December 24, 2006

Glynn Cardy

Christmas Eve and Day

It is a mistake to underestimate Santa Claus. He didn't get a part in the Bible, but he's sure a big part of Christmas.

On Christmas Eve there is a children's service here. It's one of the biggest of the year. Children and chaos abound, and the atmosphere is charged. We sing, we laugh, and we tell stories of cribs and candles and Christmases past. We also have Santa.

For years I've had trouble with Santa. No, it's not the reindeer parking problems or the resultant pooh… it's finding Santa himself. It takes a special person to don the red suit, and frankly some of them haven't been up to it. There's more to being Santa than sticking out your stomach, chuckling 'Ho, ho, ho', and answering smart seven year olds. But – and this is the interesting bit – Santa is never a flop. He never falls from the grace the children extend.

On Santa's entrance – from the roof of course – the energy levels rise. Whatever he says is listened to. Whatever he does is received with rapt attention. The power of Santa is quite formidable. 

Many people take a low view of Santa. He is paraded in every shopping mall in the country encouraging people to buy, and buy more. He doesn't say, “Pay off that car you drive” or “pay that phone bill”. No, he's saying buy new and buy now things we know we could do without. Santa is a slave of rampant consumerism.

Then there is the bribery brigade. “Listen boys and girls, if you aren't good [read: do what I say] then Santa won't come this year.” Santa's morality is reduced to the suspect morality of these parents. Everything in life has to be earned. Including love. Including Santa.

Max, my neighbour, also takes a low view of what he calls “the Santa myth”. He objects to the portrayal of vertically challenged people merrily working in cramped sweat shop conditions. He objects to reindeer being used as promotional aids with no benefits accruing to the threatened herds of Northern Europe. He objects to an obese elderly man being given, firstly, license to enter any home or premise, secondly, a monopoly on the disbursement of gifts, and thirdly, an annual parade in his honour. Santa to him is a symbol of inequity.

The original Santa was, of course, a saint. Dear old wealthy Bishop Nic lived in the ancient city of Myra and gave generously to others. One story has it that an angel visited him one night and said, “Nicholas, you must take a bag of gold to the pawnbroker's, for he is very poor and has three daughters. Unless they have a dowry, they will be sold into slavery.” Nic took the gold and rushed to the pawnbroker's house where he discreetly dropped it through a window. Naturally, the parents were overjoyed; now their eldest could marry.

As you would expect in a good story this angelic visitation and discreet dropping of gold happened three times. But on the third and last drop the Pawnbroker, curious to discover the identity of his benefactor, locked all the windows of the house. Nic not being short of ideas climbed up on the roof and deposited the bag down the chimney.

It's a story about sympathy for those in poverty, about practical assistance, and innovative delivery systems. It's about compassion. It's about shedding wealth. It's about the virtue of anonymous giving – a virtue that in our modern world of sponsorship seems almost quaint.

Personally I take a high view of Santa, and not just to infuriate my neighbour Max [which it does]. I simply believe in Santa Claus. And, like most beliefs, it has been refined and tempered by experience, especially year by year sitting with children at Christmas and trying to explain in simple, precise language the meaning of life, faith, and flying sleighs.

There comes a time in most children's lives when some of the mathematics of Santa seems insurmountable. Consider the number of children in this city, the quantity and size of presents, the dimensions of your above average sleigh, the distance from Auckland to the North Pole, the aerodynamic potential of reindeer… So, inevitably the questions arise: “How come…?” “How does he do that?” And, looking at me as though I was deranged, “Do you actually believe in Santa Claus?”

If the inquisitor is worth their salt they won't stop there. “What about the down the chimney bit eh?” “Yep,” I reply, “I'm into it.” “Look Glynn,” my young friend continues, “our chimney is designed for someone who only eats lettuce. It has a metal pipe of some 20 centimetres in diameter. Are you telling me that Santa can squeeze down that?”

“Well,” I respond, girding myself for the challenge, “tell me how your favourite music group can sing their stuff through cyberspace, enter your computer, and morph themselves onto a CD for you to enjoy whenever? And you think a bit of chimney pipe is a problem?” Around now my young friend will roll their eyes, code for 'my silence is not my assent'. Failure to appreciate the fertile imagination is as big a problem in our society as consumerism.

The better questions for the young inquirer to ask are about meaning. For Santa means giving. Giving to others. Giving to those we don't know. Giving with no strings attached - including no reciprocating gifts.

Santa is about dreaming that nothing is impossible when it comes to helping and sharing. No elf, no chimney, no amount of snow, or consumerism, or cynicism, is going to stop it. This is why I believe in Santa Claus.

The Santa saga is more powerful than any factual findings by the geek who sat for three consecutive Christmas Eves with a telescope and camcorder on a rooftop. Santa inspires and encourages the best in humanity, the best in you and me – selfless giving to others.

Christmas is simple really: Give what you can and then some. Don't believe in the barriers to giving. Set your imagination free. Dream of a world where all can have enough and be satisfied with it.

These are the gifts that Santa brings me time and again, time and again.

December 24, 2006

Denise Kelsall

Advent 4     
Luke 1:39-45

Reading this gospel passage continually brings a vision to my mind of those millions upon millions of women in two thirds world countries to whom the announcement of another child is a tragedy. For them it means trying to stretch food further, to try to earn or find more money which is merely a mirage on the horizon. It is almost certain that the child and its siblings will be even more disadvantaged than before and the threat of starvation, disease and death is part of the landscape. So where is the beauty and the anticipation, the excitement for such as these. These people, who are our brothers and sisters.

Quite simply – there is none –

It's hard to imagine for us – our affluence, our social welfare systems, our fat societies that appear helpless to effect any real relief for those in desperate need.

Well – I have got to say that I gave someone a goat for Christmas, and as I write these rather pathetically proud words I know deep in my heart that it should have been a flock of goats – would it really matter if I didn't drive a powerful car or bought decent face cream for my aging skin – would it really matter if I didn't drink reasonable red wine or buy my children gifts that they probably don't need but I indulge in giving them because it is traditional and part of the excitement and anticipation of Christmas day. My heart shudders… and I try to push these thoughts to the back of my mind with the usual excuses

- What can I do?

I constantly resolve to alter my behaviour so as to be more in solidarity with my brothers and sisters who need goats and water, certainly not iPods, new computers and CD's I might only listen to once and then get fired to the back of the cupboard.

It is a really difficult problem for me as my faith, my conscience, my heart feels deeply for this crazy world, as I hope yours does too – but, what do we do?

We talk and carry on as normal don't we – as I said – we appear and feel helpless – we pray maybe, but then go out and have some cake and a latte.

So – when I read this gospel passage today it seems a little unreal. Not only do we have the annunciation where good old angel Gabriel gives Mary the hottest news in town, then Mary really is zapped by the Holy Spirit because Elizabeth tells her Yep - its all for real. She felt it herself as Her baby said a big Hi to Mary's baby who is the real McCoy. True. Its all major excitement and they both get pretty high on the Holy Spirit who fires them up with the knowledge that they are the special ones – they have been picked out, amongst all women – these are the two chicks who are going to deliver the goods and bring all the justice and the love and the truth to the world. That's what the Magnificat says doesn't it – we have been singing it each week of advent haven't we –

God does Mary a favour and she's blessed

God is holy and into mercy bigtime - everywhere

God will show awesome cosmic power and put down the egotistical greedy people

God will take away the money from the rich and will give it to the poor and the hungry

This is a promise – God's promise.

That's what it says, and I can't help thinking – Well God – When?

Things haven't changed, in fact they could be even worse as its not just people now who bleed and starve and sell their kidneys or their babies to survive, but the whole planet is beginning to sicken………as we continue to drink our lattes.

I find it hard to get the celebration bit here – sure, it's a sweet story and we sit here and listen to it year in year out and do all the stuff and feel good – we do don't we – feel good… we decorate our Christmas trees and cover the floor beneath with presents we don't need, we sing beautiful carols and eat and drink and eat and drink - we feel good that we have been to church because we know the real meaning of Christmas – don't we??

I am not so sure – it's real because we are in it and its how we do things in this incredibly wonderful, fortunate and blessed part of the world. But what about the rest – I bet there are thousands of women just like Mary this Christmas who are in utter despair because they are having yet another child and can't support them. Maybe they are in fear because it could be another girl – the awfulness of it.

It's unjust, unfair and quite ghastly to think of our riches and our indulgence in light of this sort of thing.

I don't claim to have any answer and I have never heard a satisfactory one yet, but I do know that having a baby should be beautiful because it is a miraculous event and I think that is what this reading is all about. Shouldn't all women be like Mary to whom it is exclaimed in today's reading “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb.”

For us in the west it can be exciting and eagerly anticipated – The miracle and the beauty of a healthy baby – and I just realize, there I go again – what is wrong with a baby that is perhaps not so perfect – isn't life itself sacred – isn't life, all life, whatever life, sacred. Don't we believe that God is the creative principle that undergirds all life, that is behind all life, - so then isn't all of it, the good and the bad filled with God, and isn't it our task to be like Jesus and to try, however small and pathetic – to redeem it, to struggle with it, to love it. And never to stop. I know - it's hard.

For me, a small way we can maybe do this within our own sphere or community is to celebrate life in the best sense of the word. I don't mean the usual overindulgence, but more on a personal level where we smile and really try to be aware of how lucky and truly blessed we are – maybe it's a time to call that long lost brother you fell out with a few years ago or walk down the road to that old ladies house and say hi with a cake or whatever, to make contact with that solitary neighbour – to do something out of the ordinary that connects us with the lives we pass by or conveniently ignore because it's too much bother or we'll do it next time – and never do!

I think we have to be thankful – joyful too, that this event, the birth of Jesus, did happen over 2000 years ago and that we are still living into what that meant – here and now as we wrestle with these ongoing conflicts and ethical issues that seem ever to plague us. We must also rejoice in the birth of you and me, our neighbour in the pews, our families and all people we love and those we don't love – life truly is a precious gift and we have an obligation to leave the world just a bit better than when we arrived, that those who follow us may look back, just as we look back to the birth of Jesus at this time of the year, and be thankful for us too. We are the world, we are a slice of that divine life that Jesus is and represents so intrinsically in symbol and body – we are the future, we must guard and speak the best truths of our faith and fight and write on behalf of those millions that cannot.

Christmas is a special time – for us here it is ever a harbinger of hope – the hope that Mary sings of in the Magnificat, that our God will come in showers of love, justice and peace for all humankind. The hope we feel in the miracle of every baby born, the hope in our humanness, our vulnerability.

The hope, the incredible beauty, the power and the miracle of God born in a manger.

December 17, 2006

Clay Nelson

Advent 3     
Luke 3:7-18

You may remember that last Advent I told you God created the Internet so I could do my Christmas shopping online and avoid the malls. In my Christmas surfing I have found a most unusual gift. I wish I knew someone to give it to. It's a computer game called The Left Behind Game. It's based on a popular series of books of the same name that is based on the author's interpretation of the Book of Revelation. It takes place after the Rapture, when Jesus has taken his people to heaven and left nonbelievers behind to face the Antichrist. The book series has sold 60 million copies.

The goal of this adventure game is to convert or kill nonbelievers. The player can choose to join the forces for Jesus or the Antichrist. If you join Jesus you are a freedom fighter. If you choose to fight for the Antichrist you know in advance you are going to lose. But you get to choose a persona from fictional rock stars and Muslim-sounding names.

If you are a freedom fighter for Jesus your mission is to try to convert nonbelievers for which you get spirit points. If you fail, you kill them. If forced to kill them for their own good, spirit points are lost, but you get them back if you pray for them.

I hope you find the fact such a game even exists horrifying and an embarrassment to you and all Christians. So, what was your reaction as you listened to today's Gospel? Did you feel the same when John the Baptist warned the Jews that if they didn't convert and be baptised they would be cut down like dead trees and cast into the fire. Were you shocked that he predicts Jesus will separate his followers like wheat from the chaff, throwing the chaff into the fires of hell, which Luke assures us is “Good News”? If you weren't equally horrified maybe I should get The Left Behind Game for you.

The first thing I did after discovering that the luck of the draw had given me this Gospel to preach on was to see if scholars thought John really said these things. I was disappointed to learn that their consensus was that if John didn't say most of these things, he wishes he had. If John felt this way it begs the question, “Was this how Jesus saw things as well?” If so, he's not the man I thought he was.

This message and others like it, especially in John's Gospel, have been used to justify the burning of 40,000 women in Europe as witches, the torturous and deadly methods of the Inquisition, the Crusades, the Holocaust, the Iraq War, and even prayer in public schools. It is not dissimilar to many passages in the Qur'an used to justify flying jets into twin towers, car bombs in Baghdad, and suicide bombers in Tel Aviv. It echoes Deuteronomy in the Torah, “If your brother, your son or daughter, or the spouse whom you embrace, or your most intimate friend, tries to secretly seduce you, saying, 'Let us go and serve other gods'…You must kill him…You must stone him to death since he has tried to divert you from Yahweh your God.” [1]

It is this kind of Good News from Good Books that threatens survival of the species. Something is wrong when religions are the single worst threat to peace in the world. While Islam seems to be the worst offender at the moment, elements in Christianity who take the Bible seriously as the literal Word of God are no less a threat as the war in Iraq and The Left Behind Game prove.

The root of this negative aspect of religion is in the kind of apocalyptic thought John expresses. When people are oppressed in this life they understandably hope in an afterlife where God will balance the ledger and bring those in power to their knees. Many scholars believe that Jesus had an apocalyptic view as well, but his words and actions were more about loving your enemies or those with different beliefs than casting them into the fiery pit. He didn't proclaim a perfect life after this one; he called people to live in the kingdom of heaven now. Sadly many in most religions focus on the afterlife instead of this one. You might think so what. What people believe is a personal thing. But beliefs are the engine behind our actions. Beliefs about the afterlife may seem esoteric, but they are killing people every day. This and other beliefs that are based on no evidence whatsoever or outright deny knowledge available to a child do untold harm. So I've been looking beyond Scripture to examine my beliefs. Moderates and Progressives have been do this a long time. Lots of scripture has been rejected as being literally true in any real world sense: creation, virgin birth, physical resurrection, heaven as a place, even a personal God. But we are inconsistent and too tolerant of faith beliefs that do harm. As an aside I wonder why we work so hard to reinterpret the unbelievable?

