Sermon for the Seventh Sunday after Epiphany

 Last week we discussed anger.

We heard how Jesus reinterpreted the Mosaic Law, saying :

‘You have heard that it was said to those of ancient times,
“You shall not murder”; and “whoever murders shall be liable to judgement.”
But I say to you that if you are angry with a brother or sister,
you will be liable to judgement;

We discussed how anger does not exist on its own.

The Letter of James speaks of anger:

let everyone be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger;
for your anger does not produce God’s righteousness. T
herefore rid yourselves of all sordidness and rank growth of wickedness,
and welcome with meekness the implanted word that has the power to save your souls.

Anger is a feeling, a reaction.
The feeling grows and we put images, ideas, and words to it.
Before we know it, we have created a whole set of narratives and commentary on that feeling.
One of those narratives is bound to be that of retaliation.
One of those narratives is bound to be revenge.

‘You have heard that it was said,
“An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.”
But I say to you, Do not resist an evildoer. 

So there goes the idea of revenge, retaliation, or what we may even think of as justice.

The full text that Jesus is quoted is from Exodus, chapter 21.

life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.

This was introduced to stop violence escalating.
It was introduced to keep things even.
It was to stop the endless spiral of violence.

So, initially this was a good law.

But Jesus is saying it is now time to go further. It is time to go deeper.

Do not resist an evildoer. 

Jesus is taking the idea of retaliation and revenge out of the picture.

Think back to those feelings that surround our anger.
Remember the thoughts of revenge.

What do they do to you?
Where does your heart go when you think them?
No good can ever come from there.

Those thoughts allow us to be holier than thou, self righteous, and selfish.
The opposite of what we are to be.

So, if we have those feelings, how are we to rid ourselves of them?
Jesus is recommending a readiness to disarm violence by being prepared to accept double what the perpetrator requires.

But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also;
and if anyone wants to sue you and take your coat, give your cloak as well;
and if anyone forces you to go one mile, go also the second mile. 

The examples all say to go further than what is expected.
We are to go above and beyond.

How?

How on earth are we to do this in reality?
It all seems so difficult, idealistic and unrealistic.

The only way we can do this is on the basis of knowing ourselves to be so enriched by God’s generosity towards us that acting in such a generous way is not impossible.

Jesus goes on:

‘You have heard that it was said,
“You shall love your neighbour and hate your enemy.”
But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 

By loving our enemies, we change who they are to us from enemy to neighbour.
Love your neighbour as yourself.

Of course, easier said than done.

There are always going to be people who we don’t get on with.
There are people who we just don’t click with.
We can normally accept that.
But when someone seems bent on making our life difficult, doing things to harm us, damage our reputation, causing others to think ill of us, we want to correct that. We want that behaviour to stop.

We have to look inwards at ourselves.
We have to look into the face of another human being and have compassion.
We need to be able to see through all the twisted nonsense.
We need to recognise that this person who is causing us pain is as much made in God’s image as we are.

for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good,
and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous.

I’m not suggesting this is easy, but it is the call we have.

Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

In these two interpretations of the Mosaic Law, Jesus tells us of our responsibilities: to others and ourselves.
We are to keep all our thoughts that are of ill feeling toward another under control. We are to be in such a way where we no longer have them, always reaching for the perfection of God.

We are to see others not as enemies, but as neighbours.
We are to look beyond incidences, the past, behaviours, words, and see a person who is struggling with being as much as we are.
We are to look at all people the same way God looks at all of us: with love, mercy, and compassion.

Sermon for Fifth Sunday after Epiphany

‘You are the salt of the earth; 

but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored? 

It is no longer good for anything, but is thrown out and trampled under foot.

Salt of the earth is so well known that this saying has passed into common language.
How many times have you heard someone being referred to as ‘salt of the earth.’
We instinctively know it to mean a good person.
It has a rustic character to it.
There is no nonsense in this person.
I wonder if it has not been confused with ‘down to earth’ in many cases.

My Grandmother who I spoke of a few weeks back was a heavy smoker.
She smoked all her life.
By the time she got very ill, her doctor told her not to give up as that would cause more trouble for her than if she kept smoking.

But like any smoker, her tastebuds suffered.
The older she got, the more her food became richer, most particularly, salty.
The amount of salt she would put into or onto anything was alarming.
A stew would be nearly inedible, it was that salty.
We wondered what we could do.
There was no point telling her.
She cooked by taste. It was fine for her.
I wondered whether we could get weaker salt.
It seems you can’t.

