When we celebrate Holy Communion, we not only have communion between us and God, or between me and God, but communion with each other. 

Before we come to the table, we prepare ourselves to approach God. When celebrating Holy Communion in the Methodist Church tradition the service begins with the Prayer of Humble Access including the words derived from the Syrophoenician Woman's encounter with Jesus while he was having a meal in a house (Matthew 15:21-28) - 'We are not worthy even to gather up the crumbs under your table.' 

We have been taught to reverently approach God, to reverently approach the table and to reverently receive the bread and wine that is offered to us as the body and blood of Christ but what about reverence for each other. God is not just present in the bread and wine but also in those who gather with us. 

Gathering to celebrate Holy Communion is an opportunity to approach one another with the same humility and awe with which we approach God. John O 'Donohue says, 'The way we present to each other is frequently superficial' (p.24 of his book Beauty). He says we have become more interested in connection than communion. We lose the rich potential for friendship and love remains out of reach. We can’t just fix our eyes upon Jesus without approaching the people around us.

When we approach each other with reverence something awakens between us - the hidden beauty of God is revealed. This awareness is of a much deeper connection than we could have thought.
This connection is alive with grace and mercy, kindness and compassion,
understanding and empathy. An awareness that we are one.
It is truly communion.

​When you next approach the table remember that we also approach one another.

Prayer of Humble Access
We do not presume to come to this your table,
merciful Lord, trusting in our own righteousness, 
but in your manifold and great mercies.
We are not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under your table.
But you are the same Lord whose nature is always to have mercy.
Grant us therefore, gracious Lord, so to eat the flesh
of your dear Son Jesus Christ, and to drink his blood,
that we may evermore dwell in him and he in us. Amen.

​This is the first in a series of questions to contemplate as we prepare for some mission planning

Who am I?

If someone asks us, who are you? One common response is to respond with our name. I am Trevor Jennings. Then if they prod a bit more, we might say I am a Uniting Church minister or I am a forklift driver, or I am a mother or I am a daughter, or I am Australian, or I am Tongan, or I am from Clemton Park.

We see our identity tied to work, relationships, education, religion, sexuality, ethnicity etc. If we think someone is judging us in some way or they stay something condescending about us that hurts, we may say to ourselves, they don’t know me, they don’t know who I really am.

Sometimes we like to tell others, I am an introvert, or I am an extrovert, to explain ourselves and our behaviour, or we may find comfort in a psychological diagnosis.

From our birth we forge our identity from the world around us and our ideas of ourselves are shaped by our experiences and education, by those who raise and influence us, and increasingly through social media etc. These are all external environmental factors in our identity formation and of course there is a continuous internal dialogue processing it all.  

When we are not happy with who we are or who we think we have become, we often seek help. Sometimes the help we seek can be far from helpful, for example if we try to become someone else through drugs or alcohol. Sometimes we might seek help through counselling to understand ourselves or to change our thinking about ourselves or just to find ourselves.

​But do we ever know who we really are? What is our true self?

Likewise, when it comes to mission planning in the church and we ask the question, who are we; we tend to answer with a set of beliefs – we are the body of Christ, we are followers of Jesus, we are the Uniting Church, we are a bible believing church, we are inclusive, we are a welcoming congregation etc.  Is what we say about ourselves and what we say we believe, really who we are?

Could asking ourselves, who am I, be a deeply spiritual question, a spiritual search in itself? Richard Rohr says, for Christians who have gone into their own depths they have uncovered an indwelling presence -a deep loving ‘yes’, God immanent, the Holy Spirit within, our deepest truest self, God the very ground of our being’. He says some mystics have described this presence as “closer to me than I am to myself” or “more me than I am myself” or as Thomas Merton called it -the true self.
 
Contemplate the following –

‘this presence is more me than I am myself’.

In his book ‘Beauty’, John O’Donohue says that faith is both an attraction to the divine and a response to God’s beauty and that ‘Love changes the way we see ourselves and others’ - ‘love turns up the hidden light within a person’s life’ and that ‘the beauty of God increases and deepens our own beauty.

Why are the questions ‘Who am I?’ and ‘Who are we?’ so important to any attempt in making a mission plan? How may this question shape what we do and how we do it?

