From St John's @ Campbells Bay

Statement from the Archbishops of Anglican Church in New Zealand on death of Osama bin Laden

2011-05-06T09:58:00.001+12:00

Reflections at the time of the death of Osama bin Laden

The news of the demise of Osama bin Laden has been felt to bring a measure and a form of closure for thousands affected by the acts of terror over the past decade. It is crucial that the acts of terror in any form, including those masterminded by Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda be challenged and overcome.
However, the death of Osama bin Laden is no cause for gloating, or unthinking jubilation. The biblical record is clear in Ezekiel 18:32: “For I have no pleasure in the death of anyone, says the Lord GOD. Turn, then, and live.” We are therefore not called to relish the death of anyone. We are called to grieve the fact that turning and living was not chosen in the first place by Al Qaeda, who chose the way of death, but also to grieve all deadly spirals of violence and fear, hatred and prejudice with all their various causes.
Learning to find a way of understanding the causes of the way of violence and death can, by grace, lead to a measure of God given forgiveness of enemies, as the Gospel calls us to do: Matthew 5:43-44, John 13:34, Luke 6:27-28, Romans 12:14, 1 Corinthians 4:12, Romans 12:17-21, 1 Peter 3:9, 1 John 2:9-10. We need insight under God, rather than vengeance. Vengeance belongs to God (Romans 12:19, Hebrews 10:30). An eye for an eye (Matthew 5:38) and the whole world goes blind. This means jingoism and enjoyment of the death of Osama bin Laden can find no place in Christian prayer or Christian thinking.
We can do no better than end with the words of a Christian leader who gave his life for the cause of justice, freedom and abundant life for all people: "I mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy. Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that."--Martin Luther King, Jr.
++Brown Turei
++David Moxon
Archbishops of the Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia

Earthquake Christchurch NZ

2011-02-28T20:20:00.000+13:00

Sermon by Jan Lee Sunday 27th 2011
Prayer. O Lord, we are in shock and mourning with the Christchurch community engulfed by tragedy. Our hearts go out to the people there. Through the eye of faith we affirm: when it seems too hard to bear, you are the God of salvation, the God who can help. Amen.
Putting Love First
We are all very conscious of what has been happening in Christchurch this past week with the devastating earthquake. Some of us have been anxious about the losses loved ones have incurred and how they are coping. All of us have felt disturbed over the depth of people’s suffering: the loss of loved ones, sudden amputation of limbs, people being traumatized, private property destroyed or damaged, and long-cherished iconic buildings that are no more.
It brings to the fore how vulnerable we are as human beings, how fragile our lives are on our planet Earth. Our world is a wondrous creation, yet it also puts us at risk. New Zealand being on a plate boundary makes us vulnerable to earthquakes. That has become a very present reality for us. Christchurch has been dealt a terrible blow.
Lots of difficult emotions will have come up in us. A journalist Joe Bennett, who lives in Lyttelton above the tunnel, wrote this in The Listener: I can’t get Katherine Mansfield’s The Fly out of my head. ‘There’s a nasty bastard who kills this fly, by dropping blobs of ink on it and watches it struggle out of the ink each time and clean itself and get ready to walk again, and then drops another blob of ink on it and does the whole thing again but more slowly and so on until it eventually drowns in ink.’ And it feels a bit like that.”
We have to admit that we have been placed here in the middle of life and, from our vantage point, suffering is an unsolvable mystery. I put it to you that the meaningful question to ask is not, “Is belief in God unintelligible?” but “Is God a God of salvation – is God one who can help?” The Christian response to the question is a story, the Biblical story of the love of God and the passion of Jesus Christ.
In this dark hour in our nation, I think today's gospel text from Matthew is very relevant. Of the Sermon on the Mount it is sometimes said, "Wonderful words. If only people followed them the world would be a better place!” But it isn’t just about how to behave. It is about Jesus himself; this was the blueprint for his own life. Let’s discover him in it, and replenish our reserves to serve our neighbour well.

A story about three fathers
I’m going to lead into it with a very simple story:
Once there was a father walking though a mall with his two-year-old son. The child was cranky; he kept whining, wriggling and complaining. The father struggled to remain patient.
A story like this doesn’t usually have a happy ending. In another one, a father with an out of control two year old who is walking through a supermarket repeating in a calm voice, “It’s OK, Danny. You can do this, Danny. We’re almost done, Danny.”
Someone asked him, “Is your son Danny having a bad day?”
“My son’s name is Nathan,” the man said. “My name is Danny.”
But then there was a third father who adopted another strategy. He scooped up his little two-year-old grumbler, held him tight to his chest, and began to sing an impromptu love song. None of the words rhymed. He sang it off-key, but as best as he could, he shared his heart: “I love you. I’m so glad you’re my boy. You make me laugh.”
From shop to shop the father kept going, the words not rhyming, and notes off-key. His son relaxed, captivated by this strange and wonderful song.
Finally, when they had finished, the dad went to the car, buckled his son in the car seat, and his son raised his arms and lifted up his head. “Sing it to me again, Daddy. Sing it to me again.”
A bush parable
A couple of days ago – struggling with heaviness of heart - I went for a bush walk. Looking around me, I saw trees that were rotting and dying. I looked more closely – I saw how a decaying log was nursing fragile seedlings. Yes, these seedlings would put down their roots and slowly, gradually grow up tall and lift their limbs up to heaven. From death comes life. Devastation gives away to the renewing Spirit.
It was hard to be heavy for long. I began to get free! Somehow when I was alone with his creation, God sang that song to me. I could be grateful for being alive, on this earth, in this place, during this moment. Being alive and loved by God was enough to fill me with gratitude and contentment – at least for a few moments. Yet that wonderful happy feeling didn’t completely fade away, even after I’d left the bush.

Jesus’ lively sense of the goodness of his Father
Jesus’ words from Matthew flow straight out of his own experience of life. He had watched the birds wheeling around, high up in the currents of air in the Galilean hills, simply enjoying being alive. He had figured out that they never seemed to do the work that humans did, and yet they mostly stayed alive and well. He had watched a thousand different kinds of flowers growing in the fertile Galilee soil and had held his breath at their fragile beauty. One sweep of a scythe, one passing donkey, and this wonderful object, worth putting in an art gallery, is gone. Where did its beauty come from? It didn’t spend hours in front of the mirror putting on make-up. It didn’t go to an up-market shop to purchase fine clothes. It was just itself: glorious, God-given, beautiful.
Of course that was not all Jesus experienced. He had also seen birds fall to the ground dead, and lilies die before they bloomed. And so do people, including those who have placed their trust in God and have looked to him in their need only to find themselves victims of famine, war, flood or earthquake. In Jesus’ day the tower of Siloam, part of Jerusalem’s wall, had fallen down on people, leaving eighteen dead.
Albeit many of his contemporaries thought he was, Jesus was never out of touch with reality, neither does he want us to be. Still - has it ever struck you what a basically happy person he was? Oh yes, we know that, according to the prophecies, he was ‘a man of sorrow, and acquainted with grief’. We know that the darkness and sadness of the whole world descended on him as he went to the cross. The scene in Gethsemane, where he is wrestling with his father’s will, and in agony wondering whether he has come the right way, is one of the most harrowing stories ever told. We know that he wept at the tomb of Lazarus, and that he was sad when people refused to trust God and see the wonderful things he was doing. But these are the exceptions, the dark patches painted on to the bright background.
Jesus’ teaching grew out of his strong, lively sense of the reliability and goodness of his Father, the Creator of the world. When he told his followers not to worry about tomorrow, we must assume he led them by example. He well knew that he would inevitably collide headlong with the authorities and drink the bitter cup of crucifixion. But he wasn’t always looking ahead anxiously? No, he seems to have had the skill of living in the present, giving attention totally to the present task, celebrating the goodness of God here and now. If that is not a recipe for happiness, I don’t know what is!

And he wants us to do the same. When he urges us to make God our priority, he’s not talking about a God who is distant from the world, who doesn’t care about beauty and life and food and clothes. He’s talking about the Creator himself, who has filled the world with wonderful and mysterious things, full of beauty and energy and excitement, and wants us above all to trust him and love him and receive our own beauty, energy and excitement from him.
It’s all about priorities
So when Jesus tells us not to worry about what to eat, or drink or wear, he doesn’t mean that these things don’t matter. We don’t have to eat and drink as little as possible, and wear the most ragged and disreputable clothes, just to show that we despise such things. Far from it! Jesus liked a party as much as anyone, and when he died the soldiers so admired his tunic that they threw dice for it. But the point is priorities. If we put the things of the world first, we’ll find it gets moth-eaten in our hands. If we put God first, we’ll have abundant, eternal life - knowing God.
Anxiety suffocates us
Still daily we live in a world filled with anxiety. So it’s easy to let us rub off on us. With the new technology like the Internet and satellite TV – it’s even easier for us to get chained and tethered to the anxiety of the world. Living totally without anxiety may sound to us as impossible as living without breathing.
But Jesus says, “Don’t worry about tomorrow.” While tomorrow is ‘tomorrow’ it is a figment of our imagination. As such it is all too easy for it to engage our worst fears, our lack of trust in ourselves as loved, or the wounds left from past hurts. If tomorrow is to have its worst reality, it will only be when it is today. Most times we find we can handle the real. In Christchurch we see people daily handling the real with courage and hope. One day’s trouble at a time is quite enough.
Cast all your anxiety on God
In his NT letter, Peter enjoins us, “Cast all your anxiety on him, because he cares for you.” We can read words like this and then feel even more anxious because we worry too much. But we can’t make anxiety go away by an act of will.
What we can do though is use anxiety to strengthen our prayer. I hope the example is not too crass, but I often think of Pavlov’s dogs. They became conditioned to salivate every time they heard the bell because it told them dinner was ready. Similarly, let us allow our anxiety to become a cue for prayer. The anxious feelings may subside; or they may not. Jesus at points struggled with disquietude of heart. All of us do. Our job isn’t to make sure out feelings are ‘spiritually correct’. But as we hand over our anxiety to God, we begin to pursue the peace of God.
Let’s be attentive too to the wonder of God’s action in the world
Suffering like the Christchurch people are facing, might lead us to doubt God’s love and power. But let’s not be inattentive to the wonder of God’s action in creation, in history. We see it through courageous and self-giving human agency. Scripture’s unequivocal and enthusiastic assertion that God rules, is always made in the face of circumstances that seem to deny it. The scene in Gethsemane provides a powerful example. What Jesus wanted in his agony was one thing; what he really needed was another. What he really needed on the cross was the love of God to sustain him and to enable him to endure his suffering in love and to commit his spirit to God. His eyes were not distracted from looking to God and his heart remained fixed on God. To use an expression from the Sermon on the Mount, we could say “his whole body was full of light”. God is inviting us to the same trust.
Let’s ask God to sing us his song
The psalmist in her prayer, that we’ve just read, asked God to still and quiet her soul, like a weaned child with its mother. Jesus took on that mother role when he cradled the little children in his arms. The prophet Isaiah said that it is completely improbable that a nursing mother would forget her child, improbable but not impossible. But God’s commitment and compassion are stronger and more intense than that of any nursing mother. For God such forgetting and forsaking is not even a possibility.
Today we can take up the invitation of our Scripture text to share the happiness of Jesus himself. Today, like Isaiah, we can ask God to sing us his love song: “See, I have inscribed you on the palm of my hand!”
Then we will have the strength of soul to be able to reflect God’s love and peace to one another. In this dark hour in our nation, we are all in this together.

Sermon Preached at Funeral of The Very Rev Colin Slee, Dean of Southwark.

2010-12-27T13:36:00.000+13:00

Requiem Eucharist to celebrate the life of Colin Bruce Slee OBE
Preacher: The Very Revd Dr Jeffrey John, Dean of St Albans

Text: Job 23. 8-14; 2 Corinthians 4. 7-18; Luke 24. 13-35

One of the last things Colin said before he died was, ‘I am surprisingly un-scared’. It could have been the motto of his whole life. Colin was always surprisingly un-scared. Unlike the rest of us, he never did let fear or self-consciousness or embarrassment to stop him reaching out to the most unlikely and needy people, or doing and saying what he thought was right and true. All the frightened, careful people said Colin was risky, indiscreet, unreliable – ‘the most dangerous man in the Church of England’ said one, to Colin’s deep delight. But he was not dangerous or indiscreet or unreliable - certainly not in anything that mattered. He was just surprisingly un-scared.

If you ask why he was so un-scared, I think the answer is as straightforward as he was. He really did believe. He really trusted in a good and loving God as Jesus came to make Him known to us; and that confidence set him free to be the astonishingly life-giving, brave, generous and joyous person that he was.

That faith never wavered, not even in the few weeks between the diagnosis and his death. A fortnight ago Colin asked me to say something at a service he had been due to preach at in St Albans. He said this:

‘People have been shocked by the suddenness and seriousness of my illness, and some have asked ‘Why you?’ Well, why not me? We believe in a God who creates a world with freedom for life, and freedom means the potential for going wrong. Cancer is life gone wrong. But if God didn’t let go and let go wrong, He would be less than the God of the Gospel’.

Other people had said to him ‘It’s not fair: you’ve led a good life’. Colin replied, ‘How do you know? And anyway, whatever goodness I have is God’s gift. We rely on mercy, not fairness’.

It’s that confidence in God’s goodness that is the key to all the rest. What upset Colin about the Church was that in over his time as a priest it seemed to have grown narrower and meaner and less loveable, making God look narrow and mean and unloveable too; which for Colin was a sort of ultimate blasphemy. He wanted the Church to be big-hearted and warm and generous and kind because that’s how God is, and if we don’t reflect that, how are we going to show God to the world?

The papers and his detractors always portrayed Colin as an arch-Liberal, as if he were the leader of a faction obsessed with a secular agenda. It was never true, and it misses the whole point. For Colin it began and ended with God. The truth is that he was a traditional Catholic Anglican, thoroughly disciplined and orthodox in his faith, a man of profound prayer and penitence. His idea of inclusiveness was not that ‘anything goes’, but that we are all equally in need of healing, and therefore the Church must equally be a home for all. Colin welcomed people because Jesus did.

And that didn’t just mean welcoming gay people and women bishops, important as that was and is. He welcomed everybody. The first thing he did in Southwark was to take down the notice that said ‘Worship in progress – Cathedral closed’.

He welcomed children. It is not an overstatement to say that Colin warmed up and humanised two cathedrals, and hugely increased the congregation, at least partly by making sure that services were child-friendly. And of course he was brilliant with kids, being basically a big kid himself.

He welcomed students. He was a fantastic College Chaplain in Cambridge and London, with just the right combination of bounce and seriousness to get alongside them. All through his ministry he nurtured scores of ordinands who still see him as a friend and inspiration.

He welcomed the homeless. Colin was actually evicted from his flat in his first year as a curate because it was so constantly filled with vagrants and dropouts. He set up the first homeless night shelter in Norwich. He was a tower of strength to the Crisis centre in Southwark, and persuaded the Queen to visit them before she came here at the Millennium.

He welcomed everyone, talked to everyone from tramps to Royalty with the same ‘un-scared’ straightforwardness; and if you had some crisis or need where he could help, he’d move heaven and earth to do it. Edith is overwhelmed with letters from people he helped, practically and spiritually. One 95 year old lady wrote ‘All the times I met Colin were joyful ones. He always left me feeling God loves me and wants me to be happy’. Another wrote ‘He was such a fun, large, rude, honest man’. (I love the casual inclusion of ‘rude’ there. It is so true.)

Colin lit up rooms when he walked in. More than once I have seen gatherings of gloomy Deans cheer up just because he’d arrived and we could stop being bored.

There are endless funny stories, nearly all - alas - unusable in a pulpit. I’ll never forget the opening of the Millennium Bridge. Colin was convinced it had a design fault, and even as Her Majesty was wielding the scissors to cut the tape, there was Colin next to her in full canonicals jumping up and down as hard as he could to demonstrate the wobble. ‘O ye of little faith’ said Prince Philip, but Colin was right. The bridge was closed a couple of days later.

He was indefatigable. Dean Inge once said the life of a dean among his canons was like that of a mouse watched by four cats; but with Colin it was the other way around. At Chapter meetings he fired off dozens of wildly improbable ideas, while we squeaked our reservations and tried to rein him in. When Colin had his heart operation last year the consultant told him that for years he had only been functioning at 30 per cent power. I think it was Bishop Tom who said ‘Thank God we never knew you when you were 100 per cent’.

If you wanted an advert for the more abundant life the Gospel promises, there he was.

I want to pay tribute to Edith and the family, because , as Ben reminded us, this amazing generosity and hospitality meant they had to share Colin with everyone else. He was a great family man; he was rooted in a deep and obvious love of Edith and the children, but he was traditional too in putting his priesthood first and being always available; and there is a high price to pay for that. So I want to say to Edith, and Ben, Rachel, Ruth, Sonia and Trevor, on behalf of all of us, thank you for what you gave too, and for what you had to give up, to share him with us and make his incredible ministry possible.

Colin’s work extended to Papua New Guinea, South Africa, Zimbabwe, America, New Zealand and no doubt elsewhere. Partly in recognition of that Edith has asked that instead of flowers, any donations in memory of Colin should go to the Cathedral’s partner diocese of Masvingo in Zimbabwe. As Edith put it: Colin died at home in safety, surrounded by love, and having received the most wonderful care from the NHS. In Masvingo many die in terror and starvation and without medical help. The contrast is terrible. So please help.

