence of sin – even within the Christian community  –  sin is linked to the presence and the power of the devil . And to further emphasis the point John refers to the flip side – the true believer. That person will always do what is right.

“Let no one deceive you. Everyone who does what is right is righteous, just as he (Jesus) is righteous.” (1 John 3:7)

Well, is this relevant for us today?

The early church emerged in a culture in which religion did not necessarily include matters of behaviour or ethics. For Jews that division would be unthinkable, but in the Greco-Roman world religion largely had to do with paying homage to the gods, the fates, so that gods would protect and enhance one’s life.  As long as you got the worship, the sacrifices and the whole paraphernalia of religion right – you could do what you pleased. Morality was a matter for philosophers, not for priests! So many converts probably saw Christianity as yet another way of approaching the gods, though this time just the one God and securing safety and prosperity for themselves. For such people, living a certain kind of life was simply not a part of what constituted religious practice.

I think you can see that in our own time such attitudes do still prevail – if not explicitly, they lie just beneath the surface. Movements that emphasize individual spiritual experience, and out of that experience you may even prosper and become rich, downplay moral responsibility. And so strangely, our well used religious word of “sin” gets downplayed. I have often just tried to comprehend what has been the mindset of clergy involved in these terrible sex abuse scandals or who have been involved in its cover up  – and yet to the world appearing to lead a normal religious life.  Somewhere along the way an understanding of the cross and the nature of forgiveness, and the then living of a new and transformed life, has got twisted – something Bronwyn Pike pointed out well in here piece yesterday in The Age. Confession and forgiveness, on this view, just means I can continue living an abusive and vile life, even within the bounds of the faith. Like John, I too would want to pull out all stops and indicate that sin is sin and it has continuing power. It should always be challenged and condemned.

However, at this level it is not just within the church where the power of individual culpability, responsibility, sin, is played down. One commentator has suggested of our society “we inoculate ourselves to the injustice of injuries small and great by tolerating increasingly wide variance from a just and healthy norm” (Daniel Moynihan). This is a complex social policy area – and so we have sought to manage problems, circumstances by moving them from a “right and wrong” environment, an environment in which there is fault – such as with divorce, or the regulation of alcohol or  gambling – to a no fault and shared responsibility model. Indeed we find that with some areas – like with the non medical use of drugs – that a personal responsibility, so called “zero tolerance” or “war on drugs” model just does not work. No-one is personally responsible anymore. . .  or will willingly claim it.  It is always someone else’s fault.  Indeed, it is hard to conceive of a situation in which you can’t use sue someone else for your problem or difficulty!

The religious equivalent of all this is also evident in the church. Far from seeing the problem that John encountered with his community that had forgotten the ethical component of the Christian life, we have become afraid that Christianity in fact gets reduced to being just that. The Church is just on about rules and a lot of “thou shall nots”.  We cringe at this presentation of our faith. However, it is a little more subtle than that. In reality our problem is that we cringe at what rules other Christians say we do not want people to break. We can universally see we do not like murder, stealing and lying – to pick some out of the ten commandments – but depending on your Christian heritage you are going to be very severe on matters that relate to sexuality and sexual ethics, or you are going to be severe with regard to economic, social and political justice. Either way we have a problem with presenting the church as just being against certain behaviour . . .  and we can pull back from condemnation, and prefer just a quiet life of faith. We can find the word sin difficult to use – let alone understand and explain.

The context of our passage I would suggest has a very contemporary edge to it.  . .  we perhaps just wish that it was more nuanced. Even the sunny flipside of this issue of some avoiding the reality of sin, namely the good that we arises from our “supernatural  birth from God” and our maturing as God’s children  can cause problems.  Such an expression may mean we can come too full of ourselves, or alternatively see the image of God as some divine parent being problematic because our human experience of parents is profoundly negative.  At the end of the day perhaps this bible passage just raises more questions than answers. However, we are left with the question how does one indeed resolve the tension between the “sinlessness” of those born of God – this new life we often speak about, and on the other the need to confess our sin. Or another way of saying that, if a person is a sinner, or as it is dramatically said here of being a “child of the devil”, where is ultimately God’s grace and love for that person.

We get to the point of wondering what perhaps John Wesley saw in this “compendium of genuine Christianity”.  But perhaps that is the clue – Wesley himself struggled with understanding the fullness of God’s grace, but at the same time he was wanting still to emphasise the practical, the ethical and moral aspects of  our faith.  There are real tensions here – and we need to always continue to grapple with that tension.  What I think this section of John’s letters shows is that we don’t achieve that by saying on the one hand it is all spiritual and there is no ethical component, no reality of sin; or on the other hand reduce the faith to just a catalogue of do’s and don’ts.

There will be season when we will swing one way too far, and then there will be times when we go too far the other way. The wisdom is to discern when.

For all of its difficulty – this passage is a good reminder of the need for our earnest and respectful grappling about such basics as our attitude to sin and grace, love and faith, peace and action.

I came across a new word during the week:  monetise. (Well it seemed to be a new word to me.) However, it was one of those words you could sort of guess its meaning. Simply as I understand it, it means making money from something that previously one didn’t make money; or really wasn’t an activity in the first place to make money. So, for example, how can you make money out of the information you put out there on the internet. More particularly, how do you make money if you are a newspaper and you now put your newspaper on the web? Well the answer is, as apparently the Herald Sun will be doing shortly, is one puts a paywall – another new word – on your website. To gain access to the news, well at least the interesting bits of the news, you have to pay and you will then be allowed to get beyond the wall. In other words you monetise your web site. However to monetize something, is not just about the web and such modern technology.

You may have noticed what has happened to sport over recent times. No longer is it about healthy exercise and certain tribal loyalties we have for our footy team. It is an industry. And an industry has to make money to employ people and contribute to the economy and so on. One sport has to compete against another sport in what we might generally call the entertainment market. So how can you make money, monetize, kicking the footy around? Well for a start – and it is the AFL this time – and not just newspapers – who with their website, and phone apps  – who will sell you your latest news about the footy. They will further monetize their brand, industry – sorry, I mean, game!

It perhaps was the fact that Paul, our treasurer, was discussing with me during the week the revised 2012 budget for Church of All Nations – as our recent congregational meeting asked us to do, I got to thinking generally about the church and this concept of monetising.  Here actually was the great problem, yet the reality of the life of the church – down the ages. Somehow the church had turned something that was essentially not a commercial or business activity – into money. The church , unlike a standard business which makes or provides goods and services, deals with religious values and ideas. It is about God, faith and your own peace and well being.  Of course some, like Ron Hubbard, the founder of the Church of Scientology, go about the establishment of a religion with the explicit purpose to make money. But that was not the story with the Christian Church. Although at various times, the church has been more interested in monetizing what it does, than being  a community of faith. The classic example was around the time of the Reformation, the Church came up with the scheme of selling indulgences  to avoid years in purgatory. This was a great little money spinner. Salvation was monetized. There was a market in religious values and belief.