Salt is salt.
There is no strong salt or weak salt. It is what it is.
Sure, some salt is better than others,
but in the realms of saltiness, there isn’t much difference.
Salt is salt. It is salty.

So when Jesus speaks of salt losing it’s saltiness, he means something else.
We know he is speaking a metaphor.

if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored?

It can’t. Salt cannot become less salty.
It can only be mixed with something else to become diluted.
This would have been a common practice in Jesus’ time.
Salt was expensive and taxed highly.
To make more profit, sellers would have mixed salt with other cheaper compounds.

Salt was mainly used for the preservation of food.
I am sure many of you can remember a time before refrigeration where the meat you bought was preserved in salt.
Imagine in Jesus time how important salt would have been.
Imagine how useless and annoying diluted salt would have been.
It would not have done its job.
It would have made meat rot quickly.
It would lead to waste and hunger.

So if we are to be salt of the earth, we are not be diluted.

This kind of talk always worries me.
We have all heard about the dangers of worldliness,
being in the world and not of the world,
and they are quite right.

But there is a tendency to want to separate the church from the world.
This leads to cult like behaviour and self righteous holier than thou behaviour.

Jesus means we are not to let the worlds, or the power’s influence change what it is to be one of his followers.

Remembers salt’s use as a preserver.

If it loses this ability,

It is no longer good for anything, but is thrown out and trampled under foot

Followers of Jesus are to the element in the world that keeps it wholesome and stop it from decaying.

If a follower of Jesus fails to represent the character and spirit of Christ in the world, they are useless.

So we ask ourselves what is Christlike behaviour and action,
and what is going to water those down?

In our time and place,
I see two major elements that can cause our saltiness to be diluted.
A lack of love for our neighbour, and a lack of peace in our lives.

If we cease to love our neighbour, we cease to be the body of Christ in our world.
Nothing can dilute our Christian behaviour more than a lack of love for those who are suffering.
We don’t need to define who is our neighbour and who isn’t: all are.
An act of selflessness and compassion toward someone we do not know is an act of Christlike behaviour.
What will dilute that is seeing someone as not our neighbour,
as someone we need not care for.

Secondly, our need to be busy and be caught up in the rhythm of the world.
When our minds are filled with ‘to do lists’ so there is no time for peace, we lose our saltiness.
Time spent in stillness and silence, praying, contemplating, meditating help us to keep our saltiness.
Quiet allows us to focus on what God wants of us, not the world.

St Paul tells us:

Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit that is from God, so that we may understand the gifts bestowed on us by God.

It is that spirit that makes us the salt of the world. It is that spirit that makes us understand what the salt is and how we are to keep it from dilution.

Sermon for the Third Sunday after Epiphany

‘Follow me, and I will make you fish for people.’

One of our many activities on our holiday was fishing.
We found a great spot outside of Tuncurry where there was a little jetty on to the river.
There was a little park with sheltered seating and tables.

It was Ivy who was fishing, not me.
It is not something I have ever really enjoyed, or done that much.

My grandparents were very keen flyfishers.
There house was filled with books and pictures of fish.
They had many rods, and boxes of fly tying equipment.
It was something they did as a family often.
This was part of my childhood, going to rivers and watching my grandparents, uncles, brother standing in the middle of a river, wearing waders, fishing.

Flyfishing was my grandparents great love.
To them it was the best escape from work and domestic life.
It was more than a hobby, it was passion.

For Simon and Andrew, and James and John, it was more than a passion.
It was their life.
This was what they did.
This is how they fed themselves and their families.
This is how they earned their living.

It would have been a 6 day a week job, early rising, late finishing.
The sea would be something they feared and respected.
The sea was their environment.
Their understanding of the world, the place in it, and their understanding of God would all be interpreted in terms of the sea.
The sea would dominate their being.


When Jesus shows up at the shore,
he understands how their environment and work dominates their being.

He uses their world to ask them for their lives.

‘Follow me, and I will make you fish for people.’

By asking them to follow him,
Jesus is asking them to give everything they know away.

He asking them to leave the environment that has made them who they are.
He is asking them to give up their livelihoods.
He is asking them to leave who they are.

Yet this is not all about abrupt change and disconnection.

He tells them they are to keep using their skills, but in a new way.

‘and I will make you fish for people.’ 

This simple sentence shows how Jesus understood humanity, the world, and how we are.

Jesus saw the men and knew them.
He understood their lives and their way of being.
He knew how to speak with them and knew what kind of language and images to use.

So while “I will make you fish for people” may seem quite a basic statement,
if not a bizarre image, in a few small words,
Jesus is able to speak directly to these men’s entire life and experience.