Don’t be surprised if when you leave this service a biscuit is pressed into your hand in the shape of Santa Claus. Something I only learned about Colin this week is that his patron saint was Nicholas, because the name Colin is apparently a diminutive of Nicholas in Scots Gaelic. Nicholas does seem terribly appropriate. A big man with a big heart who laughs a lot; a man who loves God and people, especially children; a generous man who gives away all he’s got; a man who goes out to the poor and outcast and defends the weak against the strong. It was also Nicholas – let us remember – who at the Council of Nicea is said to have punched Arius the heretic on the nose because he was misrepresenting Jesus and failing to show the full extent of God’s love in the Incarnation. As patron saints go, that was, it seems to me, a remarkable fit.

Someone said about Colin, ‘He was such a big man. We felt we could shelter behind him and he would stand up for us and protect us’. That is true, but it should also make us ashamed. Why was it so often left to him and him alone to stick his head above the parapet? Why did he have to pay the price of telling the truths that every single one of us here knows?

Colin chose the Emmaus Road Gospel for his requiem because he wanted us to understand that the risen Christ still walks with us even if we can’t see him. And in this breaking of the bread Christ can still open our eyes, to see that all those who have died in him are present with us too. As the Bishop says in the Preface, ‘we join with angels and archangels, with Colin and with all your faithful people’. In the Communion of Christ’s Body, death doesn't divide us. And as we pray for Colin, I don’t doubt he is praying for us – that we’ll have the same confidence in God’s goodness that he had, and go out from here to be more big-hearted and more truthful and un-scared ourselves.

Lord Jesus, open our eyes in the breaking of the Bread.

Amen.

Feed my Sheep

2010-09-22T07:42:00.000+12:00

Sermon for Pentecost 16. Luke 15: 1-10

Loving God, may my words inspire thought and reflection on the marvelous complexity that is your creation.

I’m sure I’m not the only one, but I hate losing things, and if I do I can get quite obsessive about it. It’s most extreme when it comes to things like tools in the garage. Some of these have been with me for decades and though they are inanimate objects, they feel like faithful friends. I search several times over, huff and puff a few times, search again, throw a little tantrum and generally make a complete mountain out of a molehill. If do find the offending spanner anyone would think I had just won Lotto.

In our Gospel from Luke this morning, Jesus tells parables of loss and restoration, bringing powerful messages for in just10 verses. However if we left it at that, first I’d have to find something else to talk about, and second there is more in Jesus’ message than first meets the eye.

The last time it was my turn to preach, it was the story of the Good Samaritan. This time we have the lost sheep and lost silver coin, almost as well known. The problem with preaching on the well known parables is that everyone has heard just about everything there is to say about them before. To be frank, some of the things I’ve heard make me a little uncomfortable. Occasionally the words of Jesus in the Gospels are open to some pretty uncompromising interpretations. Take last week’s gospel from Luke in which Jesus tells us that to follow him we have to put him before even our closest family members. Michael Smart did a superb job of putting that into context and explaining it, but extreme groups have been known to use that very text to ‘convince’ their followers into cutting off all contact with their families and loved ones.

Though it’s not quite as forceful an example perhaps, I often feel the parable of the lost sheep falls into the same category. I’ve heard preachers use their sermon to gently (well we are Anglican after all) chide the congregation, suggesting they may be just a teeny weeny bit like the Pharisees because they’re not busy going out corralling sinners and hauling them in to Sunday morning service. It may be true, but the reality is that most of the people in church are probably struggling along with their own full lives, trying to fit a Christ-like ministry in with everything else, and if the opportunity presents itself – trying to reach out to love the unlovable. To offload the Pharisee guilt onto them is, in my opinion, inappropriate.

I also feel that to concentrate too much on verse seven, the repenting sinner, at the expense of the whole story is to miss the point a bit. Not that that I underestimate the joy in heaven at the event, but it’s only part of the whole picture. Some interpreters have used this story to place great responsibility on individuals to repent at the expense of the collective responsibility of all the baptized to take their mission out into the world.

Many interpreters of the parable of the lost sheep make is to take it out of context and assume it was for a wider audience. I have to be honest here and let you know when I say I believe, I mean I had a bit of a hunch, and when I researched it, I found more learned people than me had written on the subject. In effect the first seven verses of the Gospel reading show Jesus aiming a scathing critique at the Pharisees, making references to Old Testament scripture and calling into question their religious leadership. My primary source is a book called Jacob and the Prodigal by Kenneth Bailey, which as the title suggests is mainly about the parable of the prodigal son and the Jacob story in Genesis, however I gained many insights from it into the story of the lost sheep.

So what are we seeing in his first seven verses? Well the Pharisees are whingeing because Jesus is eating with tax collectors and sinners. Though Jews, tax collectors were universally reviled because they were contracted by the Romans to collect local taxes, and allowed to keep any monies they took over and above for themselves. And in this context, sinners, though it can mean naughty people, tended to mean people of low social standing who were lax in their observance of Jewish law. The Pharisees took this as a snub whether or not Jesus intended it. Hearing their carping, Jesus told them the parable, laden with a symbolism the Pharisees should not have failed to grasp.

When he asks them which one of them, upon losing one of their hundred sheep would not go and look for it, Jesus is cleverly playing with words: firstly with the words he chooses he’s equating them with shepherds, an occupation well below their social status, but also by doing so he is clearly alluding to Ezekiel 34: 1-10 Shepherds who feed themselves but not their sheep,… the sheep with no one to seek or search for them. They sit in judgement on the spiritual virtue of others, but do nothing to encourage or enable people to attain it. It is possible that the reference to shepherds may also have reminded the Pharisees of the prophecy in Jeremiah 23:1 which rebukes the shepherds of Israel and foretells of a righteous branch who shall reign as king.

Some commentators have made much of the fact that the Shepherd left 99 sheep in the wilderness to search for one, but wilderness actually refers to open country, suitable for sheep grazing and relatively safe. In any case it is likely the Shepherd would have had an assistant with whom to leave the sheep. That distraction aside, the shepherd would have been taking some risks going out into the night into less hospitable countryside in search of the lost sheep. Apart from natural hazards there were wild animals and bandits, and when he finally found the sheep he would have had no hesitation in putting it over his shoulders and carrying it, all 50 kilos or so, back to the village. It could be suggested that having referred the Pharisees back to old Testament scripture Jesus was now being prophetic, giving us a foretaste of the extraordinary sacrifice of one individual to save the lost sheep, which could be taken to represent humankind, indeed the physical image of the Shepherd carrying the sheep across his shoulders has been compared with Jesus carrying his cross.

At this point you may be thinking that if I can spend so much time delving into just seven verses of one chapter of one gospel, then perhaps I should get out more, but in doing so I have discovered rich symbolism and addressed my concerns about some interpretations of this parable.
So I’d like to deal with them one by one in the light of what I think I have discovered:
1. Pharisee guilt – though we are all capable of being little Pharisee-like from time to time, we are not the target of the scathing critique in the parable, but before we congratulate ourselves too much we must realise that we are in fact the 99 other sheep. In this context, not a bad thing, we are the extras in this movie. However if any one of us should stray and get lost we know that our Shepherd will drop everything and come and find us.
2. Repenting sinners and sheep – when a sheep goes astray it doesn’t plan it, it’s a sheep, it has a limited attention span. Sheep are usually preoccupied with the next mouthful of grass. Humans don’t usually stray from God with ‘malice aforethought’, often it’s just one thing after another’ and before you know where you are, God is just not in the picture in any more. In the story, Jesus is not dismissing the wider community of the people of God as mere sheep, he is denouncing the poor spiritual leadership of that time and the sheep symbolism points back to Isaiah 53:6 all we like sheep have gone astray.
3. Repentance and atonement – Christ reminds us that the lost sheep did not have to earn its rescue, it was enough for it to be lost.
In the story it was rescued by the freely offered grace of the shepherd, and the full cost of its atonement borne by the shepherd.

So apart from hopefully sharing my sense of wonder at the richness of imagery in this short parable, what is it telling us for today? Are we more than sheep thoughtlessly straying from time, occasionally getting totally lost, and less than hypocritical Pharisees looking down on the less devout than ourselves? Are we tax collectors and ‘sinners’ seeking to eat with Jesus?
I will speak for myself and say I am all of the above at various times, but most importantly, and this is the one thing I share with you all, I am also a shepherd. By being baptized I share a common ministry with all the baptized which brings a commission to be a shepherd, to seek the lost sheep and do all I can to return them safely to the flock.
But I won’t find any if I don’t look for them.

Sermon for Bible Sunday Kathy Freeman

2010-07-27T11:30:00.000+12:00

Bible Sunday Sermon
Today is Bible Sunday and I have been asked to speak today because of my connection with Bible in School. I thought I would start with a fairly basic question: what is the Bible? Well, I guess we all know what the Bible is, but what does the dictionary say? Mine says that the Bible is the sacred writings of the Christian religion consisting of the Old and New Testaments.
Chuck Missler, a respected teacher has coined the phrase ‘The great discovery is that the Bible is a message system: it’s not simply 66 books penned by 40 authors over thousands of years, the Bible is an integrated whole’.
But what do we tell the children that we teach every week – how do we get them to understand how important the Bible is? Shann gave us all a quote from one of her favourite books of Bible stories and this says:
‘Some people think the Bible is a book of rules, telling you what you should and shouldn’t do. The Bible certainly does have some rules in it. They show you how life works best. But the Bible isn’t mainly about you and what you should be doing. It’s about God and what he has done. No, the Bible isn’t a book of rules, or a book of Heroes. The Bible is most of all a Story. It’s an adventure story about a young Hero who comes from a far country to win back his lost treasure. It’s a love story about a brave Prince who leaves his palace, his throne – everything – to rescue the one he loves. It’s like the most wonderful of fairy tales that has come true in real life. You see, the best thing about this Story is – it’s true. There are lots of stories in the Bible, but all the stories are telling one story. The story of how God loves his children and comes to rescue them.’
That description is not far from Chuck Missler’s comment really, is it? The Bible is an integrated whole. But it is also a love letter. One of the songs I have shared with the children at Bible is called Love Letter and it tells us that the Bible is a love letter from God to us.
How many of us have letters put away somewhere in a safe place that were written to us by someone who loved us? Love letters. There is something special about going back to those letters and reading them – especially if the loved one is no longer here. In fact, if we were told that we had a few hours to pack a few belongings before leaving our homes for good, I wouldn’t be surprised if some of us selected the love letters as some of the important things we didn’t want to leave behind. Have you ever thought of what you would take if you had to make a quick decision before leaving your home for ever? Think about it for a minute.
The Bible is something that we should treat with love and respect and read often to remember the great love God has for us. I wonder how many of us would have named our Bible as one of the treasured possessions that we would definitely take with us in an emergency? I must admit it wasn’t the first thing to spring to my mind!
I am reading a book of the memoirs of Maurice Harvey, a photo journalist from New Zealand who worked for United Bible Societies for nearly 20 years. His stories about the places he has been are amazing, but one really stuck with me. He wrote that while they were handing Bibles out to young girls in a Rwandan refugee camp a lady stood watching. “I asked her if she would like one explaining that it was Swahili. ‘No problem’, she cried, ‘I can read English, French Swahili, Kinyarwanda anything.’
‘Why do you want a Bible?’ ‘Because I lost my Bible and I want to have the Word of God every time and read about Jesus.’
‘How did you lose your Bible?’ ‘When we heard the killers coming down our street, we had to grab some clothes and food and the Bible and I put them in a basin on my head and we ran. They were coming after us and shooting, and they bombed us and we threw all the things away so that we could run faster. A bomb hit my husband, that’s how he died.’
I decided to let this lady have the last remaining cassette player and New Testament in Kinyarwanda. She was so excited and said so many words of gratitude to us that we should allow her the privilege of looking after it. She said, ‘I just love to listen to God’s word and I will be so pleased to be able to play it to the young people here where I am because they have such a great need of the Scriptures.’ She whispered words of gratefulness and thankfulness in Kinyarwanda as the Word of God was played. Then she said ‘All my life I now give to Jesus. In the morning and in the evening I gather the children in my tent to pray.’” (Shooting the Globe, Maurice Harvey)
In the section of the curriculum that covers the Bible for this year we cover how the original Bible was hand written on scrolls and it was only about 500 years ago that Bibles were printed on a printing press and became more freely available. Even then for many years only the very rich or the churches owned Bibles and they were cherished and loved. Families used to gather after dinner to listen to the Bible being read (there is a lot to be said for life without TV!) Reading the Bible was an essential part of every day life for so many then. Now it is readily available. It is the best selling book every year. Thanks to the generosity of this parish we have been able to give each of our children at Mairangi Bay Primary a Bible (New Testament) at the end of each year for the last few years.
But I have been thinking about the way we regard the Bible and how that has changed in my lifetime. How many families start or end the day with shared ‘devotions’? Do we still think of the Bible as a Sacred Book? I remember that a few years ago only an ordained minister was allowed to read the Gospel in the Eucharist. In most churches in South Africa a couple of servers holding candles would precede another person carrying the Bible to the middle of the church where the priest would read the Gospel – and everyone used to turn to face the Bible as a mark of respect. Do you remember that? Now while I think it is good to have many people reading from Scripture, part of me wonders if we are losing a sense of awe for how wonderful the Bible really is. I think that the Waskia people have a deep love for the Bible and the enthusiasm and dedication of the team involved in reviewing the current translation and adding more books is all about this love. They don’t take the Bible for granted. They are excited about the opportunity to hear more of God’s word in their own language.
When I looked at the readings for today and saw that the Gospel reading was the story of Martha and Mary, I was very tempted to ask Carole if I could rather focus on that story, having just completed a fantastic study called Having a Mary Heart in a Martha World. There is so much in this Gospel story and it would have been easy to share some of it with you, but I think that one of the lessons I took from the book is great for this Bible Sunday. Mary was someone who was not afraid of what people would think of her as she went and sat at Jesus feet to hear His teaching. She did not fit in the close circle around Jesus. The teaching was considered for men alone in that culture. There was lots of work to be done that she was expected to do, but she ignored that and sat expectantly at Jesus feet totally involved in what He was saying. How often do we approach the Bible with that kind of excited anticipation? How often do we risk ridicule or censure for our enthusiasm for God’s Word? How often do we put off ‘important’ tasks so that we can spend time in God’s Word? Do we read the Bible because it is the thing to do? Or do we come to church on a Sunday and listen to the Scriptures being read and then go home and forget what they were about? How often do we read the verses of the appointed Psalm with anticipation and excitement rather than looking for the end of the verse and focusing on when the next verse we have to read begins? I sometimes do that. I hope I am not the only one!
In today’s Psalm 52 in verses 8 to 9 in the New Living Translation we read
8 But I am like an olive tree, thriving in the house of God.
I will always trust in God’s unfailing love.
9 I will praise you forever, O God, for what you have done.
I will trust in your good name in the presence of your faithful people.
Did any of us stop to think ‘Am I like an olive tree thriving in the house of God’? Did we mean it when we said I will praise you forever O God for what you have done? Did we? Do we praise God forever? Did we just say the words or did we say them with love? Did God hear a lot of voices or did he feel the excitement and love flowing from us as we read His word together?
When we heard the reading from Amos 8:1-12 today, did we think how terrible it would be if God withdrew His love from us as he did from His people in those times. Did we reflect on whether any of the accusations that were levelled at the people might apply to us? Did we offer up a quick prayer of thanks that by His blood Jesus has saved us from judgement such as that? Or did we even hear what was read? I challenge you to go back and read the passage again in your own time.
What about the Epistle from Paul ot the Colossians 1:15-28. There was a lot to absorb in that, but let’s look at verse 27 – this is the secret: Christ lives in you. This gives you the assurance of sharing his glory. Wow! Are we sharing Christ’s glory? Do people look at us and see some of that Glory shining out of us? Do we tell others about Christ, warning and teaching everyone with all the wisdom God has given us? Did we hear these words and wonder if there was something particular God was trying to say to us through them today? Or did we listen and then wait for the gospel / look to see what the song was going to be?
How can we change the way we live our lives today and this week and the rest of this year? Can we change the way we read the Bible? Can we eagerly anticipate hearing God talk to us as we study His word? The material from Seasons in the Spirit for today says ‘The call to take up the work of discipleship encompasses a call to ground our daily living in the word of God. We are called to listen to God’s word of grace, and then let it shape our lives each day. In spite of the ways we fall short as disciples as we live in God’s reign, it is Christ – and not our own actions – that holds all together.’
In my Scripture Union Bible notes Closer to God it tells us how to unlock the power of the Bible. It says ‘The Bible is alive. Its covers contain the most powerful force in the universe: the Word of God. That’s why when we read it the words can leap off the page and speak to us personally. These words have the ability to bring about change. The Bible is the handbook for life. Although it doesn’t have a precise answer for every question we might ask, through reading it we come to know God’s perspective and are able to make choices which will bring about good for ourselves and for our world.
Reading your Bible with Bible study notes you’re part of a worldwide family of people who read the Bible – God’s message to the world. To get the most out of the Bible you need to do two things: You need to read it expectantly and you need to read it regularly. Study notes are designed to help you do this.’
So my challenge to all of us (including me) is to make a point of preparing ourselves to hear God’s voice before we read the Bible, reading carefully, listening to what God has to say. Explore the meaning yourself. Ask what God is showing you about himself or your life. Then respond to what God has shown you in prayer for yourself and for others. Let’s make the Bible come alive for us. Let’s be excited and expectant as we read God’s Word. Let’s be amazed at what we learn about God and our lives and let’s talk to others about it!
God is ALIVE! The Bible is God’s Living Word – let us treat it with love and respect and cherish it as we hear from God his personal loving message for each one of us.
Amen

Sunday July 11th 2010

2010-07-17T12:50:00.000+12:00

Pentecost 7, July 11 2010
Sam Held

Earlier this week I was driving to work listening to one of the less serious radio shows, and they had a phone-in going on asking people about some of the strange things their parents used to say to them when they were children. The things people rang in with ranged from the fondly familiar, through the bizarre ending up with the frankly disturbing.
I was quite amused to hear that someone would take the trouble to tell an inquisitive child that the object of their curiosity was a wigwom for a goose’s bridle rather than tell her what it is: and there was a chilling familiarity about stop crying or I’ll give you something to cry about!
The ones that most puzzle me are the surreal ones, like you’ll be laughing on the other side of your face before too long my lad.