Matthew 2:13-23
 
When Mary and Joseph got to Bethlehem they had already been pushed around by the dictates of politics and power. They had to leave their home while Mary was heavily pregnant and walk for days just to be registered in the census, a means by which taxes were worked out and imposed. Their fleeing to Egypt was another part of that forced journey.
 
We all live under the dictates of politics and power, some negotiating it better than others depending on our race, ethnicity, sex, gender, sexuality, privilege, education, wealth, place of birth, religion, health etc. Some learn to comply to the systems or use them to their own advantage, others rebel seeking to find an elusive freedom and others sink, suffer, and just try to survive.
 
The biblical stories are told within the stories of politics and power, of how faith was forged and developed and lost and found again. Today’s story tells how faith was carried and protected, vulnerable and so fragile. As Mary and Joseph travelled to Egypt and then on to Nazareth, they literally carried their faith with them, in the form of their child and all the hopes for the world held in that baby. All the while avoiding the murderous and jealous powers that slaughtered all the children under two years of age around Bethlehem.

What is the faith that you carry like? Is it strong and robust, sure and solid, or are you a bit more unsure about it? Perhaps what you carry is a mixture of faith and doubt? Can you imagine the doubts that plagued Mary and Joseph along the way as they fled trying to find shelter and food and work to survive, to keep their baby alive? Why is this happening to us? Did an angel really appear to us? Is our child really the Saviour of the world? Together they carried a mixture of faith and doubt held together with the threads of love.

When we talk about keeping the faith we often mean holding on to our beliefs through thick and thin. We pull them together into creeds which we recite; creeds that reinforce our beliefs, which become sanctuaries from doubts, exercises to go through in our minds, like building muscles to become strong in the faith and we hang on to them against all the temptations and trials we go through. It can be exhausting - such a battle raging in the mind. Faith is not just what we believe in our minds, what we have learned in church, Sunday school or Scripture classes in school, or even in Theological colleges. Faith is lived through our whole body, through our hands and feet in actions, in our words and on our faces and gestures.

Faith needs doubts to develop. Brian McLaren says that doubts are not the opposite of faith but rather complement each other. Doubts are necessary for a life to be lived with authenticity and honesty. If we ignore or avoid our doubts, if we don’t engage with our doubts, we may never grow in our faith. We may never grow into the fulness of love or discover life in its fulness, perhaps not experience a deepening awareness of God’s presence in all things.

Paul, in first Corinthians 13:13 says, And now these three things remain: faith, hope and love and the greatest of these is love. No doubt for Mary and Joseph their journey was not driven by some well articulated statement of faith or creed of beliefs but by love: love for their child, love for each other, love for the world; more instinctual than intellectual, of necessity rather than choice. In Galatians 5:6b Pauls says, … the only thing that counts is faith working through love.
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Can there really be faith without love? I am coming to see that faith for me is living because of a dream, a mystery, a hope beyond comprehension and articulation, a glorious vision of the imagination, a longing, a thirst, an unknowable knowing; God revealed in a baby born to two loving faithful parents a long time ago. Above all faith in Jesus is a life that is lived in love. 

Matthew 3:1-12 Sunday 4 December 2022 Advent 2

"The voice of one crying out in the wilderness: 'Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.'"
The voice of one calling out in the wilderness

Julie and I spent the last two weeks travelling around Tasmania. Tasmania is an incredibly beautiful place. At times Julie described it like heaven, the beauty kept rolling out like an endless dream. We spent a lot of the time walking along beaches or on bush tracks, beside rushing rivers, under gushing waterfalls, around stunning lakes, through lush valleys and over steep majestic mountains, accompanied constantly by beautiful birdsong. While walking in silence with only the sounds of the bush, I found that lots of memories and thoughts came up: things and people that I had not thought about for a long time. I suppose I was alone with my thoughts rather than being distracted by so many things that happen in daily life. Some of these memories can be painful, but I found that they seemed to fall harmlessly away as I walked on.

We walked through many National Parks. At one national park – the Franklin-Gordon Wild Rivers National Park I came across the following information notice. It stated:

Aboriginal land… Not wilderness

The Franklin River has only been seen as a wilderness since the arrival of Europeans. Before this, Tasmanian Aborigines had long viewed this land as something special – but not as wilderness. The land has been the foundation of their culture and its laws and traditions for over 60,000 years. For today’s Aboriginal community, its significance is just as strong.  Aboriginal sites still found in this area are evidence of these close links with the land and allow today’s Aborigines to celebrate the continuation of their culture.