So I have been looking outside of scripture to find the believeable. That for which there might be evidence to support my faith. Lately I have been focusing on spirituality and physics. I have to keep a copy of Physics for Dummies nearby to help me with the tougher concepts. Physics was the only subject in my education I began but didn't complete. I dropped it because I couldn't see how knowing how fast a steel ball rolled down an incline would be of any use to me. Little did I know that physics would give me a glimpse of God. Of course, when I studied physics it might not have done so, as scientists didn't know much yet about sub-atomic matter. The Big Bang theory was not even mentioned nor was the Quantum nature of being.

Quanta are minute bundles of energy that are the building blocks of atoms. They make up all things. They are the lowest common denominator of creation. Part of their mystery is that they can be equally described as solid particles like tiny billiard balls, or as waves, like the undulations of the surface of the sea. As particles they bounce off of each other protecting their identity from the power of the others. As a wave they join their identity with others to become one wave. In human terms, particles are separate individuals; they are anti-social and self-centred. Waves behave more like a community. They like to party. They value cooperation and relationship. They accept being a part of a whole while particles are wary of it. In physics and life both can be true at the same time. [2]

A quantum view of the universe requires learning a new word – Holon. H-O-L-O-N. Each of us is a holon. Each of us is made up of holons. And each of us is a part of a holon. A holon is not a kind of matter or a particle or a wave or a process; a holon is both a whole and a part simultaneously. Everything in the created order is a holon: “Whole atoms are part of whole molecules; whole molecules are part of whole cells; whole cells are parts of organisms, and so on… and the evolutionary thread…connects them all, unfolds them all, embraces them all, endlessly.” [3]

Evolution is the consequence of how holons relate. Different results occur when they act as particles instead of waves and vice versa. If they rely on their particle nature, they would rather die than adapt and some do, becoming extinct. If they act like waves they would rather join with other holons to adapt than preserve their independence. In their willingness to sacrifice some sense of self to join with another they create something new without anything that they are being lost. What they gain is self-transcendence.

While reason would suggest it is better for a holon to adapt than to risk dissolution it is not possible to predict which a holon will choose. Ultimately, as far as the cosmos is concerned, both are part of the creative process that is constantly emerging. This relationship between holons is at the core of our reality and why the universe is emerging and not static. It describes but does not explain the mystery of life. I think it is as close as we can get to understanding God.

Let me give a real-life example of how it works. Some months ago I shared the story of one of our most faithful members, who spent her days at the church and her nights sleeping in bus stops. Her rough sleeping made being in close proximity a less than pleasant olfactory experience. The staff you will remember at first tolerated her but we behaved as particles trying to keep her from impinging too much on our boundaries. But somewhere along the way our staff holon began acting as a wave. We invited her into our lives and made an effort to be connected. We got to know her and her story. We began working to improve her quality of life. What we didn't predict was what she would do for us. She and we had become a new holon. She was a part of our identity and we a part of hers.

This week Christmas came early. She moved into a room at an assisted living facility. She now has her own room, bed, and bath. While this was not a predictable outcome this new holon has resulted in self-transcendence. She gets regular, healthy meals, medical attention and has opportunity for meaningful activity. While we never foresaw this outcome, we can be quite certain that if the staff and she continue to acts as particles, this would not have happened.

The significance of Jesus is he reveals the truths about the universe we experienced in this example. His importance is not that he was something new in creation. He was one of our species. He was divine in the sense that each of us is the product of this emerging mystery of life. The truth of Jesus is found in the very building blocks of creation. Creation and how it unfolds is not an example to explain Jesus. Jesus is an example of creation at its best. We honour Jesus for living out its truth; not for creating it. It began unfolding 15 billion years before him. Anyone could've have done the same before him. Some probably did, he just got more and better press preserving his story. I don't say this to diminish Jesus but to remind us that if he is something more than we, we and our capabilities are diminished. If he is our saviour, we are victims. I don't think Jesus would have bought that. We each have the capacity to live in creative relationship with the universe as he did and thereby know self-transcendance. Our salvation is borne in our DNA.

Jesus understood our fundamental connection with one another and the universe and called for us to embrace it allowing for our self-transcendence into a new creation. His life tells us we can do it too, for it is a part of our created nature. In his death he showed that even when the whole is destroyed, its parts remain. In his case, his transforming love and the memory of his life became one with his followers inviting them into a radically new way of being one with the fundamental reality which is God. For me that is resurrection.

Jesus was a wave that is still rolling strong. His life invites us to become part of the wave. His cousin John was a particle threatening other particles using Jesus as the club. Sadly the church, which was the unexpected new creation from Jesus' death, has largely chosen to act more like John than Jesus. I think it always will if it holds on to apocalyptic thinking of an afterlife for which there is no evidence or support instead of looking at creation around us.

Religion generally seems more bent on being a particle than a wave.

Perhaps that's why Jesus doesn't seem to have been all that fond of religion, considering his views about the Temple and the Holiness Code and his lack of popularity with the Scribes and Pharisees. I wonder how pleased he would be to know a religion was founded in his name? If John is right about a judgment day at the end of time, considering the Church's past and present behaviour, it may be surprised by who is left behind. The Church may find itself the chaff that's burned. But it will be left behind no matter what if it doesn't look to our natural world to understand a better way to be the Church.

[1] Deuteronomy 13:7-11

[2] Wessel, Cletus, Jesus in the New Universe Story. Orbis Books, Maryknoll, New York: 2003, pp. 53-54

[3] Wilber, Ken, Sex, Ecology, Spirituality: The Spirit of Evolution, Shambahala, Boston: 1995, p. viii.

December 10, 2006

Glynn Cardy

Advent 2

The Scandal of Mary     

The Nativity Story is Hollywood's latest attempt to bring us the authentic Christmas. It tells of the scandal of a young woman, Mary, conceiving without having intercourse with her fiancé, Joseph. Paternity is attributed to God who has miraculously seen to the impregnation of Mary. Her child, Jesus, will not be shunned as illegitimate but will be hailed as the blessed saviour of his people.

Nativity is a marked improvement on its forebears, particularly in its portrayal of the repressive governance of Palestine and the patriarchal culture that impacted on women. Nativity however is reminiscent of parish Christmas pageants - uncritically splicing the two biblical infancy narratives together and using cinematic tricks to explain the unbelievable bits. Unlike the parish equivalent though, Nativity masquerades as history.

Liberal scholars for decades have told us that most of the supposed facts of the nativity are fictions. Angels, wise men, heavenly hosts, the census, Bethlehem… are all part of the story-telling craft, weaving meanings derived from Jesus' life back into his birth. It makes for great stories, encapsulates great truths, but is lousy history.

As for the paternity of Jesus, these liberal scholars denounced the divine implantation thesis that Nativity went to some length to replicate. On the basis that embryos don't drop from the sky, these scholars thought that Joseph was the most likely candidate.

However it makes no sense for both Matthew and Luke to sow doubt about Jesus' paternity if Joseph was his actual father. The scandal that accompanied the pregnancy would have diminished if Joseph had owned up. Indeed the pregnancy of a betrothed girl by her fiancé was viewed as more positive than negative, for it was thought to guarantee children and ensure the male line.

Although scholarship today is less concerned about historicity than about what the texts actually say, it is possible to assert the following: Firstly that Mary, the mother of Jesus, conceived between betrothal and home-taking. Secondly the circumstances of his conception were scandalous. Thirdly, Mary was not blamed. Fourthly that Joseph, despite not being the biological father, legitimated the child. Lastly, that the child was not accounted as inferior or cursed, like an illegitimate offspring. Rather the opposite.

Who then was the father? For those who like to use God, as the movie does, to explain the supposed unexplainable please note the words used by the angel “come upon” and “overshadow” have no sexual connotations. In the ancient world divine and human paternities were not mutually exclusive. As with King David being called “Son of God”, it was possible to have human parents and still be hailed as of divine origin.

Today there is growing acceptance of the validity of the work of Jane Schaberg, Professor of Religious Studies and Women's Studies at the University of Detroit Mercy. She posits that within and behind the nativity stories is an illegitimacy tradition. Mary was seduced or raped.

When the Magnificat sings that God has looked with favour on the 'lowliness' of Mary, and the Greek word for 'lowliness' is usually translated 'humiliation', one has to ask how she was humiliated. Illegitimacy, despite the indoctrination of multiple Christmas pageants, is probably the answer.

Schaberg asks us to look again at Matthew's genealogy of Jesus, and the unusual insertion of four women in it. These women – Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, and Bathsheba – were not the great heroines of Hebrew history. Tamar and Ruth were childless widows, Rahab a prostitute, and Bathsheba an adulteress. All four were wronged or thwarted by the male world. In their scandalous sexual activity - or in Ruth's case perhaps only suspicion of sexual activity - all risked their own condemnation. Their situations were righted by men who accepted responsibility for them, legitimating them and their children-to-be.

The inclusion of these women in the Matthean genealogy alerts us that we should expect another woman [read Mary] who becomes a social misfit, is wronged or thwarted, who is party to a sexual act that places her in great danger, and whose story has an outcome where she is drawn in under patriarchal protection. Illegitimate rather than miraculous conception is a better explanation for the women in the genealogy.

In Matthew 1:18-25 Joseph discovering Mary pregnant weighs his options and, due to angelic intervention, decides to own both mother and child. There is an allusion to Deuteronomy 22:23-27 where the Torah addresses the seduction or rape of a betrothed virgin. Joseph is choosing from among several options – a “quiet” divorce being less severe than public exposure and punishment, even death. The question is does Joseph think she was raped or is an adulteress? It is improbable that he thought the latter. If he thought Mary had committed adultery he is more likely to have sought a more extreme remedy, and he would have been unlikely to take the angel's advice to marry her.

Schaberg asks us to consider also the use of Isaiah 7:14, mistranslated to say “the virgin shall conceive and bear a son”. In the Hebrew text the phrase is “a young woman shall conceive”. In the Greek translation of the Hebrew, the word parthenos [commonly translated as 'virgin'] is used. However the Greek text also uses parthenos to refer to women who are not biological virgins but rape victims.

The consequences of Jane Schaberg's work have been sobering. She has been vilified, had her car torched, and received screeds of hate mail. Yet slowly and surely academic colleagues, when not being dictated to by Church authorities and their vested interests, have addressed the textual issues she has raised. The case for an illegitimacy tradition is strongest in Matthew's Gospel, and possible in Luke's.

The theological consequences of the illegitimacy thesis are enormous. The Christian God sides with the rejected, humiliated, and wronged. God vindicates the violated. With Mary and with all the abused, Christians can sing the hope of God putting down the mighty men from their inflated thrones and exalting the humiliated and weak. The Magnificat was always a rallying cry for those protesting injustice, but those promoting compliance have tamed it.

We have a choice to make as we read and hear again Mary's story this Christmas. Is she a passive 'handmaiden of the Lord' who by a miraculous divine implantation carries the Son of God? The movie Nativity is weakest at this point, for Keisha Castle-Hughes is more powerful than the traditional script permits. Or is Mary a victim of abuse who with steely grit, courage, and support battles patriarchal society to own her son as a child of God? This movie would raise the ire of most Christian churches.

The choice of how we read Mary's story will affect how we read the whole Christian story, and how we understand sin, sex, holiness, and redemption. Jesus, the one born of the flesh, who might be thought to bear the curse of his parents, who will be executed as a criminal, who is unholy in human estimation, is the one who will be declared holy by the power of God. This is the scandalous message of Christmas.

December 3, 2006

George Armstrong

Advent 1

The Night Army

When the Night Army surrounded the shepherds near Bethlehem (Luke 2:13-14), the shepherds had good reason to be terrified. It wasn't just the spine-tingling supernatural that spooked them. With or without angels, Armies were a terrifying reality of everyday life for the whole peasant underclass of Galilee and beyond.

•      Caesar's Armies

•      Herod's Armies (with Temple Police)

•      “Peasant Armies”

Caesar's Armies

There were Caesar's Armies. In their zeal to put down rebellion in any village, their Centurions did not hesitate to bulldoze every last local hovel. That's what had happened just up the road from where Joseph and Mary lived, in Sepphoris, about the time that Jesus was born. The substantial town had subsequently been rebuilt as a tax-collecting and security garrison and pleasure town after the Graeco Roman pattern. Emmaus, near Jerusalem, had also been torn apart after an insurrection following the death of Herod the Great. The Roman General, Varus, hunted down the fleeing villagers and crucified two thousand of them. This was the same army that enforced Caesar Augustus' command that the whole world was to be “counted” – for taxation and homeland security purposes. They supervised the forced temporary resettlement of the whole Jewish population back to the places of their birth. Paying tribute or tax to Caesar was as much a control mechanism as an economic demand. Tax-evasion was taken to be treason and punished accordingly.

Herod's Armies

Then there was King Herod's army. For all his being Herod “the Great”, Herod was a lackey of Rome who bribed his brutal way into power. His soldiers, police and informers were closely allied with the Jerusalem Temple 's elite, themselves in turn political appointees and often relations of Herod. Herod the Great was known elsewhere throughout Asia as an extravagant benefactor. He bestowed and secured the naming rights for many a public amenity: here an aqueduct, there a colonnade, there a statue, sometimes a whole magnificent city like Sebaste or Caesarea Maritima. He even underwrote the Olympic Games. His ultimate benefaction, as “King of the Jews” was the new Temple in Jerusalem that so bedazzled Jesus' disciples and which so disgusted Jesus himself, himself also ironically acclaimed by Pilate as “King of the Jews”. And how could such dazzling magnificence all be funded? By sucking out the last drop of blood from the Palestinian population. No wonder rebellious leaders arose in villages and amongst the shepherds, citizens now (through this brutal profligacy) of a truly “failed” State. It was no fault of the people that the State “failed”. The People were made to fail by the appalling inroads upon their basic living conditions by layer after layer of tax collectors, backed up by layer after layer of ruthless military.

“Peasant Armies”

To these two armies of Caesar and Herod must be added the “peasant armies” which inevitably gathered around local wannabee Messiahs like Barrabas. The relentless rule of Rome and the crazed fear of the Herods moved immediately against   such hasty wild-cat militias and against those segments of the trembling civilian population amongst whom they arose. Thus came many massacres of “holy innocents” by Herod and Caesar seeking to control and make example of the least suspicion of dissent and revolt.

