A Sermon for Epiphany 5 (Year B) Parish of the South Coast

 Sermon for Epiphany 5 Feb 4 2024

‘He departed and went to a lonely place, and prayed there’

Sometimes the Greek word ‘lonely’ is translated as ‘desolate.’ Loneliness and desolation are powerfully evocative. Perhaps at this moment you are feeling a sense of loneliness or reminded of an experience of desolation when you felt alone and isolated. Despair is never too far away and often adding to that sense that sense of being overcome or overwhelmed.

Jesus departs and disappears. In Mark the disciples search for him and in Luke it is the crowds hungry for healing. Why are you here Jesus? Why are you indeed in this God forsaken place? Why are you as the poet Yeats’s put it ‘in the rag and bone shop of the heart’ (‘Desertion of the Circus Animals’)

‘He departed and went to a lonely place, and prayed there’

At the Royal Adelaide Hospital I convened a small group that sat for twenty minutes or so in the sacred space on level three. We were very much interfaith, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, Atheist, several Christians and a Quaker who came regularly from outside the hospital community to support our Contemplation group.  There were nurses, allied health, health science, students, volunteers, patients, and visitors. No words were ever used and a timer ensured that no one had to watch the clock giving all ample time to move at the beginning of the next shift.

 

For me this time alone together with others was a powerful time of healing and reconnection. It was for me and others a way of being in solidarity with the desolation and loneliness that so many experience during their admission as well as renew strength and focus for our compassionate and creative work in the hospital. Pierre Lacout the Swiss Carmelite priest who became a Quaker writes

‘A soul gathered in silent worship is never alone with God.  It is always in communion with the souls of all other worshippers; its silence plunges it into that Inward Light which lightens every person’ (p10 God is silence)

When I am most truly alone, I’m one with all’ says the Benedictine monk Brother David Stendl-Rast.

It seems strange to suggest that the antidote to loneliness and desolation is to be alone yet in a conscious communion and connection to the living breathing cosmos and indeed to our own bodies.

In our loneliness and longing we say that Jesus has got there first and makes us welcome. In the story he does not return but with his students moves to a new place where he is unknown so that the healing medicine of the Gospel may become manifest. We too are taken to a new place, not physically but in our perception of life.

Let us fly alone to the Alone as Plotinus wrote. May the Divine Presence cool the fever of our desires and raise and restore us to the place of wisdom. May the gift and grace of silent prayer draw us closer for the sake of the world and unite us whatever our faith and philosophy in the practice of fearless compassion

A Christ Mass Sermon for the Parish of the South Coast

 

Sermon for Christ Mass

‘Further up and further in’

These are words of Aslan, the Christ figure in the 1956 novel, the Last Battle which concludes the Narnia series by CS Lewis.

The Narnia Chronicles were part of my childhood and they have shaped my life in all kinds of ways. Lewis grew up in a fundamentalist and loveless home. He became someone who we would recognise as a modern person, shrugging off religion as at best an illusion, at worst a dangerous delusion. Yet like some of us in mid-life he had an awakening and calling himself the most reluctant convert in England embraced the faith which became his guiding star. He called Christianity the true myth the path to the healing of a world of anger, anguish, and anxiety. His books spoke to people living in the shadow of endless wars and the atrocities of the Holocaust  and the shadow of nuclear destruction.

In the novel the Last Battle all seems lost for the beautiful land of Narnia with its intelligent and talking animals who live in harmony with humans. The people are deceived by a pretend Aslan, the land is invaded by a cruel foreign army who worship an invented God of horror and hatred. and there is a fundamental loss of trust in leaders. Perhaps nothing much ever changes. The Calor mites in the story worship the horrific God Tash. Yet whether we acknowledge it or not we bend the knee before a social order in which injustice and cruelty is necessary for us to live.

We like the characters in the novel have forgotten the ancient harmony of goodness, beauty and truth destroying the world and driving to extinction countless sentient creatures.

At the epicentre of the Last Battle is a stable. This is at the centre of delusion created by the evil Shift and his gullible donkey accomplice Puzzle into which the enemies of the new order are thrown and are murdered. Yet when hurled through the door the two children from earth who have been returned to Narnia discover wonder, delight, and the presence of the true Aslan.  Outside the door the fires of destruction rage but within is the same Narnia yet deeper and more real than the shadowlands outside. Further up and further in invites the true Aslan, the Christ figure.