There were three obvious things we noticed that tarnished our view of Tasmania as heavenly. The first was the large numbers of animals killed on the road: wallabies, kangaroos, paddy melons, echidnas, wombats and Tasmania Devils, all endangered species littering the roads, giving lots of food for scavenging birds. The second obvious thing was the destruction of the environment through mining and logging. I had last been in Tasmania forty years ago and did not want to go to Queenstown, but was surprised how much it had changed over that time. Corrosive Sulphur fumes from copper mine smelters had combined with endless rain to erode the soil from surrounding hill sides and leave it looking bare like the moon. It was good to see some recovery happening but still had enormous denuded areas of beige-brown barrenness. The greed of rich entrepreneurs was everywhere to be seen not just n the recorded history but before our eyes. The third obvious thing was the cruel convict history. Everywhere there were gaols and bridges and other government buildings and houses built by convict labour. Poor people, many from Ireland, transported to the other end of the world for minor crimes or political protest never to see loved ones again or the land of their youth.

​What was not obvious was Aboriginal sites. At recently renamed Leeawuleena (Lake St Claire) National Park an information sign stated – When they walked peaceably into Hobart town in January 1832, all that was left of the Big River nation, which had once numbered 400 to 500 people, were 16 men, 9 women and one child. After defending their country for nearly 30 thirty years, the Larmairemer people expected the ’peace and plenty’ promised them by the… (Government). Instead they were shipped to Flinders Island- far away from their homeland. Having read this, I could almost hear a voice calling out in the wilderness, a voice begging to be heard for over 234 years. This is home not wilderness. It seemed that the land was calling out, calling for justice for both land and dispossessed people.

Wilderness and Voice
Advent is a spiritual journey preparing us for Christmas but more than that, opening us to see the whole world in a different way, in the way of Jesus. This spiritual journey leads us through the wilderness. However, for us urban dwellers most of our spare time will probably lead us through the shops rather than to places where we can be alone with the world, with ourselves, our thoughts, and open to the voice of God.

As I read the Scripture passage for today and reflected on my ‘wilderness’ experience, I thought of that sign which said ‘Aboriginal land…not wilderness’ and I reflected on one of the main stories in Australian news this week which was about A Referendum on an Indigenous Constitutional Recognition through a Voice to Parliament and how the first peoples of this land are calling out for a voice, to be heard at the highest level, in the constitution and laws of this country.

Our local Federal member and Minister for Indigenous affairs Linda Burney gave an impassioned speech in parliament this week. She said, “Not everyone can have their voice heard. That is why we need a voice to Parliament. You learn more by listening than by talking and an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander voice is an idea whose time has come. We want to take Australia forward for everyone and will work with anyone who wants to take this journey forward to a better future.”

When John’s voice is raised in the wilderness, he is not just calling us to repent of our own individual sin, but our collective sins against the beautiful world God has created and against the first nations of this land. As we listen for the voice of the baby Jesus crying in his manger let us listen closely to the cries for justice and inclusion, and for land, sea and skies calling out for us to repent of our ways and take Jesus’ way, to make God's path straight.

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Sunday 8 May 2022
 
Mothers Day
 
John 10:22-30  
 
Another reflection on hearing the voice of God,
 
My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me.
 
The voice I most long to hear is my mother's voice. I love when I dream and hear and know her voice so clearly. I love talking with her in those dreams and am so thankful for those dreams that feel so real. Sometimes I am apologising for any hurt I have caused her and she is always forgiving. I acknowledge though for others their mother’s voice may not bring with it good memories.
 
How do we hear the voice of God? For some they set aside daily times for prayer and find a quiet place, a quiet room without distractions. They need time away from the world and the distractions. While I find quietness and stillness helpful, I also need to be mindful, going into a quiet room for example, that I am not trying to make contact with a God who lives outside this world, in a heaven far away, but with a God who is present at all times in the world around me, a God who is one with us, within us, around us; a God who is present in creation, in what God has created and is communicating himself or herself to us through all things. God is in all things and all things are in God.
 