As a small boy I liked to hang around my Granny’s kitchen trying to be helpful, unfortunately I was a clumsy child and disaster often followed. My pleas of good intentions only invited the response that the road to hell is paved with them.

This is one of those sayings we’ve all heard, and not just in our childhood, and yet do we ever stop to question it? Assuming for a moment there is an actual tangible place called Hell, is it reasonable to assume there is a distinct road that leads there? Are we, each and every one of us, on some kind of personal trajectory, heavenwards or hell-bound? Is it even reasonable to ask this question? As Anglicans we believe in the concept of justification by faith, by faith alone, not by our deeds and good works, yet we openly strive to live righteously, to be good Christians. It is right that we should, because that is what is asked of us in the scriptures, but in its own right is not a fast-track visa for eternal life.

The lawyer in Luke’s gospel struggles to come to grips with the difference between observing religious law and meeting the (almost) impossible demands of possibly the greatest commandment, or at least the last bit that feels impossible: that annoying little postscript and your neighbour as yourself.

As surely one of the best known parables, the story of the Good Samaritan is often told as a series of contrasts: Jesus the patient teacher and the wily lawyer who tries to catch him out, the self-righteous priest and Levite and the selfless Samaritan. Good and bad, light and dark, the ever-present shadow side of our humanity only a brief decision away. Stop and help, walk away – stop and help, walk away …
The story works well interpreted this way, and the term ‘Good Samaritan’ has become established in our language to refer to an unlikely friend in need. Equally to ‘walk by on the other side’ occurs in general English meaning to do nothing when presented with a case of obvious need.

Life is seldom as clear cut as the ‘traditional’ take on this parable would have us believe though, and perhaps there aren’t any baddies (except of course the bandits - even the most liberal interpreter would class their actions as a bit naughty).
Take the lawyer, often seen as trying to trip Jesus up with cunning questions, but does Luke’s text reflect this? He shows respect, calling Jesus ‘teacher’, and answers his question diligently, citing Leviticus and Deuteronomy. Jesus shows no irritation in his response, in fact he approves of it and the exchange looks more like a healthy debate. The gospel text says that seeking to justify himself the lawyer asks his next question, the one about who is my neighbour? , and this has been taken to be a trick question. What centuries of identifying the Jews of Jesus’ times as his persecutors overlooks, is that in a faith based on Torah observance, the lawyer was asking for an entirely reasonable clarification, thus justifying his role as a ‘legal’ export on the Law and his place in the scheme of things.
Jesus uses a story to make his point to the lawyer but doesn’t give him the unequivocal definition he seeks; instead he leaves him with a challenge, the same one we face today who is my neighbour?

The priest and the Levite usuallyget a pretty bad press out of this story usually, but in the context of their circumstances what did they do to earn it? The parable suggests they were going down from Jerusalem which means they would have just finished a duty stint at the Temple, they would have been doing what they had trained and studied to do and were probably feeling pretty good, and pretty holy. Imagine what must have gone through the priest’s mind when he saw the man lying at the side of the road. “If I so much as touch that man I will be defiled, become unclean, I will have to undergo long and expensive procedures, make sacrifices to become purified, I will be severely criticised by my peers and family. The Torah requires a man in my position always to be pure - therefore if I do not touch him, then I am following the Law”.
That may have helped him at the time, but he could have had a bit of trouble living with it later.
As for the Levite, it’s feasible that he saw the priest stop momentarily then carry on, as the road descends steeply with many bends and one could often see travellers a long way ahead of you. When he saw why the priest had stopped, he too would have worried about becoming unclean and its implications, and might have taken the priest’s actions as a lead, permission if you like, to do the same.
Bear in mind that both these men have acted righteously in terms of the law of the Jews, and kept themselves pure.
Bear in mind also, that though the Samaritans and the Israelites were bitter enemies, they worshipped the same God and observed the same laws. So when this Samaritan traveller stopped and helped the wounded victim, he knowingly risked transgressing religious laws. He also, arguably, placed himself in great physical danger because if any passing Israelites had chanced upon a Samaritan bent over the body of one of their own they would have been likely to attack first and ask questions later.

If we take a ‘no fault’ look at all the players in the parable what is Jesus telling the lawyer when he asks him to identify who the neighbour was to the injured man in the story? Even at this point in his understanding the lawyer cannot bring himself to say the word ‘Samaritan’ – such is the depth of division – he says the one who showed him mercy. The priest and Levite were unable to allow themselves to help because of the depth of division between pure and unclean, between righteous observance of the Law and transgression.
The unspoken point, but one I believe that the lawyer would have understood, is that from the point of view of the victim the internal conflict between the joy and relief of rescue, and the horror of realising that the rescuer is one of the hated Samaritans cannot be underestimated. Without doing so explicitly, Jesus has returned the question who is my neighbour to the questioner, and returned it as a challenge Go and do likewise!
The lawyer learns how to inherit eternal life, but unfortunately not in a form that can translate into a code of behaviour, not in a form that is palatable even.

Can we actually say who our neighbour is? Is it perhaps anyone we encounter in need for whom it is in our gift to do something? Is it someone who does something to meet our needs regardless of who they are? - the unsolicited charity of a complete stranger?
These are the implicit questions in the story of the Good Samaritan, and they underpin the paradox of the (almost) impossible commandment to love your neighbour as yourself, which is that you cannot define who your neighbour is, because in doing so you will, by default exclude people, and among those you exclude there may be someone who could, like the Samaritan be a neighbour to you.

When one reaches a paradox it is difficult to reach a neat conclusion, and I do not intend to try. Some challenges remain just that – things we can aspire to, work hard to achieve but never quite attain and at best get a little wiser as we practice.
As a point for reflection, as we all share the ministry of the baptised, it would be nice to think we were a little ahead of the game in the loving our neighbour stakes wouldn’t it?
I was recently at a training presentation by an outreach worker from Auckland who worked on the streets supporting sex-workers at the lowest end of the ‘market’. At the end when time came for questions, a friend and colleague, a deeply committed, generous-hearted and loving Christian asked What can we, as Christians, do for these people? How many redundant words do you think are in that question?

2010-06-27T17:23:00.000+12:00

The Mantle of Love and Wisdom. Ann Mellor. June 27, 2010
Kings 2:2:1-2, 6-14 Luke 9:51-62 Galatians 5:1, 13-15
The word Mantle in the thesaurus on my computer offers the synonyms shroud,veil or cloak. The imagery of a mantle has been profoundly useful throughout my spiritual journeying.
I often envision the Holy Spirit as a cloak of protection. I don’t have to worry if I have the right words or actions in difficult situations, because I can rely on the mantle of God to surround and protect me.
A Mantle is often passed down through generations to so that the traditions and wisdom of one generation pass to another. A Maori friend of mine Richard told me when his mother died, she passed on the mantle of her cloak as wisdom to him. She literally handed the Maori feather cloak to him by placing it around his shoulders.
We can see how the Mantle protects the tradition of a community and provides the identity and belonging for the individual. I call upon Christs mantle in difficult times, because I am a Christian. I belong to the wider Christian community and belong to Christ.

But to fully receive the mantle of Christ we first have to let go. Our first reading from Kings, is a story about letting go. Elijah, the foremost prophet of the Hebrew Scriptures, passes his mantle to his successor Elisha. After granting Elisha’s wish for a double portion of his power he makes a grand exit in a whirlwind on a fiery chariot. Looks like a good day for Elisha. He is probably highly pleased at his newfound position and power. But he is to learn that God is not about power ,but is about love. God is about giving life, not taking it. God doesn’t reside any place, yet is found everywhere. The spirit of Elija rests on Elisha in the symbol of the mantle of the cloak reminding us that God is not in the past, but in the moment facing the future. We are to follow God’s loving spirit which will lead to God’s kingdom, by letting go of power, letting our old life die.
The theme of Pentecost is life in the Spirit as we heard in Galations. A life which brings us the freedom of not having to invent one ourselves. The question I ask is if we are given life and a mantle of wisdom, then why are we so busy building our own identity.
Rushing around fixing our life can have harmful outcomes - I often have fallen over trying to fix mine. We live in a world where we are told by the marketers that the product will make us better. We buy and create our own identity in todays marketing world – the car, the body …the list goes on. The way of Jesus on the other hand is a path from death to resurrection. From reliance on ourselves and our identity - to a life in the spirit of freedom. We are called then to leave behind the old identity and become born to a new way of being, a new identity, centered in Jesus, under the mantle of Jesus, to participate in the creation of the kingdom of God.

For us that means as disciples we are to act with commitment to challenge and share the pain by placing ourselves in the struggle – the struggle of the church and of the world we live in. By seeking Jesus in the present we look towards a mended creation, “a community of freedom” as feminist Theologian Letty Russell terms it. The Kingdom is already and not yet.
How are we to embrace this new way of being? We do this by challenging those in power, through our privileged position . This can be risky and painful needing confrontation or negotiation with those in power. It might mean challenging our councilors, sharing our views through talkback or the newspaper, or looking at our own relationships. We can glimpse the kingdom when we begin to draw on the mantle to make a difference. Letty Russell, says that as disciples we need to work on destroying the old house – our way of being, and build up a new way of being where God’s love is the authority, in “the Household of Freedom”. Begin where you are and make a stand. Power and authority don’t always need to be seen as domination and control. You can turn to your mantle and use the authority of knowledge given to you to make a difference.
As we are guided by the mantle we must hold in tension the kingdom metaphors that inform our faith. There is the Old Testament religion of promise, where God intervenes to save nations, speaks to prophets, and creates a covenant relationship with his chosen people. This sits alongside the Kingdom to come, the eternal kingdom that Jesus in the New Testament points towards. The Kingdom is also here now…yet still to come, and our part in that as disciples is to be ready to receive, to accept the gift of the mantle, to wait patiently and still in the presence of God and then to share that love to create a better world.
Some years back I discovered that following God and belonging to a Christian community, is something far greater than my family and my friends and my career, my invented life. I learnt a great deal about what it means to pick up the mantle.
I lived in San Francisco, on Nob Hill, just across from Grace Cathedral. The Dean was and is still Alan Jones. He is a big man with a big chasuble and he always stood with his clergy out on the forecourt encouraging all to come in.
His Cloak was the chasuble, his arms providing a veil or shroud of welcome and knowing. His cloak or mantle led me towards a far larger cloak, that which is Jesus. What times have you been passed a mantle that has led you in unexpected directions? In the safety of the mantle have you moved where you might not have gone before?
Under the mantle of Grace Cathedral I was able to begin to fully realize what belonging and identity meant in Christ. I look back and see the progression of my belonging to Grace Cathedral, first as an Episcopalian in America, then as an Anglican in NZ, then as part of the whole church, alongside all christians. We who are many are one body for we all share the one bread. We belong to Christ. This is our identity.
On the website at Grace they say this…”It is a community based in fellowship, witness, spiritual development and service within the context of a nurturing Christian community”. And it was that Christian community that nurtured my early years of getting to know Christ by providing a mantle for me, as I discovered that I needed a relationship with Christ to truly belong.
So how did I find the fellowship, witness and spiritual development that fed me, that led me forward under the mantle of Christ? I spent time on the edge, watching and listening as the seasons and colours affected the mood of the cathedral. Then I attended daily chapel before work, dressed in a big overcoat with my runners I loved stopping in at Grace on my way down Nob Hill to Market Street and work. The church was colourful, full of pageantry with it’s celebrations and the often theatrical gay community who found hope and inclusion here, having been expelled from the Catholic church in the late 70’s, early 80’s.
In amongst the fanfare, the theatre, the reflection, the stillness, and the rituals I felt the mantle of Christ protecting me, calling me on, to know more, to be closer in relationship with God. We are marked with the sign of the cross in Baptism and are given the gift of the mantle of God’s love and wisdom. God’s Cloak, veil and shroud. I was given this generous gift of God’s love and wisdom later in life again…at Grace Cathedral.
When have you felt the movement towards Christ, the call to know him more, to fully accept the gift of the mantle of God?
It came to me amid my chaotic life lacking in direction as I roamed overseas, following each latest whim. I was to learn that this generous gift challenged my murmuring, whining and complaining. It also showed me that we are “one body”, one community fed by God and that there was a strong sense of belonging under this mantel. Soon I understood that as ‘one body’ we are to be fed by God in order to feed each other.
As the mantle of Grace Cathedral has been powerful, showing me God amongst us, so too has the mantle of St John’s Campbells Bay. Here I found the love that sent me out in the world as a Deacon, the love that welcomed me back, the love that encouraged me to become a Priest and the love that is always present here in this special place…as the sign of the Kingdom of God.
The immense sense of belonging that I have felt here, is because the gift of life, is in the living out of the love of Christ, by each of you. This is the mantle I take with me. I have learnt from you that the gift of my identity is secure in God. There is no need to fret or fuss. I am sad to leave, yet secure as I move on with the mantle that has been handed to me from St John’s Cambpells Bay. Amen.

Trinity Sunday 2010

2010-05-30T17:33:00.000+12:00

Sermon – Trinity 2010, 30 May
John 16: 12-15, Romans 5: 1-15, Proverb 8: 1-4, 22-31
May my words offer insights and inspiration. Amen.
What's your favourite way of talking about the Trinity? Father, Son, and Holy Spirit? Creator, Redeemer, and Giver of Life? Presence, Wisdom, Power? Almighty God, incarnate Word, Holy Comforter? Or the one we used at our Easter service: God of Creation, Resurrection and Eternity? All of these phrases, and many more, have been used to refer to the Trinity. And just in case you couldn't tell from all those phrases, when we refer to the Trinity, we're talking about God. You may have guessed – today is a Sunday in our church year that we reflect on the Trinity – the triune nature of God, God as three in one.
But have you ever tried to explain the Trinity? Or even to understand it? God is one and yet we've got these three, what? Persons? Spirits? Beings? Things? So who and what is God? A triangle? Maybe God is like the Greek God Janus, the one with two faces, except that the Christian God has three faces. Or maybe God is a shape-shifter, one minute holy parent, another holy child, another holy spirit. "God in three persons,"
Talking about the Trinity is not easy, and many people would say, “What's the point of talking about the Trinity? It's the most useless doctrine in all of Christianity", which, on the face of it, sounds pretty cynical. But may be that is how we need to approach such a doctrine to really capture it. Jesus didn't ever mention the word ‘Trinity’; neither did Paul. It wasn't until the fourth century, 300 years after Jesus, that Christian leaders formalized the idea of the Trinity. They did it at the Council of Nicaea in the year 325. And I can tell you now, it was not an easy task and in fact there was much conflict! The result? The Nicene Creed, which we still use today in many of our worship services across the world. Then some more Christian leaders in the fifth century wrote another creed trying once again to clarify the Trinity, particularly the Jesus part. That Council resulted in the Apostles' Creed, which again will be familiar to many of us.
And all of that is well and good. But what do these old councils, creeds, and conflicts have to do with how we live our lives today? Should we simply over look them or even just ditch it? The idea of the Trinity is relatively new, it's hard to understand and nearly impossible to explain, so maybe we should just chuck the whole thing.
But the church has not done this, and I tend to think that all the intelligent, inspirational, creative people that have worked on church doctrine and theology should have least have some credit. If the idea of the Trinity is so useless, why has it stuck around so long? So if we stay with the notion of the Trinity what can we discover? Surely there's something helpful about the idea of the Trinity!
So I went to some trusted sources to get inspiration – I think I have almost exhausted my trinitarian analogies from my theology degree days. So I went to the internet. And the first file I opened up was helpful. The first analogy I found was from Dorothy Sayers. Dorothy Sayers is a Christian theologian and she wrote the book, ‘The Mind of the Maker’. She is actually one of Professor John Morton’s favourite theologians so I think I am on fairly safe ground here! Now, she suggested that we think of the play, HAMLET by Shakespeare? (Or any play for that matter.) Sayers said that the play was first in the mind of Shakespeare. Then, secondly, Shakespeare wrote it down on paper. Then, thirdly, the play was acted out on stage. Now, which of those three expressions are the play HAMLET? In the mind? On the paper? Acted out on stage? All three expressions are HAMLET. These are three different expressions of the same Hamlet. She said that is the way of God: in God the Father/Creator, God the Son/Inspirer, and God the Holy Spirit/Giver of Life; all three expressions are fully God.
Another idea I found in my trusted source suggested that the Trinity reveals the creative, the ethical, and the mystical - all being of God. Which I actually really liked! So let’s explore this.
The essence of God is creative. That's what God does, God creates. And Jesus' whole thing was doing good; God sent Jesus to show us how to live; that's ethics. And the mystical? The mystical is all ‘that Spirit stuff’: “prayer, meditation, being fully present with God, with ourselves, and with others. Now that may seem a little basic for some of us, but I think there is a whole lot in there that we can work with. This idea suggests to me that trinitarian theology takes us away from being too narrow in the ways we talk about, and the ways we experience God. God does not simply just create, but transforms. God does not simply do good, but lives it out in all of life. God is not simply spiritual, but is fully present in all we do. God of trinity broadens us. If we are indeed created in the image of God, then we too need to incorporate into our spiritual lives and our working lives and our families lives and our personal lives all of those things – our creative positive energy, modelling what we believe and what we value, and always bringing into everything we do the mystical, spiritual dimension.
That is indeed our challenge this Trinity Sunday; to be inspired by our concepts of Trinitarian theology so that we can live our Christian lives more fully. Even if we cannot fully understand the doctrine, (and believe me even the best minds on the earth struggle with this one), we can be transformed in what we think and do by reviewing how we create, how we work, and where we find nourishment.
And the important thing about the Trinity - Father-Son-Holy Spirit, creative-ethical-mystical - however we name it, is that all three partners go together, all three are equal, mutually-related, inter-dependent. And the image of God is this mutual balance of the creative, the ethical, and the mystical. And when the creative (our imaginative thinking), the ethical (what we do and how we decide to do it), and the mystical (how we pray) - when the creative, the ethical, and the mystical work inter-dependently in our lives, then we are working within the Trinity – we are in tune with God.
So what does this mean for us here at St Johns Campbells Bay? How can our trinitarian theology inform us and transform us?
Well, first of all I do not think that it is about being 3 different persons. Nor is it about dividing our community into those who are creative, those who do all the work, and those who are prayerful. Rather it is about recognising and bringing together all those things and more into each of one of us – so we can ALL participate more fully – in our thinking, our work and our prayer. Trinitarian theology is actually about bringing together all aspects of who God is and who we are. Contrary to how it may have been interpreted in the past, I do not think that it is about compartmentalising our theology – in other words putting God in different boxes for different occasions - or indeed putting each one of us into a box that might suit our personality or personal contribution as the people of God. Quite the opposite in fact! It is about bringing together everything that we value about God and about ourselves – and naming our diversity and difference within ourselves and God as being vital to our theology and us being church.
So, termed in that way, it means that we must work together inter-dependently. The creators of liturgy cannot work alone, the musicians of the parish cannot work alone; the home groups and prayer ministry people cannot work alone. We all need to work together to truly model our theology – being that of the trinity that indeed recognises the importance of bringing it all together as one.
Compartmentalising ministry is actually one of the most divisive things that church can do in terms of good theology – in my humble opinion. And that is why our Anglican church mission statement cannot be read as 5 separate statements, but rather one. They are to proclaim the good news, to teach and baptise, to respond to human need, to transform unjust structures, and to care for creation. You actually cannot do one without the other. And I do not think that is helpful what has happened in the past where councils have been set up to address just one statement on their own, because we then often omit to see the big picture or address the issues of the other – or even talk to each other, let alone work inter-dependently.
And so it is with God. Trinitarian theology for me is not about compartmentalising different persons or even aspects of God, but rather bringing together something that is very big and complex indeed. That is why explaining such a doctrine is not easy. But we can model such a doctrine in the way we be and do community. All of us – each one of us here – has the God-given potential to be creative (to come up with something fabulous), to do something amazing, and to bring it all to fruition with prayer and God’s spirit leading and guiding us; and to do so as holistic beings.
As I was writing this sermon I had a look at our parish website. We say about our parish – that it is a community that strives to be a loving, safe, welcoming faith community that is intellectually challenging, emotionally supportive, and filled with strength, integrity and social responsibility that spiritually inspires. It actually incorporates what I have been talking about - creative thinking, doing ministry and being inspired in pray. That is who we are! And that is who God as Trinity is!
So let us continue to do as God does! Work inter-dependently, value diversity and the bringing together of difference, recognising the complexities of life and not simply compartmentalising everything into little boxes. Being brave enough to create something new, do something new, and value something new, in the name of God, Creator, Redeemer and Giver of Life.
Amen.