Now, with my lack of interest in fishing, this call would not work for me.
Jesus would have to come up with something different.
It is not an invitation I would be that keen on following up.

I dare say it would be the same for many of us.

This all tells us the importance of context,
environment and circumstance when we speak with others about Jesus.

We all change the way we speak, the words we use, the tone, pitch, pace, all those things when we speak with different types of people
.
Think for example the way you speak to a little baby.
This is different to how you speak to the woman at the checkout at the IGA.
You may be saying exactly the same thing, expressing the same ideas and concepts, for example “Hello, how is your day,” but they will be different.

It gets even more subtle.

The way we speak to people in church will be different to how we speak to people outside of church.
The way we speak to Christians will be different to how we speak to people of different or no faiths.

And so it is when we speak of the Gospel to people.

Jesus spoke into these men's lives,
he spoke of their experience and used that to invite them on a wonderful journey,
one that would change their lives,
and would change the world.

When we speak to people and invite them on a journey that will change their lives,
and the lives of those around them,
when we invite people to church,
to meet Christ in the word and sacrament,
we need to speak into their lives and experience.

That will look and sound different each and every time.
The message doesn't change, it is eternal, but the way we speak and be it will.

So for each encounter we have, the way we speak of God will be different each time.
God doesn’t become different,
we don’t become different,
 but our way of expressing God’s love for us, and for those we are talking to is nuanced.

As Jesus spoke about fishing to fishermen,
we too are to speak about what we observe and understand in our environments when we speak about God.

Sermon for the Second Sunday after Epiphany

‘What are you looking for?’ 

These are the first words Jesus speaks in John’s Gospel.

John’s Gospel is ordered, filled with symbolism,
notes about what time or day things occur,
that when we read it, we are taken into a different realm:
it is a combination of earthiness and reality and spiritual depth.

The two combine into a space that is unique in all literature.

John would have thought and prayed very carefully about what Jesus’ first words were to be in this Gospel.
Jesus must have spoken before this,
so we need not be concerned about history here,
we aren’t interested in his first words.
We are interested in what John is telling us about Jesus.

Two of John the Baptist’s disciples have heard the Baptist say
‘Look, here is the Lamb of God!’
They follow Jesus as he walks past them.

Jesus must have heard them walking behind him.
He turns and asks them a question:

It is Jesus who starts things off.
They may have been in awe, or too shy.
It is Jesus who takes the first step.
Jesus will allude to this later within John’s Gospel, when he says to the disciples:

You did not choose me but I chose you. 

Gods love for us preceeds the movement of our souls toward him.

He asks them:

‘What are you looking for?’ 

This is not some meaningless small talk.
Jesus is not asking them if they are lost, or if they need direction.
Well, actually, he is, but not in a physical or ordinary sense.


Jesus looks at the men and knows why they are there.
He wants to know if they know why they are there.

‘What are you looking for?’ 

But this question goes beyond those two men.
It reaches through time and space and we are asked the same thing.
This is a question Jesus asks all who follow him.
This question touches on the most basic need of our human nature.
This question goes straight to the cause of why we turn to God.

‘What are you looking for?’ 

It goes beyond our logic,
it goes beyond our primal nature and speaks directly to the yearning in our soul.

What are we looking for?
What is that makes us come here?
What is it that makes us follow Jesus, why do we do this?

These are serious questions.

All of us will have different answers.
It may be comfort, it may be the sense of community.
It may be the hymns, the worship, the building.
It may be a sense of peace.

Ultimately, all answers will lead to one thing: God.

However we understand our relationship with God,
or however it works within us,
that is what we are looking for.
I believe everyone is looking for God.
They may not use those words, they may not even think they are looking,
but inside every human there is a longing for union with the divine.
It is in our very DNA, it is part of what makes us human.

That is what the two men who were following Jesus were looking for.

Their reply

‘where are you staying?’  

shows where they were up to on their journey toward God.
They weren’t yet disciples.
They knew that Jesus was something special,
the Baptist had referred to him as the Lamb of God.

Where are you staying, or where are you abiding
shows they wanted to speak with Jesus.
They wanted to know more.
They wanted to spend time with him.
They wanted to be with him.

As what we are looking for is God, so too do we yearn to stay with God.
We long to abide with God.
We long to abide in God.

Again, this is part of what makes us human.
Not only do all people looking for God, they also yearn to stay with him.
It is human to seek escape from temporality, change, death.
It is human to desire something that is lasting,
something that is eternal,
something that goes beyond time and space.

So while this brief question and answer between Jesus and the two followers
seems quite straightforward, it is in fact very deep.