Dara Molloy in his book Reimagining the Divine has a poem about when he first went to live as a hermit on an island off the West coast of Ireland. It shows how he changed from strict set aside times of prayer to an attentiveness in all moments of the day. Read Prayer by Dara Molloy (pages 223-224). Prayer for him was something he did but now prayer is simply being. This says something to us about listening for God in every moment and having an attentiveness to seemingly unimportant things because God may not just be waiting for us to become quiet in our room or only early in the morning or when we come to church once a week but is communicating with us through all things.
 
At the moment politicians are calling out to us to hear them, to trust them to follow them to the polling station and to vote for them. How do we know who to vote for? Perhaps we have prayed about that. Perhaps we have sought God’s guidance. Perhaps we are waiting for God to tell us who to vote for, to give us a clear sign. In my experience the voice of God is not heard in some clear answer to my requests but rather more like a whispering on the wind, something that comes to me that surprises me, challenges me, extends me, opens me to the possibility that the God I seek is much bigger and more wonderful than I could imagine, but this voice always speaks in tones that are loving and kind, and most times the voice is not heard in words but in loving caring actions.
 
To know the voice of God I think knowing our own voice helps. Being still with ourselves and going beyond the voices within of anger, of self-loathing, self-pity, hatred, unforgiveness, bitterness, untruths, lies, to a place of acceptance of oneself, of one’s circumstances, one’s age, of who one is; and in the stillness and acceptance of that place perhaps we may hear more clearly the voice of the one we name as God, the one Jesus likens himself to, the God who like a shepherd knows their sheep and whose voice the sheep hear and trust and follow. This is the voice we seek and perhaps the voice that may be speaking through us.

,Sunday 20 February 2022

Luke 6:27-38

But I say to you that listen, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also; and from anyone who takes away your coat do not withhold even your shirt. Give to everyone who begs from you; and if anyone takes away your goods, do not ask for them again. Do to others as you would have them do to you.

As we listen to the news, we hear of autocratic leaders around the world threatening to invade other nations, intimidating smaller nations by massing thousands of troops and weapons on their borders, flying into the air space or sailing into the territorial waters of other nations without permission. As we listen to the news, we hear of people all over the world questioning the future of democracy and whether what we call democracy is really just the rich getting their way and those who get justice are those who can pay for it and those who get health care are those who can afford it. “Why God?” We ask.

In verse 27 Jesus says, “I say to you who listen.” or as Jesus says in Matthew’s Gospel, “Let those of you who have ears hear.” Or as Eugene Peterson translates it, ‘To you who are ready for the truth.’ Jesus speaks to those who want to hear, who want to understand, who want to follow Jesus, who seek a peaceful and just and equitable way in the world, who seek the way of God.

We who hear these words today have an advantage over those who first heard these words. Alongside these words we hold the story of the cross. When you have an eye test the optometrist places different strength lenses in front of each eye to see what strength lenses you need in your glasses to optimise your sight so you can see clearly, whether close up to read or to see things in the distance. As followers of Jesus when we look at the world, we look through the lens of the cross. As we read passages such as this that make little sense to our thinking we see things very differently when we put on the lens of the cross.  In the cross we see that Jesus is the one who truly loves his enemies. Jesus doesn’t just tell us what to do, Jesus does it. Jesus leads the way. Jesus takes the way of the cross.

Michael Hardin says, in relation to this passage, that- The cross of Jesus shatters worldviews. The shattering comes in the act of reconciliation, even as he was dying, seeking forgiveness. If you understand this, then you understand the Gospel and are being transformed by it.

What Jesus says seems almost impossible: love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who hurt you. Jesus’ words tell us what God is like. Jesus’ death on the cross shows us the extent of God’s love, and the vast difference between what we think love is and God’s love.