A People Subjected to Multiple Terror

Jesus was thus not the only Messiah to emerge in Israel. Nor were the babies of Bethlehem the only ones to be put to the sword in a genocidal attempt to root out future rebels. No wonder Mary and Joseph was as terrified as the shepherds of the consequences of the arrival of a baby so dramatically singled out as messianic “King of the Jews”. No wonder Herod was himself as much afraid as insulted when the Magi, the Wise Men from the distant Magical Lands of past great empires, came to him as King of the Jews enquiring where this new “King of the Jews” was about to be born. The sword that would take such a bloody toll of the Bethlehem babies would indeed pierce the heart of Mary also. The alert young Mary didn't need the wise old Holy Man Simeon to tell her that.

The Film The Nativity Story

Who could forget Keisha Castle-Hughes, star young woman of Whale Rider?

Her next film has just premiered in the Vatican.

It's the first film ever to premiere in the Vatican – the first Hollywood one that is.

The film is The Nativity Story. The NZ Herald gave it a good write-up.

The Censor warns that the film goes beyond “low-level violence” to the real stuff. And that is the film's chief reality. The film makers pride themselves that they have portrayed Mary and Joseph as real persons. But in this they are more successful with the soldiers and Herod – father and son – Herod the Great and Herod the Not-So-Great you might say. True: compared with the detail sketched early in this sermon, the violence is somewhat subdued, beginning from the few frames of the slaughter of the Bethlehem Innocents through the brief glances at peasants crucified amongst tree foliage along Mary's route to see her cousin Elizabeth.

But Keisha is quite an improvement on Cecil B de Mille, also on quite a bit of pulpit oratory. She brings us closer to the lives of this peasant community amongst whom Jesus spent his whole life as far as we know. Jesus certainly knew his People's situation intimately. Once we ourselves appreciate the reality of the People and of the Messianic Prophet on whom they gambled their precarious lives, the Bible is far more authentic for us. The con-text of the life and the text - that of the New Testament - produced by the life of Jesus with his disciples belong inseparably together. The same is true of the context and the text of our own life in this new millenium.

The New Millenium's new Questioning

All these brutal facts shed a different light upon the Christmas Story. Indeed they are only the beginning of a vast questioning about the meaning and life-project of Christianity. That questioning can take a typically secular turn:

•      did the Bible really happen?

Or it can take a far more radical turn:

•      does the bible really happen?

This second question is what haunts me, especially when there are no easy answers at hand. For me, the bible does and has really happened in our lifetime – over these last forty years in particular. I would think this is true for many of you too. The issue is not whether angels really exist or whether Mary really was impregnated by Holy Spirit in some literal way. The issue is more that the Bible does actually resonates with our experience of life – just how this happens is intuitive, hard to track down, and difficult to put into words. And this is a resonance that is both personal and political; relational and communal.

This large new questioning that is arising in our millennium is

•      not so much the old secular – sceptical questioning but rather:

•      “sociological” questioning as to where we want our world to go as a whole inhabited and fragile Earth and

•      how can we do something about that

•      together, communally (as church and as society) and as intimately inter-related   individual human persons: sisters and brothers; parents, grandparents and children together.

This “new” questioning turns out to be surprisingly similar to the questioning that pervades the Second – the “New” Testament.

The Night Army turned out to be a genuine “Good News” Army

It was initially terror that was inspired in the peasant shepherds by the Night Army accompanying the Angel. And imagine their relief when this “Army” (the word “Army” is translated as “Host”) turned out to be a fantastic Choir: a thousand Vienna Boys' Choirs, a couple of thousand Kiri te Kanawas, a few legions of basso profundos, and four hundred or so cohorts of   frantic tenors thrown in for good measure. Add another parade ground in the sky altogether for U2 and its audience. And how their shepherd ears were eased at the astonishing message: not more taxes, more censuses, more Herods and Caesars, more hatred and bloodshed and failure! No indeed! The very reverse! “Poverty banished to Past History”. “Peace and Goodwill to All People – No Exception!”.

The Nativity Story is a well-timed production.

In the US (and probably much the same here) 40% of the whole year's retail trade is transacted between now and Christmas

Though itself part of the Great Consumer Festival, the film gets in 25 or so shopping days before Christmas.

Same with this Sermon:

I wanted to get it in before the decibel level of the advertising drowns our senses.

I wanted us to strengthen our sense of reality even as the unreality of clever advertising seeks to manipulate us – often through our children and grandchildren…

to retain our composure and deep goodwill as we are stampeded into “shop until you drop” mode (therapeutically of course).

“Pushing forward” our Third Millenium theology of the Christmas events is not a matter for elite theologians or silver-tongued preachers only. It's vital that the hearers tell one another (including the preachers) what they think – especially if they disagree. With desire have I desired to preach this Christmas especially. Because I wan't to evoke from you your thoughts and reaction and get sufficient buzz going to survive the Christmas cacophony.   I'm grateful for your hospitality in having me here with you there this morning. Perhaps – together – we can be a key part of this profound theological renewal which I believe is under way in the third millennium will only proceed from ordinary people like yourselves.

Our Nativity

This Nativity is the Nativity of Christianity as much as the birth of Jesus the Christian Messiah. It is OUR nativity.

Who can doubt that we now in our own day desperately seek for a World beyond Empire. George Bush has   tried a re-run of the old failed imperial method of globalisation. Before we judge him too arrogantly, we have to remember how the whole of the Western Church since Constantine has been an imperial Church, how we ourselves as Anglicans ended up as chaplains to the most powerful segment of that Empire. We have been a colonising and a colonised church, deeply compromised and far away from Bethlehem, the other side of the great divide between rich and poor, between Dives and Lazarus. And here I speak as a preacher of the Pakeha sector of our Anglican church in New Zealand.

Yet this church of ours over the last half century of the last millennium has stumbled upon those genuine Bethlehem truths could we but recognise them. Our Prayer Book and our new bi-cultural Constitution are a wonder of Anglicanism worldwide. And do we not owe much of this wonder to the fact of the struggle and ordination of women and the astonishing new leadership style that they have brought into every level of policy formation and decision making in our church. And do we not owe our bicultural potential to the fact that we are originally a Maori Church before we were a settler church and are now by law if not yet by nature and grace a bicultural church. And does not all this look somewhat similar to what is hoped for in First and Second Testaments of our Sacred Texts and prefigured in that nativity story which is also our nativity story?

And was not our Hikoi of Hope our very own Exodus into Royal Priesthood – assuming responsibility for the whole Nation and especially for the abolishing of its structured poverty.

Never did we do better than in that Hikoi, Pakeha and Maori together as never before; just as our new Constitution intended. Nor ever were we more despised and rejected for doing so much better.

And now, for all our weakness and absurdity, even now we are on the threshold - have in our slippery grasp – a capacity to become to become a true church for all the rich distinguished forms of humanity; no exceptions.

We,

Te Hahi Mihinare ki Aotearoa ki Niu Tirene ki nga Moutere o Te Moana Nui a Kiwa.

November 26, 2006

Pat Snedden

Aotearoa Sunday     Mark 4:26-34

Today's gospel reading provides us with two reassuring agricultural images of the seed. The mustard seed, tiny and insignificant but carefully planted grows into the greatest tree providing both strength and cover. By contrast, the scattering of the seed, almost reckless in its abandon prospers in spite of, not because the sewer's efforts.

These images of God are images for our life. Not far from here at Orakei are located Ngati Whatua o Orakei, the hapu who by virtue of their continuous occupation of central Auckland since 1840 have manawhenua (tribal authority) status in this area. Not two months ago this hapu buried Sir Hugh Kawharu, one of Auckland 's most distinguished academics and leaders. He also happened to be chairman of the Ngati Whatua o Orakei Maori Trust Board through the period of the cultural renaissance of this people.

Hugh was a mustard seed planter, a person with the vision to understand the paradoxical, that when you appeared most vulnerable so you could be at your point of greatest strength and what appeared to be concessions were in fact advantages. He also understood the value of time. For Hugh the reconstruction of the history of his people was the core to the recognition of their manawhenua. What had been lost over generations could not be recovered in a single lifetime but with the soil suitably tilled the new life was possible.

What's more he grasped the capacity in public life for the promotion of new growth through forgiveness and reconciliation without surrender. There was no stronger and more articulate advocate for the recognition of tribal rangitiratanga. But that was never the end of it for him.

He understood culturally that the mana of his people was intrinsically linked to their capacity to honour the obligations that came with this mana. This he described as manaakitanga, the capacity for consideration of the other.

In the most recent Treaty negotiations concluded just months before he died Hugh was adamant that there could be no honour for his own people unless and until honour was restored to the Crown.

The audacity of this insight is staggering given the gravity of the dispossession exacted on his people by successive governments since 1840. But it should not surprise us.

Hugh's central thesis (his planting of the mustard seed) was that if Maori were affirmed in their rangatiratanga (their capacity to exercise authority by way of collective trusteeship over all matters necessary for their cultural survival), the reciprocal benefits to the rest of us are enormous.

As we celebrate Aotearoa Sunday we might reflect on the Ngati Whatua history in this city. It is a story worth telling. The journey traverses three centuries.

• in 1840, just months after the first signing of the Treaty, Apihai Te Kawau, paramount chief of Ngati Whatua invited Governor Hobson to come to Tamaki Makaurau to set up his seat of government. He offered Hobson an inducement. Come, he said and I will give you land (over 3000 acres) to develop your settlement. Make this the capital and I will give you more. The area transferred in modern day terms was Parnell, the CBD, Ponsonby, Grey Lynn, Herne Bay and some of Newmarket and Mount Eden.

• In 1841 a gathering of 1000 Ngati Whatua greeted Hobson on the shores of Okahu Bay. Te Kawau addressed him. “Governor, Governor, welcome as a father (matua) to me: there is land for you … go and pick the best part of the land and place your people, at least our people upon it.”

The block chosen is latter day Westmere, Pt Chevalier, Western Springs, Waterview, Avondale, Mount Albert, Titirangi, Sandringham , Mt Roskill, Three Kings, Balmoral, Kingsland, Mount Eden and Epsom.

This represented the transfer of a further 13000 acres.

Why would Apihai have made such a significant gesture? What was behind his thinking? The answer was an alliance. The transfer of land was in Maori terms a “tuku rangatira”, a chiefly gift with strings attached. Those strings were the advantages to be gained from commerce, education and health and the protection of all under the law. The Orakei report of the Waitangi Tribunal commented that the “settlers came not as conquerors, not as interlopers, but as Te Kawau's invitees to share the land with Ngati Whatua.”

• All this contains a certain poignant relevance for in 1869 at a hearing of the Native Land Court Apihai Te Kawau was asked “Who were the people who sold Auckland to the Europeans?” The answer was “I did not sell it, I gave it to them.” On the further question of “Did not the government give you and your people money for it afterwards?” Apihai answered: “No, I have been constantly looking for payment but have not got it.”

Why was Apihai in the Native Land Court? Because within 5 years of the invitation to Hobson to come to Auckland, Ngati Whatua who had previously uncontested standing as manawhenua across the Auckland isthmus had seen over 100,000 acres of its whenua disappear with little to show for it. By 1868 they were reduced to the 700 acre Orakei Block deemed by the court at that time to be forever inalienable, not to be sold. This was later reversed just before the First World War. In 1913 government changed the policy. While Ngati Whatua leaders were with New Zealand troops overseas the government passed a law allowing for the individualisation of title. The land was sold off and what remained then was a marae, a pa and an urupa based at Okahu Bay.

• In 1951 the marae and pa were deemed an eyesore on Tamaki Drive and unsafe for habitation. The Auckland City Council evicted all residents to new State housing on the Kitimoana St hill and razed the marae and attendant buildings to the ground. The quarter acre urupa was all that remained.

Thus is summary, Ngati Whatua o Orakei, the once proud people of the Tamaki isthmus, at 1840 holding sway over the whole of Auckland; the people who invited and induced Hobson to Auckland to form the seat of government; were reduced in precisely 112 years to a landless few living off the state. By 1951 they were without a marae on which to fulfil their customary obligations and were left with a quarter acre cemetery, being the last piece of land they could tribally claim as their own.

Joe Hawke took the claim in 1987 before the Waitangi Tribunal. The outcome was unequivocally in their favour and Bastion Point in 1991 was finally transferred back into Ngati Whatua's hand by Act of Parliament.

Let's for a moment pause to consider the first thing Ngati Whatua did when it took back the land.

What they did was agree to share the huge chunk of Bastion Point with Aucklanders. They opened it up to you and me for our unimpeded use. I am talking here about the most expensive land with the best views in all of Auckland. The land where Michael Joseph Savage rests. Ngati Whatua agreed to manage this jointly with the Auckland City Council for the benefit of all the people of Tamaki Makaurau.

What therefore is it that enables a people who sought for 150 years to get some form of justice that recognised their cultural destitution, to react in their moment of triumph with such generosity to those who had dispossessed them?

What underpins such an act of munificence? To put it simply, the recovery of the hapu rangatiratanga. The 1991 Orakei Act confirmed their manawhenua status in statute, providing the crucial Crown recognition of their mana that had been absent for over a 100 years. Their generosity (manaakitanga) followed from that recognition of mana.

The courage to mount the occupation and run the initial Treaty claim came from Joe Hawke and his family. The genius to arrive at the solution was Hugh's work.

This example provides the challenge for us as New Zealanders today. It is to recognise that the secret to justice and reconciliation in our Treaty relations does not lie in viewing the world through the lens of the dominant and powerful.

Rather the planting of our mustard seed for justice is to first do what is right and then be vulnerable to both the forgiveness and generosity of those once afflicted. The restoration of right relationships requires nothing less.

About the Preacher

Patrick Snedden, a Pakeha New Zealander, who for over 20 years has been an economic adviser to Ngati Whatua and is a member of their Treaty negotiation team. He also works as a business adviser to Health Care Aotearoa, a primary health network involving Maori, Pacific and community not-for profit health providers. Most recently he has been involved in public sector governance roles as deputy-Chairman with Housing NZ Corporation and as an elected board member of the Auckland District Health Board. He is also deputy-Chairman of the ASB Trusts and chairs their Investment Committee.