Again and again our primordial faith ever new invites to enter the stable, hear again the Christmass story, listen to the spirit world of the angels and bow down like the ancient philosophers from distant lands and become breathless before the love, the impossible love, the impossible faith, the outrageous and unreasonable claim that God has become one with us so that we might be restored to our unity with the Divine. Further up and further in we are invited into the Light of truth and to the amazing experience of knowing, experiencing the amazing love in the risen and crucified Lord Jesus Christ.  To do this we must bend low, let go of our presumptions and be willing like the characters in the Christmas story take the hard journey which leads from the shadowlands into the Light.

In truth we live amid the shadows of doubt, delusion and suffering yet these are illuminated in the Incarnation and those of us who respond to the Light return to the shadows of the cave to witness to the life and love that calls us ‘further up and further in’

I stand at the door of your heart says the living Christ. What will your response be as you stand once again before the stable door of the nativity? Will you be willing to move further up and further in to the One who invites you freely or will you drift further down and further out away from this harmony of goodness, beauty and truth into the place of nothing where only forgetfulness and despair awaits you.

‘Further up and further in’

A Sermon for Advent 4, The gift of tears

 

Sermon for Christmas Eve

‘because will not be impossible with God every word’. Luke 1:37

This is a literal translation of the word spoken by the messenger Gabriel to Mariam which we translate as Mary.

I sat a few days ago a few metres from a stormy sea, my face lashed with salty spray reflecting on our readings and what I might say and I found myself weeping salt tears into the salty wind. ‘The impossibility of God’, God of the impossible, every word carrying the impossible promise. This phrase is a double negative: ‘will not be possible’

It will not be possible for David to fulfil his ambition to build a temple on his terms but this is now disclosed through what Paul calls the long hidden secret. The Greek says that the eternal has been kept silent but now has ben made known to all nations.

How we might respond to the impossible in our own lives? When I experienced what the Orthodox Church calls the ‘gift of tears’ a turning over in my guts a feeling that I must say ‘no’ to what I would love to come to pass. I was reminded of my own sinfulness, my many mistakes, my hubris and my presumption. Like Mary I must say ‘yes’ to the impossible word which in anguish of soul I shouted into the wind. Amen.

God’s word is Love. In Love and through Love nothing is impossible. Nothing else can save us. ‘I believe that all is possible,’ not on my terms but on yours. ‘because will not be impossible with God every word’. Luke 1:37

‘to the only wise God can only be given the glory to the ages of ages’ to which Mary said her Amen. Will you, can you say Amen to the impossible hope to which the Church is called?

Second Sunday of Advent. Come to your senses, a sermon preached at Victor Harbor

 This old door reminds me that Advent invites me to 'come to my senses'

Second Sunday of Advent

We sometimes say of another person but rarely about ourselves: ‘Have they taken leave of their senses?’

Advent is a season where the friends of Jesus Christ are called to ‘come to their senses’ or wake up to themselves. In this season the alarm is sounded and we are urged lovingly to make ready and pray ‘Maranatha, come Lord come’

When we take about ‘coming to our senses’ or about ‘common sense’ we are talking about our capacity for reason and to make good judgements. We weigh up the possible consequences of our intended action against our internal moral compass.  In this common-sense use of the term, common sense is often all too absent. Let me repeat that sentence. In the common-sense use of the term, common sense is often all too absent. If you are like me, you will too often be on cruise control when you ought to be more aware, alert, vigilant and ready with a reasoned and reasonable response.

Coming to our senses has another meaning. It means paying attention to the senses most of us have by virtue of living in animal bodies. That is, the ability to see, feel, hear, smell and taste. It all adds up and makes sense don’t you think?

·        From our Gospel –

·        See, I am sending my messenger

·        Proclaim – hear

·        John clothed in camel hair with a leather belt. Reaching to untie sandals, the touch of water, all feeling. The quenching of spiritual thirst. Spirit, the breath of God flowing with our exhaling and inhaling breath.

·        Locusts (probably a plant since insects are unclean) and wild honey – taste. Smell, well we can add that one in, and imagine the sweat of remorse, repentance, and regret under the sun in the arid desert.

In Peter, the fireworks oratory, with noise and visions. He speaks of Our Lord’s loving look of patience. Isaiah, speaking tenderly, a voice crying out, feeding the hungry flock, saying to the city and gathering in.

These readings are full of references to our senses and indeed listen to another person and you will find our language is chock full of metaphors and words that remind us that even our speaking is a sensory song.

As Psalm 85 reminds us ‘steadfast love and faithfulness will meet in a beautiful embrace and righteousness and peace will engage in a long, loving, and passionate kiss.

The Spirit calls us to our senses, to full aliveness. But if we are to experience the Divine Presence in the glory of creation and in the face of another human let us begin by coming to our senses when we gather in worship.