When we see nations threatening to go to war, intimidating others, and ask why does God allow this, as if God were somehow in control of the actions of all people, we have to be reminded of the cross. Jesus turns the other check, these leaders do not. At a time when the whole world is struggling with a worldwide plague and the threat of total environmental destruction it is not God who is doing these things but people who are threatening the survival of the world. It is people who refuse to turn the other cheek. It is people who refuse to love their enemies. It is people who refuse to be reconciled. Jesus came to save not to condemn and destroy. This is the way of salvation. Our salvation is not simply believing that Jesus died on the cross for our sins. It is taking up our cross, following Jesus’ example. By doing the opposite of what comes naturally to us, by doing the unexpected, we find the salvation Jesus offers the world. Our enemies are not Russia or China or Al Qaeda or ISIS but the principalities and powers behind them moving them in ways that are contrary to the ways of Jesus. Our battle ground is the cross. Our challenge is to lay down our lives at the foot of the cross, to love, to pray, to forgive, to bless, to do good in the face of evil.

Psalm 37 offers us comfort and encouragement today - Do not fret because of the wicked; do not be envious of wrongdoers, trust in the Lord, and do good; take delight in the Lord, commit your way to the Lord. Trust in God, be still before the Lord and wait patiently for God, take refuge in God.
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In ten days’ time we will begin Lent, the journey towards the cross. Our eyes must always focus on the cross and see life through the cross, for the journey to the cross brings with it the hope of resurrection, the hope of salvation for the world, hope for the future of the earth, the leaving aside of the ways of violence and the taking up of the way of love, the way of Christ. 

Reflection Sunday 13 February 2022

Luke 6:17-26  Good news for people who are poor

Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.

Is our gospel really good news for people who are poor?

Forty five years ago, Ron Sider published his book ‘Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger’. At first he had great difficulty in getting a Christian Publishing house to publish it as they thought it was too radical. Some called him a Marxist, others called him a new ager, a communist and others said his book was one of the most dangerous books of the decade. In response, many leading and wealthy Tv Evangelists went into overdrive promoting their gospel of prosperity.
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The Gospel was originally very much good news for the poor and spread amongst the poorest in the world but eventually as the church became richer those in leadership began to defend their wealth and their lifestyles. 

For many Christians the beatitudes are the most important teaching of Jesus and a guide by which they try to live their lives, for others the beatitudes are a stumbling block on which their faith comes crashing down. They find it conflicts too much with the life they want to live.

How can we make the gospel good news again for people who are poor?

From our reading today we hear that Jesus had no trouble in attracting people to himself. The crowds of people who followed him had great needs. Luke 6:18,19 says - They had come to hear him and to be healed of their diseases; and those who were troubled with unclean spirits were cured. And all in the crowd were trying to touch him, for power came out from him and healed all of them.

Jesus healed the people in their bodies and brought peace to their minds and taught their spirits. For those who would hear that day Jesus taught them about blessings and warnings.

"Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. "Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled. "Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh. "Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude you, revile you, and defame you on account of the Son of Man. Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, for surely your reward is great in heaven; for that is what their ancestors did to the prophets.

"But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation. "Woe to you who are full now, for you will be hungry. "Woe to you who are laughing now, for you will mourn and weep. "Woe to you when all speak well of you, for that is what their ancestors did to the false prophets."

Jesus expressed the view that the world was not right. Jesus’ words spoke directly to the longings of people who were poor and downtrodden, those who were constantly hungry for whom food was scarce, those who wept because of their lot in life and Jesus said consider it a blessing when people hate you, exclude you, revile you and defame you because of me the son of man.

In taking the title ‘The Son of man’ (which I always translate as ‘the true human’), Jesus was not just saying he was the perfect example of a human being whom we all should take as our model but that in following him and believing in him and trusting in him, true humanity was to be found and enjoyed by all, a humanity where there is no disparity between those who are poor and those who are rich. Our shared humanity in Christ means an equitable sharing of all the resources of the world for the good of all: access for all to food and water, to health and education, to clean air and to live on one’s land, the weakest and poorest are all included and valued and cherished. This was not a pronunciation of blessings or curses upon individuals but on all humanity. Jesus was the new Israel, through believing and trusting in Jesus, people were born by the Spirit into one body, a new humanity, a new people, a new life shared by all.

Jesus’ message is challenging. The Gospels weren’t written to tell us about the faith of people who encountered Jesus, they were written to challenge the faith of us the readers who are to ask, “where do I stand?” (Francis Maloney quoted in Theosony p.144 by Noirin Ni Riain) The gospel is an invitation from Jesus to his hearers to move to a new level of understanding… to the level of the holy (Thomas Brodie quoted in Theosony p.45 by Noirin Ni Riain) or in other words to the level of the Kingdom of God. The challenge for us as hearers of the gospel is to distinguish between hearing the gospel through the level of our cultures and through the level of the kingdom of God.
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Listen carefully with open ears to the words of Jesus. Listen for the sacred word that really is good news for all humanity.