The desires of God toward humanity
and humanity’s desires toward God are laid plain in this interaction.

Jesus’ answer is brief

Come and see.

He doesn’t explain, he doesn’t offer anything, he doesn’t offer an alternative.
He doesn’t say where he is dwelling, just ‘come and see’.

This is still the truth.
In John’s Gospel the idea of seeing is a sign of belief.
Belief or seeing won’t come by concise argument or piles of evidence.

It is only by following Jesus and by abiding in his presence that we can see him.

This is how it still works.

We do this today in the Eucharist.

In the Eucharist we experience the real presence of Christ.

Later in John’s Gospel, Jesus will speak of himself as the Bread of Life.
He will say:

Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them.

Jesus asked the first followers what they looking for.
They asked where he was staying, where he was abiding.
He only answered, Come and see.

We follow in their footsteps.
Jesus asks us what are we looking for?
We ask where we can find find him so we can be with him.
He says come and see.

Being a Dad

The whole idea of being a father has been on my mind these last few weeks.

I am not a great dad.

There are many excuses for this:
I am busy.
I work many hours.
I have no time.

None of those work while on holiday. There is no work, and plenty of time.

So why do I found being a good dad something so elusive?
Why is it something that every month or so I say I am going to sort out and become the dad I want to be, and my daughter deserves?

The point is that it is there really is no excuse.
I could blame the way I was bought up, my dad was not around.

It really worries me that time is marching on. I will always be a dad until I die, but I won't be a dad to a pre teenage girl for much longer. It's like there is plenty of time, yet it is running out. Not that long ago we used to watch Spongebob together all the time. Now, I think it is more me who wants to watch it.

I am really worried that it will all go by without me waking up and sorting it out.

And how does all this sit with God, God who I pray to as "Gracious Father," or "Eternal Father"?
How can I pray and speak of God as giving. loving, forging, caring, using the name Father, yet when it comes to my being a father, I am none of those things?

And what of my daughter? When she prays the Lord's Prayer..."Our Father...."?
What kind of image of fatherhood am I giving her? How is she to believe God the Father will love and care for her, while her father on earth doesn't do a very good job of it? I mean, they are just names, but the implications are vast.

This year I will be the father I need to be, the father I currently am.

Sermon for the First Sunday after Christmas

Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him

It is a rather sobering thought.

After Christmas, after the sparkle of the tree, the tinsel, the feasting, the lights, the presents, the time spent with family, the good cheer that this season brings,
we are faced with the massacre of babies.

We are faced with the fact the right from the start of his life,
Jesus was trouble for those in power.

Joseph, who was righteous in terms of the Law,
but became truly righteous with grace in his dealings with Mary,
was now the legal father of Jesus.
He had named him.

The Wise Men have come to pay homage and give Jesus gifts.

Joseph is again visited by an angel in a dream.

‘Get up, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt,
and remain there until I tell you;
for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him.’ 

Joseph must be used to angels by now.
He trusted the first visit.
And now again, he will follow the angels advice.

He takes Mary and Jesus to Egypt.

He is again visited by an angel in a dream,
this time telling him to go back to Israel.

Then again, he is warned in a dream about the goings on Judea,
and he goes to Galilee instead.

From his beginning, Jesus was homeless,
going from place to place to keep out of danger.

Right from the beginning, Jesus was excluded and dismissed.

There was no room for him at the inn.
The king at the time searches everywhere in order to kill him.
Later he will have no home, no stone to lay his head on.
He will be betrayed by one of his friends, Judas,
he will denied by his best mate Peter,
he will be abandoned as he crucified.

The same powers that yearned to kill him at his birth
will 33  years later get their way in his crucifixion.
Well, they think they will get their way.

It is that exclusion and dismissal by the leaders and powers
that should remind us of what being a follower of Jesus is all about.

King Herod wanted Jesus dead,
because he knew that this ‘King of the Jews’ would only be bad news for him.
He could feel his power being usurped.
Even if he knew that the Messiah as promised by the scriptures
would be the greatest thing for his people,
he could not let go of power,
and was willing to kill every boy under two to hold onto his reign.

The way of Herod was to destroy any threat to power.

This is opposite of the way of Jesus.

Throughout his earthly existence, Jesus was threatened by the powers.
They sought to kill him because he threatened their power.
Yet, in his dying on the cross, he showed that they had no power over him.
In his dying and rising, Jesus showed that death has no power.
The ultimate tool of the corrupt powers is deemed useless.

At the beginning of his life, the powers wanted to kill him.
When they heard what he was saying in his ministry, they wanted to kill him.