Anglicans have beautiful sensory rich patterns of worship in churches full of colour with resonant music and if not the smoke of rich incense the smell of coffee after church. We stand, sit, taste, feel, speak, and sing.  We stop, look, and listen. Not for us the bare painted walls of the Protestant Chapel that serve as a sounding board for the Word. We are as Anglicans scandalously sacramental in creating places of beauty and love, music, and colour.

Why is it then when we are called to hear beautiful Scripture read for us, that we, despite good hearing, gazing at the screen or into our service leaflet? Why when on your behalf I lead you in prayer and break the bread are you looking away? I know myself, and maybe this is true of you, that sometimes I am distracted, bored or just anxious in our worship. What I yearn for myself is for release in worship, a letting go and being in my senses touching tasting, moving celebrating in sign and symbol, moving this amazing human body in thanksgiving to the God who comes to us as a living breathing human being in Jesus feeling free to cry, laugh or simply to be still for the presence of the Lord.

Mindfulness, paying attention, being present is at the heart of Advent. Some of us have been practicing some simple, subtle, and sensory based exercises to train us in attentiveness in our Advent sessions and others are welcome to come along. But whatever you do I encourage you to really to appreciate the gift of your senses and to bring them to our sensory rich Eucharistic rituals.

When Scripture is read, (unless you can’t hear), just listen, close your eyes and let the word flow in and around you. When you sing and respond you do not have to always follow the words on screen or book. You know them already so feel flow in your bones. Watch the movement of the liturgy and relax your body when standing or sitting, even when feeling sad or a bit out of it.

Today and into the future let us come to our senses so that when we are called to respond to any situation we are attuned to the vision of God. We can feel and know the reason as we stoop down to the cradle and find our hearts lifted up as we cry out ‘O come O come Emmanuel’ and pray ‘comfort my people’

Advent 1 - The time has come... for mindfulness. a Sermon preached at Goolwa and Port Elliot

 Photo is from St Augustine's Victor Harbor. The Annunciation to the Blessed Virgin Mary.

‘The time has come’ Advent 1

I remember her well, the note of excitement in her voice, her eyes wide open, the flush in her face. It was at the close of a Christian Mindfulness Day retreat which I had led. We had spent the day in a companionable silence in our church centre lit by vivid stained glass and by light that filtered through majestic gum trees alongside the creek which ran past the church on the edge of the city parklands.

The story which this young woman shared with the group has remained with me. She had grown up in Singapore, the only child of two professional people. She had excelled at school, at sport and music. Her parents who she loved dearly, had desired her to succeed, for them failure in anything, was not an option. Coming to Australia to study she now ran her own successful business. But, by her own admission she had not been happy and although a life long Christian like her parents, she struggled to make sense of it all.

Something happened on that retreat. Her therapist had suggested she do some mindfulness and she had happened across our retreat program and meditation group. As a Christian program it appealed to her, and she had booked in. We spent the day practicing brief mindfulness exercises and longer guided meditations including one called the Body Scan. In the Body Scan the meditator moves her attention through her body, sensing as she goes, feeling into the body and into its sensations.

Our Body Scan which I had led, had taken her through a doorway into a new experience of being human. She had been a woman driven to succeed. but by her own admission, her analytical thinking pattern of relating had ceased to serve her. In the Body Scan she suddenly understood that her Christian faith was not something she controlled. ‘Pastor, I came to experience that Jesus had died for me and that I am accepted’ she excitedly told the group. I never heard from this woman again but she left that day with a very different understanding of who she was, with new possibilities for every aspect of her life, not just her relationship with Christ.

The old Shaker song prays that we may ‘come to the place just right,’ one of the prophets we call Isaiah, prays that the Holy One may come down and Jesus calls his followers to be mindful.

The word mindful goes back to the 14c in our English language. It says, pay attention, keep focussed on what you are doing, take care.  We say ‘mind out’ and ask ‘will you mind the children?’ We are warned to mind the gap and to keep mentally alert especially where we might experience risk. When we are mindful, we are alert. Those focussed on their mobile phone at the wrong time may cause an accident. We also make use of the expression ‘mindless’ as a way of tuning out or engaging in meaningless activity.

During Advent we tell the story of Mary who became the first disciple as she welcomed Jesus into her body. Our body, made of the dust of the stars is as the psalm says, ‘fearfully and wonderfully made.’  Our brain which is part of our body is as far as we know, the most complex organic structure in the cosmos. When I reflect on that truth I find again a sense of amazement, attunement, and acceptance of myself as a living, breathing, sentient being, conscious and awake in the here and now.