Reflection Sunday 6 February 2022
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Please slowly read Luke 5:1-11 a few times pausing on words that stand out. Then read aloud the direct words spoken between Jesus and Peter. These words are highlighted in bold print italics. In hearing the words read slowly aloud we may engage more closely and intentionally with what hear and perhaps may hear something that we may not gather by just reading in our mind.

Once while Jesus was standing beside the lake of Gennesaret, and the crowd was pressing in on him to hear the word of God, he saw two boats there at the shore of the lake; the fishermen had gone out of them and were washing their nets. He got into one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon, and asked him to put out a little way from the shore. Then he sat down and taught the crowds from the boat. When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, "Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch." Simon answered, "Master, we have worked all night long but have caught nothing. Yet if you say so, I will let down the nets."
When they had done this, they caught so many fish that their nets were beginning to break. So they signalled their partners in the other boat to come and help them. And they came and filled both boats, so that they began to sink.
But when Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus' knees, saying, "Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!" For he and all who were with him were amazed at the catch of fish that they had taken; and so also were James and John, sons of Zebedee, who are partners with Simon. Then Jesus said to Simon, "Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching people." When they had brought their boats to shore, they left everything and followed him.

The last time I preached on this passage I focused on God calling us out into deep water to evangelise, to make connections beyond Sunday services and church buildings. This time I am calling attention to the spoken words between Jesus and Peter. What do these words reveal to us? An important thing to remember when reading Scripture is that we are not just trying to understand, for example in this instance, the depth of truth contained in the words spoken between Jesus and Peter, but what God is speaking to us in our situation, in our time.

In this encounter between Jesus and Peter, it is when Jesus speaks directly to Peter that things get interesting, they move to another level and Peter realises the depth of which he is suddenly in with God. I imagine Peter is comfortable watching Jesus at a distance and even when Jesus asks to get into the boat Peter is happy to help, but when Jesus asks Peter to put out into deep water then the encounter becomes much more personal, more challenging.  

I am putting the emphasis here on our ears hearing the words spoken between them rather than on what Peter and the others with him saw with their eyes, which was nets beginning to break and boats filled with fish and beginning to sink. We are often looking for proof of God’s existence, or evidence of God’s presence. When Peter witnessed the enormous catch of fish and the boat beginning to sink under him, his attention went from what he was seeing to Jesus. Beyond the obvious, the enormous catch of fish, Peter became aware of whose presence he was in. The ordinary everyday activity was infused with the presence of God – the extraordinary in the ordinary. If we witness something good happening, we tend to think God is at work here. If something not so good or bad is happening, we tend to think God is absent. We forget that the ‘Kingdom of God’ is always here, within and around us. God is always present, God is always at work, whether we classify something as ordinary or extraordinary. Rather than pointing to occurrences as evidence of God, or reciting doctrines of right belief to support our faith in situations when things may not look so good; our ears are to be open, seeking, listening for what God is speaking to us at all times.

In evangelical circles emphasis is put on a person responding to a ‘Gospel Presentation’ by acknowledging one’s sin, believing that Jesus died on the cross for one’s sins, accepting Jesus as one’s saviour and committing one’s life to Christ. I am not disagreeing with this; however, we may settle for believing about someone rather than accepting the actual person of Jesus and that we are relating to a living God in our daily lives. We can settle for keeping God at a distance rather than engaging with a God within us and around us in every situation, every day. John Bennington says, ‘Conversion can so easily become an armour against any further encounters with God, and our Christian faith a spiritual asylum where we hide from the frightening truth about ourselves, clinging on to the illusion that we are finally right with God … instead of risking (God) remaking us in (God’s) image (p.88 Culture, Class and Christian Beliefs).

eter’s response was to tell Jesus to go away from him because of his sinfulness, but Jesus would not leave him in that state and said, "Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching people." In other words, don’t stay in the safety and comfort and standards of your sin, follow me, listen to me, hear my words of life and with me bring people into an awareness of my kingdom, my life. Peter was afraid of the ‘I AM’ but the ‘I AM’ refused to be distant, the subject of a doctrine, a theology; the ‘I Am’ engaged Peter and asked Peter to come with him.