November 19, 2006

Clay Nelson

Pentecost 24     
Mark 13:1-8

If you put your hands of the walls of St Matthew's you may still feel trembling reverberations of rock music from last Friday's U2charist. But unlike the stones in the Temple they do not yet lie at our feet in rubble. These walls have not framed an event quite like this one in their 101 year history, which at St Matthew's is saying something quite extraordinary. Coloured lights danced in syncopation with the vital Christian-flavoured music of U2 played appropriately by a local group called The Believers. A combination of graphic arts and video enveloped the band and the altar, from which a Eucharist was celebrated by Glynn that had never been celebrated before. Like those of the first Christians, it was born of experience, but not theirs, ours. Our distinguished pulpit supported a rock band celebrity, Dave Gibson, who describes himself as being on the edge of the church, and liking it that way. He reminded us that we can make a difference in a world blighted by poverty and disease. And then the diverse crowd, united by the music and a commitment to a better world, fed on the gifts of bread and wine.

It has been said that Jesus came to bring us the kingdom and instead we got the church. Friday it finally felt like we got a taste of the kingdom and I think Jesus smiled. I know he was dancing over there in the south aisle.

In today's Gospel he certainly wasn't smiling. In the translation I prefer it says, “He walked away from the Temple.” He then went on to foretell that some day it would be destroyed.

We are coming to the end of our exploration of Mark's Jesus in this church year. We have seen that this Jesus did not shy away from conflict and controversy and was full of surprises. We saw that his ministry was conducted on the margins of power and in the midst of nobodies. He did not trade on the past but was giving us a new vision of ourselves and our relationship with the divine. But what I find most powerful in Mark's Jesus is his rejection of long-accepted authority and his invitation to claim our own. It is this message that brings him to Jerusalem and the political and religious leaders are understandably peeved. Today he is taking the mickey out of the scribes. The Temple was their source of authority, not to mention bread and butter. It had been there centuries, its rituals had been perfected, and its keepers were revered and powerful. They maintained that power with Scripture's purity laws that said who were included and who weren't. It all worked together to make their position as solid as the Temple itself.

And yet Jesus walked away from it and foretold its demise. He was not going to support a system that enslaved a people he came to free.

So what might Jesus think of the Church that replaced the Temple? What future might he predict for it?

Just as the Temple had already been destroyed by the time Mark had Jesus predict it, it wouldn't take a fortune teller to predict the Church's future. The church will continue on its present trend. It will continue shrinking, and becoming more conservative as it does until it fully confirms its irrelevance. Now don't get me wrong, it won't cease to exist. It will continue as a picturesque relic of our heritage. So, while some will continue to worship in the ways of generations past, the Church will make no difference at all to life, and few will take its claims seriously.

When I was beginning my ministry a quarter century ago these trends were suggested but today it is abundantly clear that, as Don Cupitt puts it, “traditional Church-Christianity is well past its sell-by date. Too dualistic, too otherworldly and too disciplinarian. It makes too many inflated claims on its own behalf.” [1] I would add that it is too concerned about preserving itself. It might be able to be preserved like last summer's fruit, but it will still be dead.

I may sound harsh and even pleased by this development. But it's not true. I have a deep fondness for much of what we call the traditional church. I cut my teeth on her ancient liturgies and hymns. I was steeped in its theology and I confess to enjoying many of the perks that come with being part of the hierarchy. The church that was has played an important role in forming who I am and has been the source of much joy. For that I give thanks.

Yet the Church has also been at times the bane of my existence. Every time she shoots herself in the foot, it is my blood that is spilt. When she insists on denying human rights that civil society has already granted to women, gays and lesbians, I bleed. When she persists in using Shakespearean language in a generation that communicates in hyper-abbreviated text on cell phones, I wince. When she rejects as secular music anything that isn't best played on a pipe organ or at least with a string quartet, I limp. When she proclaims a dogma better accepted by those who think the world is flat than by anyone I know, I go into shock. When she ignores the plights of the poor and the destruction of Mother Earth, promising a better life in the one to come, I scream outraged, “No!”

Such a church is crumbling fast. She probably won't breathe her last until after I retire, but I do worry for Glynn. So how did something so vibrant and promising in the person of Jesus come to the point of redundancy as an institution?

I think David Jenkins reflections on becoming Bishop of Durham offer some insights. After being consecrated bishop but before being enthroned as Bishop of Durham he found a carver chiseling his name into the stone wall of Durham Cathedral after a long list of predecessors going back to 995 AD. He was humbled and horrified. Mostly the latter, if this quote is any indication, “A church so determined to enshrine nearly two thousand years of tradition – particularly a tradition that ignores the radical developments of the civilization in which it now resides – is nearly hopelessly weighted down in any attempt to reach out to communicate the Gospel in the twenty-first century and beyond.” [2]

Knowing the past is a good and useful thing. Making it sancrosanct is to be blinded to the present and future possibilities. The Church seems to think everything important has already happened. The coming of Jesus was the end not the beginning. And until he comes again we are on hold. It is in the past the church tells us we will find Eternal Truth. While such a platonic notion that such a truth even exists is generally rejected in our era, the church keeps claiming ownership. I don't think the church was always this way. I think this view is the product of 1000 years of static history often referred to as the Middle Ages or more honestly in the case of the church, the Dark Ages. The first 500 years of the church were vibrant years full of fierce controversy. The creeds we still use, the defining of what was sacred scripture and what was not, doctrinal formulations were all hammered out in that period prior to the fall of Rome to the barbarians. What followed was a culture with an inferiority complex. With little happening of importance the people of this time looked back to the luminaries of the past and saw them as infallible. For more than a thousand years little changed in any area of knowledge. No wonder folks believed with complete integrity what had been believed for centuries and expressed it without reservation in well-used forms. The church, the body of Christ, while now severely arthritic, became a tool of the powerful. Life was hard during this time and little ever changed. The church became the arbiters of hope. She offered the promise of at least a better life after death to those who conformed to the church's authority rather than a living, breathing kingdom now. It certainly wasn't in the church's self-interest to offer the kingdom Jesus was talking about, where the meek would inherit the earth.

This ossified church was hardly prepared for the four hundred years that followed. The church scrambled to deal with Galileo, Darwin and Freud but is still trying unsuccessfully to incorporate the worldview this trio established long ago as the norm. The church hasn't even begun to deal constructively with the last 50 years of knowledge and technological advancements. The present situation begs the question, “What good is owning Eternal Truth when no one considers it worth having?”

In 1996 circumstances in my life forced me to make a choice. Over the strenuous objections of family, friends and my bishop I walked out of the Temple. I left the priesthood when my career was still in its ascendancy, painfully resigned that the church I loved could be neither reformed nor resuscitated. It was better to live than die with it. I grieved bitterly, never expecting to return.

Of course I never expected to immigrate to New Zealand either, or for that matter to find St Matthew's with its persuasive Vicar. When Glynn challenged me to resume my priesthood, I was both drawn and repelled by the notion. In my agreeing to do so, however, was not with any hope of resuming my efforts to save a dying institution from redundancy. The church I was ordained into is rubble at my feet.

St Matthew's, however, is another thing entirely. While few buildings could look more like that poor arthritic church of the middle ages it is a place where the flesh and blood inside her is more concerned about being the kingdom than being the church.

Sure we are still betwixt and between. Our ambivalence shows up in our liturgy which struggles slowly to shed the past so it can move into the present as something both entirely new and yet as old as Jesus. But our intention and direction is clear. These stones don't crumble because they are not about enshrining the past but framing the present.

The lines between sacred and secular are blurring here as seen in Friday's U2charist. We don't proclaim an eternal truth, but a way of being. Our only certainty is that there are none. We are not about giving answers but about struggling with the questions this very complicated world presents us with at an ever increasing rate. We are about freeing ourselves from the past, our prejudices; our guilt, that we might live into the fullest expression of love. We believe that the kingdom can be had now. In fact this is the only time it can be had. We better get cracking if we want it in our lifetime. We reject hierarchical authority, knowing that the only authority that counts is in our own hearts. A priest is a fellow pilgrim with particular knowledge and expertise, but not one who holds authority over you.

Lastly, we don't even think you need stones to build the kingdom, as we seek to build it with megabytes on real estate in cyberspace. Such a kingdom, built on the world wide web, is open 24/7 to everyone everywhere. It becomes a reflection of the kingdom of God. You can walk out of a temple, but not out of God's love. It is everywhere for everyone. There simply is no exit.

[1] Cupitt, Don. The future: A Redundant Church, an address given at St Michaael's Uniting Church, Collins Steet. February 2001.

[2] Jenkins, David, The Calling of a Cuckoo. Continuum: 2002. p. 104.

November 12, 2006

David Cunliffe, MP

Acknowledgements:

The Governor General, Hon Anand Satyanand

Mayor of Auckland, Dick Hubbard

Veterans

Nga iwi Ngati Whatua, Nga iwi o te motu, tena kotou, tena kotou, tena kotou katoa.


Mist, rose, 
Lifted by a chill 
Breeze from the south 
On a bleak, hillside 
Above the little township of Cave South Canterbury 
Stands a plain stone cenotaph. 


From my childhood memory of a bitterly cold ANZAC morning, there were some 25-odd names of the young men of that area inscribed on one face, under the title "The Great War."

As a child I wondered what was great about it. The little town of Cave today would be hard pressed to muster 25 young men. It gave its all.

The truth is that New Zealand gave its all in that war. From a population of little over a million, around 100,000 were sent to war. About 18,000 lost their lives. No other country of the Empire suffered more heavily per capita.

So as we mark the passing of the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month of 1918, when the bloody carnage of the "war to end wars" ground to a bitter and exhausted halt, we still ask "why?"

We ask what we can take from such sadness: as comfort, as wisdom, as token that these brave young men did not die in vain.

For the young shearers and farmhands of these days, the war no doubt promised a heady mix of duty and adventure. Unlikely ever to travel aboard as we now take for granted, for some, no doubt, it held the promise of an "OE."

But the same ships that carried those men had decades before carried the trade of empire: our mutton, wool and butter; petroleum from the mid-east; copper, nickel, iron and slaves from Africa.

And as the 19th Century drew to its close and the 20th dawned, so the winds of empires blew in cross current. Competition intensified. Protectionism ensued. Tension erupted.

It is sobering to think of the slaughter of World War I as an accidental cascade of events following the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo – triggering as it did alliances and counter-alliances.

It is equally galling, but perhaps more insightful, to see World War I not as accidental but as inevitable.

In that war, the proud towers of competing empires came crashing down in mutual destruction. The world was forever changed - not only the maps of Europe were redrawn but the class-based certitudes of the Victorian era were shattered by the emancipation of women into the workforce and the reorganisation of military and political command.

Unfortunately for the brave young men from Cave, military technology had changed even more quickly. We cannot go where they have gone - where one machinegun had the firepower of three hundred rifles. Into them marched our brave young men and others, line abreast, time after time at places like the Somme and Passchendaele.

And if the scale of the slaughter in this industrial manner beggars comprehension – New Zealand lost 845 men in a single day at Paschendale – so too does the extraordinary bravery of those men who could not have been oblivious to these odds.

Today more than anything else, we commemorate their bravery, their service, their sacrifice made to preserve - that which as a country we held to be good and true.

So, they might well ask us - what we have learned over these last 90 years?

We have learned to honour those who fell or who returned bringing with them tears of the soul that would not heal. Each year, at ANZAC and Armistice Day, the crowds grow larger and more solemn.

We have learned that New Zealand's' troops were the equal of the world's finest.

We gave a generation to the war of the Empire. Through it, we learned to stand up for our own identity. We forged an identity – Anzacs and Kiwis. We took steps towards full nationhood that continues today.

We learned that wars do not end wars.

Twenty-one years after Armistice Day, Germany invaded Poland and the long and ghastly sequel began.

I hope we have learned to put as much sweat and grit and courage into building justice and peace – because war, while occasionally unavoidable, too often represents a failure to solve problems by intelligent means.

We know that New Zealand's extraordinary international commitment continues. We are now in peacekeeping and peace building from the Sinai to Timor to Afghanistan, to the Solomon Islands.

For we have learned that these who forget the lessons of history, inevitability repeat them.

But those "lessons of history" must have seemed remote to our young men buried in the mud of Flanders or the dust of Gallipoli as they whistled "it's a long, long way to Tipperary" and sang "Abide with me".

We hold this remembrance service here in St Matthews – surely one of the most beautiful churches in New Zealand – built to inspire all who worship in it with the love and truth of God. And as we remember the nobility of courage and sacrifice; and the terrible slaughter of man; we pray for God's guidance to live better in this world.

If His grace, His humility, His love truly abides in us - if we can bring that spirit to bear on the world around us – then we will truly be remembering the young men of Cave and all our hamlets, with a tribute fit for heroes.

If we can do that, then their service and our remembrance, will not be in vain.

November 12, 2006

Glynn Cardy

Pentecost 23     The Book of Ruth

The Book of Ruth is a story of women in a men's world. It is a well-crafted, subtle story where literary form and content combine in order to affirm the clever strategies and courage of women.

God doesn't make an appearance. Ruth and Naomi know hardship, danger, and death. No omnipotent God promises them blessing. No man rushes to their rescue. They themselves risk bold decisions and shocking acts in the midst of the alien and hostile. They are working out their own salvation.

There are four distinct Acts in this drama. Act I concerns the tragic plight of Naomi. She is a Jewess who with her husband, Elimelech, and two sons fled from a famine in Judah to neighbouring Moab. There the boys marry local girls. Then disaster strikes. Her husband dies. Her two sons die. The famine also comes to town.

In a patriarchal world the security and survival of women depends on male patronage. Naomi's cultural worth, without husband or sons, is negligible. She is now reliant on the goodwill of kinsmen in the extended whanau. Naomi therefore decides to leave Moab, return to Bethlehem, and seek out such goodwill.

Her two widowed daughter-in-laws want to come too. Naomi is touched. Indeed she sees in their gracious loyalty the graciousness of God. Note the power of this: the author is proclaiming the presence of the Jewish God in pagan female foreigners!!

Naomi, however, orders her daughters-in-law to turn back. She tells them that she is past marrying age, and therefore cannot attract a man to shelter them. She tells them that being a foreigner without resources in Judah is no picnic. She tells them their chances of re-marriage [the path out of poverty] are better in Moab. One of the daughters-in-law reluctantly agrees.