Indeed Christendom itself was the monetizing of Christianity: creating an institution and power through the garnering of wealth in various ways.

Of course there is balance required here. On the one hand the church needs to be true to its origins and role, its true purpose  –while at the same time, even as a reluctant institution within today’s society, it does need money to just exist.  Our readings for this second Sunday of Easter look at this very origin of the church and surprisingly also deal with the question of money. As one of my commentaries observed about our readings  – “The resurrection of Jesus is a community-evoking, community forming, community-authorising event. These readings invite a reflection, not upon the miracle of the resurrection itself, but upon the community that is the astonishing outcome of that miracle. “

This is particularly true for our passage from the gospel of John. Normally we think of the work of the historian – the author of the gospel of Luke and the book of Acts  – and think of the formation of the church at the time of Pentecost: fifty days after Easter day.  However, in John’s gospel all of the action happens on the evening of Easter itself.  In fact the consequence of Easter is nothing less than the formation of the church. However, according to scripture, in particular our gospel reading, the church began in fear, anxiety and bewilderment. It was not a confident start. It certainly was not about money.

In John’s gospel, after the two disciples, Peter and we presume John, had seen the empty tomb – and even after Mary Magdalene no doubt excitedly and enthusiastically had announced to them, “I have seen the Lord”, the disciples were cowering behind locked doors “for fear of the Jews”.  These reports of the risen Christ had engendered puzzlement not faith.  This was a frightened and troubled group. The resurrection did not seem to bring immediate confidence or joy and did not carry with it implications of a new life and a new beginning; let alone a world-wide institution.

Four significant things happen that Easter night when the risen, crucified Jesus appears.  These factors transform this surviving group of followers into a community.

1.  The risen Christ pronounces ‘peace’ upon the disciples.  Not once, but three times he says, “Peace be with you.”  Before anything else is said or done, peace is offered.  Jesus did not necessarily promise that the turmoil itself would be overcome or removed.  Rather, within that context these disciples could cope.  They were given God’s peace.

2.  These disciples – except for Thomas, of course, who was not with them that Easter night — are given the chance to “see for themselves”; to see his hands and his side.  Here is the central thing to grasp: Jesus’ promise of life, the fullness of life, new life is dramatically shown.  There is a central belief to grasp: God has raised Jesus from the dead.  Indeed this becomes a constant theme in the early preaching recorded in the book of Acts.

However, John is at pains, more so than the other gospel writers, to help those who do not see, or do not have that opportunity to see for themselves.  The story of Thomas and his wanting to see for himself is respected.  He’s a type of person we can all relate to.  Show me the wounds!  This was not an unreasonable thing Thomas wanted to do.  Indeed it would be recognised that in future generations, our own generation, this is the way it will have to be.  We will not physically see the risen Christ.  So Jesus says:

“Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”

Sight and touch are important, and rational thought are important – but ultimately, it will be because of your faith and belief – and not just proof from observable phenomena. And to have such faith will be a blessing. It is what the author of I John – presumably the apostle or someone associated with the apostle of that name, affirms at the beginning of his letter:

“We declare to you what was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands, concerning the word of life – this life was revealed and we have seen it and testify to it”. (1 John 1:1-2)

For the life of the Church, there is a message about new life. Belief is required before anything else can happen.

3. The risen Christ commissions this group of nervous, unsure frightened disciples. A task is given: there is now a job to do. The mission of the church, the mission of God, set in just a few short words, is placed on the disciples:

“As the Father sent me, so I send you.”

Mission, which is derived from the Latin word , to send is what happens to them – they are sent. They are not confined to their own little world. They have a task apart from enjoying this deeply spiritual encounter with God. They are sent out into this world and they are to be like Christ himself. Their mission is to present, re-present Christ, be the body of Christ in the wider community: to offer life, hope, show love and compassion – to live out and show kingdom values. These people of the Easter faith were given their task and role – that very day.

“As the Father sent me, so I send you.”

4. And finally, at least according to John, they are given then and there the gift of the Holy Spirit – the spirit of comfort, the paraclete spoken of just a few days earlier in that meal Jesus shared with his disciples in the upper room. This Spirit would guide, instruct, re-present Jesus for them. The Spirit of Jesus would counsel and help. So from the farewell discourses we have verses like this:

The Advocate, the paraclete, the Holy Spirit whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and will remind you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you. (14:25)

When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth. (16:12)

These verses are fulfilled not at Pentecost several weeks later, but here in the context of Easter itself. The Holy Spirit is offered to these frightened disciples. Here was the ongoing presence of God in and for this new community who no longer had Jesus to lead, guide and instruct them.

So here is the beginning of the Church – and our church here in Carlton. There is thus a quick post-Easter check we could do:

Do we accept that in troubled and difficult times, the peace of Christ is among us?

Do we really accept that there is new life offered in believing in the risen Christ?

Are we clear we do have a Christ-given mission, the mission of God here in this place? and

Are we confident we are not alone – we have help, the gift of the Spirit of Christ in what we do?

These check questions of course have nothing to do with money.  However, in the parallel account of the forming of the church we have in Acts, money is surprisingly an element. Not how one makes money out of the  new life of the Easter faith, but what our attitude should be towards money and possessions.

“There was not a needy person among them, for as many as owned lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold. They laid it at the apostles’ feet and it was distributed to each as any had need.”  (Acts 4: 34-5)

Of course a good Marxist will spot the origins of a different economic system to capitalism in these words. And a good capitalist will just see all this as a thinly veiled expression of what is today called the “politics of envy” when in any slight way someone suggests a redistribution of wealth. We can however, make the observation, that money was important to even the early church. They treated money obviously very differently to how their surrounding culture, even religious culture, treated money.  (Otherwise why would Acts mention this aspect of their life together.)  They shared their wealth. And they sustained this community of people from within their own resources. In fact it was important that this community, and the welfare of the community be sustained.  This was not monetizing Christianity – but living out their new found faith in practical and substantial ways. People needed to be supported first before any institution, because the institution was actually people.

The point is: money is important; and it was going to be relevant and still is relevant to this community that was created on Easter evening.  Our challenge is to meet the challenge of that Easter checklist; and still in practical ways  sustain that Easter community in the world. For the sake of the community and its mission money is important, but we need to be careful we do not sell our soul or as they say, monetize the faith. Indeed ideally we need to be able to maintain our life together form our own resources.