We do not just reflect on what Jesus said to Peter in this reading but ask what are you saying to me God in the situation I find myself in life, and as a congregation we ask what are you saying to us God in every situation we find ourselves in as a congregation.
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It is the present moment which is most important in our relationship with God. Are we listening for God now? This is God’s moment. The ‘I AM’ can be known by us here and now in our every day lives and concrete situations not just in the stories of old or in a future life.

​Reflection Sunday 30 January 2022

Luke 4:21-30

Does God take life?

4:30 But Jesus passed through the midst of them and went on his way.

I have always wondered how Jesus walked through the people who were about to kill him and went on his way. I can imagine the men in the synagogue getting very angry with Jesus. Jesus came into the Synagogue filled with the power of the Holy Spirit, but the men in the synagogue reacted to Jesus’ words with anger. They became filled with rage or perhaps filled with another spirit. They reacted greatly when Jesus said that no prophet is accepted in the prophet’s hometown and gave the examples of the prophets Elijah and Elisha whose miracles were not done in Israel but among foreigners in neighbouring countries. In their rage the men forced Jesus out of the synagogue and out of the town and they led him to the brow of a hill with the intention to kill him. I presume they grabbed hold of Jesus and led up the hill. But how did he simply walk away? How could he have got away with so many around him?

In another incident in John chapter 8, John tells us that Jesus was teaching in the temple and clashing with the Pharisees, but no one arrested Jesus because his hour had not yet come. This suggests that God the Father was protecting Jesus, allowing no harm to come to him, until it was his ‘hour,’ his time to die on the cross.

Often Christians who are grieving the deaths of loved ones, console themselves by saying it must have been God’s time to take them. This is sometimes said when someone has died in tragic circumstances or when someone dies quite young. But can we really say it was God’s time, when for example someone dies in a car crash when an oncoming speeding car crosses the white line and ploughs into them? In our grief we sometimes clutch at hopes that may contradict. When Lazarus, the brother of Martha and Mary died, Jesus wept (John 11:35). I imagine that God weeps with us in our grief when any person in the world dies; for everyone’s life is precious to God. The emphasis in the story of Lazarus is not on a God who takes life but one who restores life, one who affirms the life that is in Jesus and the life that is Jesus.

It seems to be that we get many of our beliefs about God controlling whether we live or die from the book of Job. Rather than giving us the answers to why there is suffering in the world and why good people suffer while the not so good seem to prosper, the book may be raising questions, the very same questions we are asking, the very same questions that seem to have no answers. Beware of reading the book of Job literally. It may be a work of fiction, a story about good and evil, and why suffering happens and whether God allows it. In Luke 13:1-5 Jesus seems to say that accidents happen. Accidents are not caused or allowed by God. People happen to be in the wrong place at the time. Perhaps when the tower of Siloam fell, it was the sin of poor workmanship or the sin of cutting corners that led to the tower falling. It was not their time nor God’s will.

In other parts of the Old Testament, the length of our life appointed by God is not set down to the very hour or day, but in years. The years of our life are seventy, or even by reason of strength eighty; yet their span is but toil and trouble; they are soon gone, and we fly away Psalm 90:10). In Psalm 39:4 -5 David prays, “Lord, let me know my end, and what is the measure of my days; let me know how fleeting my life is. You have made my days a few handbreadths, and my lifetime is as nothing in your sight. Surely everyone stands as a mere breath.” Perhaps we need to read these Old Testament passages in the light of the Word of life that Jesus brings.

Our lifetime is short, for some shorter than for others. Whether it is short or long, whether we live or we die, our life is always in God’s hands, our life is always part of God. (Nothing)… will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans 8:39). Whether our life on earth in our bodies is long or short, God’s will for us like God’s will for Jesus, is that we live life to the full, that we live in the Spirit, filled with the Spirit. Our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit with the fullness of God’s life flowing in harmony with our life, as one. When we die it is not our life that leaves us but we who separate from our bodies. We are life, raised up into eternal life.
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So, what ever we face may we remember than our life cannot be taken from God, for our life and God’s life flow as one in the Spirit.