Festival of Pentecost

2010-05-25T15:48:00.000+12:00

Pentecost 2010 - Rev'd Shann Craig
We most often celebrate Pentecost as the birthday of the church …however it seems to me from our readings and from our theme gathered and scattered, that a better way to describe Pentecost may be Graduation day!
May of course, is the season for graduations, and in my reading for this week I found this advice to new graduates "Let there be no distance between who you are and what you do."
It could well be our theme!

In the readings we see 2 different interpretations or functions, of the many different ones the bible use to try to describe the Spirit: one from before Graduation and after (though the spirit is one and the same!)

From the gospel reading we see the Spirit as advocate, helper, Paraclete!

There are the disciples gathered with Jesus.
And Jesus is about to leave them.
They have had 3 years of teaching, theory and practice.
They have experienced Easter and the Resurrection, and are now having some more teaching, just before Jesus ascension.

And what happens?

Phillip says. ‘Just show us the Father and we’ll be satisfied.’
Just show us God, that’s all we need!!

We all have times when we have this sense of dislocation or homesickness, or deep loneliness - a need, a longing - when things just don’t come together, when we feel this is all so, so hard, and we want to cry ‘Will you please give us something to hold onto.’

Show me God!

Have you ever felt: ‘I know Jesus is good, but what about God?’

Jesus says to Phillip: Have you not seen me?
All this time I have been with you? If you have seen me, you have seen God!

The unknowable God becomes known in Jesus, and the Holy Spirit who comes in Jesus name, is the one who shows us God, and will continue to do that.
The Spirit comes alongside not only as advocate, helper, comforter, but to make God known to us.
__

And then comes Graduation Day, but it’s not a cap on the head, but noise and wind and tongues as of fire!

And the Spirit experienced in the Acts reading is a Spirit of prophecy.

If we listen to what the Spirit is saying to the church I think we may hear: There is a prophet among us!
There are prophets among us!
By prophecy I don’t mean fortunetelling. I mean - interpreting what God is doing in the world around us. Having eyes of faith to see meaning.

Prophecy is truth telling- where and how we are seeing God at work.. Where God I working - where is God not allowed to be .. where God needs to be .
And interpreting.. making meaning.. constantly making sense of our lives in the world.. and we do it through the eyes of faith - this gift of the Spirit.

Pentecost was graduation day for the disciples. From being gathered, even behind closed doors, they were scattered to the ends of the earth, to do the work of seeing and telling where God is at work and where God needs to be!
We too can be prophets! Noticing God at work, noticing where God is not at work and needs to be! Seeing and telling, letting there be no distance between who we are and what we do!

It is very encouraging to hear people talk about Holy Spirit in their lives, and so we are going to hear some stories now.

Michael, Michelle, Sandy. Amy. Amy - Thank you.

To finish: Why do we tell and listen to stories? Why do we read Scripture? Not just to know what happened in the past, not just to know our history, but to make sense of the here and now. We gather to read and study scripture to be reminded of who we are, to give us the language the ideas the images and the promises that help us to be bearers of hope and joy, workers for justice, carers of creation, as we are scattered in the world.
"Let there be no distance between who you are and what you do."
Amen!

Let us pray.

In nudges and whispers.
Like a seed growing, imperceptible at first.
Like wind, invisible, refreshing, transformative. Like water, cleansing, renewing, powerful.
Unpredictably. Uncontrollably.
Praying: for us, with us, in us, through us.
Convicting, like a judge in a courtroom. Comforting, like a mother with a frightened child in the middle of the night.
We know her work by experiencing it. She will not be pinned down, can only be described with analogies.
But wherever there is forgiveness, redemption, reconciliation, grace, she leaves her fingerprints.
Always the one connecting, making us into the Body of Christ, God's hands in the world.
Amen

Unity

2010-05-17T19:36:00.000+12:00

Sam Held. Easter 7, John 17: 20- 26

As some of you know, I’m a linguist by background. I love words, I’m pretty comfortable with them, and never miss an opportunity to share my enthusiasm for language with those around me (whether they want me to or not)
It may surprise you, then, if I tell you that I had to read today’s Gospel passage several times before I was truly satisfied that I had captured all the nuances of meaning it contains. So why should it have caused me so much of a problem? After all, it’s not a long passage, and there are no complicated polysyllabic words in it. The biggest words only have three syllables.
The Gospel reading is not complicated in the slightest, but it is complex, extremely complex.

First there is the ‘surface complexity’, that of the use of language. Today’s Gospel is the third part of what has come to be known as The Great High Priestly Prayer, where Jesus prays aloud to the Father in the upper room on the night before his death on the cross. We must assume he intended his prayers to be heard by the disciples.
Because we are only hearing the third part, Jesus is referring to people previously made explicit by pronouns (they, those etc.), a device known as anaphora, and therein lies the task of unravelling exactly to whom he is referring.

I don’t find the first verse of the passage too difficult if I use my hand as an aid – “I ask not only on behalf of these (the disciples), but also on behalf of those (the rest of humankind) who will believe in me through their (the disciples) word”. Now I’m sure that many of you may have got there much more quickly than I did, but from there onwards, the hand is no longer of any use to me at all. At times Jesus may have been referring to people in general, and at times to the disciples.

I believe though, that in verse 24, When Jesus prays “Father, I desire that those also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory,” refers specifically to the disciples, and is an indicator both of Jesus’ desire to see the disciples rewarded, and of the Gospel provenance of the great apostolic tradition of the Church. I also believe that in the last two verses Jesus is again referring to the disciples, and referring also to Pentecost and the great Trinitarian unity soon to come.

Then we come to the deeper complexity – the layers of meaning we can find in this prayer.
It is perhaps in anticipation of the revelation of that amazing unity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit that Jesus prays for unity, for ‘oneness’ between his people on earth. Or is it perhaps that during his time incarnate among humankind he has seen just how urgent is the need to pray for unity?

On this Sunday, when our theme is breaking chains, perhaps we should consider the origin of the chains that fetter us, for I believe Jesus identifies it in this, his prayer, as our seemingly irresistible drive towards disunity.

As Christians we believe in, and pray for, peace and justice. We pray for the oppressed, whether by war or by totalitarian regimes, and we pray for our Christian bothers and sisters who suffer religious persecution in various parts of the world.
How truly marvellous it would be if all our prayers were answered and these chains of external oppression were to be broken.
Praying for the victims of disunity worldwide is something most of us would consider a natural part of the ministry of all the baptised. Worldwide disunity is somehow a concept that we can accept as a constant more easily than disunity closer to home.
Unity is one characteristic that cannot be ascribed to the human race at any point in its history, and even as followers of Christ often it eludes us. Put bluntly the church has not been a good ambassador for unity over the centuries.

Jesus prays on behalf of all those who will believe in him through the word of the apostles for oneness, for unity, but we might be forgiven for thinking that God declined to answer this part of the Great Prayer. The truth is that it is our stubborn and dogmatic human nature that prevents us from attaining unity.
As Christians we have argued from the first century onwards about the right and wrong way to worship; from time to time we have gone to war with each other just to prove that one way of godliness is superior to another.
Jesus saw the opportunity for worship and community whenever “two or three are gathered together in his name”, but burdened as we are by our humanity, when two or three are gathered together we only see an opportunity to give this group a title, write a set of rules and declare to the world that this group, and no other has all the answers.

The major churches have long recognised this problematic tendency and there are many ecumenical movements and initiatives, but people tend to be wary of unity as they often confuse it with uniformity (as, to be frank, do some of the ecumenical movements). Uniformity suggests to adherents of this or that denomination that they might have to sacrifice what they may feel to be non-negotiable beliefs.
A well-meaning pop song of the seventies suggested that what was needed to counter racism was a great big melting pot, which would turn out only coffee-coloured people, but God gave us our great diversity on earth and it is not ours to meddle with.
Back in the UK I was active in politics for some year in the Labour party, and during one particularly difficult internal upheaval there was a joke going around that went:
How do you know when unity has been achieved in the Labour party?
And the answer was:
When your friends start stabbing you in the front!
Like all good humour there is more than a grain of truth in this – unity is not uniformity, and definitely not conformity. Eli Stanley Jones, the 20th Century Methodist missionary and writer once said “Talk about what you believe and you have disunity. Talk about who you believe in and you have unity”.
Unity is about finding what is common to us all and we can agree on, and also agreeing on what is not, without comprising our love and respect for one another.
This has never been easy. It is quite difficult to love and respect someone who disagrees with you, especially if it’s about a deeply held belief. I can speak from my own experience about this. I have some really good close friends on the more evangelical wing of our church, and being openly on the liberal side, when our conversations turn to what they feel is appropriate to teach their children about (as an example) creation, we differ. We have had some difficult moments but worked through them with our friendship and respect intact.
I believe that in the Great Prayer Jesus recognised the immense difficulty humankind faces in achieving oneness. So much so that he prays to the Father not once, but three times – in verse 21, that they may all be one, in verse 22 that they may be one even as we are one, and in verse 23 that they may be completely one.

This is a staged invocation, each going further than the last, and the third complete. Complete oneness, transcending human divisions and disunity. Complete oneness for those who believe - with Jesus the Son, oneness with God the Father and oneness with the soon-to-be-revealed (at Pentecost) God the Holy Spirit.
That they may be completely one
It is well named the Great High Priestly Prayer, for it reminds us of the Eucharist.
Jesus calls us to unity, to oneness, to put aside our divisions, just as we are called to do at the sharing of the Peace, before invoking the Holy Spirit as does the priest in the Great Thanksgiving.
So what can we do in our own lives to move closer to this oneness? Well firstly, it is right that we continue to pray that the iniquitous chains of oppression across the world be broken, we do indeed have a duty to speak out against injustice wherever it is, but injustice doesn’t always live in far-off countries. It is often right under our noses. And what about those people closer to home, whose way of life might not be what we think of as proper, what about “finding what is common to us” not what’s different. As Christians it’s very easy to think that we’ve found the ‘right’ way to live life, but once again I return to Eli Stanley Jones (who incidentally influenced and was influenced by Ghandi) who wrote:
Victorious living does not mean perfect living in the sense of living without flaw, but it does mean adequate living, and that can be consistent with many mistakes.
I admit to many mistakes in my attempts at adequate living, and repeated failures in my efforts to achieve oneness, but I take inspiration from this Great Prayer that we make break the chains of our own making that imprison us in our divisions and disunity, and pray that you may too:

God of infinite understanding, make us one – not so that we are a single entity but so that as one and at all times we believe in you. We ask you this in Jesus’ name
Amen

St John the Evangelist

2010-05-02T19:17:00.001+12:00

Sermon – 2 May 2010, St John the Evangelist
Acts 11: 1-8, Rev 21: 1-6, John 13: 31-35
May my words offer hope and inspiration to live your Gospel. Amen
Are you bored? Do you want something new? We seem to tire so easily of the ordinary in life. Many of us are constantly looking for something new, something exciting. We want to be entertained by life and to have the latest of everything. We are often taken in by the advertisements that insist: This is really new, and you can’t live without it!

Advertisers are not the first to make such claims. Nor are they completely misleading. We are certainly living in times of rapid change. In many cases, we purchase an item one week, and there is a new and improved version the next. Furthermore, it is often extremely difficult to live, much less advance, without some contemporary devices. We are always faced with questions like: How new and improved does everything have to be? And what can I live without?

The readings for today make precisely this claim: This is really new, and you can’t live without it! But the biblical authors are not talking about something that is merely new and improved today but will probably be replaced tomorrow. When they speak of “a new heaven and a new earth,” “a new Jerusalem” or “a new commandment,” they are referring to eschatological reality. The Greek word used here indicates the extraordinary character of this newness. This is an act of God that lasts forever and ever Amen.

The reading from the Book of Revelation talks about this newness. The vision found there is rich in symbolic language. The new heaven and new earth represent all of reality. The scene is really a vision of the new age after the death and resurrection of Jesus. Jesus completely altered the powers of both heaven and earth. He invited his followers to enter into a new way of being, where they would dwell with God in their midst. It might be better to say that they would dwell there in the midst of God. This awe-inspiring vision declares that everything has been transformed, and continues to be transformed by the power of God. So if we are looking for something new, then look no further than our readings today.

And of course today is special for us at St Johns Campbells Bay because this week we celebrate the life and faith of St John the Evangelist – our patron saint, and even though we may ask ‘what is new in all that?’ we may just be able to find new perspectives on life when we think about what and who St John is for us today. So who is St John?

It is difficult to pinpoint exactly who John is. Although one Gospel, three epistles, and the book of Revelation all bear his name, it is far from certain that one and the same person wrote them all. On the other hand, there are striking similarities in style and outlook that encourage us to describe this literature as at least having John as the one who contributed through the oral tradition.

In the West, we tend to find John portrayed as a young, beardless figure. In the East, he is shown as a venerable figure with a long white beard. Let’s stay with our Western identity, and enquire further into the youthfulness of this Evangelist. He was the youngest of the apostles. A Galilean fisherman, who worked with his father Zebedee and his older brother James, was called by Jesus from the Lake to be a disciple. They were nicknamed ‘Sons of Thunder’, which suggests he had a fiery temperament – not scared to challenge and express emotions. He is known as being the fittest and the one Jesus loved. When the woman came reporting the resurrection of Jesus John was mentioned as the one who reached the tomb first – the fittest of all of them. Paul refers to John as the pillar of the church in Jerusalem. So John was a young man with lots of spark.

In contrast with other apostles, whose legends are about how they died a martyr’s death, legends about John are about how he survived martyrdom. The symbol of John holding a chalice out of which comes a snake or dragon relates to the attempt to poison him using the eucharistic chalice. But it was the assassin who died. There is also a story that John was boiled in oil, but he emerged unscathed, rather like the three young men in the book of Daniel (Daniel 3), and, in John’s case, looking younger than ever.

The point I think here is that John did live until he was an old man, and his experiences with Jesus were what formed him as a young man, and indeed transformed him as he experienced the death and resurrection of Jesus. As an older man he proceeded to spread the gospel, establish the church and write the story down. He was a man of depth and great theological insight.