Cross adorned with flowers on Easter Day at Church of All Nations 2012

As I stood in this cemetery I could not but help play out in my mind the events of Easter, that first day of the week following the crucifixion of Jesus. The scene of that day was also in a cemetery . There the tomb was empty. As Mark records the women that day were advised by a young man dressed in a white robe that “Do not be alarmed; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth. He has been raised; he is not here. Tell his disciples that he is going ahead of you to Galilee – and there you will see him.”  (Mark 16:6-7) Or as Paul, just some years later in his letter to the church at Corinth said “he was raised on the third day, in accordance with the scriptures.” (1 Cor 15: 4)

What did this mean? What did this mean for my aunt who just at that moment I was laying to rest in a grave next to her late husband.  Paul in his letter to the Corinthians goes on to say “Death has been swallowed up in victory. Where O death is your sting?”

What indeed does death mean? Death how should we understand it – why does it need to triumphed over. What in fact is its sting? Can death be actually good? Why does it always seem to be wrong.

My aunt had been getting frailer for some time, however, she was being lovingly cared for. She had lived a wonderful, inspiring and significant life. Here surely was a death we didn’t seem to need to “triumph over”. It was just natural and good. And I am not just talking about the actual moment of her death here. That moment when she actually died – when she breathed her last. I was also thinking, at least from the perspective of those of us who remained – her time in this state of death, as in her life, would be remembered. Hers would be a good death.  So what in fact did Easter and the empty tomb mean  in the case of this my aunt?

Of course there are deaths and deaths.

A young man, in his prime, cruelly executed by the Romans at the behest of the religious authorities, was a different sort of death. For a start the impact on those left behind was so different. There was shock, huge grief, disbelief, anger, sadness – just a whole gamut of human emotions. It seemed needless, it could have been avoided – but then it did after all happen because we didn’t quite understand as to what he was on about; we did after all desert him; he was betrayed by one of our  own number.

But at the end of the day – though death is death whether you are 100 or in your early thirties. What does it mean to say death has lost its sting; and that death is no more; or as Jesus himself just days before had said

I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.” (John11:25-26)

So what is this new non death –is it life; eternal life – but what is that. Is death in fact opposite to life? Or is non-being opposite to life. Isn’t it the case you actually can be breathing, and heart pumping and yet not have a life?

My Baptist colleague at the church service for my aunt was clear what this conquered death looked like. Revelation 21 helped him describe it. Death would be no more. There would be no more mourning, no more crying. Every tear would be wiped away. Death would in fact be heaven – everything would be made new. Death, that is the state of being dead, in fact just sounded, like being alive – but somewhere else, though much more fun. Just think of the most beautiful place on earth – well heaven is like that but only better. Of course, at the moment of death, you could find yourself, not in a beautiful place – but actually a rather horrid and hot place. But that was, to quote “for the cowardly and faithless, the polluted and murders, the fornicators and sorcerers, the idolaters and all liars” (Rev 21:7) He didn’t think that was my aunt – though the list seemed to cover most people you and I know, including ourselves.

You see I have nagging in my gut this idea – death – that final act of breathing, of brain activity, of movement – of itself is not the problem. The problem is that we treat that time beyond that moment of death as if the death itself has not happened. We describe this time only in concrete terms or things we can relate to in this life. Is that eternal life? This helps some – and there does appear to be scriptural warrant for this understanding, and so that is fine. Such people will also usually want to add that they believe in the ”bodily resurrection of Jesus”.  Craig at the Kurrajong Baptists said that. Easter becomes a story in effect of resuscitation. . . as does eternal life. Is there are another possibility?

Take my aunt – who I believe is now at peace, in death. 100 years ago no one knew her. She was not yet born. She was not dead – she just was not yet a person , a body, a human being. In the womb my grandmother knew her. And I can believe, at least according to the psalmist, God also knew her in her mother’s womb. We her family and friends were privileged to know her in life. As I said we were loved and cared for by her. We were inspired by her life. She is however, now dead.  Her body wore out. But in death, it is now different to what it was like before she was born  – when no one knew her.  In her death we still know her, we can remember her sayings, her smile, her encouragement, her achievements and her failures. This is not some universal soul that lives on. This is a particular woman at a particular time we remember – who lives on. . .  if I can sensibly use that word live. Death is not the end  her of Lilla Dorothy Clewett. A great eraser eliminating her and all traces of her has not been wielded. Death does lose a bit of its sting at this point.

And that is true I guess if you a Christian, a calathumpian, or an atheist. Death in this sense does not completely separate us from the person.  And this is what Paul was saying in that great eighth chapter of Romans:

I am sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels nor rulers nor things present nor things to come, nor powers nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.  (Romans 8:38-9)

Death does not separate us from those who have gone before. That is true for us and it is true for God. We actually give these folk a name; we call them saints.

However, we might ask,  what can my aunt expect now she is dead? What can we expect when we breathe our last? Is it those concrete, substantial things we might think are heavenly? What is it like being a new creation that doesn’t involve a womb and so forth?

I guess this is where that empty tomb becomes important. You see I am not sure what we can expect and how we can describe death, or even the resurrected Jesus. In Mark’s gospel  (true unlike the other gospels)the women don’t even see, engage with in anyway  the risen Christ. They are simply told that Jesus of Nazareth – a very earthly way of describing Jesus – has following his death gone ahead of them.  He is leading them on. He will accompanying them. The empty tomb  – without specifying anything particular, specific – invites these women to look to the future with the knowledge that the cross was not the final word. Beyond that last gasp on the cross – the Roman authorities, or the machinations of the religious leaders or our failings or betray – are not in fact the last word on a new way of living and understanding life. How that unfolds for you, let alone for the recently killed Jesus, is not made clear for this evangelist. The empty tomb invites us into a new future with the risen Christ. He goes ahead of us and leads on.

This is for us who are living – this risen Jesus – or this Spirit of Christ is still there leading us forward. His death  is not the end of the story. The dance, as Sidney Carter said in his hymn  – still goes on.  And if we die and breath our last – would not that dance, the spirit of Christ –  still not still go on for us, and all of God’s saints. But how it goes on – and what it looks like I don’t know?  I am pretty sure it doesn’t mean life continues as if I hadn’t died. That does not seem to me to be much of new creation.  As Paul again said:

“What no eye has seen, now ear heard, nor human heart conceived, God has prepared for those who love him’ (1 Cor 2:90) (Which just happens also to be a favourite verse of my aunt’s.)

Paul didn’t seem to know too much either – except that whether we are living or in death, we are all swept up in this vision of a new way of living, of the kingdom of God, of freedom, of salvation, redemption won for us through the cross of Christ. Easter morning confirms that death,  that the death of this man Jesus of Nazareth, does not mark the end of his movement and mission – it continues and lives still today in you and me.

Christ is risen. He has risen indeed!