Mothe
​Reflection Sunday 23 January 2022

Filled with the power of the Spirit

Luke 4:14-21
Then Jesus, filled with the power of the Spirit, returned to Galilee, and a report about him spread through all the surrounding country. He began to teach in their synagogues and was praised by everyone. When he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, he went to the synagogue on the sabbath day, as was his custom. He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written: "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favour." And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. Then he began to say to them, "Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing."
 
Then Jesus, filled with the power of the Spirit, returned to Galilee…
We often refer to others as being full of themselves, full of ego, full of their own importance, full of shame, full of self-pity, full of bitterness, full of hatred and so on. What we may mean when we make these kinds of comments about people is that they are so full of something that they cannot see, or feel, or do anything else. It is as if they are blinded to all else because they are so full of something. They are so full of one thing that they have no capacity for anything else.
 
When Jesus returned to Galilee, Jesus was not full of his own importance. Jesus was not full of his own power. Jesus was filled with the power of the Spirit. What is the power of the Spirit? How did Jesus become filled with the power of the Spirit? What might being filled with the power of the spirit mean? Can we be filled with the power of the Spirit? If we are filled with other things, how can we be filled with the spirit? If we were filled with the power of the Spirit instead of being filled with other things, what difference might it make?

To explore what being filled with the power of the Spirit may mean, perhaps we can look at where Jesus was before he returned to Galilee. Jesus was in the wilderness. In Luke 4:1-2 we read - Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness, where for forty days he was tempted by the Devil. In the wilderness Jesus’ new fullness of the Spirit was tested and he came through the testing in such a way that the power of the Spirit filled him. Jesus entered the wilderness full of the Spirit and he returned from the wilderness filled with the power of the Holy Spirit.

The Spirit descended on Jesus at his baptism and the Devil tried to render Jesus powerless through the temptations. The power of the Spirit is unlike the power of this world. We do not earn it or work it up. It is what remains or arises when we refuse to choose the powers of this world which are often no more than forms of violence pretending to be the only option for us to take. Sometimes these choices are very difficult because they are presented to us as the lesser of two evils. The power of the Spirit comes by being aware of the powers of this world, by refusing to take and use the power of this world for ourselves. So often we are tempted to take a short cut, to step on someone’s toes, believing that the means justify the ends. We use violence to defeat violence. The danger is that we become a monster in order to defeat a monster.

The power of the Spirit It is not a power stronger than evil. It is a power that arises through weakness. Saint Paul was well aware of this mystery. Paul wrote about it in 2 Corinthians 12:9-10 - but he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power[a] is made perfect in weakness.” So, I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me.  Therefore, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities for the sake of Christ; for whenever I am weak, then I am strong.

We often want power so we can get things done the way we think they should be done. Even in the church we have power struggles. For example, if we don’t like what our leaders are doing. We can think we can do better. We vote them out or create such a toxic atmosphere that they leave and we then fill the vacuum. We are full of our own power- full of ourselves. The church becomes filled with the powers of the world and there is no room for the power of the Spirit.

The Desert Mothers and Fathers, Christians who lived in the deserts of North Africa in the early centuries after Jesus, looked to Jesus’ wilderness experience as the source for their spiritual power. In turn the Celtic Christians of Ireland, Scotland and Wales, modelled themselves on the Desert Mothers and Fathers and the experience of Jesus in the wilderness. They turned their backs on the power of the church and the empire and sought spiritual power from the source of all life, from God alone. They spent much of their lives alone, amongst nature, contemplating, praying, listening for God. They learned that one could not rely on the power one had experienced in the past or simply amass power and carry it with them into whatever situations they would face in the future. The power of the Spirit filled them and continued to fill them in every moment when they chose not the powers of the world but to renounce them and rely alone on the Spirit. And in every moment of relinquishing power, they were filled with the Spirit’s power.

Filled with the power of the Spirit, Jesus went on to the Synagogue in Nazareth and tells us why being filled with the power of the Spirit is so important - "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favour." Luke 4:18,19.
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The Good News is just as important today and it is made manifest through the power of the Spirit.

Photo: Native Ginger and Rosella