So that is all very interesting, you might say, but what relevance does he have to us today and especially here at Campbells Bay? My first response is let’s explore for a moment what may have inspired him in his amazing faith journey? May be it was the miracles Jesus performed? May be it was the way he was treated as a young man, and called by Jesus to be a follower? May be it was Jesus great acceptance of a man with a fiery temper? May be it was simply his evolving reflection and appreciation of what Jesus offered and who he was? Certainly his theological reflections on a new heaven and the new earth must have been formed by Jesus death and resurrection. There were probably many more things that inspired John, but none of them were simply just a short term fix. It involved transformation and new beginnings over a whole life time of experiences with Jesus in John’s case. And this too is the case for each one of us. All our experiences of Jesus collectively are transformative and life-changing. Just imagine if we, like John, wrote down, or told, our stories of faith. I am sure others around us would be inspired, and we too would certainly be inspired and excited as we put our faith story together.

But I have not answered the question - So what is new?
In the Gospel from St John this morning, Jesus talks about a new commandment; a new way – this is radical – you can’t get better than this in terms of new and amazing and exciting theology! Jesus instructs his disciples to “love one another.” Here he speaks of agápe, a love that requires total commitment and trust. It is the kind of love with which God loves us, a love that should be the model of the love we have for others. When we examine the demands of this love, we realize just how revolutionary it is and what a change in attitude it requires. This is new, not because it is the first time that Jesus mentions it but rather because love is a permanent creation, a daily innovation, the ongoing search of ways to get out of ourselves and make the other the centre of our lives. I am sure John was inspired by this.

The new kind of love that Jesus holds out to us might require us to open doors that we have closed against others, to respond to appeals that cry out for our help, to forgive oversights or mistakes that someone may have made. This love opens our eyes to facts that we might otherwise overlook: that the poor in the world belong to our family; that those who live in despair might be saved by our care of them; that peace can come to the world through our efforts. “This is how all will know that [we] are [his] disciples, that [we] have love for one another.” Old stuff in one sense but potentially radically new, according to how we practice such love.

John’s vision of the new heaven and the new earth remains in the future only because we have failed to live it in our present. Jesus has risen from the dead, and now all things are new. “The old order has passed away.” We have entered the age of fulfilment. It is within our power to fashion a world, a country, a neighbourhood, a family where there is genuine love for one another and sincere concern for the well-being of all.
We have the power through our relationship with Jesus to create a new world for people around us.

And of course many people are doing just this. That is why people who do live this extraordinary love stand out from the crowd. They might be ridiculed for their manner of living, but they nonetheless show by it that they are God’s people and God does indeed dwell with them.

We are Easter people and it is this that brings new and exciting aspects to our lives. We have been raised with Jesus from the dead; we are indeed alive!
So do not hold on to a belief that a new heaven and a new earth is to be reserved for life after death, or a future age; we this very day can experience such a promise. Newness is not always about trying to keep up with the latest things, it is also about trying or striving to bring forward that which is valued by past generations, such as John, that deserve our attention. It is about looking at our world, our creation, the people around us in a completely new way; because the love God is talking about never runs out and it brings new insights and new dynamics and relationships every day. The potential never runs out.

So next time you feel bored with the every day life stuff….think about loving just a little bit more! And who knows, anything is possible where we live in world where God offers us an experience of a new heaven and a new earth everyday. Let us love one another as God loves us.
Amen.
Look here for more about St.John

Change!

2010-04-18T18:19:00.000+12:00

Theme:
The Way Forward
Sunday 18 April 2010

Acts 9:1-6, 7-20

Psalm 30

Revelation 5:11-14
John 21:1-14
In the name of God – who is love. Amen.

“The only constant is change” is an expression of which many are familiar, but is in reality often met with resistance – especially in the church. Yet as today’s focus passage from Acts reveals, change is part of our heritage of faith. We are people of a living Spirit who calls and guides us in ways towards inclusion, healing and witness.

Yesterday I went to a very special service at the Cathedral, yes it was the Ordination and Installation of Bishop Ross Bay our new diocesan Bishop of Auckland. And it was a wonderful service full of colour and ceremony.

And yesterday’s service is certainly a ‘change’ for our Diocese. Bishop Ross will bring his own unique style of leadership to the role of Bishop, there maybe many changes, changes in Archdeaconries, staffing changes in the Diocesan Office and a new Dean for the Cathedral.

Today’s reading from Acts is about the change that happened to Saul as he walked along the road to Damascus. The encounter that Saul has with the risen and ascended Jesus begins with a flash of light that puts Saul on the ground. Then there is the voice identified as coming from “Jesus whom you are persecuting” that calls Saul by name and directs him to Damascus. He is to wait there until he is “told what you are to do.” When Saul gets up, he can see nothing he has been blinded, and is led by his companions to Damascus.

Today’s story also focuses on the story from Ananias perspective, who is asked to follow Jesus in unexpected and daring ways.

His story is overlooked in the drama of Saul’s experience. Ananias is described as “a disciple in Damascus.” Christ appears to Ananias in a vision, telling him to go to Saul. Like the rest of the dispersed Christian community in the area, Ananias had good cause to mistrust Saul. Saul had done so “much evil” to the church, and had authority from the chief priests in Jerusalem to “bind all who invoke” the name of Jesus Christ. Yet, Christ assures Ananias that Saul “is an instrument whom I have chosen.” Ananias is challenged to a turning of his own, and accepts the risks of going to Saul to bring healing to this former enemy.

The Spirit brings restoration to Saul through Ananias’s word (“Brother Saul”) and touch. The narrative ends with Saul’s proclamation of Jesus as the Christ. Both Saul and Ananias have had encounters with Christ that transform them for bold witness, and will later transform their communities and the others they meet. Tradition includes a name change for Saul in this encounter, and he takes on the Greek name Paul. And Paul goes on to travel to many places preaching the word of Jesus everywhere he went.

We may never share anything that is quite as dramatic as what Saul experienced, but we may all be able to share some elements of what countless numbers of people have undergone in their conversion to following Christ.

I was reading Bishop Ross’ article in the Anglican last week and I was impressed by the fact that he came to know God through the nurture of the church youth group, and the local Anglican Vicar Lloyd Cullen. He writes that “ he had little to do with the church, but while he was at High School he was invited to take part in a tramping trip to Mt Tongariro.” He says “the help and care from those young people left a lasting impression, it was genuine friendship, given selflessly to a complete stranger. It was given freely and did not have to be earned.” He was then invited to join the church youth group and new friendships began to deepen, and he experienced an understanding of what faith was all about. He says “My vicar planted the thought of ministry, though I did not pay it much heed at that time.” At the age of 21 he enrolled at Bible College (now Laidlaw College) to study theology where his journey towards Ordination, Priesthood and now Bishop began.

Bishop Ross says “I came to faith through the ministry of one of our parishes and I have been nurtured through the ministry of many others.” He was led by the spirit and was open to going on the youth club tramping trip, and this has become a true “walking track” experience for him, and he says he still likes to go tramping.

I believe we all need to be open to what the spirit sends us and the experiences and opportunities that happen to us. We need to be aware and seeking to follow where the spirit leads us.

As a young mother in Wellington, I was nurtured to grow in faith by a group of young Christian mothers. I took my daughters to a playgroup which was run by the local church, much like Shann’s “Mums and Little Ones group” that we have here on a Thursday morning. Out of this playgroup began a ‘home group’ where this group of young mothers met and discussed bible passages and so my faith deepened and grew. We were open to the spirit leading us to new ways of exploring our faith and were given a deeper understanding of Jesus Christ. And we all had a common interest that binded us together and that was our children. Now some of those children have children and they themselves are young mothers. I went back to Church in Wellington just before Easter and attended their “Mainly Music Group” for young children and met a lady there who had been in my original group, she was with her daughter and granddaughter. So the cycle of caring and ministering for others continues in that place but in another name: that is “Mainly Music”.

So what do these stories tell us?

Christ calls us, restores and commissions individuals and communities to serve as witnesses to transforming and enduring ways of love. In following this way forward, we encounter God, in whose presence we live and serve. We are God’s hands and feet and voice in this World. So how do we and our church understand the mission we have received from God?

Can we be more nurturing to others, especially visitors to church services? Can we be more involved in church activities, not just coming to church and sitting in the pew? I believe we need to become involved, to be able to share our faith, attend home groups, participate in Sunday services welcoming at the door or tea duties or doing readings. Assist with the young people’s activities, or as Kathy last week requested, help with Bible in Schools. As Bruce Pratt said last week, the rewards and the satisfaction you get back from helping in such small ways can be so rewarding and fulfilling. There is so much we can do as individuals in the community to share our faith and to care and nurture people.

What is required for us to risk changing?

Its not much - simple everyday things like talking to each other and often we find we have a common point of interest to share and discuss. And the God’s Spirit will be there to lead and guide us as we reach out to others.

Bishop Ross challenges us all in his letter, which is included in today’s pew sheet. He says “The vision statement speaks of living out our mission in relevant and innovative ways. I challenge you to form greater connections with the wider communities in which you are placed so that your ministry is genuinely contextual to your situation and the Church is seen as reaching out in service to others and in proclamation of the Risen Christ. In these ways we can work to see God’s kingdom come on earth.”

Change can bring about uncertainly about what the future holds for us, but we are people of a living spirit, a spirit that calls and guides us towards a better way of living, a better way of being church in our community. On this third week of Easter we continue to explore what it means to live as the Body of Christ and I pray that those gathered here today for worship will receive new visions of how to be part of an ever expanding body of witness. I pray that the spirit will show us the way forward, leading and directing us, as we work together in our church community and the wider community towards the fulfilment of the vision which God has given to us.
Amen

Revd. Isabel Mordecai 17/4/2010

References:
“The Anglican” Easter 2010 pg 11
A Letter to the People of the Diocese of Auckland from Bishop Ross Bay. 18/4/2010
Seasons of the Spirit Congregational Life – Lent and Easter. Pgs 96 – 107

2010-04-13T18:43:00.000+12:00

Sermon 11 April 2010 – Giving and Thanksgiving Sunday
Acts 5: 25-32, Revelation 1: 4-8, John 20: 19-31

May my words offer inspiration, challenge and response. Amen.

What do you give?; a rather imposing question, that we are very reluctant to ask....especially after the recent media coverage over the last couple of months with regard to some institutions that under the name of church have, in my opinion, not been responsible for the practical needs as well as the spiritual nourishment that we might all desire in ‘being’ church. Through pressure to give more and more and more and more, especially financially, people are desperately struggling to pay bills and even to eat. And rest assured - that is certainly not how I think God wants it to be.

Rather when we talk about giving and gifting to the church and to the wider community we are responding to offering some of our gifts back that we have been given; gifts in terms of money, yes, but also in terms of talents and time and love. It is actually about spirituality.

Bishop Richard Randerson promotes in his book ‘a Word for the Season’ that spirituality is to do with using our gifts well. Spirituality is to do with life, what we believe, what we value, how we relate to others, how we see ourselves, and to what in life we devote our energies. Spirituality is to do with sharing with others. And we all have ideals about this.

A journalist once interviewed a farmer and asked him what he would do if he had two farms. The farmer replied he would keep one and give the other to someone who needed it. (The farmer was indeed an idealist). The journalist next asked what the farmer would do if he had two houses, and received the same reply. “And what”, said the journalist, “would you do if you owned two horses?” “I’d keep them both for myself”, said the farmer. “Why?” said the journalist, “what makes the difference?” “You see,” said the farmer, “I own two horses.”

It is indeed much harder to put into practice our ideals when we face the reality. But facing the reality is what we are challenged with today. In real terms it may not be appropriate, or wise, to give away half of everything – probably not. But in real terms there is a place in each of our circumstances where we can be generous; where we can give back. And that is up to each one of us. But it is about sharing.

As Bishop Richard suggests, spirituality is sharing whatever we have, be it in terms of possessions, time or human compassion, with others. Spirituality is to do with using the gifts we have to serve others. To illustrate Bishop Richard talks about a woman who used to lecture in Law at a University, and she would try to talk to the students in class about justice. “Look, Miss,” they said, “we’re not really interested in justice; we’re here to get a qualification to enter a prestigious and highly paid career.” Now I am sure that this is not the case with everyone who goes to Law School. But the same attitudes can arise in any work or profession. The point is how we ‘share’ what we value in all components of our life is part of our spiritual walk.
By contrast I think of the famous New Zealander, the late Sir Edmund Hillary, a humble bee keeper who was the first to conquer Mt Everest (with Sherpa Tensing Norgay in 1953) was so grateful for the support of the people of Nepal that he devoted much of the rest of his life to building schools and hospitals for them.
Spirituality is using the gifts we have received from God not only for our own enrichment, but in the service and enrichment of others.

And this morning, our Giving and Thanksgiving Sunday is about reflecting and giving God thanks for all the amazing gifts we are given throughout our lives; in our relationships, in our positions of responsibility, in our workplaces, in our families, in our homes, in our communities, and in our churches. Such gifts are God-given, and such gifts are to be shared.
But what does our Biblical readings set down for today say about giving? The readings for the Sundays after Easter are meant to provide religious instruction, primarily for the newly baptized, but we all can benefit from this teaching. There are several points for consideration. The first concerns our responsibility for handing on the religious tradition that has been handed down to us. In other words, handing down our gifts of tradition to the next generation. As Christians, we are all called to this responsibility, regardless of our age, our occupation or our state in life. How is this to be done? Actually, the ways are quite straight forward. We hand it on through our modelling of the gospel, through loving, through sharing, through giving, whether it is done formally or informally; we proclaim the message of resurrection, new life and love as we live out its ethical values. What we say and how we act proclaims, “We have seen the Risen Christ.” How we share the gospel is often how others experience the gospel. A challenge for us all today - Can people honestly say through what we do and say, ‘I have seen the Risen Christ’?
A second point, in our readings today, concerns the role the Christian community plays in our lives. Community-based societies, like those described in the Bible, are well aware of the importance of belonging to a group. Membership gives identity, meaning and support. Today’s readings confirm this. There is a communal dimension to every post-Resurrection appearance of Jesus. In fact, Thomas’s predicament (his doubting) was a consequence of his absence from the community of disciples a week earlier. God’s embraces community. We live in a society that values individualism and so often it is harder for us to work as members of the body of Christ. But what we give as individuals is limited - it does not go as far as we would like - in terms of proclaiming the gospel of love, but if we put our resources together we can indeed function more effectively as a community and make a bigger positive difference to the world around us. So people can indeed say, ‘I have seen the Risen Christ’. So we are to give to the church so that we can collectively proclaim and share the gospel to the wider world. And we are to give to the church (financially, practically, spirituality and emotionally) so that we can ‘be’ community.
But our readings today also highlight that we are not perfect and often we do not always get it right and sometimes we need to be inspired. Sometimes life is so hard just to simply survive and meet our own needs that doing and giving anything more just feels too hard. Sometimes we have been hurt by the church or society and feel resentful, quite rightly so in many cases. Sometimes we doubt what we are doing? Sometimes we doubt what we believe. So how can we even try to give when we do not want to even receive?
It is important for us to remember that Jesus does not come to the disciples in a blaze of glory, surrounded by angels or accompanied by sounds of trumpets. Rather he comes quietly; he seems to surprise the disciples in our Gospel reading this morning. And he comes with his wounds. He is not all neat and tidy, but still bears the marks of his suffering, the marks of his humanity. As humans, we struggle to hide our woundedness as a sign of weakness, yet the risen Christ still bears his woundedness and comes to meet us and bring us peace. Christ’s resurrection gives us hope that we will be healed and made whole – we can indeed share and gift to others, even if we do not feel worthy to do so, and even if we do not feel ready.
When the risen Christ came to the disciples in the upper room, he brought them peace, he breathed his spirit on them and commissioned them to live and share the message of love, forgiveness, and peace. Jesus’ appearance to Thomas reminds us that doubts do not disqualify us from discipleship. Jesus says to Thomas and to us, “Do not doubt, but believe.” The theologian Paul Tillich said that doubt isn’t the opposite of faith; rather it is an element of faith.
On this April morning, when the world outside our doors has put away, or more likely eaten, the Easter eggs and chocolate bunnies and moved on, we continue to be challenged to live the resurrection story. We are challenged to reach out and embrace the future in faith, believing that Christ’s resurrection will enable us to make a difference to the world in the gifts we give. We are challenged to seek peace and reconciliation, knowing it is the work of Christ and the Church. And most of all, we are challenged to remember that while we may look at ourselves and see elements of doubting Thomases, God looks at us and sees the best: God sees beloved people, faithful friends, spirit-filled partners in the ongoing work of creation. Resurrection is a gift God brings to us. Resurrection is what brings us new life and new opportunities. Resurrection is not simply a one off event but the Risen Christ brings us opportunities every day to experience new beginnings, new life in all it fullness. And so it is up to us as to how we respond to such a gift. And it is up to ‘us’ as a community. Does what we give, bear witness to the resurrection? Can we indeed give something of what we have received, so that people can say ‘Christ is risen! Alleluia!’?

Why Are You Weeping, Mary?

2010-04-07T09:50:00.000+12:00

Easter C
Why Are You Weeping, Mary?
St Johns Campbells Bay, 2010
John 20:1-18
May my words inspire and enliven our faith. Amen.