Ruth, however, does not. “Where you go, I will go,” she says to Naomi.

I smile when I hear this read at weddings. Not many, if any, of the wedding guests realize that these words of fidelity are spoken between two women, and between a daughter-in-law and a mother-in-law!

Ruth's choice however makes no sense. She is forsaking the security of her own kin and her own gods. In the entire epic of Israel only Abraham matches this radicalism, but then he had a call from God. No God has called Ruth or promised her blessing.

Further, Ruth has reversed sexual allegiance. A young woman has committed herself to an old woman rather than to search for a new husband. One female has chosen another female in a world where life depends on men. There is no more radical decision in all the memories of Israel. [1]

Act II. They have now arrived in Bethlehem, and we are told about a wealthy kinsman of Naomi's called Boaz. Ruth went out to collect grain, as the poor were permitted to do, behind the reapers in a field belonging to Boaz. As chance would have it, he happened to pass by.

Chance, fate, luck, whatever you call it, in this story is the silent handiwork of God. Yet fate, as Naomi and Ruth, well knew can be a fickle thing, raining both curse and blessing where it wills. In order for fortune to smile fate needs courage and daring deeds.

Boaz asks, in classic patriarchal prose, “Whose maiden is this?” Who owns her? The question might fit the culture, but it doesn't fit the woman. The servant says she came with Naomi from Moab. Boaz then graciously directs her and protects her. Concern from this foreigner marks Boaz as a true child of Israel.

Ruth's response is deferential: “Why have I found favour in your eyes, that you should take notice of me?” It is also ironically subtle. This inferior foreigner by choice and by chance created this situation. Her deference results from her daring.

At evening Ruth returns to her mother-in-law with food and relays the day's events. Naomi is delighted that a kinsman has been so kind and they will not starve. Ruth is pleased that she can provide for the two of them. There is no inference that Ruth is sexually attracted to Boaz.

Act III. Naomi takes over. Aware of the kindness of Boaz, she begins to act upon it. She does not wait for matters to take their course or for God to intervene with a miracle. She plans an outrageous scheme, dangerous and delicate.

Ruth is to dress in her finest clothes and go alone at night to the threshing floor where the men are drinking and eating in celebration of the harvest. After Boaz has lain down to sleep Ruth will approach him, uncover the lower part of his body - euphemistically called “his feet” - and lie down. Just how much of the lower part of his body she is to uncover remains tantalizingly uncertain. Naomi concludes, “Then Boaz himself will tell you what to do”.

Ruth agrees. In Act I Ruth's allegiance to Naomi superseded any desire for a husband. In Act II her struggle for physical survival submerged any desire for a husband. Now, in Act III Ruth's allegiance to Naomi accords with that desire.

The suspense-filled question is: how will a patriarch of Israel respond to this bold action by a foreign woman?

All went according to plan. At midnight Boaz stirs and sees Ruth. “Who are you?” “I am Ruth, your maidservant,” she replies. Up to this point Naomi's script has been followed. However instead of Boaz telling Ruth what to do, now Ruth tells Boaz. “Spread your wing over your servant.” The wing refers to marital and physical security. Yes, she is proposing to him!!

Consistently throughout this book we have a portrayal of Ruth as the defier of custom, the maker of decisions, and the worker of salvation.

Boaz's response is characteristically gracious. He calls her a woman of worth. The story's audience breathes a contented sigh. It looks like Boaz and Ruth are going to get it together.

Yet there is a hitch. Legally the closest kin to Naomi's dead husband has the right and obligation to take Naomi, and therefore Ruth, under his wing. Boaz is second in line. He must go and see if the matter can be resolved.

Act IV begins with the elders conferring. No women are present. The unnamed nearest relative is happy to take Naomi under his wing when he learns that Naomi has a little parcel of land. But when the unnamed relative learns that with Naomi comes a foreign widow, Ruth, another mouth to feed, he wants to renege. The inference is that he is greedy – wanting the rights without the obligations.

Ruth and Naomi are now within Boaz's household, and the men see Boaz as having achieved this. The patriarchal concern for seeing the name of Elimelech, Naomi's dead husband, continue has also been achieved.

The story however does not end in the male court. It returns to the women. This is a women's tale, about women's achievements. Ruth has now conceived and borne a son. The women of Bethlehem rejoice. Rather than identifying the child as the son of Elimelech they see him as the son of Naomi. They speak of Ruth the bearer rather than Boaz the begetter.

The Book of Ruth can be read as a tribute to patriarchy: 'Women's worth is to be found in getting married and producing sons.' Yet to read the Book in this way is to miss the tremendous hope and courage of the women involved. This is a tale about moving from death to life. It is about surviving poverty and vulnerability. It is about surviving in a climate of prejudice and patriarchy. It is a man's culture, where wealth is blessing and poverty is curse. Where God favours Israelites and men. Yet within that cultural world, by daring deeds and a sprinkle of fate, by fidelity to each other, and struggling forward, Ruth and Naomi have triumphed.

Ruth appears in the genealogy of her great, and many times great, grandchild, Jesus. She appears there along with three other unexpected women, all bold and brave, in stark contrast to the usual men only genealogies. Her name is included in order that we might not forget. I think she would have been proud of her far distant mokopuna, Jesus. And he of his ancestral granny.

[1] Trible, Phyllis God and the Rhetoric of Sexuality Philadelphia: Fortress, 1978, p.173.

November 5, 2006

Glynn Cardy

All Saints' Sunday     The Book of Esther

Saints are usually thought of as religious goodie-goodies who obey the rules, please the rulers, and are popular with the pious. And undoubtedly many fit this profile. However, there are some saints who are naughty, disobedient, and downright insolent. They have little regard for rules or rulers, and popularity usually eludes them until long after their death. In a world that worships power, affluence, and military might, it is these rebellious saints who are our guides as we seek to live lives of integrity and protest.

The Book of Esther tells us about three such saints – Vashti, Mordecai, and Esther. And every year the Jewish community celebrates these three at the feast of Purim, a riotous fancy dress party.

The Book of Esther begins with a party thrown by the Persian king, Ahasuerus, for all the inhabitants of his capital Susa. After a drinking session, the king summons his queen, Vashti, to appear before the court wearing only the royal crown. Vashti, in the great tradition of brave and self-assured women, tells the guys were to go. The king, angry, banishes her. After a time, the king regrets losing his queen, and his nobles suggest that he hold an empire-wide search for a new one. Ahasuerus agrees, and all the eligible virgins in the kingdom are paraded into the harem in order to have their assets assessed.

At his point we are introduced to the heroine of the book, Esther, and her guardian, Mordecai. Esther enters the harem and wins the regard of all who know her. When her turn with the king comes, Esther woos Ahasuerus, who makes her his queen.

Some time later, the king promotes the talented and bigoted Haman to the position of vizier. Haman demands that all the people bow down to him. Mordecai, in the great tradition of Jewish faithfulness and courage, tells Haman where to go. Angered, Haman plots revenge on Mordecai by slaughtering all the Jews in the Persian Empire. Mordecai learns of the plot, and turns to Esther to intercede with the king. At the climax of the story, Esther, in the great tradition of little people risking everything by doing big things, goes unsummoned to the king. She gains Ahasuerus' favour, uncovers Haman's plot, and foils his scheme. Haman is put to death and Mordecai is elevated to vizier. The book ends with Esther and Mordecai instigating the festival of Purim to celebrate this turn of events.

The Book of Esther tells a story, historicity uncertain, of what to do when the voice of one's own truth demands something quite different from the voice of authoritative truth; when the voice of the God within you conflicts with the voice of the God above you; when the voice, for example within Vashti, says 'No!' to the authoritative voice of the king.

For many the two voices are one and the same, so that listening to the voice of authority is, in effect, listening to God. What the President, Principal, or authoritative person says is uncritically considered to be what God says. Obedience and compliance with authority is automatically considered good and right, while noncompliance and disobedience is automatically considered wrong and selfish.

In Esther, however, we learn a different truth. There is a time for holy rebellion. There is a time to listen to other voices – especially to the voices of those suffering, or those who soon will be. There is a time to be true to the voice within you, and take the risk that you will be misunderstood and vilified.

In the Book of Esther God is silent. There are no prayers either. The main character, Esther, enters a Gentile beauty pageant, marries a non-Jew, doesn't keep the dietary laws, and lives in a Gentile environment. You can imagine what her pious critics would have said!! Although the outcome of the book reveals the disobedience of the three - Vashti, Mordecai, and Esther - as the will of God, the divine silence in the text seems to place a question mark over their actions.

I think there are times when we take some risks – politically, personally or theologically – and there is no God-like guidance to steer us, to tell us that we are doing it right, to tell us that we are the goodies. We walk in the dark, trying to be true to ourselves, and it is anyone's guess whether we will be praised or punished. It is lonely. And the authoritative God, the God whom everyone else seems to believe in, who knows right from wrong and good from evil, is not with us. Indeed this God seems to be against us. So, without a map, we search for a different God.

Vashti wasn't Jewish at all. She was simply a Queen who when summoned to appear naked before a gathering of drunken men refused. She was not going to be used or demeaned. But this was a very public refusal. The king, the male god, was having a session with the boys, and a piece of his property wouldn't play his game. She was lucky to escape with her life.

In response to Vashti's rebellion a decree was passed that “all women bow to the authority of their husbands, ensuring that each man might be master in his own house.” [1:20 -22]. Isn't it fascinating that Vashti's refusal to be paraded as a pinup was seen to threaten the power of every man? The decree, this ridiculous over-reaction, reveals the ego-fragility of the king and his male entourage.

Mordecai, Esther's cousin and mentor, also committed an act of rebellion that likewise elicited a huge over-reaction. Haman, the new vizier or chief official, as was probably his right, received the bows and due groveling associated with his office. Mordecai refused to play along. We are not told why. Only, in the worst traditions of racism, Haman uses Mordecai's disobedience as an excuse to plan to slaughter every Jew in the Persian Empire. Haman presents the plan to the king as 'we should all be one people' – one law, one faith, one rule for all… Sound familiar? Difference is really deviation, and deviation is really disobedience, and disobedience needs to be destroyed. The King goes along.

In the Book of Esther there are four reasons given for holy rebellion. Firstly, when there is unbearable oppression. This may be personal, as in the case of Vashti, or communal as in Haman's genocidal plans. Secondly, rebellion is called for, like in Esther's case, when there is the hope of relieving oppression. Thirdly, rebellion is warranted when the oppressed community calls for it, as the Jewish community asked of Esther. Lastly, holy rebellion is justified when the voice of authority, in this case the king, believes he is the supreme authority, and thus denies the sovereignty of God.

Mordecai asks Esther to intercede on behalf of her people. He wants Esther, as the favourite wife, to go immediately, unsummoned, into the king's presence and plea for the Jewish people. Esther objects saying that anyone going uninvited into the king's presence invites death. She is not due to next appear in his presence for 30 days. Mordecai responds: “Your position will not save you. In the end they'll get you too.” One cannot read the Book of Esther this side of the Holocaust without seeing the parallels.

So Esther, who has hidden her Jewish identity to date, who is successor to the feisty Vashti, who is the beautiful winner of the king's affection, the very king who has issued a decree wanting women obedient and Jews dead, makes the appearance of her life. And she does it with class.

Step one: look your best. She spends three days getting mentally and physically ready. She gets made up, and puts on her royal, queenly robes. Beautiful and regal.

Step two: be subtle. When the king sees her he is pleased. (Relief, big relief). He asks her to name her request. She doesn't. Instead she invites both the king and Haman to a banquet.

Step three: know your men. Food is the doorway to many a deal. The banquet is magnificent, and the king again asks her to name her request. Again she doesn't. Instead she invites them to another banquet. She knows about men and food!

Step four: when the odds are in your favour, lay down your cards. The king was in Esther's debt. For the sake of honour he needed to be generous to her, as she had been to him. She appeals to his emotions. “Spare me and spare my people.” Then she appeals to his pocket. “The loss of the Jews would be a great financial loss to the Empire.' The king, having forgotten that he himself agreed to the killing of the Jews angrily asks who is planning the massacre. Haman is accused.

Esther disobeys the rules. She went unsummoned. Esther uses brains, beauty, and manipulation to get what she wants. Her ethics are the ethics of those fighting to survive. She has courage. She has spirit. Ironically she displays the same self-assurance and determination of her predecessor Queen Vashti. While the king has his pick of beautiful virgins, he singles out two who have independent, disobedient spirits. The king, despite his inadequacies, seems to get queens with backbone!

All live happily ever after, save Haman and his ilk. No conclusion could be more fitting to the Book of Esther than that of celebrating Purim; honouring holy rebellion two days of every year; celebrating the courage of women and men, the indestructibility of the human spirit, and the memory of all those who stood up and suffered for the voice of a different truth.

May we this All Saints day remember all those who have worked, suffered, and believed in the cause of a different truth – one beyond the control of the controllers. And remember too that part within ourselves that works, suffers, and believes in that truth. And give thanks.

October 29, 2006

Mary Caygill

Pentecost 21     Job 42:1-6, 10-17     
Mark 10: 46-52

In my office at Trinity/St Johns College in Auckland, sitting within a particular alcove on one of the bookshelves I keep a number of significant symbols and items. Items which speak to me of people, events, that have marked a pivotal stage on my ongoing process of coming to and keeping the faith, at the centre of which for me is a God in process.

In the centre stands this cross, made for me by a friend, Wellington artist and poet, Rhonda Svenson, who lives daily with the effects of varying disabilities. Lives daily with the effects of being expected to fit the frame of normality, and the pain that comes with being always considered as 'other'.

Let me tell you something of the story and symbolism behind this significant piece of artwork, entitled, “The Disproportionate Cross.”

The story is as told to me by Rhonda who has given me permission to use her story and her artwork.

The cross was made after a deep spiritual reaction at the first New Zealand Spirituality and Disability Confererence, “Through the Whirlwind” – held in Wellington, May 2003. A hugely significant gathering of people from Australia and New Zealand many of whom live with effects of varying physical and mental impairments who gathered together in order to express for themselves their own theological and spiritual expressions of faith in community.