The way of Herod is the way the world runs.
The holding on to power at all costs.
It is way most organisations run.
It is the way politics runs.

The church is to run counter to that.
We are to take our lead not from Herod, but from Jesus.

Jesus resisted any form of power or status for himself.
We are called to renounce power and status.
Take the lowest seat at the table.
Not to accept honour in public.
To be alongside those who are suffering, not with those causing the pain.

We are to watch ourselves that we are not seduced by power.
It is better for us to sit with those with nothing than those with everything.
It is better for us that we let go of control than become controlling.
It is better for us to be suffering than to be the ones causing the suffering.
It is better for us to be like Jesus rather than Herod.

The way of Herod destroys any challenge to power.
The way of Jesus is to lay ones own life down for ones friends,
not to lay down others lives for oneself.
It is a very different way of being.
To this day, it is still an alternative way of being.
This is because the way of the Herod, the way of power is so seductive.

So while Herod sought to keep his grip on everyone by killing innocent babies,
Jesus never sought power.
On the cross, Jesus unmasked the religious and political powers to reveal them as the corrupt and deathly thing they are.
In his rising, he showed the world that the powers are powerless.

Sermon for Christmas Day

In the region where Mary gave birth to Jesus were shepherds living in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. 

We are here to celebrate the birth of Jesus,
yet we hear all about a bunch of shepherds and angels, away in a field.
Not much about the birth of God’s Son.
What’s so special about shepherds?

Now we can all agree that the appearance of angels make this birth something spectacular,
God’s own messengers are sent to proclaim the birth of his son.

But the fact that they are sent to Shepherds is perhaps even more significant.

The first clue is that the shepherds are living in the fields.
Not just working, but living.

These were men who were on the outside.
They were not in the town, they were not with families, they were not rich. They were quite alone, other than with each other.

Shepherds were not highly regarded at this time.
In fact, they were not regarded at all.
They were thought of as pretty low in society.

Shepherds were thought of as criminals, due to their habit of grazing their flock on others peoples paddocks.

So, they were thought of as criminals,
and because of that, it was job that also attracted criminals.
These were guys who society had no time for.

Furthermore, due to the hours of their work,
they could not take part in the religious goings on.
They couldn’t go to the temple or the synagogue.
They couldn’t hear God’s word, or pray with everyone.
So in Jewish understanding at the time, they were outside of God’s realm.

They were both outside of society, and outside of God.

So the fact that an angel appears to them must have been quite a shock.

It would be shock to anyone, angels are always saying ‘Do not be afraid.’

These men who believed they were outside of God were being brought in.

God’s very own messengers were telling them what was going on.

The angels didn’t go to the King, the Emperor, the leaders of the Temple, or the wealthy merchants.
They went to these lowly men.

I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people:
to you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour,
who is the Messiah, the Lord.

God chose to tell the shepherds.

The first thing that happens after Jesus is born is a great expansion of who God regards as having his favour.

The circle that had some in and some out was being expanded to include anyone who wanted to be with God.

Being with God was no longer dependent on race, status, or class.
All this moments after Jesus was born.

So they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph,
and the child lying in the manger.

This morning we join with the shepherds.
In many ways, we take the place of the shepherds.
Gods all embracing love that was expanded to include shepherds 2000 years ago is now so expanded it includes us.

So while the actual birth was rather normal,
the ripples of God’s love that went out from the manger,
out to the field with the shepherds, out of Bethlehem,
out through the middle East, over Europe, all over the world,
and to here in Branxton.

Somewhere along the way, we have heard the story of Jesus being born,
and today we are gathered around the stable to celebrate the moment when God became truly with us,
in his Son, Jesus Christ.

We remember where God has been with us in our lives,
we think about those who may not know of God’s love for them.

Now we are the shepherds, kneeling before God’s  Son.
We are loved with all our failings.
We may feel at times that we are outside,
but the shepherds remind us that we too are loved by God.
The shepherds remind us that even though we may get it wrong, God still loves us. He forgives us.

After the shepherds had visited Mary, Joseph and Jesus,
they returned glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen,
as it had been told them.

We are to be the shepherds now, going back home,
telling everyone about the wonder of the birth of God’s Son.
The story that comes from that manger has reached us,
and we are to continue it, to pass it on.
The Good news of Jesus birth is good news for everyone.
It is the story of God’s love.

The birth of his Son is the revealing of his love,
in his desire to be with us,
his desire to be with us through all the messiness of life.

God loved the world so much that he gave his only son,
so that anyone who believes in him will never die,
but have eternal life.