“Woman, why are you weeping?” the angels asked her.
Jesus asked her the same question, “Woman, why are you weeping?”
Why are you weeping when it is Easter Sunday? May be we could ask ourselves the same question – Why do we weep?
Well, we could say it is because we feel deeply about something or more likely someone. It moves us, it affects us way beyond our minds, it is our passion and deep love; full of emotion. Weeping helps us express what we can often not even begin to put into words. Weeping is what we do when we are deeply hurt, upset, or lost or afraid, or absolutely exhausted, or disappointed, or devastated, or relieved; when we are deeply moved.

Today, at this Easter service, we gather here to worship as Christians have done for centuries. And we acknowledge that it has been a pretty rough week emotionally. This morning we enter into the Easter story, told from St Johns Gospel. Women, over two thousand years ago, who came to the grave of Jesus on that first Easter morning were no doubt absolutely exhausted, emotional drained, deeply lost and hurt and probably a very afraid and disappointed – they were devastated.

These women had witnessed the awfulness of Good Friday; the whippings, taunting, suffering, horrific death of Jesus. These women were devout followers of Jesus. These women, at the break of dawn, quietly walked along the path to the place of Jesus’ burial. It was still dark, and they carried with them their ointments, their perfumes, their oils to anoint the dead body of Jesus on that Sunday morning.
And our Gospel according to St John focuses particularly on one woman; Mary Magdalene. The Gospel of John tells us the Easter story of Mary Magdalene.

Mary Magdalene was deeply attached to Jesus. The word, “magdalene,” means “from Magdala” and Magdala was a small town near Capernaum. We know from the first three gospels that Jesus had healed her of a disease of demon possession. Mary Magdalene accompanied a band of women who traveled with Jesus and his disciples. This band of women often paid for the disciples’ food and supplies. This band of women was at the crucifixion of Jesus and saw it all. As, with the other women,
Mary Magdalene’s heart must have been devastated, as she saw Jesus crucified. And now according to the Gospel of John, she came to Jesus’ grave early in the morning while it was still dark. She saw that the stone in front of the grave had been rolled away and so she ran to find Peter and John to tell them what had happened. I assume that Mary Magdalene ran to the Mount of Olives where Jesus and his disciples stayed overnight when Jesus visited Jerusalem. She found Peter and John. John was not called John but the disciple whom Jesus loved. Many Biblical scholars assume that “the beloved disciple” was John, who contributed greatly to the account we have in the Gospel of John. In other words, Mary found Peter and John, and John became the equivalent of an eye witness at the scene of this event.

Peter and John ran to Jesus’ grave. Sure enough, the gravestone was rolled away. John, the younger, got there first. John bent over and looked in but did not go in. Then Peter, the older fisherman, finally got there. They both walked into the grave, Peter first, and saw that Jesus’ body was gone. They saw the linen shroud in which Jesus’ body had been wrapped lying there. The linen cloth, which had been on Jesus’ head, was rolled up and not with the linen wrappings that had been on Jesus’ body.
The Gospel of John tells us that at that very moment, John believed. He was making a faith statement about himself. John had not seen the Risen Christ, but in that moment of looking at the linen clothes, he believed. John still did not understand the Scripture that Jesus would rise from the dead. Even so, John believed, before Peter, before anyone else.

John, the teller of details, continues his story, focusing particularly on Mary Magdalene. The Gospel gives us much detail: As Mary was standing outside of Jesus’ tomb, she was crying. The Greek word implies “weeping deeply or sobbing.” The word for “weep” occurs four times in this story. As she was weeping, Mary bent over to look into the tomb. As she was bending over, stooping, looking into the tomb, weeping, she saw two angels. And the angels asked a pivotal question of Mary, “Woman, why are you weeping?” And that is the key question for today, “Why are you weeping Mary?” That question echoes through the centuries and into our hearts today, “Why are you weeping?” Mary replied, “Because someone has taken away my Lord and I don’t know where they have put his body.” Then, after Mary had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there but she did not recognize Jesus. She thought it was the gardener. Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? What are you looking for?” And then Jesus said, “Mary.” She turned and said to him in Hebrew, “Rabonni which means Teacher.” Jesus said, “Do not hold onto me for I have not ascended to my Father. Go and tell the other disciples that I am ascending to my God and your God.”

And Mary went and told the disciples, “I have seen the Lord.”! And I can imagine that Mary Magdalene was still weeping – indeed her deep, deep sadness had turned to amazement and jubilation, but her tears symbolised the deep passion and feelings that she experienced as she expressed her love and relationship with Jesus.

Do we too weep as we experience Jesus’ death and resurrection – are we so deeply affected that people might ask us, ‘Why are you weeping?’. And if they do ask us, can we fully explain why? - Probably not, but my point is that the deep, deep emotion that Mary expressed as told by St John can deeply, deeply move us and inspire us. As a follower of Jesus, Mary’s whole being was affected so deeply and so beautifully and so passionately that it was indeed her that Jesus chose to appear to first. What an honour!

So Easter morning is one of jubilation – of great joy at the resurrection of Jesus. It is a morning where we experience great passion, great love and deep emotions. It is about new life – how amazing is that!

Today, Easter Day, our punga logs (which have been our Lenten symbol in the church) have been resurrected by being amongst new life and beauty; flowers and greenery bringing joy to all. But in order to have got there we have been there a long journey of Lent. But a journey that has to be taken; as flowers grow out of seeds that have died and are transformed, new life grows through the mystery of the cross.

So may be my question to all of us is – why are we NOT weeping? This life-changing, amazing, earth shattering reality cannot help but move us even if we take it on board ever so slightly and lightly.

The hope of the resurrection is that this world is not just where Jesus died - this world is where Jesus lives! And because Jesus lives, we have been set free to live as well. Easter did not happen just once in the past. It has the potential to happen every day. Each of us can experience death and rebirth in our every day lives. Today is the festival when all those “little” resurrections are brought together and integrated with the overarching resurrection, which is the core of our faith.

But sometimes resurrection is hard to believe in. Some days it is hard to see with eyes of faith. Some days it is hard to see new life amongst us. That is why we need the church – each other, and also our traditions and reminders of the biblical stories and resurrection event - so that in those times of struggle and doubts, we can support and grow one another's faith. That is why we celebrate communion; the sacraments might seem like child's play to the world. Eating bits of bread, drinking sips of wine - to a casual observer it would appear a harmless tea party. But when we look with eyes of faith, when we listen with ears of hope, when we experience such passion and emotion as Mary, we discover anew Mary's gospel: I have seen the Lord! When we eat this bread and drink this cup, we dare to imagine a different world, a world not imprisoned by the powers of evil and death, but set free for love, justice, peace and new life. How can we NOT weep at such a reality?

I often wonder what happened to Mary Magdalene after she was the first person to have seen Jesus? You would think that Mary Magdalene would have become a legend in the earliest church, that she would have been talked about and written about and sung about in the most ancient traditions of the church. But Mary Magdalene disappears into the passing pages of human history. That is, Mary Magdalene is not mentioned in the Book of Acts, nor in the letters of the Apostle Paul, nor in the pastoral letters of the New Testament. She is not mentioned in ancient church history. We don’t hear about Mary Magdalene until the Middle Ages when Mary is associated wrongly with the woman caught in adultery or associated with the woman who washed Jesus’ feet with her tears. But we cannot loose Mary’s story; her passion.

For me, I remember Mary Magdalene as the first person who experienced Jesus from the tomb. She experienced the resurrection and her belief transformed her feelings of sadness into deep emotions of joy. She is the one whom deeply loved Jesus and through such emotion she wept!
So why then are we NOT weeping?
Can we too experience such deep emotion as we celebrate resurrection today?
Amen.

Journeying Together

2010-04-02T18:26:00.001+13:00

Journeying Together – from a three tikanga church perspective
Good Friday Reflections, 2 April 2010, St Johns Campbells Bay, Michael Hughes

I have been asked to reflect briefly on this Good Friday around the theme of ‘Journeying Together’ from a three tikanga church perspective.
I do this out of my experience, however limited, of working and ministering at the provincial or international level in the Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia / te Hahi Mihinare ki Aotearoa ki Niu Tereni, ki Nga Moutere o te Moana Nui a Kiwa. And that full title of ‘this church’, the Anglican Church in this part of the world, gives us a few clues immediately about what such ‘journeying together’ here might mean.

Let me begin though with some words of greeting:
Maloelele, Ta’alofa lava, Bula vinaka, Kia orana, Namaste, Tena koutou, and Greetings in the several official languages of this church. These are the languages of Tongan, Samoan, native Fijian, Cook Island Maori, Indian Fijian, Maori and English.
And so from these greetings we get a sense of an international partnership being reflected in the make up of this church, as we do also in the title of the church.
The full title of this church reflects not only this multi-national make up, and the implied ‘ethnic journeying together’ that this entails, but more focusedly it also reflects the structural partnerships of ‘this church’, which form the basis of our constitutional shape; our ‘journeying together as three tikanga’.

Firstly, we are the Anglican Church in this place. Part of a global international communion of independent and largely autonomous provinces around the world, around 38 in total, which associate through some common bonds of affection, and a historical relationship with the Archbishop of Canterbury and with other national or provincial churches which have stemmed from the ministry of the Church of England, Ireland and Wales.
So, there continues some global ‘journeying together’ with other churches of the communion, and of late that particular journeying has been experiencing some strain and tension as some matters of difference have seemed to overtake the matters in common. But we are still ‘journeying together globally’ in the main, and many are deeply committed to continuing that journeying together despite the differences, or maybe some would even say with the differences.

By naming ourselves as Anglican we are also differentiating our distinctiveness over against other denominational churches – Roman Catholic, Methodist, Presbyterian, Baptist, etc, which speaks indirectly of another whole set of ‘inter-denominational Christian journeying together’ which call us to find ways of relating with other Christians.

We are not only then the ‘Anglican Church’, but we are the Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia – so we are a located church, a contextualized church, we are the church in ‘a particular place’, with all the distinctive elements that particular location and context implies. We are the church in this country, Aotearoa New Zealand, doubly named to reflect its bicultural history, its treaty of Waitangi foundation, and its commitment to working at bicultural partnership. Thus there is a ‘journeying together in this place’, as the first people of the land and as people who have come to this land more recently to live in partnership and journey together.

And yet it does not stop there, for the Anglican Church has designated this Province to include more than just ‘this land’, but also the largest geographical diocese in the world, that of the Pacific, which admittedly is way more water than land, and which incorporates several independent nations in one diocese, and which is the part of ‘this church’.
This is the Diocese of Polynesia, which is the third partner, or tikanga, in ‘this church’ alongside Maori and Pakeha.
Thus we are the Anglican Church, yes, and we are the Anglican Church in this land Aotearoa New Zealand, yes, and we are the Anglican Church in this province of Aotearoa New Zealand and Polynesia.
So, lots of implied ‘journeying together’.

Then we are also te Hahi Mihinare ki Aotearoa ki Niu Tereni, ki Nga Moutere o te Moana Nui a Kiwa
The literal translation of the Maori part of the name of ‘this church’ is loosely:
Te Hahi Mihinare = the Church of the Missionaries
Ki Aotearoa – of Aotearoa
Ki Niu Tireni – a Maori transliteration ‘of New Zealand’
Ki Nga Moutere – of the islands
O te Moana Nui o Kiwa – of the big sea of Kiwa
Kiwa – is an ancestor figure that many of the Pacific peoples share in common and who was renowned as a great ocean navigator and explorer

So we have ‘The Church of the Missionaries in Aotearoa New Zealand and the islands of the great Ocean of Kiwa – the Pacific Ocean.

Now I have mentioned several times the concept of tikanga – stemming from ‘tika’ = right/correct. So, implying ‘the correct or right way’ for the people who follow, – i.e. tikanga Maori, tikanga Pakeha, tikanga Pasefika. So, the correct way for Maori, or the correct way for Pakeha, or the correct way for Pasefika/or Polynesia. The way that is culturally right for them to be Christian, to be Anglican, and to be Church, within their shared cultural heritage and norms.

Such a way of working, of being church, implies of course a great sense of ‘journeying together’ alongside each other, in parallel but not in competition. No one way, or tikanga, being better or more important, or primary, over the others, but rather each bringing to the ‘journeying together’ its riches and wealth of tradition and cultural expression, and each thus enriching the whole of the church – especially when the three come together in one setting. As it did in part at my liturgical welcome to my new provincial role recently held at Auckland Cathedral. There were on that occasion leaders from all three tikanga, and various languages and forms from differing tikanga were used, but there was a sense of the three ‘adding to’ and ‘enriching’ the whole as we sought to ‘journey together’ in shared worship.

This three tikanga ‘journeying together’ is perhaps most apparent in the General Synod/ te Hinota Whanui, of this church. This biennial gathering is of representatives of each of the tikanga together in a shared space, for reporting, governance and decision making. The General Synod is presided over by the three Archbishops, one of each tikanga, who together in their shared office represent the primacy, or the head of this church in this Province. This Synod is a place where each of the tikanga ‘journey together’ in equal partnership, regardless of numerical supremacy, but rather on equal footing as three who seek to work as one. This is not only reflected in the presidency of the three Archbishops but also potentially in the empowerment of the tikanga as partners, within a traditional Anglican polity, or system. So when it comes to voting, like any Anglican Synod the voting is done in houses, Bishops, Clergy and Laity, and a majority is required in all three for agreement to be reached. But the General Synod, in honoring the equal ‘journeying together’ of the tikanga partners, also constitutionally has the option of calling for a tikanga vote, so a vote by each of the three on tikanga or cultural grounds. In this case, which has only ever happened a couple of times in the life of the church since this new constitution came into being in 1992, the majority of each tikanga must also agree for agreement to be reached.

It is a unique piece of church polity, and yet it is borne out of a generous ‘journeying together’ as cultural partners, which seeks to empower each and all the tikanga, as partners together, rather than allowing for the numerically superior to dominate.

This somewhat unique way of relating, and of ‘journeying together’, as tikanga in this church is depicted in the provincial symbol of Anglicans in this part of the world, that of the woven flax cross, which is on our prayer book and now also on the roadside sign here at St Johns Campbells Bay. It is, as Archbishop David Moxon said recently, an image ‘picking up strands from all three tikanga of the church in these islands. At the centre of the woven cross pattern is the koru, a sign of new life. The koru is presented in red as sign of life-blood, of the life-giving love that flows through the heart of the Christian message and Christian mission’. Thus it contains Maori koru, pacific weaving, and the missionary cross in a unique blending together of a shared tikanga journey.

So then, apart from including this symbol, and the church’s full name, on our signage, how else can we express and engage in such three tikanga ‘journeying together’ locally here?

I would suggest in some of these ways:
1. Seeking to understand something of the unique make up of this church in this province.

2. Praying for our tikanga partners and for their unique expression of worship and mission.

3. Seeking to learn about the other cultures that make up this church.

4. Learning a little of the other languages of this church – at the very least maybe words of greeting and perhaps snippets of liturgy. Our prayer book contains these resources there for us to use.

5. Maybe even seeking out some first hand experience of engagement with the other tikanga than our own – through attending worship, or courses, or events held in other tikanga or joint three tikanga experiences where a mix of all three are to be found.

Such is the richness and the diversity of the journey we are offered by the church we are a part of, it is up to us to take it up if we wish to more fully ‘journey together’ as a three tikanga church.

Lent 5 2010 Address

2010-03-21T15:50:00.000+13:00

Lent 5 c, Passion Sunday, Something New, Isa 43: 16-21, Phil 3: 4b-14, John 12: 1-8, Sunday 21 March 2010, St Johns Campbells Bay 8 and 9.30, Knightsbridge Village 11.15, Michael Hughes

I wish to begin today by speaking about ‘race car movies’.

There seems to be a defining race car movie in each generation – one recent example is the 1990’s street racing film ‘The Fast and The Furious’, which has been popular enough to generate 3 sequels, of course imaginatively titled ‘2 Fast 2 Furious’, ‘The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift’, and the latest simply ‘Fast and Furious’.
Younger people, and the young at heart, will know of the animated film ‘Cars’, and its hero ‘Lightening McQueen’.
I guess we could recall a race car film in most decades, back maybe as far as the silent movies and the Keystone Cops who chased each other around in their old jalopies.

Older movie goers like myself might recall one such race car movie that epitomized the genre from the early 1980’s – called ‘The Cannon Ball Run’, which was based on an illegal cross-America race from coast to coast – no holds barred – winner takes all. It featured Burt Reynolds amongst the stars.

Anyway, in this particular race car movie it begins with the various race car drivers secretly meeting up in a warehouse where their cars are assembled and where the race will begin. One competitor is an Italian driver who will compete in this brand new convertible Ferrari – red of course! He jumps into the car, and the first thing he does is grab the rear vision mirror in both hands and breaks it off, throwing it over his shoulder across the warehouse floor and he says: ‘The first rule of Italian driving – what’s behind me is not important!’

What’s behind me is not important!
Which is perhaps a long way around to the Isaiah reading today, and our theme of ‘something new’, but I hope you’ll see the connection shortly.
Here Isaiah says some quite startling things to a Jewish audience, let alone to us as a Christian audience, when he writes ‘Thus says the Lord … do not remember the former things or consider the things of old. I am about to do a new thing, now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?’

Or put another way – ‘what’s behind you is not important!’
Yet, for the Jewish people of the exile, who might have first heard this, and for that matter Jewish people still today, let alone we Christian people today, that is a shocking suggestion. The suggestion that we forget our past, we discount our history, we don’t look to our tradition, or consider our heritage and our forebears in faith – but rather that we only look forward, to the new thing springing forth.

I had dinner last week with some friends who are a Jewish family here in Auckland and they were preparing for Passover, which begins for them this week, and they were cleaning the house, clearing out certain food items, getting themselves and their home ready for the Passover – as they set out to celebrate this central festival in their faith, which involves ‘a looking back’, a remembering, a considering of the past event of the Exodus. It is a festival which has involved doing this kind of ‘looking back’ for their people for millennia. The idea that God might tell them ‘don’t remember the former things, do not consider the things of old’, is something of anathema.