The two different sized pieces of wood and the deliberate crooked angle, reflect and encompass the body of difference within the whole body of Christ. It is deliberately disproportionate. Not a straight up and down cross with perfect dimensions – it represent difference, represent the power imbalances – represents the varying disjunctions Rhonda feels are part of her living.

The power differentials – most people assume when looking at a cross that the pieces of wood are of equal proportion. Most disabled people don't have power – but they are whole – there is beauty in who they are - they don't have to be anything other than they are. When people look at the cross – it makes them think – makes them ask – it was a very therapeutic exercise, like a living journey to speak out who and what my Christ is.

Due to the drying process – 9 layers – each layer takes 24 hours to dry.

The small glass tiles are grouted with black paint running on to the cross. The glass tiles around the side, some are deliberately missing – missing to create difference. Black is normally used for framing, as it stands out against any other colour.

The tile stuck on the front of the cross – this indicates that I am whole in Christ – but different and I can be different in Christ. I can be framed in a different way

The magazine pictures in which the base and the cross are wrapped in   - pictures of lounge suites, book shelves – things I dream of   - things you wouldn't expect to find on a cross – a very deliberate use of images.

Scraps of paper 
one piece at a time 
clipped together 
to scatter 
in a way to be 'me' 
the jigsaw of hope 
never quite fitting together 
to clasp the sequence of gaps 
running all the way through 
the channel of life

Rhonda's story – let us hold that in our mind's eye.

The story of Bartimaeus – let us enter in, in order to hold that also in our mind's eye.

Bartimaeus must have become an expert interpreter of crowd noises. He would be familiar with the short, light steps of children, the heavier tread of men, the hesitant paces of old people and the sound of a woman's footsteps, sometimes clarified by a snatch of conversation or w whiff of perfume which would settle the doubt.

This day he is the first to become aware of something unusual happening.

There is excitement in the air. A large crowd is coming. Quick enquiries soon reveal the answer: it is Jesus of Nazareth. The name of Jesus had probably gone like wildfire around the communities of sick and disabled in the area. Bartimaeus knows that this is his opportunity. Indeed, such a chance might never come again.

His sight is gone but there is nothing wrong with his voice. There is no point in getting up and pushing through the crowd. He would only get pushed aside and lose his sense of direction. In the confusion, Jesus might pass by. So he stays right where he is, sitting beside the road, and begins to shout at the top of his voice, 'Jesus, Son of   David, have mercy on me!

There is something slightly disturbing about shouting. To the orderly mind, it suggest a possible rebellion, an excess of emotion which is inappropriate.

One of my grandmothers, often said to my sister and I as we might have shouted something to one another – it is not becoming for young women to shout – tone yourselves down - we laughed.

It is something like this maybe when Bartimaeus shouts out. People try to hush him up. All around him people are telling him to shut up, but he can tell the bulk of the crowd is now almost directly opposite and he increases his volume. Over the noise of the crowd, Jesus hears his cry.

The story then continues with one of the most expressive and moving sentences in the Gospels.

The record simply says, 'Jesus stood still' (v.49).

What sensitivity, what quality of attentiveness is in that sentence.

Just as when the woman with the haemorrhage touched the fringe of his garment and the disciples were surprised that, hemmed in by the crowd and amidst the pushing and shoving, he had detected the touch which was an entreaty.

So now, above the babble and confusion, he hears the voice with its hint of desperation, 'have mercy on me.'

Jesus says, 'Call him here.' Now the attitude of the crowd changes. 'You're okay mate. He's heard you.' 'Come on, get up! He's calling for you.'

Bartimaeus springs up, throws off his cloak and many willing hands thrust him forward. The crowd parts and there is silence. Then Bartimaeus hears a voice which he knows must be the voice of Jesus, asking him a most surprising question. 'What do you want me to do for you?'

Jesus does not actively seek out blind people and offer them healing. He is not a healing evangelist of the modern type, who advertises healing as a regular part of his ministry. The truth is that Jesus would have passed by if Bartimaeus had not shouted out so loudly.

Even now, face to face, Jesus makes no assumptions about what the man wants. This shows a remarkable and gracious acceptance. Jesus does not take it for granted that the man wants his sight restored. He offers the man the dignity and independence of declaring his request.

Bartimaeus responds – 'Master, let me have my sight.' And Jesus says to him, 'Go your way; your faith has made you well.'

The words of Jesus are given fresh meaning when we think of them from the point of view of Bartimaeus. 'Go your way.' In his life as a blind person he had not been able to go his own way, but had depended upon others and had to follow in the ways that they chose. Now at last he can go on his own way. 'Immediately he regained his sight, and followed him on the way.'

The way that Bartimaeus chooses is the way of discipleship. This reminds us that the story of his healing is intended to be a symbol of parable of conversion. In becoming a disciple of Jesus, you are delivered from the ignorance and helplessness of your former life and given direction and purpose in living.

John Hull, Professor of Religious Education and Practical Theology at Birmingham University writing from his lived experience of having been sighted but now blind, puts forward the view that “this symbol expresses the sighted person's point of view. To be delivered from the restrictions of blindness into the freedom of a sighted person's point of life is one of the most desirable transformations that a sighted person could imagine. Naturally he says, blind people get caught up in this point of view.

This puts blind people into a difficult position. What are we to say in reply to the question of Jesus, “What do you want me to do for you?”

Hull recounts receiving a particular letter in 1997.

Dear Mr Hull,

There is fortunately, a type of healing that is known as divine healing. It is done by Christians laying their hands on needy and afflicted persons. There is a man by the name of Peter Scothern who has been mightily used of God I divine healing. He goes to various areas, if invited to do so, to lay his hands on needy and afflicted persons.

A person, writing on your behalf, could invite Scothern to come to Birmingham University to lay his hands on you. If you then wished this you could also have a divine healing service in Birmingham, and you could inform al the needy and afflicted in Birmingham of the coming service. The needy persons of Birmingham will be as follows; blind, semi-blind, deaf and semi-deaf, dumb, those in continuous pain, diseased (especially those with diseases what are thought to be 'incurable' in the minds of most persons), allergic, those with bronchial troubles, those with mental troubles, and those who are physically abnormal, and many others with others things wrong with them….

And so the letter went on with further detail as to how special miracle prayer cloths could also be sent to be laid on the afflicted or abnormal part of the human anatomy….

Here is Professor John Hull's reply.

Dear Mr Morris

You wrote to me recently about the healing ministry of Mr Scothern. There are a number of misunderstandings in your letter which I thought you would like me to correct.

In the first place, you describe me as being needy and afflicted. Of course, in a sense I am needy, as are all human beings. However, I am much less needy than many. God has blessed me in many ways. I have a wonderful wife and five beautiful children. Because I have been able to do useful work for my employer, the University of Birmingham, I have a secure job and am able to maintain myself at a standard of living which is higher than many in our country. As for being afflicted, it is true that I am blind. However, I do not interpret my blindness as an affliction, but as a strange, dark and mysterious gift from God. Indeed, in many ways it is a gift that I would rather not have been given and one that I would not wish my friends or children to have. Nevertheless, it is a kind of gift. I have learnt that since I have passed beyond light and darkness, the image of God rests on my blindness. No sighted person can say that he or she is beyond light and darkness and yet we are told in Psalm 139, v 12 that God is beyond light and darkness. So in that respect it seems to me that it is blind people who are in the image of God rather than sighted people. Because of their dependence upon outward appearance and their confidence of being superior, it is often sighted people who are needy and many of them could do with a dose of blindness, like Tobit, or St Paul in the Bible, to bring them a kind of humility and insight which has not come to them through sight.

I am a Christian like yourself. My Christian life has been deepened since I lost my sight. This loss has helped me to think through many of my values in living, and in a way I have learnt a greater degree of intimacy with God.

Your letter distressed me because it showed so little sensitivity to the actual condition of blind people, and no awareness at all of the emotions and beliefs of Christian blind people. You assume that everybody wants to be like you, a sighted person, and you do not recognize that people are called into various states of life, some of which they would perhaps rather not have had, but they grow in faith and realize that whether they are sighted or blind they are in the hands of a merciful God.

Thank you for your letter and I hope that that my response will help you to consider again the Christian values behind your own letter.” (47-48. In the Beginning)

O God, it was you who formed my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made…How weighty to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! I try to count them – they are more than the sand: I come to the end – I am still with you.

We must do more than speak the truth.

We must hear the truth.

We must also act upon truth.

We must also search for truth.

The difficult truth,

within us and around us.

We must also devote ourselves to truth.

Otherwise we are dishonest

and our lives are mistaken.

God grant us the strength and the courage

to be truthful.

Amen.

October 22, 2006

Clay Nelson

Pentecost 20     Mark 10:35-45

Last week Elaine Wainwright spoke of the inconvenient truth that having eternal life is not something we can put off until tomorrow, it is in our grasp today. What is inconvenient is that it means choosing to live an ethical life now.

This week we get a glimpse of the implications of that truth. James and John have just made an end run around their mates to grab power. If we can't be number one, make sure the one who is depends on us. Their power, honour and glory have to rub off somewhere. Why not on us? It's a perfectly natural desire, even if it is wiser not to own up to it. Many a preacher today will give a fine sermon about how James and John don't get it. Seeking upward mobility is not the route to eternal life.

As worthy a sermon as that would be, that isn't the sermon you get to hear.

One of the interesting ramifications of having a major shift in your theology, I am discovering, is that you don't read familiar passages in the same comfortable way. When your theology no longer has room for an external, personal God somewhere out “there”; when your view of Jesus is that he is no more or less human than ourselves; it becomes difficult to simply accept without question the Gospel's account of his words and actions. The Gospels are not an account of Jesus' life. They are the early church's interpretation and explanation of that life. They are written from the perspective of hindsight and with the benefit of untold hours of theological reflection. His followers are trying to make sense of this man who did not behave according to expected norms. They are coloured by what was happening in the Christian community at the time and the challenges they were facing trying to follow him. Like a pebble in your shoe his life kept irritating them, challenging the way they understood the world to be or at least wanted it to be. The Gospels reflect our human need to resolve uncomfortable tension by putting Jesus in a box we can make sense of. The “Son of God” box is what they used and for the next 2000 years generations of followers just accepted their work and conclusions, without doing the work for themselves in their own context.

Unfortunately their conclusions no longer make sense for me. I know this because Jesus irritates me now more than ever. It is annoying to me that at age 57 I have to re-examine my worldview. He has slipped out of his box and is raising havoc with my carefully shaped assumptions. I long for when I could just accept the traditional view that he was the instrument of a personal God cleaning up the mess we've made of things, relieving me of all responsibility except to acknowledge him as Lord. This view let me off the hook. Jesus by this interpretation is one-of-a-kind, instead of an example of what each of us is capable. There is no way I can emulate the one-of-a-kind Jesus, besides I don't have to, that Jesus has already done my work for me.

My former view let me easily slip into focusing on the differences between the one-of-a-kind Jesus and us instead of our similarities with the historical Jesus. I could look at James' and John's all too human tendency to climb over the backs of others for personal gain and go “Tsk, tsk. People like them are the problem with the world today. Just look at Bush and Blair. At least when I'm trying to shine up my CV I'm trying to make the world a better place.”

That was such a self-satisfying way to read the Gospel. But if I have to look at my capacity to be Jesus, my focus has to shift from James and John to what Jesus was about.

Today's Gospel is more likely about some power struggle happening in the infant church at the time Mark was writing it than about what Jesus really said or did on the road to Jerusalem. I suspect this because while a human Jesus certainly knew he was becoming a dangerous irritant to the authorities which did not bode well for him, he had no way of knowing what the outcome would be at this point in the story. He certainly hadn't already sent out invitations to the Last Supper to which he refers. What does come through of the human Jesus in Mark's account is that he apparently wasn't interested in proving or using earthly or heavenly power, even for his own holy purposes.

This character trait preserved in the collective memory of those who followed him and passed on to others is probably for real. It is certainly an inconvenient memory for the church to preserve as it was busy structuring itself in a hierarchical manner just like the emperor's court. If this characteristic wasn't as undeniable as it is inconvenient, it surely would have been edited out at some point. After all, power and authority would become the bread and butter of the church, justified by its godly desire to be the gateway to heaven. It's a tough job, but somebody's got to do it.

What is striking about this memory of Jesus is his not being flattered by James' and John's recognition of his being a rising star and their desire to tie their wagons to it. How abnormal. His leadership style doesn't seem to need them. Yet, don't leaders need loyal followers, parents need children, teachers need students, doctors need patients, and preachers need congregations?

Jesus' example says, apparently not. Now that's irritating.

This Jesus seems to recognise that human interaction is fraught with conflict because each of us wants our own way. But the only way any of us can achieve this outcome is if the other chooses to be or is forced to be subservient to our will. That seems to be a great solution for the one whose will is being met, but is less satisfactory for the one who has had to put their desires on hold. As we have all had times when we have not gotten our way, we know the resentment and envy this engenders. We put up with it in the hope that some day we will get to impose our will. The world says that's the way it has to be. Better that some of us get our way than none at all.

This Jesus says, “Not so.” Getting your own way isn't all it's cracked up to be. The superior one has to live with the knowledge that getting their way requires someone else giving up theirs. They need that person to recognise their superiority in order to have it. As there is always the possibility they will no longer do so or will demand that turn about is fair play, they become a threat, but a threat they need. This can lead to loathing and contempt. The superior person knows there is no difference between himself and the one he depends on to maintain his position. The natural response is to diminish the other so as to justify their place in the general order. The proof of this is everywhere. Look at how men traditionally treat women, or Pakeha often refer to Maori, or how straights denigrate gays and lesbians, or Christians portray those who believe differently. The problem with diminishing others is that we are diminished as well.

Jesus' leadership style invites us to avoid this ultimately destructive trap. By not needing others to fulfil us and define us, we no longer need to seek domination. Our power and authority come from within. They are not dependent on others. How else could the master wash his disciples' feet and not be diminished? He invites others to follow, he doesn't force them. They maintain free will and the capacity to choose. He loses nothing if they don't. He teaches those who wish to be his students, but if they don't he is no less a teacher. He offers eternal life for our sake; he does not require it for his own.