I will confess. I have a new vice.

I have come to enjoy a round of golf at the Royal Park Golf Course. And I even play with some of the congregation. I am not very good – but I do well enough to at least maintain interest. Now the layout of the Royal Park Golf Course is quite interesting – there is a road, a tram line and also a railway line that runs through the middle. The zoo runs along its border.  Now with all of these barriers and features, it happens that the last hole of the course is somewhat remote from the preceding holes. You have to traipse a fair distance to reach it. Very early on in my golfing career, I got to naming this last far off hole – the redemption hole!

The redemption hole. Here was the chance to redeem all that had gone before; all those woeful shots, all those missed opportunities, all of that failure of technique, failures of patience  – even absences of skill and ability. There was this one last chance to redeem oneself.  And at the redemption hole, if I did well, I would at least feel I had  had a worthwhile morning, even if all the rest was pretty lamentable.

Most rounds have ended unredeemed. In sum total they have been lamentable. No redemption was won on the last.  However, the next time, the next round, the next time I go out, I will still look forward to redemption hole.  You just never know – one day it will all come together, and there will be the joy that after all – I wasn’t a bad round of golf. Redemption has been won.

Friends,  a flippant, and a highly inadequate example of what redemption today may mean. An example, however, I wanted to give to just show the underlying theme of this day – does and can intersect with contemporary realities of modern living; and that the events of an ancient and brutal crucifixion at the hands of a long eclipsed empire to seemingly just get rid of a minor, local difficult customer, may still have relevance today.

I ponder how we present Good Friday. Is this day just a rerun of Mel Gibson’s The Passion – with its gore, its solemnity and pathos – or somehow is it more. Do we just speak of the timelessness of its themes and many subsequent interpretations the church has provided.  Or is our reflection on what happened more significant? Of course it needs to be both, but we need to be careful that in how we play and speak of the events of this day. We can so easily be dismissed as followers of some ancient blood lust on the one hand, or pursuers of pious platitudes on the other. Both story and interpretation are however, need to be held together and be relevant.

If we look at the story itself we see betrayal and desertion, plotting and conniving, the weakness of will, the mocking and derision, and unspeakable cruelty. But also we see determination, steadfastness the Bible may say, compassion and love. These are all human qualities, attitudes and reactions we still will see today. So for example, take the incident with Barabbas. Here is just another incident where people involved in power politics permit the casual sacrifice of an innocent person. It serves their purposes. Indeed so corrupted does governance and the organisation of society become, people can no longer distinguish the guilty and the dangerous person from the innocent. They may not even care whether the person involved is innocent or guilty. Barabbas is released, and the innocent is retained. The asylum seeker is always an illegal, and must always be treated with contempt despite their horrendous experiences from which they flee; a contemporary example of releasing Barabbas.

But what does this story all mean? The church has played many tunes; offered many interpretations – but always the cross is central to the faith.

Jesus for our sake bears our sins; Jesus forgives us our sins. He is even seen as a sacrifice – he after all died at the time of the sacrifice, the Festival of Passover. But what sins we might say  – well those of political power and corruption for a start. Or Jesus dies as a ransom for many. Ransoms once were a foreign aspect of our life – and would just occasionally happen here in Australia. Now we understand it to be commonplace. They are a way  a dissolute and disengaged community, may raise money to just survive. Jesus, as our ransom – offers us freedom. We are the ones who survive. We have the freedom – another theme of the cross. Or more likely we know it as salvation – release from of oppression imposed upon us, or perhaps more likely self- imposed. And certainly that is not far from being redeemed – the cross being our redemption.

Of course in my golf, I am endeavouring to save myself – redeem myself; just do it better, play better and feel satisfied at the end of the day. So every time I play, it is I who needs to do it better; no one outside of me will redeem my golf.  My golfing sins are many, and they will happen again and again. Even success at the redemption hole one week, will not help me the next week.

The cross on the other hand is the offering of help, freedom, salvation, the ability to start again, from beyond our frail, and inadequate attempts to redeem ourselves. It is an offer of love from beyond us. It is gift. It is an offer of costly love; that dramatic and gruesome story, at least tells us it is costly. It is a chance at a new beginning which we don’t deserve. It actually is telling us something of God’s nature. God is love.

Surely this is what CAN, our community, our own lives in fact need at this time. On Good Friday there is the story to remember and recall, and also the hope that this cross signifies.

There are often passages of scripture, familiar passages of scripture, in which you miss particular, significant, detail and all of a sudden a new meaning  jumps out at you. You then see the whole incident in a new light. So you may have read the passage many times, or even acted it out – as we have done today, and still you miss the detail.  For me, it took many years before I saw that in Mark’s account of the resurrection the women were actually terror struck and afraid (16:8) and not as you would expect full of joy and hope;   or in Matthew’s account of the what we know as the Great Commission, right at the end of his gospel, that although the disciples worshipped him, some among them doubted that day. (Mt 28:17)

Today the verse that jumps out is the last verse of our reading. It probably could have just been a linking verse, providing some transitional information. However, I know that in Mark’s gospel, every word counts. His recounting of Jesus’ life is the most terse of the gospel writers, indeed his is the shortest of all the gospels. So when there is a little detail, and not in the other gospel accounts of what we call Palm Sunday, I am tempted to think, it actually means something.

So immediately after the triumphal entry, we have this verse

“Then he entered Jerusalem and went into the temple; and when he had looked around at everything, as it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the twelve.” (11:11)

The other gospel accounts – immediately after the noisy and tumultuous entry into Jerusalem – slip into the frenetic and full account of what we call Holy Week – this last week of Jesus’ life. But as you can see, not Mark. Why?

Why does Jesus  – and I imagine without all the hullaballoo of the palm waving the shouting of his entry into Jerusalem – quietly slip up to the temple, and as Mark says, just having a look around, and then quietly slip back with his disciples to Bethany; which was sort of Princess Park distance from Flinders Street station – before it all would begin in earnest.  For in the next few days – until the Passover meal , all of the action takes place in the temple itself or looking over towards the temple. It begins with his cleansing of the temple, then there are extended periods of teaching and prophecy – particularly that the temple would be destroyed.

So what would have Jesus seen on his quiet trip to the temple; and how would have felt at this time? When he looked around he would have seen the crowds, the vast crowds – the numbers were enormous. Some suggest over a one hundred thousand extra people, and others suggest even, many more, in the city for this festival of the Passover. Preparations would be happening for this event. The various animals for sacrifice would be being brought into the temple precinct; the money changes would have been there; and there would have been the extra traders there to sustain such a large influx. The various religious leaders would have been scurrying around  – very prominently and noticeably. And there would have been the increased presence of the Romans – just to keep things in order.