As it seems it is for us Christians too, as we go through this Lenten season and get closer and closer to the remembrances of Holy Week, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter Day itself. We too are increasingly focused on looking back, on remembering, on considering the journey of Jesus to the cross and then on to the empty tomb. We are relying on our proverbial ‘rear vision mirror’ – but unlike the Italian race car driver, ‘What’s behind us is important!’ – it is very important!

How then can we stay true to the message of Isaiah today, and to the theme of looking for ‘something new’ – the thing that God would have spring forth amongst us?

Well, I think the difference for us is in the realization that while we do look back, while we recall, remember, consider the past in the journey of Jesus, we do not do so by reliving it as those who first experienced it lived it, but rather we do so by reengaging with the history, the past, the tradition, the story of Jesus, in light of what we know came to pass, and what we know now for ourselves, in our own lives and faith – that is, the truth of the resurrection, the birth to new life, the wonder of restoration, reconciliation, transformation and new beginnings. For as Christian followers that is what we know and what we celebrate, not only in Easter but all the time, right through the Lenten season – we celebrate the experience of lives renewed, of lives re-enlivened.
This is the ‘something new’, the new thing God is about to do, is now doing, and has already done. This is what ‘springs forth’ and what we are to perceive - the ongoing resurrection life, even in the midst of remembering the passion and death of Jesus - as we are about to do over this next two weeks.

And we can find such signs of this new life, of this ‘something new’, all around us, if we only look: in our own lives, in the life of this community of faith, in the wider community and church of which we are a part, and in our world.

Certainly, in my new work for the wider church I get to see and experience some of this newness, some of these signs of new life, of resurrected life, and I believe the same signs can be found everywhere.

Examples for me have been; the ordination three weeks ago in Dunedin of a new bishop, and all the excitement and anticipation that the cathedral, the diocese, and the whole community there, were feeling and expressing as they celebrated this ‘something new’ that was springing forth amongst them.

Similarly, two weeks ago I was in New Plymouth for the consecration of a new cathedral, the first new cathedral in this church for over 80 years, and it was once again a great celebration of ‘something new’, something exciting and energizing, something that God was bringing about, something that was ‘springing forth’ amongst them.

In a maybe smaller way, the week before last a number of people from St Johns were able to share with me and others in a service at the cathedral in Auckland, as I was liturgically welcomed by the wider church into my new role as the General Secretary for this church, which is not so new anymore,. Again I felt, and I trust others did too, a sense of ‘something new’, something exciting and life giving springing forth – certainly for me, and I hope for the wider church which I strive to serve, as we work to bring about the way of God in this land.

And for each of us locally such signs of ‘something new’ might be found, in our experiences of the New Year we are well into now, or the experiences of a new group, or course, or commitment we are involved with this year. It maybe in new relationships we are beginning with those around us at work, or play, or in community or church, in our neighborhood, or voluntary groups, or school. It maybe in a new job, or a new task, or a new ministry, or a new interest.
There are these signs of new life all around, of God bringing forth something new, we have only to perceive it – as Isaiah challenges us.

(Certainly here at St Johns we see many signs of new things springing forth – both in fabric and in people. We have new road side signs, which went up this week, a newly painted hall and church, plans for a new portico to be built over our main doors; we have new families joining our community, we have had baptisms, weddings, and a new vestry about to be elected at our AGM)

And for each of us personally, we have the opportunity for new expressions and new experiences of faith. New insights into scripture and God’s call on our lives. New challenges to welcome all who come to worship, or to our studies, or to our groups, or to our community in a myriad of ways.

Isaiah writes of this newness being like ‘a way in the wilderness’ – so helping the lost find a path in life. Or like ‘rivers in the desert, water in the wilderness’ – so bringing refreshment and sustenance to those who need it. Or ‘like wild beasts bowing down to honour God’ - as that which was uncontrolled chooses to recognise the one who is the source of all life and newness.

So, we can look around us for the examples and opportunities to find for ourselves, and to offer others, such ‘a path’, and a way forward with God in life and faith.
And we can look around us for examples and opportunities to find for our selves, and to offer others, ‘life giving water’ – that which spiritually refreshes, sustains and cleanses all life – as our baptismal liturgy puts it.

Such newness, such life, such opportunity for growth and transformation, is always before us. God is always doing a new thing amongst us; we have only to perceive it.

And sometimes that will require some looking in the rear vision mirror, some reflecting on the tradition, the history, the past, some acknowledging of our forebears and where we have come from - but we cannot get stuck there!
For as the Italian race car driver was suggesting, at least some, if not most, of our attention needs to be forward, needs to be on what is around and in front of us right now, for it is there that I believe we will perceive God at work – God bringing in the ‘something new’.

2010-03-11T20:10:00.003+13:00

Commissioning of the Reverend Michael Hughes as General Secretary
of the Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia:
Te Hahi Mihinare ki Aotearoa, ki Nui Tireni, ki Nga Moutere o te Moana Nui a Kiwa
Holy Trinity Cathedral, Auckland
9 March 2010
Homily by Archbishop David Moxon
Romans 13:10-14
Matthew 5:1-14
“The builders of the Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia”
I runga i te ingoa o Te Matua, Te Tama, me Te Wairua Tapu
It is right to meet for this commissioning, in a building like this, dedicated to expressing the
diversity and the art of a three tikanga church, because a General Secretary in a church like
this is faced with a unique set of complexities and opportunities. What spirituality do we
need?
We need to be challenged by the first beatitude from tonight’s Gospel: “Blessed are the
poor in Spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven”. This means that we need to be open to
the riches that come from other perspectives and that when these riches are pooled together
in robust discussion we may all be enriched. Being poor in Spirit means that there is room
beyond my ego for the treasures that belong to us all. This is particularly true when the
different cultures of a three tikanga church interweave and enrich each other.
Grief or tears should not be withheld; a General Synod Office at the nerve centre of this
three tikanga church is not the place where some of the deepest pain of the Church should
be staunched. This could be a kind of weakness or vulnerability which did not belong in a
house using the Westminster method of meeting and debate. But we need to be challenged
by the beatitude “Blessed are those who mourn, for will be comforted.” This means that the
deepest feelings of the Church can belong in the household of Faith. Grief or tears are not
only possible but sometimes necessary given the depth of the suffering we are called to
understand and to respond to, both in ourselves and in the world.
You may have sometimes noticed in the heat of debate in General Synod the temptation to
get into point scoring, which can turn into what feels like a personal diminution of another
person... It becomes easy to play the person and not the ball. When ever this is done, as well
as in front of a large community of people it can have long lasting consequences. But we are
challenged by the beatitude “Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the Earth.” This
means an open act of respect for others as a first principle, without being a door mat.
Respectfulness of the other, even when strongly engaging in robust disagreement is a
hallmark of Christian discourse: we are inter relating together as members of Christ’s body,
made in the image of God: we are called to treat each other sacramentally.
In the midst of the political intensity of some official church business, you may have sometimes
noticed that we end up thinking about expedient solutions or compromises which may lack any
principle. When we do this we are challenged by the beatitude “Blessed are those who
hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.” This means that standing up for
what is right is a key to the integrity of the a three tikanga church. The alternative is a kind of
emptiness or nothingness which is devoid of the Spirit of God.
We are challenged by the beatitude “Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive Mercy”
We are not here to take advantage, or to stifle forgiveness when advantage has been taken of
us: we are called to enlarge our soul’s to be bigger than that, called and inspired by the infinite
compassion of God in Christ.
The business of a General Synod Office can preoccupy the mind with a thousand details
and distractions: this is the nature of our order paper and our reports as a whole years busy-
ness concentrates together. But we are challenged by the beatitude “Blessed are the pure
in heart, for they shall see God.” This means an uncomplicated, single focused gaze towards
God ... an open heart, receptiveness to the whisperings of the Holy Spirit that come deep
within. This can purify our thinking in the midst of many Babel voices in our heads.
The debate structure of a General Synod means that motions succeed or fail by simple
majority, sometimes leaving even large minority opinion feeling compromised or even
disenfranchised. The process can feel combatorial and involve a war of words. When we get
into this we are challenged by the beatitude “Blessed are the peace makers, for they will be
called Children of God”. This can mean reaching out with an olive branch, healing enmity and
looking for fair and safe reconciliation. The challenge from the beatitude is to speak in a way
that does not attack, but invites others to respond rather than retaliate and which fosters
some measure of shalom. When you point the finger at someone else it is always helpful to
remember that three more fingers are pointing back at you.
The beatitude calling us to hunger and thirst for righteousness reminds us that we are called
to stand up for what is right with a passion. To avoid the difficult questions or to approach
them casually or pre-emptively is fatal in a church set in today's fluid modern world.
The world and its ways teach us a message that is in strong contrast to the politics of the
beatitudes. The message to “Do to others, before they do to you” or the message to “be
staunch “, or the message to “gain the very best advantage over your competition” or to let
people “come to heel” or to “stew in their own juice”, is very real. However the Body of
Christ has not endured, grown and shared its great transforming vision by following these
ways: the Church has integrity and reality only because it has tried to share and live the
Gospel in which the beatitudes are set.
Consider the logo of this church we are called to build: the three tikanga flax cross: te ripeka
whiringa harakeke. There is a rich Biblical picture of Trinitarian diversity in unity, particularly
within the wholeness of God, and a coordinating synergy transfusing a vast creation of
amazing detail. It is from this Biblical reality that a three tikanga ecclesiastical arrangement
draws its inspiration for this Church. There are three partners representing three cultural
strands with their own uniqueness and life-giving heritage, freely interweaving into an ever
growing pattern of Trinitarian design.
The artist Ross Hemera was asked by the Anglican Church to design this indigenous cross,
picking up strands from all three tikanga of the church in these islands.
At the centre of the woven cross pattern is the koru, a sign of new life. The koru is presented
in red as a sign of life blood, of the life-giving love which flows through the heart of the
Christian message and Christian mission. This shape can also be seen as a ventricle of a
heart and as a foetal image of new life.
The woven pattern is a sign that all three tikanga of this church are called to interweave in
Mission, weaving being a feature of Maori, Pakeha and Pacific cultures. The design
presents flax strands moving outwards, symbolising the life patterns of the Gospel being
formed in a new creation. The centre of the design features the cross, the image of what it
cost Christ to live and die for righteousness and justice.
The way flax is woven, to build up the design can be seen as a parable of the way we build up
our own lives and the life of the church. There is a saying in Maori which is sometimes used
when flax is being woven "aroha atu, aroha mai." As one strand is put in place, the weaver
thinks "aroha atu," as the next strand interweaves with it, the weaver thinks "aroha mai" and so
the weaving and the thought builds up with each new action. The phrase in Maori means 'the
love that goes forth from me comes back to me', or love is made up of giving and receiving and
in this way life and love are built up. So it is with the life and work of a General Secretary. In
a church like ours what is needed is not bureaucracy or autocracy from the administrative
centre, but interweaving of contributions in the spirit of love. In this way a design emerges and
a shape comes into being.
We have chosen a new General Secretary for whom this way of weaving is natural. It has
been instinctive to Michael from his days as a youth worker, a student, a national executive, a
priest, and now this new opportunity.
Lastly, a new general secretary can be encouraged with the wisdom of Jesus the builder,
Jesus the carpenter. He encouraged people to remove a speck of sawdust from their own
eye before removing a log from someone else's eye. This is an image taken from a carpenter's
shop in Nazareth. The message is clearly not to judge when working with others, but to
discern, to humbly and patiently reflect on ones own spirituality before sharing with someone
else about the challenges and opportunities of their spiritual journey.
From carpentry and agriculture, Jesus used the image of a wooden yoke, both in terms of his
relationship with us, also drawing from the image of yokes around the necks of teams of oxen.
The yoke shoulder to shoulder provided the synergy and cohesion a team needed to shift
large weights, to do heavy work and to act with coordination in a way that made the cultivation
of crops and fields possible and bountiful.
And so Michael as you begin your new ministry in this amazingly diverse, challenging and
remarkable three tikanga church, think of the beatitudes, the woven flax cross (te ripeka
whiringa harakeke) and the wisdom of Jesus the builder.

Repent or Perish....Luke 13: 1-9 Sermon by Rev. Michael Smart Lent 3

2010-03-09T12:39:00.001+13:00

Pilate, had ordered the slaughter of some Galilean protestors, even while they were in the sacred Temple itself. “Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way, they were worse sinners than all other Galileans ?” “Do you think that because many people in Haiti suffered that they were worse sinners than anyone else ?’...at least one telly evangelists said, yes. What will they say about Chile ?
To return to Jesus day...that industrial accident, when 18 workers were killed in Siloam when the tower they were building collapsed on them ? Accident or divine punishment ?
“Who sinned that this man was born blind,” they asked Jesus. “neither this man nor his parents sinned.” And still, people ask the same kind of question. “What did this little boy do wrong that he was killed in a quad bike accident ?” With regards to individuals, Jesus refutes the simplistic equation of tragedy = punishment for sin and so should we.
Such tragic consequences are not a result of God actively punishing sin. If God were into that kind of business, then are we not all up for punishment....who is next !
But what about Jesus warning, “ Unless you repent you will all perish just as they did”. Jesus was warning about consequences for Jerusalem there and then, not hereafter. If God’s people did not repent of their guerrilla tactics against Rome, accept his way to peace, if they did not set aside the sword, they would perish by the sword.
Some of the warnings of Jesus have mistakenly been taken as warnings about the afterlife, when in fact they are warnings of judgement to come for his fellow Jews in the political situation of their day. “Unless the tree bears fruit this year it will be cut down”....the tree is Israel. Are God’s people producing the fruit that reflects God’s character....if they don’t repent when one greater than Jonah is here, when will they....they will perish; not in the fires of hell after they die, but in the fires of Jerusalem, sacked by the Romans.
It did not take a great prophet to see what was going to happen to Israel if they persisted in opposition to Rome. The prophet ,however, is not merely a wise political commentator. A prophet understands when God is using the social and political upheavals of the day to execute his judgement. Not every social or economic crisis is God’s judgement any more than rain on a parish picnic is God’s judgement on the parish. We must not rush to make such interpretations, for much of life is random, accidental, open to chance.
One way to understand God’s judgement is that there is a built in, moral basis to the world, like gravity. God doesn’t act in one off judgements, but lets the moral basis find its own balance...a kind of reaping what we sew. Others would have God active in every tiny event and circumstances, busy all the time, so everything becomes an expression of God’s approval or judgement...very exhausting. Others hold that God only acts in major events to express his judgement and that is when we need prophets to help us recognize the hand of God. I am suggesting this understanding.
Time to repent is always offered....I will give the tree one more year ! Jesus as a prophet warns them that unless they take his way, Jerusalem would end up like chickens without a mother hen to protect them from the barnyard fire that Rome would light.
God’s judgement is not expressed in giving you cancer or causing a child to be run over. Jesus speaks of the judgement of the nation Israel as the people of God. It is more at the level of a judgement upon the whole church rather than visiting an illness on an individual Christian There are bigger issues for God than whether you eat chocolate during Lent, or lose your cool with your husband or wife or get irritated with your fellow Christian. Let us not argue about the seating arrangements on the Titanic, when the whole ship is sinking.
There can be judgement of a whole nation, even on nations. As Christian nations we should be asking if the economic crisis is God’s judgement upon our corporate greed in the face of others poverty and repent. And repent not out of fear of worse to come, but because we want to embrace the good, the just, embrace the life of the kingdom. We wont accept greed as “ just the way it is these days”, but call for a just distribution of wealth. We will be careful about our own investments and consider the use companies make of our money.
What is most often put before us for us to soak up into our minds from our movies and TV series? Violence and uncommitted sex. We are bombard with visions of violence that infuses our collective mind and we wonder why our society has a problem with violence. “There’s probably no God, so stop worrying and enjoy yourself.” The assumption is that to walk in the ways of God means the end of fun and enjoyment.
Our society is obsessed with casual sex, and while that might give some momentary enjoyment, all the evidence is that sex without a degree of loving commitment, without some security within a relationship does not satisfy the human spirit. We are more than bodies. It will be interesting to see if Jane Campion’s latest film; “ Bright Star” which has no physical violence and no steamy sex scenes will be a box office hit. Its popularity might indicate where our collective treasure lies.
When we protest it must not be from some moral high ground, but from a compassionate certainty that God knows how best to use his good gift, and as often happens these days, some psychologist after much research , will confirm what God has already told us. Surprise !!
To worship God is not in the first instance about liturgy and hymns and is not limited to an hour on Sundays. To worship God is at all times and in all places to fill one’s mind and heart with the vision of his kingdom life, to hold before us what is good and beautiful and worthy of God. This living process, can be very deliberate, as in a set time of prayer or reading or watching a thought provoking film, but often, the vision comes to us in unexpected places, like at a school concert, in an art gallery, listening to music. Thus inspired by our worship, by seeing and tasting the worth in what we see and hear, sense and discover we work and pray and speak out for God’s kingdom to come on earth. In particular this will involve developing and supporting programmes for the most vulnerable, the displaced, and those trapped in poverty. Those not against Christ are for him...we should expect to find people of good will and sound judgement likewise concerned and sharing the same vision so we must not isolate ourselves, thinking we are the only ones with moral discernment.
God’s judgement is not about revenge or punishment for its own sake. God’s judgement when it comes, is a way of calling us as a people back to walk the ways of his Messiah, walk the talk of resurrection life.