This Jesus did not create this truth. He simply lives it. Even as he is denied, rejected and executed, he is still not diminished. By the world's standards, he is hardly a sterling example of leadership. I suppose that is the most annoying thing about the man. That is why he remains for me an itch I can't quite reach. We know he's right. We all know leaders who form leaders. We all know doctors who make their patients well. We all know parents who raise their children to leave home. We all know teachers who graduate their students. I suppose the only question left is do we know any preachers who don't want their congregation to show up because they are too busy living eternal life? There is always the chance this could happen. If Jesus was capable of living this way, so are we. If next week Glynn asks where everybody is, that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

October 22, 2006

Glynn Cardy

Pentecost 20     Mark 10:35-45

Managers are people who do things right, while leaders are people who do the right thing. [i]

Jesus, I believe, was a leader, not a manager. The gospel reading this morning gives us the opportunity to reflect upon leadership – the sort of leadership Jesus offered, and the sort of leadership we need today.

Good management is essential in any organization. People need to be heard and understood; good processes, protocols, and safety provisions need to be in place; conflict needs to be mediated and resolved; and employees and clients' hopes and expectations need to be taken seriously. Good management usually leads to increased productivity and profit. This is what many people understand to be leadership.

There is no evidence in the biblical texts that Jesus was a manager. There are no stories of him sitting down and listening to the hopes and fears of Peter; or patiently mediating in conflicts between the disciples; or emphatically caring for those who gave up their jobs and businesses to follow him. Those who posit that Jesus pastorally coached his disciples are largely arguing from what is unsaid in the texts rather than what is said. However there is no doubt in anyone's mind that Jesus lived and preached a vision, and challenged others to follow him.

I think the Church has a bad habit of trying to domesticate Jesus. It paints him as meek, mild, and obedient, a kindly shepherd always ready to listen, guard and comfort. It tries to portray him as apolitical, as if that was possible in 1st century Palestine. Similarly the Church has wanted its leaders to be meek, mild, and obedient, always ready to protect and console, and of course be apolitical. 'Servant leadership' is the term.

The Church wants to be safe. It wants leaders who will make people feel safe. It asks its leaders to faithfully adhere to the traditions and understandings of the past in the mistaken belief that repetition will bring security. It asks its leaders to care for the members. It asks its leaders to coach and equip the members in caring. And it asks its leaders to care for outsiders - but not at the cost of neglecting the members. Like a well-run club the wellbeing of members is paramount because the highest value in the Church is continuity. Is it accidental then that we appoint people into positions of authority who have highly developed managerial skills?

Jesus wouldn't have got a job in the Church, and if he had he would have turned it down. The Bible portrays him as confrontational, challenging, and disturbing. He was rude to those in authority. He disregarded the rules. He spent more time with the unfaithful than he did with the faithful. He got into heated arguments and said outlandish things. He had grandiose ideas that didn't seem to lead anywhere. He was impractical. The bottom line was: Jesus served no one but God. An employee of the club needs to serve the needs of the club.

Jesus promoted a political and spiritual vision of an upside down kingdom where the last are first and the first slaves. It is a place where the CEO's wash the feet of the unemployed. It is a place where the outsiders are in, and the insiders choose to be out. It is a place where the 99 sheep are deserted in order that the lost one is found. It is a place where the despicable find a home.

In this vision Jesus will not sit on a throne with his two trusted lieutenants beside him, sycophants serving him, and his army available in the wings. Rather it is vision where the forces of oppression will hang him on a cross, with two thieves beside him, with Roman soldiers dividing his meagre assets, and a few women wailing beneath him. Siding with outsiders made Jesus an outsider. Threatening the powerful made Jesus a threat. There is a terrible cost to ignoring safety.

James and John, and in Matthew's account their mother, didn't understand the vision or the cost. On the way to Jerusalem, the pinnacle of religious and civic power, they thought glory was coming and the fishing nets were far behind. They thought they were, with God's help, soon to overcome any opposition, then triumph and reign. And, being entrepreneurial upwardly mobile graduates of the Galilean Leadership Academy, they thought they would put their hands up first for the best jobs.

You can almost hear Jesus groan. They didn't get it. They didn't understand what triumph and glory would be. Jesus' vision had not penetrated their hearts, let alone their heads. The cost hadn't entered their equation. Neither did the other disciples get it. They were just envious that the Zebedee brothers had put their hands up first.

I'm reminded of these words: “Most of the people who mourn the passing of a national leader wouldn't know a leader if they saw one. If they had the bad luck to come across a leader, they would find out that he or she might demand something from them, and this impertinence would put an abrupt and indignant end to their wish for his or her return.” [ii]

The leadership of Jesus demanded something of the disciples, and demands something of us. It demands commitment to making his vision a reality in our lives. As Ghandi said, “We must become the change we want to see.” It demands a commitment to stand with outsiders and both criticise and seek to dismantle the structures that keep them there. When you stand with outsiders in time you become one.

Most of what is called leadership today in the Church is a blend of management and leadership. We need both. The worry is that in the order to maintain 'productivity' we will nurture risk-adverse strategies ('Keep doing the same things but just do them better!') and encourage our clergy to be managers more than they are leaders. Despite any rhetoric to the contrary the church primarily employs pastors, not prophets.

Two stories, one of good management and one of good leadership:

“An influential British politician kept pestering Disraeli for a baronetcy. The Prime Minister could not see his way to obliging the man but he managed to refuse him without hurting his feelings. He said, “I am sorry I cannot give you a baronetcy, but I can give you something better: you can tell your friends that I offered you the baronetcy and that you turned it down.” [iii]

Good management. Now for good leadership:

“Of the great Zen Master Rinzai it was said that each night the last thing he did before he went to bed was let out a great belly laugh that resounded through the corridors and was heard in every building of the monastery grounds. And the first thing he did when he woke at dawn was burst into peals of laughter so loud they woke up every monk no matter how deep his slumber.” [iv]

Good leadership. A leader defines reality - both for him/herself and for others. That's what that laugh was doing. How much laughter is there in your Church or workplace?

The word “servant” or “serving” needs to be carefully used in relation to leadership. As a friend once said, “When I see cleaners, waitresses, and rubbish collectors becoming bishops and priests I'll believe the Church has servants as leaders.” He has a point. 'Servant' has socio-political implications.

What do we mean in the Church by the word 'serving'? Does it mean that our priest should be on every committee? I would say that reflects an inability to trust others. Does it mean that our priest knows every parishioner's needs, and where possible attends to them? I think it is the vocation of every Christian to be a good neighbour and care for one another. By expecting the priest to do it we are neglecting our baptismal vocation.

I remember one vicar who for twenty years had a wonderful reputation among his parishioners. He was always there for them, always caring, always available. However in the 20 years he served that parish both his family and his health fell apart. He had succumbed to an uncritical understanding of 'servant leadership'.

Self-care is not optional. You live what you are. The first responsibility of a leader is to define reality. If reality is solely your business or your Church then you have failed to understand what spirituality is and the importance of transformative love [the essence of God] permeating all of your life and relationships. I think a priest's job description should be simply “To pray Jesus' vision into being”. Period. But please don't think I mean something passive when I use the word 'pray'.

When you are, like myself, a recipient of privilege (and it is a privilege to lead) you have the obligation to use that privilege and its power wisely. This is what 'serving' is. 'Serving' doesn't mean necessarily doing the dishes. Often it is harder to make small talk with the dignitaries out front than pick up a tea towel out back. 'Serving' is about being conscious of the good fortune and grace bestowed upon you, and treating all others with grace and dignity as equals. The opposite is arrogance, which unfortunately is all too common.

The task of the Christian leader is to articulate a vision and to lead people in the transformation of society in line with that vision. Further, and intimately connected with this, is the ability to live and engender the spirituality that will sustain both the struggle and its outcome. This is how Jesus led. When he died he left others to manage. Thankfully some of them had the courage and tenacity to lead.

[i] Warren Bennis.

[ii] Lewis Lapham.

[iii] De Mello, A. The Prayer Of The Frog, Anand: Gujarat Sahitya Prakash, 1988, p.154

[iv] De Mello, A. The Prayer Of The Frog, p.172.

October 15, 2006

Elaine Wainwright

19th Sunday after Pentecost     Hebrews 4:12-16    
 Mark 10:17-31

What must I do to inherit eternal life? … [Mark 10:17]

…There is no one who has left house or brother or sister or mother or father or children…who will not receive a hundredfold in this age…and in the age to come eternal life.

These two verses with their reference to eternal life, frame the reading of today's gospel – inheriting eternal life, in the age to come eternal life [Mark 10:30].

When we think of eternal life we imagine it in the future according to our linear view of time: past…to present…to future. In the Israel of the first century, a future reference like 'eternal life' was imaginary. In a culture, however, whose time process was cyclical rather than linear with the main focus being on the present rather than a linear long-term future, the future imaginary, “eternal life”, reflected back into the present on how one ought to live now. In other words, the reference to 'eternal life' was about ethics in the present rather than about an unknown future.

The man who questions Jesus is asking the same question which each one of us asks of ourselves time and time again: how must I live a good life? Am I living a good life? In response to the man's question, Jesus lists some of the commandments and his questioner says: I've kept all these since my youth. Let's listen for the familiar in this conversation. I suspect it is very descriptive of most of us who are generally 'good' Christians. We attend church regularly, we pray regularly, we live a 'good' life – we generally don't murder, commit adultery, steal or bear false witness, or defraud and I suspect most of us not only honour but love and care for our parents. And so like the rich young man we could very readily say: I generally live a good life [and in parentheses, I'll probably go to heaven].

The challenge in today's gospel, however, is that Jesus does not limit his invitation to the commandments. He sees the potential in this good man to take up an invitation beyond listed commandments: he looks at him and loves the potential he sees. And he invites him to examine his life carefully in a “limited good” society in which it was believed that anyone who had “many possessions” had generally obtained them fraudulently at the expense of others. Jesus even spells out what he might do to be truly and fully ethical: sell what you own and give to the poor and join the community around me - this is the way in which the future vision of “eternal life” reflects back into your present. But the man was shocked and went away sad because he had many possessions.

What is the invitation to us today? What do we have at the expense of others that could be given to/returned to them? First, as in the gospel, we can look to our material possessions. How do we live simply in a material-rich culture so that everyone has what they need to live? Or will we too go away sad because we have many possessions.

And what of time? How do we give of our time in an activity rich culture in which there is such demand to be here, to be there, to do any number of activities. How will we make time available for those in need of another? Or do we go away sad because we have and hold our time to ourselves and for ourselves?

And what of our very person? How will we give of ourselves in love, in relationship in a world that is supposedly communication rich but often connection and love poor – a world in which every moment thousands of people are texting or on mobile phones but often are lonely and sad. Do we really give of our person to others in relationships with a quality that generates love? Or do we go away sad because our giving of ourselves lacks depth?

Jesus invitation is to leave and to follow, to live the gospel as he lived it, to do the work of bringing in God's kingdom, God's transformative dream for the human community. This transformative dream is for right relationship – right relationship around material realities, right relationship around time, right relationship about our very person. Such ethical living turns our world upside down as the second part of the gospel suggests: people leave their family which was their source of relationship, of resources, of identity in the first century; Jesus pronounces the last will be first and first last; and says that a camel can go through the 'eye of the needle', the small gate into the city of Jerusalem through which only people could enter on foot. To do the extra beyond the keeping of the commandments will change our lives, will turn our world upside down.

In the movie The Devil Wears Prada, Andrea has her simple but value-rich or ethical life turned upside down when she takes a job in the fashion industry. She acquires exquisite material resources, has all her time eaten up by a demanding job so that she has no time with her family or friends, and loses her very self so that there is none of herself available to give in loving relationship. When she claims that she has no choice but to live this lifestyle, her boyfriend challenges her with the claim that everyone has choices. Andrea, like the man in today's gospel, comes to a turning point when the two lifestyles are held up before her and she has to choose – will she allow her new high-flying life to be turned upside down! Al Gore in the movie An Inconvenient Truth which I saw at the same time as The Devil Wears Prada on a very recent plane trip from San Francisco, places before the human community a much more radical ethical choice in relation to God's transformative dream. Can we, will we live in right relationship with the human and other-than-human communities of being for the survival of the very planet itself.

Today's gospel takes us, therefore, to the core of our being – what does it mean to live not just a good but a responsible and an ethical life, to allow our present life to be turned upside down. This is the challenge of the living and active word of God which goes to the very heart of our being, as the Letter to the Hebrews suggests, to the place where soul is divided from spirit, joints from marrow, places within ourselves too deep, too fine to see. It is there that we cannot escape ourselves nor the word of invitation. It is there to that hidden place within that we are invited today. We take with us to that place the invitation, the challenge of Jesus, the vision of the basileia or kingdom as God's transformative dream, the hard data and images and metaphors from our culture, and the very stuff of our day to day lives. In that quiet inner place, we cannot escape. We are naked and laid bare the Letter says and it is there that we will be invited like the man who questions Jesus, like Andrea in The Devil Wears Prada, and like the world community in An Inconvenient Truth to render an account. Impossible we are tempted to say but the gospel says no: with God all things are possible – you can live a truly ethical life and you can live it now and you can imagine the future of inheriting eternal life! With God all things are possible!

October 8, 2006

Glynn Cardy

Feast of St. Francis     Mark 10:2-16

“Beware of the God” reads the bright red sign outside our church. The kennel beneath it and the subscript advertising the upcoming animal service give the sign its context. Adults and children smile as they pass by.

Our detractors also love it. “Ah,” said one chap last week grinning at the thought, “at last, a theological health warning outside St Matthew's.” He thinks visitors should be wary of the God within.

I agree with him. The God we worship here is not safe, and will not make you safe.

The late James K. Baxter was one of my spiritual mentors. As well as being among our country's foremost poets, Hemi combined his understandings of Maori and Catholic spirituality with a potent blend of compassion and justice.

One of his more difficult pieces comes from the Jerusalem Daybook:

“[God] is my peace, my terror, my joy, my sorrow… but not my security… Who is harsher than this God of ours? The God they imagine, and pray to very often in the churches, is a God of sugar compared to the terrible One who grips our living entrails… I would not advise any [person] to follow that One.”

As Hemi goes on I find myself both repelled and challenged by this image of God. I am repelled by the notion of a God who destroys, who terrorizes, who frightens, and who practices a random morality. Yet at the same time I know this is theological experience of many, not least Abraham and Jeremiah.