I can imagine Jesus, as he looked around – taking a deep breath, sighing  and saying something to himself  like – “well this is it; it has come to this – this is where it is all going to be happening, and it is this culture and practice that I am going to challenge.”  It was his quiet before the storm. He is steeling himself; imagining himself into a new place.

I can certainly relate to that feeling. It has been my habit to visit a place where I know a significant event in my life will shortly take place – and just ponder it all. Perhaps visualize what will happen and how it will play out. I want to get a sense of place, before the event takes place.  So I remember well – now 40 years ago (I am getting old)  – that I with my one suitcase and overnight bag I caught a train from Maitland New South Wales, down to Canberra to commence university studies at ANU. I arrived on the Saturday morning before lectures started – Orientation Weeks had not been invented then; deposited my stuff at Burgmann College, where I would be living – and then just went for a quiet contemplative walk around the campus. I was trying to make sense of the fact that on the coming Monday, my much dreamed about university life would begin. What would it be like, how would I go, would I indeed be able to change the world by doing this law degree? I needed to just go and “look around at everything” and then withdraw. And then let it all begin.  Of course nothing prepared me, a raw 18 year old, to being called “Mr Evans”  by Harry Geddes, my first law lecturer that next Monday and a whole new world opened  up.

All major decisions or actions I find, you need to imagine yourself into this possible new  place. So on my first visit here to CAN with Terry Trewavas – the Presbytery minister at the time, I drew apart, had a wander around the estate and Carlton – and just pondered. Was this where I should be? I remember the long walk to and home after proposing to Jean – especially given we had known each other for a whole two months.  At a human level I am sure this is what Mark is noting. Jesus needed space, but I think there is also more.

I would like to suggest two other things I think going on here. The first is that this verse provides the commentary, the response if you like, to what had just happened. It provides the answer to a triumphal procession. A strange answer perhaps, but nothing happened. Nothing.  Jesus hops off his donkey, goes for a quiet contemplative walk around temple, and then goes back to sleep in Bethany because it was getting late and he had a big week ahead of him. Nice story. Nothing happened. The second is, I believe Mark, through this interesting interlude – is actually setting up some contrast between this event of the “triumphal entry” and what then happens.

B ut how do we understand this account of Palm Sunday.

If we look at the hymns for this occasion, they perhaps say our commonly held understanding of this incident.

Ride on ride on in majesty;
hark, all the tribes hosanna cry!
O Saviour, meek, pursue your road
with palms and scattered garments strowed.

Or a more contemporary hymn – Trotting, trotting through Jerusalem, says

Many people in Jerusalem
thought he should have come on a mighty horse
leading all the Jews to battle.

Jesus’ entry is humble and yet there is a clear allusion to fulfilling his royal heritage of being of the lineage of David. Couple that with the cries of the people –

“”Hosanna!
Blessed is the one who come in the name of the Lord!
Blessed is the coming kingdom of our ancestor David!
Hosanna in the highest heaven!”

As Brendan Byrne notes “all this allows Jesus to make an entry into the city that is royal and messianic, though carefully defined by the fact that he is a following a biblical script rather than acting like a worldly ruler.” (176) Indeed some have  noted that not long before the gospel account was written  – now it is thought Mark was written around the year 70, the year when the Jewish uprising was crushed  by the Romans and the temple was finally destroyed  – that there was a similar royal entry into Jerusalem by one of the  Jewish insurgents.  Apparently, according to the Jewish historian Josephus one of the aspiring leaders of this insurgency – Menahem by name, led a kingly procession into Jerusalem in the summer of the year 66. This event would have been recalled by the readers of  Mark – and the other gospels. So what we have here, according to Ched Meyers, is the opening round of the struggle in the young Christian community over the character of messianic politics. The cries of the people presume a rehabilitation of the temple state and “the kingdom of our Father David”.  Mark doesn’t directly dampen that enthusiasm  – but as I have said, in the story nothing happens. That is the point of the verse – at least according to Meyers. Jesus enters the temple, has a look around and then goes away and has a good night’s sleep. Nothing happens.  That traditional messianic path comes to sudden halt.

However, there is also this second theme. This is the contrast between what happens this day, and what happens in Holy Week at the temple itself. Scholars often note that the triumphal entry is well orchestrated. More than half of the account in Mark’s gospel is about the arrangements. All of that detail about two disciples going into the village and collecting the colt; and what they were to say and how indeed they did respond to inquisitive bystanders. This was well planned and orchestrated. Ched Meyers again actually calls it “street theatre”.  Street theatre that was planned, and had a purpose. This was not just a spontaneous, almost incidental occurrence. The cries may not have been orchestrated and likewise the spreading of the garments – but the central part of Jesus riding on a donkey was planned.  Even the cutting of the branches out in the field seems to have been premeditated.

Now street theatre is not bad. I quite like street theatre. It can be engaging and fun. Street theatre however, was going to be very different to what was going to happen later in that week in the temple itself.  The street theatre ends – revealing profound truths in the process; but that was going to be very different to what would be happening in the temple and round about the temple – right at this time of Passover. Mark just subtly distinguishes these two events. He separates them. Jesus having arrived in Jerusalem  – does not immediately launch into his next and final phase of his ministry. There is however, a connection. He just simply enters the temple, looks around, and leaves. The ultimate message was that the Messiah will be killed!

In this coming week we will ponder the consequence of Jesus’ teaching, his betrayal and trial, and then his death. We have come to believe that these next few days in Jesus’ life dramatically reveal God’s love for us; they show the forgiveness of our sins;  and provide hope for the future. They involve contention, confrontation, then finally death. They are very different to street theatre! What this involved was real and costly – whereas the street theatre pointed to some profound insights; but was not the deed itself.

We need our theatre too. Today we reenacted our own street theatre and shortly  we will celebrate this sacrament of holy communion. Very significant theatre! This theatre will reveal to us truths of what we believe. And it is important thing to do. Every so often however, we should recognise that we need to walk to the temple and have a look around. Understand the difference between the theatre of our faith and the real context of our ministry. Go have a look around, note what is happening – return home and have a rest, then return and begin in earnest the ministry and mission of the church in that context. A context which means we also will be the taking up the cross of Christ too.

“Then he entered Jerusalem and went into the temple; and when he had looked around at everything, as it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the twelve.” (11:11)

There are two perspectives we can take on Easter.

Do we take Easter as a job lot, a package deal, on what we regard as the essence of the Christian faith: saying something about our salvation, relationship with God, through  the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. There is a theological understanding  of the meaning of Easter.  So for example, in the book of Hebrews, our reading for today there is a bit of a theological summary about Easter:

“Although he was a son, he learned obedience through what he suffered; and having been made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him, having been designated by God a high priest according to the order of Melchizedek.” (Hebrew 5: 8-10)

The writer of Hebrews is interested in what it might all mean – and so he places the story of Easter within a particular frame of reference. Here Jesus is viewed as  some sort of new high priest who would act for us, the One who pleads our case before God and is bound to have God’s ear. This person is not our elected representative, nor are they self designated, but they are God’s own choice. This is what Easter means for the writer of Hebrews.