Sermon – 31st January 2010, St Johns Campbells Bay - Carole Hughes Vicar

2010-02-03T19:30:00.000+13:00

Luke 4: 21-30, 1 Corinthians 12: 31 – 13: 13
May my words inspire and encourage us to experience God around us and amongst us Amen.

Vincent Van Gogh. What comes to mind when you hear the name of this famous artist? Vincent Van Gogh… is it images of sunflowers or perhaps his masterpiece entitled ‘Starry night’? Such images have been reproduced on postcards, t shirts, posters or even tea trays. We could say that such art becomes every day and looses its initial ‘wow’ factor. Certainly it makes it difficult for us to see the passion and sensational details when our culture determines the way we experience such amazing creations. And this can happen for us in church culture. When going to a Christmas morning service just last month, a little girl when asked to come forward to hear the Christmas story said: “aahh no thanks I know the story, I heard it last Christmas…. been there done that thank you very much!” When I was first told about this I laughed – thought it rather cute and funny - but then as I reflected on what our church culture is doing, I realised that we too can experience such a response when we come across God stuff in our every day lives; ‘Ahhh thanks but no thanks…we have heard it all before!’ Like Vincent Van Gogh’s paintings or hearing our Christmas story yet again, we become accustomed to such works of amazement and beauty and inspiration that we cannot see the big picture - within or beyond it.
And may be this too was the case when Jesus comes home to his people in Nazareth. In our Gospel reading today Jesus is in the church of his small hometown. He is given the privilege, that was given to visiting teachers, of reading from the Holy Scriptures and giving a short explanation of its meaning.
The Scripture was from the book written by Isaiah about 700 years before. Jesus reads these words: "The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of the sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor."
He then says to the people – his people "Today this is happening right here and now." This calls for an immediate response. They were to respond not with some kind of tinkering with their ideas, not with some small tweaking of how they did things. They were to believe that Jesus was the one who Isaiah was talking about, and just as importantly they were to become people of action like Jesus - who were to anoint, preach, proclaim, offer freedom, recovery, sight and release to all people.
And so after such a revelation by Jesus there were a number of responses. One may have been: "Wow! Isn't he the best, the wisest you have ever heard?" And another: "Who's fulfilling what around here? Isn't this the carpenter's son? He's Mary and Joseph's son….Come on. He watered our donkeys. He cleaned our yards. No way he could be a prophet. How can this Jesus-guy come back and be even more than a prophet, the Messiah? Not little Jesus of Nazareth. Not the little Jesus boy that we used to go fishing with and swimming with and hiking with. How could God come in such a common and ordinary way as to come through Jesus of Nazareth? Jesus certainly doesn’t measure up to our expectations of what it means to be a messiah.”
They did not want to accept Jesus because he was one of them, but also because of what he was saying.
The rest of the story seems like Jesus just intentionally irritated them, egged them on, tried to get them upset with him. He says things like ‘A prophet is not accepted in his own home. That was true of the prophet Isaiah and the prophet Elijah and the prophet Elisha. They could do no miracle in their regions because the people didn’t believe in them. They had to go elsewhere to find true faith’. And likewise Jesus was saying to his people something like: ‘I don’t see any true faith in this room. You are more interested in “in just doing religion” than in justice. You are more interested in my popularity and publicity than in the poor, blind and lame. You are more interested in religious celebrations than the struggles of life. You substitute ‘doing religion’ for being open to new ways and each other’. Just imagine how we might have been feeling if Jesus said such a thing to us.
The people were mad at Jesus. They took offense at Jesus. That is the key word of the text: offense. In Greek, it is “skandalon” from which we get the word, “scandal.” Scandalon also refers to “stumbling block”; a scandal being something that blocks or prevents the people from seeing beyond the appearances. Like with Van Gogh’s famous works of art, we cannot see beyond the postcards. And the people could not see beyond this ordinary man standing before them. They were so offended that they ran him out of the city, right up to the edge of a high cliff and were going to kill him. That is pretty serious!
But what's going on here? Where is that great love that our Corinthians reading for today speaks about: love is kind, gentle, and all the rest of those things? In our Gospel reading Jesus is shocking and quite harsh! But if we look beyond the appearances may be he is also loving in a shocking way. His technique appears to be about shocking his people into a new way, but that new way is one of love and caring for all people – and especially those who are considered less fortunate or worthy. He is also challenging his people to look beyond themselves – to see the bigger picture – to be broader.
Had Jesus decided to make Nazareth famous by staying there, making it a shrine for himself, we would never be sitting where we are today. Jesus is not just a hometown person; he is for all people. His message is for the people of Judea, Samaria, and the uttermost parts of the earth.
The people there that day were offended by the Incarnation, that God actually became a human being and that God was interested in the bigger picture and all people. That was the scandal, the stumbling block.
So is Jesus still our stumbling block? We can believe in the face of God behind the universe. We can have deep spiritual experiences during some wonderful worship time. We can believe in the divine moral law of the universe. A God of the universe, of spirituality, of morality seems more plausible for the mind. But to believe that God could come to us through a human being seems to be much harder work. And that is what so deeply offended the people; that is what was, and still is the stumbling block for people today. The Incarnation: that God would come in the flesh of a human they knew, a human by the name of Jesus from the town of Nazareth.
So do we still find this offensive or a stumbling block? Well I would say that there are things that are stumbling blocks for us in the Christian faith; things that get in our way of faith in God. In the text for today, Jesus talked about his listeners having little faith. So what are some of the things in the Christian faith that make it hard for us, or for others, to believe? The obvious to begin with - Suffering. Why do good people die? That offends us. That upsets us. That often forces us to question our faith.
Or another stumbling block. God invites us to go and love our enemies. But how many of us really demonstrate such love. Another stumbling block in our faith centres around the important Christian doctrines and Biblical Interpretations. How we read and interpret the Bible determines how we live and understand our calling – and it keeps evolving and changing. How past leaders have interpreted rules and regulations can cause us to stumble and get in our way of interpreting it for us today.
Each of us may have stumbling blocks that get in the way of our deep faith in Christ. Jesus invites each of us to mature and grow through the stumbling blocks that weaken our deep faith in God.
But I would like to take it a step further. I would suggest that God comes to us so commonly that we don’t hear God. God comes through a person or persons as near to us as …our family members, or closet friends or actually often our closest enemies. And most of us would respond by saying – ‘oh that is just so-and-so ….. She doesn’t sound like God. She doesn’t look like God. She doesn’t act like God’. But consistently, God speaks to us through those people who are with us every day, and sometimes the people we find the most challenging. But we don’t always hear God’s voice. Instead, we are looking for the divine creator of the universe or the moral laws behind various cultures, or something spiritual and beyond humanity.
God speaks to us and comes to us in the face of children and adults who are poor and starving. Sometimes it is hard to believe that Christ is really present and really speaks to our lives when we see someone who is experiencing great poverty and starvation. When we see those people from Haiti on our tvs do we simply say to ourselves, ‘We have seen it all before’, or do we respond with positive action?
God comes to us through the Word and Sacrament, through the Bible and sermons and studies, through baptism and Holy Communion. When we have the eyes of faith, we see God and hear God everyday through God’s Word and Sacraments. And my list could go on…
The very exercise of ‘learning to look’ at something so familiar and experience God is what I am talking about. Van Gogh’s letters to his brother Theo are filled with passion for ideas, evangelism, and visual invention. Before painting he pursued admission to a theological college. He was a man of faith and brilliance, and now we only know him in the postcard reproductions. And we have the potential of making the Christian faith into something that is so ordinary and so predictable that we loose the awesome power and action of Jesus; a power that transforms everything. So, may we never say, ‘ahhh I know this story – been there done that!’
May we see anew the passion and love and challenge that God offers us every day. May our eyes be open to see and hear and feel God’s presence in all things and in everyone we meet. Amen.

St John's Parish Community Vision

2010-01-08T20:39:00.000+13:00

Collaborative, Diverse, Open
Published by The Vicar • 19/09/2009 7:29:01 a.m.
Parish Ethos, Sept 09 – based on the parish website (Collaborative, Diverse, Open)
“St Johns chooses to build a loving, safe, welcoming faith community that is intellectually challenging, emotionally supportive and filled with the strength, integrity and social responsibility that spirituality inspires.”

In response to the input at the Diocesan Ministry Conference 2009, part of our professional ministry development, which asked, ‘how do we describe our church context (who are we?) and how do we lead within that context?’ Carole and Michael Hughes

Collaborative Teams Ministries – multiplicity of teams working in the parish.
- power is shared (not one person holding all roles/responsibilities)
- numerous people take up different roles/responsibilities – (not whole teams doing everything together all the time)
- encouraging/fostering a culture of initiative – where people feel safe to be proactive and try new ways and new ideas without one leader having to ‘do’ it all or control it.
- Promoting a culture of trust.
- Emphasis on relationships over programmes. Visiting/pastoral care a priority.
Building relationships with children just as important as what we teach them.
- young people lead young people
Diversity
- Parallel activities happening alongside each other – not necessarily all being on the same page.
- Different preachers/teachers offering different perspectives.
- Offering a range of different worship opportunities – Taize, Soul Café, 723 Service, Prayer and Praise, Wednesday Service, Home/Prayer Groups, Women’s Fellowship, Evensong, Beach Services, alongside the Sunday morning traditional Anglican services.
- Doing liturgy distinctive from that of neighbouring parishes – offering difference to the local community – i.e. Creative traditional Anglican worship based on NZPB with diverse music and liturgical styles according to season and themes.
- Creating an environment where people of different age groups, genders, cultures, family groups, feel welcome – including leadership opportunities.
- Equipping people to be followers of Jesus and minister in their own contexts – families/workplaces/community, etc.
Openness
- Open to new ways and new activities and new people, including both creating and holding traditions.
- Welcome comes before criteria/rules, e.g. baptism families/ weddings – always open and welcoming to everyone who approaches us.
- Holding pastoral alongside prophetic (open to be challenged as well as cared for).
- Fostering a theology of grace: emphasising love and welcome rather than sin and judgement.
- open to new ways of leading according to the context – complex and adaptive
- Open to people’s needs, struggles and celebrations!

To ensure the above vision/ethos evolves we encourage and support:
- processes of accountability
- regular communication with leaders and wider community
- gathering teams where appropriate, i.e. worship group, wardens group, etc
- discerning initiatives
- supporting/resourcing/encouraging leaders
- responding to issues of concern/conflict
- offering an overall perspective – the big picture
- sharing in doing the daily leadership roles of: preaching/teaching/administration/visiting/resourcing/meeting/communication etc

Advent 3 2009 Sermon

2010-01-04T18:17:00.000+13:00

Advent 3 2009 Sermon
Published by Rev. Carole Hughes in Sermons • 16/12/2009 7:59:45 p.m.

Sermon at St Johns Campbells Bay, 13 December 2009 by Carole Hughes
Zephaniah 3:14-20; Psalm 85 or 85:7-13 or Canticle 9; Philippians 4:4-7 (8-9); Luke 3:7-18
May my words offer inspiration, hope and joy. Amen

Remember when you were expecting your first child? Or for those of you who haven’t been there, image what it would be like to be told that you were going to have a gorgeous baby in your household.
Most of us can get in touch with that feeling – what it was or would be like. That feeling is relevant for today, the third Sunday of Advent. This day is traditionally called "rejoicing Sunday".

Now, there is something tricky about great gifts -- especially when the gift is a child. Our biblical readings today do a marvelous job of pointing to this insight. The first two are all about rejoicing. The prophet Zephaniah sings to the people, "the King of Israel, God, is in your midst, you shall fear disaster no more." God is going to do great things for God’s people. All is well; God is at hand.
"Rejoice" is also the first word we hear from Philippians. Again, we are assured that God is at hand, and this is a wonderful thought.

That is part of what it means to prepare for a gift. That is almost always the very first thing we say when we discover someone is expecting a child; we say, "congratulations," - wow, this is wonderful news. What a joy!

Rejoicing is also a big part of what it means to prepare for Christmas. The good news of Advent is that God is coming to God's people -- to you and to me. God's promises are being fulfilled. And we are to await that, to believe that, to realize that, and open ourselves fully to it. That is cause for celebration and for rejoicing.

Then we hear the Gospel reading today, and the image shifts. God is no longer pictured as the one who cares for God’s people, but as a wrathful judge, an executioner who loves his work. We are standing at the River Jordan, face to face with John the Baptist at his most intense.

John doesn't say to rejoice; John says to repent. Paul told the Philippians not to be anxious about anything; John tells his hearers to flee from the wrath to come.
Mixed messages! Isn’t the church so good at this, some may say!

Everyone in the Gospel is asking, "What shall we do? What has to change if we are to survive the great and terrible events that lie ahead?" This is a very different message from "rejoice!"

And if you think about it, that makes sense, too. That fear, that anxiety, too, is part of our preparation and of our waiting. And it should be heard, and felt, at exactly the same moment we hear, and feel, the call to rejoice. For the God we await in Advent is a God who makes a difference, who changes things, who disrupts our lives and challenges us.

A God who offers both new life and new responsibilities, and who offers them together -- simultaneously. Part of what new life means is that the old life just doesn't work anymore -- because everything is different. If we receive the gift of the Christ child, things will change, and the direction and the focus of our lives will shift. It just works that way.

Remember the second thing everybody (or at least everybody who has been a parent longer than 20 minutes) says when they learn that you are expecting a child? The first thing said is always, "congratulations, we're happy for you; it's wonderful news." The second thing is always one form or another of, "boy are you in for it! Things will never be the same again!"

In our every day lives we are told often, and in a variety of ways, that things are going to change, that everything will be different. Nobody uses the word, but everybody tells us we have to repent, indeed that we are going to repent, to change our way of looking and living and ‘being’. We are told it by our children when they try to encourage us to use the internet, which opens up a whole new world for us; the good and the bad. We are told it by environmentalists who tell us we need to change our habits with regard to caring for the planet. We are told it by the politicians as we come to terms with living in a global economy and what that means for us in Aotearoa New Zealand. Change happens and all of us, at some stage or another, have had to come to terms with what that means for us – sometimes it means rejoicing in the changes and sometimes it means questioning the changes. Sometimes we need to re-evaluate what we value and hold on to, and what we let go. And of course it is no different in our faith journey. Change is part of it. If we grow we have to be prepared to change. If we are open to the gifts of God anything can happen. Great gifts require a response.

"Rejoice/repent!" Mixed messages – but may be it is not a bad thing! Those are the words that go with all great gifts. Something wonderful is going to happen; and if, after you receive that gift, you try to live the way you are living now, your life just won't work anymore. Life after such a gift requires change – a turning around and reviewing how we live and what our priorities are.

"Rejoice/repent!" This dual demand – mixed message - in the face of the coming of God is addressed to all of us -- it is part of Advent. We await and try to prepare for the coming of a child -- a child who changes everything. So Zephaniah is right, we are to rejoice, and give thanks to God, and sing. And John the Baptist is right; this wonderful gift will also come as change and a turning around, and with a power beyond our understanding. If we are going to take seriously the good news of Christmas, then things are going to be very different.

Think about how much a first child changes peoples lives. Think of what it would look like to live with the child from Bethlehem -- as a baby, and as an adult. For both the joy Jesus offers and the demands Jesus makes cannot be truly ours if we remain exactly the same. And think about what repentance, the redirection of our attention, looks like - it is not something weird or mysterious. Repentance generally looks pretty much like our lives now, but with a difference.

So, you may ask – What does this mean for me?
When the crowd at the Jordan River felt this crunch of anticipation and judgment, their cry of "what then shall we do?" was met with responses designed to force them into practical decisions. "Look at who you are," John the Baptist said; "begin there." When it comes to sharing, share from what you have. Don't wait until you have more, or until your offering can be of a higher quality -start now, start with what is already there.

Practice justice where you work, build fairness into your present dealings, your current life. Don't wait until you have a job where justice is easier -- or more noticeable.

Don't wait to be somewhere else, or to be doing something else, or to be someone else -- begin with the road in front of you, walk that road, and so allow God to transform the real life you live right now. John did not tell even the despised tax collectors or the hated and feared soldiers that they had to go somewhere else to begin. So being a tax collector or a soldier was no barrier to repentance, to change. The business of repenting because of the gift of the Christ child is much the same as rejoicing. It has to do with transforming the life we are already living.

Repent and rejoice -- in all things, with the ‘real’ life we live in the ‘real’ world.
This strong message of repentance and social justice by John the Baptist this morning may seem shocking to some who are wrapped up in the joy of gift giving, and parties, and rejoicing of the seasons. But it reminds us that part of our preparation is to recognise the imbalance of power and wealth in our world, and ask, ‘What should we do?’ - a challenge for us as church.

But when the theme is one of justice, it can be easy for the church, to speak in terms of “us” and “them” – we have and others do not, we are blessed and others are less fortunate, we have the truth and others do not, we can offer ‘just’ ways and others cannot. But it is actually not about “us” and “them”, it is about all of us no matter who we are and what we do. We all have the need to rejoice and the need to repent. It is about being honest with one another and sharing our resources and our experiences whoever we are and whatever we do. It is about working in partnership with the powerful and powerless and not assuming we know what repentance is needed. It is working out how we can do things differently so the injustices are addressed by all people. It is actually about building relationships and giving each other time. Advent is a time to give time, and to prepare for doing things differently. It is a time of rejoicing and a time for repenting. Mixed messages that transform us all for the good!

So, Rejoice, for what is happening is wonderful.

Repent, because from now on, things will be different.

Which leaves us all with the question…
What are we going to do to ‘rejoice’, and to ‘repent’, this Advent?
We cannot have one without the other.