This is the invitation of Advent, ‘come home to yourself and to your one wild and precious life.’ The Living Christ meets us in the here and now calling us to wholeness and hopefulness as he shares his body in the Eucharist with our body in our eating and drinking.

My prayer is that like that young high achieving woman of Asian background, you too may experience something new through a commitment to ‘be mindful’ this Advent so that, whatever your circumstances you pray ‘Come’ and hear from the Divine Presence the invitation ‘come’ be my guest. Amen.

Advent Christian Mindfulness course in the Parish of the South Coast on Tuesdays in December

 

Christian Mindfulness

A quiet Advent experience which supports your Christian journey.

A series of practical short prayerful exercises which will help you to focus.

Based on ancient wisdom and contemporary brain/body science.

Supporting your ability to make better decisions.

Mindful exercises can be shared with family members.

Mindful is an old English word that means, ‘take care.’

These sessions will not be embarrassing or weird or mystical.

With daily practice you will find that life flows a little easier.

At Holy Evangelists Goolwa                   1115 – 1215 hrs

At St Augustine’s Victor Harbor           1530 – 1630 hrs 

We meet in the hall at Goolwa and Meeting Room at Victor Harbor

Bring a notebook and a keep cup or mug for refreshments.

Led by Father Nicholas a trained and accredited Meditation Teacher.

Christ the King/Reign of Christ Sunday, exploring the restoration and healing of all creation

 

‘The King and I’ – the feast of Christ the King 2023

When the parish bought a new copy of the Prayer Book an errata slip fluttered like a cabbage white butterfly from between the brightly coloured ribbon markers and stiff paper.  Its not often that a reader is faced with an errata slip these days.

I was intrigued by this little slip of paper. It reminded me of the story of one of the early editions of the King James Bible in which by oversight the word ‘not’ had been omitted from ‘thou shalt not commit adultery.’  What an erratum Another edition had a misprint where the name Judas replaced Jesus.

What could be the mistake be in our new prayer books? The errata slip asked the owner to erase the name Queen Elizabeth and write the name King Charles into the prayers where the monarch is mentioned.

An erratum, the admission of an error, the invitation to take up a pen and make a change.

Over the past three weeks I have been engaged in a kind of changemaking as I have explored a series of parables told by Jesus. These parables are placed by the Matthew community, which gathered stories and teachings of Jesus, after Jesus’ entry into the temple to overthrow the tables of the money changers and sellers of pigeons, transactions required for the sacrifices mandated by the law. He continues with his blasphemy and excoriates (I love that word) or verbally rips into the religious as false guides and shepherds.  In so doing Jesus places himself within the tradition of the Spirit guided prophets in his words and actions. However, he seemed to his hearers to be going way beyond into new territory threatening the fragile and uneasy peace between the different religious allegiances but also to the shaky peace with the Romans.

The Church of Matthew, rather like the exiles visited by Ezekiel and rather like us lived in an era of anxiety and loss of hope where the people had lost the trust of their political and religious leaders. We too live in an era where the Church in nations like Australia are struggling to find a new identity.

What is a parable all about? A parable’s purpose is to overturn our assumptions. The treasure is sometimes buried deep within the story, or like a lustrous pearl hidden in a drab shell. A parable reminds of something we had forgotten we had lost. Hidden in the story is a little erratum slip inviting us to a course correction.

I have been suggesting that these Matthean parable seem to offer a moral lesson but can be read as overthrowing our assumptions. Last week I suggested that the lazy and wicked slave is the one who is in the right. He refuses to suck up to the rapacious absentee Landlord. Like Jesus this slave is thrown out into the darkness. Could such a Master be Christ? Matthew the tax gatherer who fleeced the people, had been turned by Jesus to the new path. How could Matthew commending a way of life that hurt especially the poor?

Today we hear the parable about the sheep and the goats and again I am suggesting that the straightforward story sounds a discordant note. These animals were religiously symbolic. The lamb of Passover, the sheep representing the people of God. The goat became a scapegoat to represent forgiveness driven out into the wilderness to die with the sins of the people.

Once again, the King seems at first sight to represent Christ. He rewards those sheep who do the right thing and the goats roast for ever in eternal punishment. But think more deeply about the wrongness of this story.  An unforgiving King contradicts Jesus own words to Peter about forgiving seventy times seven. It negates so much of Jesus own teaching especially in the Matthean Beatitudes. It is a punitive punishment, revenge beyond all revenge. Doing good seems to be incentivised by the promise of eternal life. It is a kind of snakes and ladders story, a bribing and blaming kind of lesson. The judge seems more like a tyrant than the Jesus who will welcome the woman who will anoint him in the house of Simon the Leper. My Kingdom Jesus seems to say is the reverse of this story.