Now the other perspective is that we are interested in the chronology of events, the story and what happens. We are not so much caught up with the broader sweep of what it might mean. It is not the theology that has our attention, it is the story itself. This may mean we have issue with the events. So in the passage from John’s gospel today  – can I actually believe that a voice came from heaven, saying: “I have glorified it and I will glorify it again.” Voices from heaven really? And even in the account there is a confusion as to how that voice should be described: some say thunder, others say “an angel has spoken to him.”

Now what happens with these two perspectives is interesting.

For many who see the story of Jesus of Nazareth – the historical person, or as he is sometimes described the Jesus of history – when they see issues like divine voices from heaven – they will quickly switch to the more theological, big picture perspective. What is important is not the detail but what it all means. That is what you have to believe.

People who study and write about these things, call this having a “Christ of faith” perspective. Christ, the word “Christ”, that is a person who is specially anointed by God, applies because that is what we believe to be true about this person Jesus of Nazareth.  There is a package here – a job lot as it were – of what we might believe about this Jesus who we call the Christ. However, within scripture there were many ways of describing these Easter events. Hebrews, as the name implies has a certain Jewish bent , and hence a reference to Jesus being a great high priest.  Others, like the Gospel of John itself, take a different understanding – an understanding that may have greater appeal to gentiles and those familiar with Greek thought. So Jesus is not the high priest but the “Word”, the logos – the source and depth of wisdom.  So it is no accident Greeks get a special mention in our story today.

So on this view the historical narrative is important – yes interesting, but it soon slips into the view that it was all preordained , it followed a grand plan, a grand theological sweep ; and that is the important thing to believe. You know the end of the story really before you begin. Jesus was always going to do amazing and miraculous things and teach with insight. And with regard to the actual Easter story – there was no question he was going to be killed, and of course be raised from the dead.

Before you know it, the human perspective to the story of Jesus can be brushed over.

Meanwhile the concrete thinkers among us are spluttering.  But it can’t all be about faith in that sense. There are some real difficulties here in understanding this story all of these years later. There are gaps in the narrative, there events which are, well,  inexplicable – like in today’s reading – but particularly in that central incident of the Easter story, that of the resurrection. These things have to be first explained, understood, before I believe. And so one tries to understand what actually happened and explain it all. In the process the human story of Jesus becomes the focus. So we want to understand the depth of his suffering, what was going on in his mind, what was he thinking. How was he actually doing all of these amazing things. Did he practice on raising the dead, or was it just a useful party trick he picked up along the way.  In fact we the danger is we have to pare back and refine so much of the story, we may not be left with much.

There is a tension in all of this – as scholars are want to say, or at least set essay questions for theological students about the tension between the Christ of faith, and the Jesus of history.

All of this is a long introduction to help us understand the critical incident we have in our gospel reading today. The incident was that after years of saying “his hour had not yet come”.  Jesus now finally says “his hour had indeed come.”

One the one hand do we have such a understanding of Easter – the cross and its meaning – that we can barely comprehend that Jesus may have said “No!  I have had enough of this. I want to die in my bed after a successful carpentry career and being a one-time religious rabble rouser.” I can sort of imagine Monty Python doing a job on this. “No – I am not going to do this. No. No.”  And there is Jesus, having everyone pleading with him from down the ages – popes and kings, rulers and potentates – saying  if you say “no”, there would be no Easter, there would be no Christianity, no church, no history , no CAN – and I certainly wouldn’t have a job! The big picture perspective, just doesn’t comprehend that human decision making may have opted for a different outcome. There was thus no human element involved. The journey to the cross was the divine plan and it would not stopped.  But on the other hand was it actually a near thing. What was the human dimension of the choice that was made? Do we understand the struggle that went into this? Is that significant?

Throughout the Gospel of John, up until this point, Jesus would declare – like he did at the wedding at Cana, “My hour has not yet come” (Jn 2:4).  Or later when the leaders attempt to arrest him, but fail “because his hour had not yet come” (7:30). Or again in 8:20 our narrator explains that Jesus could not be arrested because his hour “had not yet come.”   However, here abruptly, in 12:23, the situation changes, and Jesus announces that the “hour” has now come. This was now the time; this was the time when things were different.  “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.”  He was going to be killed.

What prompts Jesus to make this pronouncement about his crucifixion?  Why now, and not earlier?  Or why not avoid it altogether?

The preceding verses give us a clue.  Following the raising of Lazarus, the Pharisees and the Chief Priests called a special meeting.  What are we to do about this man?  At this meeting it was Caiaphas who put forward the ironic, but true suggestion – ‘it is better for one man to die for the people, than to have the whole nation destroyed.’  Things here were getting out of hand.  There was a new movement arising; it was better to destroy the leader, than the nation and relations with the Romans. One could image the Assad regime in Syria having similar discussions about resistance to its rule. So, John records, “from that day on they planned to put him to death” (John 11:53). Jesus’ great triumphal entry into Jerusalem, which by the way had just happened, would have confirmed in his mind: his life was a political inconvenience, and death was inevitable. And now with the visit of these Greeks, his message was clearly  beginning to transcend religious and ethnic boundaries. His hour had come – he was now both hated by authorities, and yet he was popular.  With some resignation Jesus simply says:

“Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” (12:24)

This becomes Jesus’ great moment of decision, at least as recorded in John’s Gospel.  We usually think of this tussle, this decision in the context of the anguish of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. However, here in John his struggle, his moment of decision, is much more public. He thinks out loud: “Now my soul is troubled.”  Should he seek God’s assistance to avoid this decision to die?  No!  He decides to continue, and seeks God to glorify him. (12:27)

At this point there is joining of the big picture perspective, and the personal struggle of the earthly Jesus. John uses divine speech from the heavens  to show this. Like at Jesus’ baptism, he again has a voice saying , “I will glorify his name” (v28). This divine affirmation in John’s Gospel affirms the broad sweep of this life, eternal life which will be available thorough belief in Jesus Christ, while at the same time it acknowledges it was a considered, but a very difficult decision for Jesus to make. Choices are important.

And so arising from the tension inherent in this decision, the ways of power within the world are judged. The ways of the world are not God’s ways.  In mass movements and religious revivals, people just do not understand what is required of them – all they want are the signs, the miracles, the thrills and  the amazing.  Just like the crowds with Jesus have done all along.  Jesus wants people to put all of this behind them.  If you want this new relationship with God, Jesus simply seeks our commitment:

“Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there will be my servant also.” (12:26)

Only through death – like a grain of wheat falling to the earth – he chooses that there can be new life, resurrection – and the grain bear much fruit. And so Jesus then pronounces a radical judgement on the world and its ways: “Now is the judgement of this world; now the ruler of this world will be driven out.” (12:31)

Here in this one moment in history, you might say one crowded hour, at the lead up to the festival of the Passover – Jesus with all possibilities before him makes the choice. He keeps on in his ministry: it will mean suffering, death – but this choice he makes points to a different possibility.  It is affirmed through a voice from heaven – this is the big choice which will have cosmic implications.

So what does this all mean for us?

To begin with we know the rest of the story.  . .  we know that the broad perspective can be played out in several keys. But also at this point, I think it brings us back very sharply to the importance of the choices we make in our lives. Choice, the power to choose in our freedom,   is a very human thing. Life is just full of choices. At this point Jesus did choose. And at this point, I want to believe he was not a puppet, who would always go through with it because the puppeteer, God, said so. I can relate to such an agonised decision. I can relate to Jesus in a different way – because there was a human choice made. I perhaps don’t need to have all that divine affirming fireworks to see that it was important choice. And that it possibly had divine implications. (But there you are its included.) Christianity, my faith is enriched because another possibility existed for Jesus; but because the decision was made to go ahead in the face political convenience and religious power, it puts many things, many choices in my life, in perspective. I shouldn’t just have to drift through life, for example. I can make a choice. I don’t just have to be always being formed by the powers of this world – to use a phrase. I have a choice. Sometimes not an easy choice – but I have a choice.

Are we prepared to make such choices? Do we dare to choose, as Jesus chose, to judge the world and its ways and see there is a full life, a new life is possible, if we follow Jesus? Of course there still will be matters of belief  – as to how what that following of Jesus means. At least I can be reassured that Jesus also had such a choice to make as well.

Sunday 18 March, 2012

Among other things, Lent is the season in which the church comes to terms with suffering, especially that suffering which is the result of human sin. It is in the context of their suffering that women and

men often encounter most seriously their need for God. And it is in a narrative of great suffering, that of Christ’s passion, Christ’s suffering that God’s response to human need becomes clear. Yet the matter of suffering is never, within the Lenten perspective, an issue for its own sake. Suffering— both Christ’s and ours—is always recognized as an occasion for God’s mercy. The Friday before Easter is always Good. The suffering there – we have come to believe – is for our sake. God’s mercy and love is shown.

The appeal to our own suffering is more problematic. The problem is that suffering may not go away,  or may innocently arise in the first place.  Now the psalm for today, Psalm 107, does not focus on the cause of hardship, but on the restoration of those who are victims of suffering. Regardless of the source,  God cares deeply. So although the psalm goes to great pains to portray human distress, its beginning and ending are rooted in professions of praise: they give thanks to the Lord, for God is good. God’s mercy endures forever;

Yahweh’s steadfast love endures forever.  . .

God’s love is present in good times and in bad. Present when the people deserve it and when they do not. Like a returning bass note in a mighty organ chorale: “God’s steadfast love endures forever. . . .”

Those who have come from all points of the compass  - most probably people on a pilgrimage to the Holy City – report similar experiences of this redeemer God, Yahweh.

Yahweh’s steadfast love endures forever . . .

Men and women do sin and inevitably experience the consequences of their sin: great suffering (vs. 17–18). Out of their misery and desperation they cry to Yahweh for deliverance (v. 19a). And as a result of their petition Yahweh responds in mercy by intervening, so that the cycle of sin and judgment is broken (vs. 19b–20): “God saved them from their distress.” The pages of the Bible have many, many stories which follow this formula. And modern cities and villages are also filled with lives whose stories, if told, would provide new and equally marvelous examples of what these ancient pilgrims were saying:

Yahweh’s steadfast love endures forever  . . .

And so the story of human suffering is placed within a redemptive perspective. Sometimes women and men suffer because of factors completely beyond their control. But often we suffer because of our pride and sin. The final word, however, is not our suffering, but God’s mercy. This critical reality is to what the Lenten season points. It is, indeed, the truth we believe about  Calvary and Easter. We may wish to destroy ourselves through our own sin, but the God of mercy steps forward to prevent that.

And so the “redeemed of the LORD” testify that “God is good.”

Yahweh’s steadfast love endures forever!

Today,  in continuing to prepare for the passion, death and resurrection of Jesus through this time of Lent, we consider Jesus cleansing the temple.

The incident is well known. We typically recall it because it seems to be out of character with what we understand to be Jesus’ usual manner and mood. Here is a passionate, angry man – and to a certain extent acting violently with his “whip of chords”, overturning tables, and generally causing a great disturbance. All of this happens in the temple forecourt – in other words very prominently in the city of Jerusalem and at the heart of religious life. For the gospel writers Mathew, Mark and Luke they place this incident at the beginning of Holy Week, at the end of Jesus’ ministry, and it indeed becomes an incident which the religious authorities take as a reason for his death. Here was evidence that it was better that one man die than have for the Jewish and Roman authorities problems with an uprising and revolt. John in his gospel however, places it right at the start of his ministry, and makes particular theological use of it. He sets the scene for his gospel that follows.  Right from the outset we see that the way of Jesus will come into conflict with organised religion. And John also uses this incident to foreshadow that there will be a different way of relating with God  – than such practices that were disrupted that day. It will be through Jesus himself, or as John says “the temple of his body”. Indeed Jesus right at the beginning foreshadows his death and resurrection – something only really understood by the disciples much later  after Easter.

So what does it mean today?

We certainly can see that Jesus was challenging corrupt practices being undertaken in the name of religion. The practice of religion it would seem had lost its way. And yes such it could still apply to the church . . . . today. Aspects of the Roman Catholic Church seem to be making heavy weather of matters at this time, if one is to believe reports like the ABC’s program Foreign Correspondent program during the week. This program was about how the church, with massive property holdings through Italy, was avoiding paying its fair share of taxes and the like; taxes not so much not on churches themselves, but on guest houses and other land holdings. And the program raised why is it that that church is actually still a nation state – The Vatican! A point, I must admit as a good protestant, a little beyond me. (Although it does provide that useful trivia answer as to the question which nation has the lowest birth rate?) However, we need also be careful not to sling too much mud – because here in Australia, even our own church, with its prestigious schools, hospitals and enormous caring services – actually have considerable wealth and power, even though our local congregations may be struggling.