However, the punishing God has been used by the Church often to promote law and order or to crush dissent. You will still hear people asking, if there is no God there is nothing to deter people from committing crime. When the last census results appeared writers in newspapers warned that the decline in Christians represented the moral corrosion of Australia.

So, I ask you, what kind of God is being promoted by identifying Christ with this punitive judge? It is true that the Matthew Church does this in verse 31 with another reference to the book of Daniel. Jesus is framed here in terms of the fulfilment of Jewish apocalyptic.

This however is not an interpretation of the parable that l that I can give my allegiance to since in its straightforward reading it contradicts the teaching of Jesus across all four gospels. The story read in a literal way contradicts the three denials given by Jesus to the adversary in the temptation story. The Good Samaritan story in Luke has Jesus commend a foreigner, a goat you might say who does the right thing from compassion without any expectation of a reward.  In fact, the Samaritan pays the bill of the injured person. Jesus likewise models a selfless compassion without looking for a reward. Jesus dies on the cross to call the world to a loving compassionate and just way of life seemingly without any hope as he calls in despair to a seemingly absent God.

So how can we read this story told by Jesus to overturn our understanding? Jesus here I believe mirrors back to us our desire to be loved, liked, and respected and we well thought of by people whose opinion we value. Jesus also mirrors back to us our human desire to see ourselves as good and others as bad. Matthew’s gospel struggles especially with this since it emerges from a bitter conflict between the Torah and the Jesus Jews. In fact, in the time of Jesus, domestic sheep and goats looked very alike from a distance and you had to get close to tell them apart. When we are honest, we might recognise both goat and sheep tendencies within us. We can push away part of ourselves we don’t like or lock up memories for life.

This sermon, I acknowledge is complex and perhaps uncomfortable so let me try and point you to a resolution.

I believe that the life and teaching of Jesus can only be seen through the lens of the resurrection and glorification of Jesus.  That is, the earthly rabbi of Galilee becomes one with the Christ, universal wisdom. The radiant light of Love illuminates justice and mercy ever present in our midst. We see this in the icon.  Justice is balanced by mercy and is held by the Christ, Love in its fullness.

Yes, there is heaven and hell. We look around at the planet we have trashed, peoples lives wrecked by war and injustice and the inequalities and challenges of our own society. Terrible things happen, we make terrible mistakes, and sometimes people do terrible things or say terrible things to us or people we love.  Yet we can be kind, compassionate creative and generous. Heaven and hell are close by and goats and sheep live together in the task of being human.

I believe in a final healing and restoration at the close of the age, a universal restoration. This has always been preached in the Church especially in parts of the Orthodox Church but also by some Anglican theologians. It is a minority view but for me it is the only belief consistent with the Gospel of Jesus and this final restoration gives me hope for ministry in this age of anxiety.

I am with those classic Anglican theologians who have promoted an intermediate state after death where we can be made whole, face up to our path and choose the Light. Those who have missed out can have another chance. Those who have died in despair and anger find healing. Beyond time there is all the time to travel further into God and this may indeed bring the pain of facing up to the damage I have done in my life. We could call this ‘purgatory’, a place of healing where eventually I with all of creation will be drawn into the love of God in Christ Jesus. That’s why I pray for the dead and encourage others to do the same.

Some of you will reject this as false teaching since the mainstream Church keeps on its theological books the carrot and stick of heaven and hell. Only good Christians with a few exceptions are saved, the goats forever roast on the BBQ

Christian Universalism for me brings hope, joy, and confidence since through the risen crucified One all can be made new.  Indeed, Matthew’s Gospel concludes with a reminder that he; Jesus will remain to the close of the age among his friends. He will always remain faithful and in their midst making whole and calling them to compassionate care. They are to immerse the world in the way of non-violent love and not lord it over others. In Ephesians 1:23. Paul writes of the Church less as an institution more as a vision ‘The fullness of all things with all things filling’ This is the completeness and the salvation of all even of the Adversary and the rebel angels. Jesus says in John, ‘when I am lifted up, I will draw all to myself.’ That means all, not some, the whole creation. That is the fiery love which is beyond my understanding.

The errata slip tells me to insert the name of the new King. May you and I write on our hearts the Christ of hope who cannot, who will not fail, the love that lets no one go.

An erratum can be corrected. The owner takes a pen and carefully makes the change which the publisher has indicated reflects the truth. Matthew seems to suggest an obvious conclusion. In fact, his community even during their trauma over mass killings and tearing down of the temple in 70 CE stretches us to Christ among us who is never a tyrant King but in fullness lives among us and sets us free to be witnesses of his eternal love in our age of anxiety and strife.