Yes I can see that Jesus was rightly onto something when, in righteous anger, he yelled “Stop making my Father’s house a marketplace.” (Jn 2: 16) He was like the prophets of old, berating the religious authorities for taking people away from a simple being faith and belief in God, and jus profiting themselves. The other gospels actually quote from the book of Jeremiah  “Has this house, which is called by my name, actually become a den of robbers in your sight?”  (Jer 7:11) Jesus, like Jeremiah is openly  willing to confront this religious power, and strip it of its corruption, while at the same time suggest there is another way.

Now I was thinking of all of this during the week when I led a funeral, a memorial service actually, for the life of Lila Winther – here in this church – last Tuesday. Lila – well into her nineties  – had lived all her life – just a couple of blocks away, here in Carlton,  until in her last years when she entered an aged care establishment.  She was a battler – widowed young and then raised the three kids by herself. She worked at the Queen Vic Market and cleaned St Peter’s, Eastern Hill and was a stalwart of the Seniors Club here at CAN. As far as I could see her family had done well.  In fact it was a pretty typical cross section of Australia that gathered here. Immigrant neighbours of Lila, middle class folk – and those with a strong working class heritage. There would have been 80 – 90 of us. I spoke of our Christian hope that Lila’s life did and still means something to God; we said traditional prayers, and committed Lila to the care of God. There was much in her life for which we could give thanks. This was not a sad occasion.

I felt however, I was on another planet.  Ethel played the organ for the hymn – and I sang a solo. Not a pretty sound. We prayed together the Lord’s prayer – and even though I had copied out the words – it was not offered to God as a communal prayer that addressed the needs of the congregation. People  were not engaged with it – not so much because of the traditional forms of a funeral service; but the service was religious. Yes this was a Christian funeral.

I wondered, would Jesus, “with zeal for this house” burst  in and say that I had corrupted the very way of the faith. It had become irrelevant to the lives of these people. Indeed should what we are doing be destroyed.  Was the language used, say, irrelevant. Did what and how I said it, need to be overturned; should our customs and practices be driven out. Had we lost the plot?

Now there is a challenge there. So for example, a grandson read last Tuesday from John 14 – you know the words “do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me. In my Fathers’ house there are many dwelling places. . . or as he said mansion, not a Mac mansion, just mansion” and so on.  It was read in the King James version  – now 401 years old. The language however, clearly became a barrier to understanding.  However, that was primarily not the problem. Matters of faith and belief, matters of the Christian faith were just not relevant,  now part of this congregation’s  experience.  Overturning  the tables of the money changers, or driving cattle and sheep out of the temple forecourt – so to speak – would be interesting to see, it certainly would be news; but it would have no effect upon them. A cleansed temple, or a religion which was true to its roots and pointed appropriately to God – was of little relevance to them.

Is there actually any punch left in this story for our culture, our sort of society?

At one level there is always a need to be sure that very structures of the church – local church or broader  church are not corrupt. In our sort of society, such events are “news” and do do vast damage. The child sex abuse scandal through the church, has been our generations “money changers and the sellers of cattle in the forecourt”. Yes in this instance there can be incidences of human sin – and indeed the gospel is about reconciliation and restored relations. However, collectively we have not shown zeal for God’s house – and with a passion addressed our sinfulness and short comings when we encountered it. And because of this people do drift away from the Church and the faith.

That however, is only a part of our cultural context today.  . . and the role of the church. I am sure that even with perfectly well behaved priests and ministers, the church would still be finding difficulties today. What I would really wish to suggest that we have not just a challenge here for religious authorities, about turning the temple into a marketplace, but it is a challenge to society which has turned the whole of life into some sort of market.

There is a market for everything today.

Forget  the image of Lila Winther down at the Queen Vic markets, selling fruit and vegetables as being the only market there is. Everything today it would seem finds itself located in some sort of market context. Football , for example, is just part of the entertainment market. Education, and we could add health, is no longer seen as being a basic of life, being such a critical aspect of having a full life that we somehow see that together we all through the mechanism of taxes and the state should support it. Rather there is a market for these services, and for which we should pay (user pays is the principle of the market), and the role of the state – say through its state schools or public hospitals  – should just be the safety net for those who are not able to able to buy the service they need in that market place.  I would suggest the market mechanism of competition used to create efficiency, in the end corrupts role and place of the very thing which efficiency is meant to enhance.  Again let we illustrate with our need to assist the poor and marginalized within our society. There is created a market for these services. The church through its agencies happily joins into this competitive tendering approach, seeking funding  to deliver a range of services, with specified outcomes. Whether such is always the appropriate mechanism to efficiently to deliver a community services I do not know. However, I do know that for the church this market mechanism means, our agencies are constantly chasing the latest tender opportunity, and that becomes the agency’s focus – because their own economic viability is wrapped up in winning that tender  – rather than at all times see that they fulfilling the mission of Christ as an agency of the church.

So pervasive is our mindset that there is a market for services – we as the church have become  just little shops, and I am a storeholder – and we offer different sorts of religious services. There is us here –with  a certain brand; and Chris – is over the road with the St Jude’s brand. That is fine, if it is a statement about diversity, however, if evangelism becomes marketing, I think we have lost the plot. In my quarter of a century ministry I have now noticed the new trend when it comes to weddings and the wonderful wedding industry. The first question I am now asked is: “how much do you rent your church for? We have a celebrant and would like to be married at CAN.”  I sound really lame when I enthusiastically reply that is great news you want to be married, I could meet with you and your fiancée and talk about Christian marriage and your wedding in our church.

Yes we need markets.  . .  and this is not actually a sermon about the pitfalls and problems of market capitalism. However, somewhere here in this attack on people “turning my father’s house into a marketplace” Jesus turns the market, and concept of a market and the very need for the temple itself, on its head. (This, by the way is different to what the other gospel writers are on about.  They are concerned about corruption, not the fact there was a religious market itself in the temple forecourt.) The relationship with God will be through him, the resurrected crucified one. This will happen through  “the temple of his body”. His own death and resurrection will forge this relationship.

I believe Jesus is saying there are some things for which there are just not markets. Certainly there is no relevance of a market for services in supposedly gaining access to God. That comes, for the followers of Jesus in believing in him; following him. That is the way – as John says later in his gospel – in fact we read it last Tuesday at the funeral for Lila: “Jesus says, I am the way the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”  In crude economic terms – this s a monopoly – there is no market. You just need to believe.

In our current market driven world it is actually useful to ponder what are the values and things for which there should be no market – no tradable choices in life, industries from which people profit. They surely would be about just truth, the fullness of human life and such matters. Jesus at the start of his ministry indicates that he is going to be on about core values of offering life, elsewhere he calls it the kingdom of heaven. Furthermore he, with zeal, will overturn those things that purport to do this but actually do not.

Lent  – a time to ponder such core values, and step back for a season from the marketplaces we find ourselves immersed in.