What challenges me is the deep Hebraic truth that God cannot be contained or tamed by our desires to have an orderly, secure, and predictable life. What Christianity often does to God is what the Governor of California in the 1970s, Ronald Reagan, tried to do to the Redwoods, namely make them into lounge furniture. That which is wild, wonderful, and free is an affront to our worst managerial instincts. It needs to be cut down, domesticated, and made into something comfortable to sit on and sip our coffee.

Proponents of Christianity throughout the ages have tried to keep God under control by creating fences out of the Bible, the Creeds, synods, clergy, hymns, and liturgies. Yet, as Baxter reminds us, they need to be aware of who and what they are dealing with. For God continually breaks out of our constructs and language - popping up in others' holy texts, speaking through social and political outcasts, refusing to favour any one race, religion, or sexual orientation, and generally being a darn nuisance to those who like decency and order. Be aware, this God is not safe.

If you want to judge a religion firstly judge how many constraints it puts upon God. Then judge the religion by its mercy. The untameable God who pushes us beyond our boundaries has always and continues to prod and shove us towards the exercise of mercy and compassion.

Jesus was a reforming Jew who rebelled against love being turned into legalism. His ministry was one of constant and unbridled compassion. This is the context of our Gospel reading today. In a society where women had few rights marriage gave them protection. Yet their husbands if they took a fancy to some other woman could divorce them at whim. Jesus' comments need to be understood as siding with the vulnerable, namely married women.

Of course we know that marriage can also be a place of violence and oppression. Nowadays the ability to divorce allows a way out. Biblical legalists however have taken Jesus' words and used them to judge those whose marriages end. Words originally meant to support the vulnerable have been turned to condemn the vulnerable.

Every religion needs to examine its beliefs to see whether they encourage adherents to be more or less merciful, more or less tolerant, and more or less compassionate. This is the touchstone of faith: does your church make you kinder? Does your church make the world a kinder place? And if it doesn't my advice is to ditch your church and go looking for God.

Kindness and compassion led St Francis of Assisi well beyond his comfort zone. There is a story told of Francis [1] and a savage wolf. The citizens of Gubbio were wary and frightened to venture beyond the city walls. Francis, both compelled by and trusting in God, went out alone to meet this wolf. The brute appeared. Francis made the sign of the cross and spoke, calling the beast “Brother Wolf” and telling him off for all the suffering he had caused. The wolf, having made ready to pounce, became very quiet, and in the end lay at Francis's feet. The tradition records that “[the wolf from then on] lived in the city ...and was fed by the people ...and never a dog barked at him, and the citizens grieved... at his death from old age.”

Let us note that, firstly, Francis was pushed by God to confront his fears. He ventured out, beyond where it was safe. Beware of the God. Secondly, Francis engaged with the wolf that others both feared and excluded. Risky behaviour. Thirdly, he brokered a deal that was of mutual benefit to both the wolf and the townsfolk, and built a lasting connection between them.

There was another solution available to the citizens of Gubbio: hire a hunter to kill the wolf. Time and again this has been what humans have done. Rather than befriend our fears we have killed that which has threatened us. It has led to the depletion and extinction of many animal species. It has led to many wars and generations weaned on hatred. The story of the Wolf of Gubbio, on the other hand, invites us into building relationships of trust and mutuality with those we fear.

There are similar Francis stories around poverty and sickness – like when he hugged a leper; and around enemies and Islam – like when he visited the Sultan of Babylon. Each of these stories is about Francis being pushed by God beyond the limits of safety to embrace humans or animals others were frightened of and wished to exclude or destroy.

Our actions towards animals, or towards those who are labelled as deviant or different, or towards those with little status or power, or towards those of other religions or none… is the measure of our faith. This is not an easy or comfortable faith. Frequently you will find yourself consigned to the theological dog house. By siding with outsiders you become an outsider yourself. Then beware everything changes. Ask James K. Baxter. Ask Francis. Ask Jesus. Ask God.

[1] Almedingen, E.M. Francis of Assisi: A portrait, The Brodley Head: London, 1967.

October 1, 2006

Clay Nelson

Pentecost 17     Mark 9:38-50

I'd like to ask a favour. If you are a fundamentalist who prides yourself on taking the Bible seriously, clap your hand, blink you eye and stomp your foot.

Oh, by the silence I'd guess I'm in the wrong church. Or am I?

Mark Twain once commented, “Most people are bothered by those passages of Scripture they do not understand, but the passages that bother me are those I do understand.”

Not me. I just preach on something else.

While today's Gospel can be credited with stirring the pot, it is something that happened this week that is my text for the day.

This week many of the Primates of the Global South met to consider their response to the American church's electing a woman as primate. Her gender isn't her only sin in their eyes. She supports the ordination of gays and lesbians to any office in the church just as if they were “real” Christians. Her election and the American's refusal to recant for having ordained a gay bishop earlier has brought them to call for drastic action. They have asked Canterbury to appoint a more acceptable bishop to represent those conservative American churches and dioceses who wish to disassociate themselves from The Episcopal Church, and of course, take their assets with them. This outrageous interference in the life of the American church is in effect a call for them to be thrown out of the Anglican Communion. By implication they are also calling for the ex-communication of anyone who doesn't exclude those they exclude. That would include Glynn and me, who support the direction of The Episcopal Church and any of you who agree with us.

Perhaps they are using today's Gospel as their justification. How does it feel to be an amputated foot or hand?

To date no word of rebuke has been heard from English, Canadian or New Zealand primates or bishops. The only voice of opposition to these primates is from one of their own. The South African primate has disassociated himself from the statement signed in Kigali, Nigeria. However, conservatives here and around the world are hailing their actions loudly.

While it seems only a matter of church politics, few in the world care about -- the popular press certainly hasn't mentioned it -- I face a difficult choice.

I don't know whether to be sad and angry or go dancing in the streets relieved.

I am saddened because their exclusive attitudes are magnified by the papal challenge to Islam, virtually calling for a new crusade. No matter how feeble his apology, he meant what he said. Different is wrong. Such attitudes are underlined bold in the recent story about the “Gays are cancerous” bumper stickers sent anonymously to New Zealand Presbyterians before they voted this week to prohibit those in same-sex relationships from being ministers or leaders. In less publicised words last week the Pope gave support to people like those who sent the bumper stickers. He told Ontario bishops Canada has excluded "God from the public sphere. In the name of tolerance your country has had to endure the folly of the redefinition of spouse, and in the name of freedom of choice it is confronted with the daily destruction of unborn children." Expect the same if he comes to New Zealand.

I'm angry because I'm tired. My whole ministry has been marked by listening to the voices of exclusion. I first heard their voices when they objected to letting the divorced come to communion. In America the next big issue was fighting those voices in opposition to integration, voting rights and fair housing. In the church it was those opposed to a more inclusive prayer book, girl acolytes, women priests, women bishops, ordaining gay ministers, ordaining gay ministers in committed relationships, ordaining gay bishops, and finally blessing of same-sex relationships.

After untold dialogue and debate the voices of exclusion in the church have not accepted one of those inclusive steps. You have to give them this: They are consistent.

New Zealand has a better record where inclusion is concerned. Perhaps it is because many of the people who came here were escaping the oppression of a class society. Perhaps it was their being welcomed by the Maori already here. Whatever it was it showed up early on in the Treaty's intent and later in being the first place in the world where women could vote. An inclusive attitude is reflected in our acceptance of civil unions, in the church's Three Tikanga constitution, electing the first woman bishop in the world and in issuing the most popular prayer book used in the United States. But the voices of exclusion are not silent here either. For months now clergy email inboxes have been inundated by a debate over the issues generated by the American church. Conservatives go on at length seeking to justify their exclusive tendencies by dredging up ancient church documents and early church practices to support their view of Scripture. They use disparaging names for those who value inclusiveness. They love to rant on about Glynn and places like St Matthew's, as if there is another place like St Matthew's. Frankly, they are boring. And they make it more than a little embarrassing to be an Anglican or a Christian for that matter.

Sad and angry? Yes. But I'm also delighted and relieved.

I'm dancing in the street because the global south primates would not be taking such steps if the Gospel wasn't in full bloom in some places on the globe. The back of homophobia has been broken in the US and Canada and I hope in New Zealand, the Presbyterians give me pause. Yes, there is still noisy resistance but it is more of a death rattle than a call to arms. The global south bishops and those who support them may succeed in cutting us off from their vision of the body of Christ but there will be little applause with only one hand clapping.

I'm relieved because I'm through debating. Last week Glynn gave us two models of the church, one of a house and one of a ship.

Exclusion is a house issue. Arguing about it endlessly keeps us from doing the Gospel work. Living the Gospel requires sailing with all hands aboard.

When Katharine Jefferts Schori was asked by a conservative evangelical after her election as Primate what third-world Anglican women would make of her views on homosexuality, she shot back: "I should think they would be more interested in issues of hunger, clean water supply and education for their children."

I grew up in the house. It was historic and beautiful in many ways. The solid foundation was comfortable and predictable, but house chores keep us from giving living water to the least amongst us. It keeps us from being the salt and fire the world desperately needs.

While we sweep out the house, polar ice caps melt at an alarming rate. While we dust, the people of Darfur face imminent genocide. While we take out the garbage, 30,000 children a day die of hunger and violence. While we tidy up, unimaginable numbers die of malaria and HIV/AIDS.

I'm relieved that we are being sent packing from the house. We're finally free to be who Jesus showed us we are. Now we can set sail on the good ship St Matthew's and ships like her where the captain's table is set for all, even for those offended by our very existence.

While their place is set, they will miss the boat. The lawn needs mowing. They will send their apologies, but for me, that's a relief. They have been party-poopers long enough and their manners are dreadful. Let's weigh anchor and set sail.

September 24, 2006

Glynn Cardy

St Matthew's Day

Matthew. Sitting at his tax booth, doing his extorting best, like the good little Roman lackey he was. Along breezes Jesus. “Hey, you, follow me!” The breeze lifts him up, picks him up, snaps the mooring ropes, and he's away.

Away to where? Well Matthew didn't have a clue. All he knew was that transformative power in Jesus had filled his sails and his heart. But he didn't know where he was bound. Neither did Jesus.

The Christian Church, like other world religions, attracts adherents by its perceived stability. In a world that seems to be constantly in flux it is a religion that has endured 2,000 years. Each week in the marketplace ideas, structures, products, and processes are hailed as 'new' and 'better', as if those two adjectives are synonymous. And each week, contra the marketplace, a number find comfort in grounding their spirituality in traditions and rites dating back centuries. With magnificent buildings made to endure, Christianity declares to the world that at least here permanence is presumed. No fickle wind, whim, or scandal is going to change the Church.

The common model for this understanding of Christianity is that of a house. Built on the 'sure foundation' of Jesus Christ, as one popular hymn attests, this house will supposedly endure forever. Grounded in the Bible and tradition this rock-solid structure will be able to withstand the storms of change and doubt.

Much of the debate within Christianity is between those who want to reinforce the foundations, strengthen the walls, and keep foreign winds and doctrines out, and those who want to open the windows and doors to the world and be prepared to change time-honoured methods and doctrines in order to do so.

Both sides are using the model of house. The critical issue is the limits of hospitality, how accommodating the Church should be. The debate about homosexual clergy and blessings, for example, is in part a debate about how open the doors of the house can be without compromising the foundations of the whole building.

God, in the house model, is at best a benevolent tolerant host who opens the gates to strangers, welcomes them and dines with them. God may take on board the strangers' suggestions about rearranging the furniture, even knocking a hole in a wall, but the basic foundations and structure will remain unchanged. For God in this model is not only the host but also in charge of the property. Order and structure, the look of permanence, remains immutable.

This is the model of Church and God that most often passes for Christianity. There are though Christians who are not comfortable with this model. They tire of the in-house debates, like the one over homosexual clergy and blessings, not because the issues are unimportant, but because the model is not true to their experience of God, faith, and community.

A building doesn't move. It isn't meant to. The model assumes that the land won't move either. It is essentially a static model, supportive of the illusion of an unchanging past and a predictable future. It assumes that any change is peripheral to community, faith, and, of course, God.

Some of these discontented Christians articulate their faith and understanding of the Church by using the model of a ship. The late Brazilian archbishop Helder Camara, for example, once wrote:

Pilgrim: when your ship, long moored in harbour, gives you the illusion of being a house; when your ship begins to put down roots in the stagnant water by the quay: put out to sea! Save your boat's journeying soul, and your own pilgrim soul, cost what it may. [i]

If one considers the Church to be more like a ship than a house then nearly everything changes. The Bible ceases to be a brick to fortify your structure or throw at your enemy, but is spiritual food for the journey. It gives energy for the challenges ahead. So does other 'food' – like the collective wisdom of world religions. The traditions of the Church are not a legal system but a guide, helping with the little tasks, teaching for example the theory of the helm but not doing the steering.

God too changes. Instead of being the gracious host and property overseer, God is the wind in one's sails and the beat in one's heart. God is a power within more than a power without, but not limited by either boundary. God is the energy of transformative love.

This wind God is more a breaker of rules than a maker of rules. It is less interested in order and structure, than in those excluded from order and structure. Change is not a threat, inconvenience, or prescription, but part of its nature. It is a God that refuses to be tamed.

The house Church and the ship Church have very different attitudes to leaks. Leaks in the Church can be thought of as the things that go wrong, the plans that don't quite work out, and the hurt people who distribute their hurt around. In a house a leak needs urgent attention. It drips on your head and can rot your walls. It needs to be repaired before your dinner guests arrive, or are even invited. In a ship, however, a leak is expected. Bilge pumps are normative. You don't stop the ship to attend to them, unless they are very serious. Leaks are part of sailing.

Yet the biggest difference between the two models of Church and God is risk. The house, even an open house, speaks of security, stability, and safety. The inhabitants know where they are, what to expect, and even whom they might meet at the door. The ship, on the other hand, is heading out into unknown waters. The familiar towns and headlands are no longer there. The good old ways become more irrelevant day by day. God, faith, and community have or will change. They will also become more essential; more connected with the essence of each person aboard.

St Matthew, long ago, boarded a ship and left the surety of his vocation, the known markers of his business, culture, religion, and God in the house of Judaism; and headed out to sea.

We bear Matthew's name. On some days we are house-focused: rightly concerned about the institution of Christianity – its squabbles, the debates over the nature of its foundations, and how open are its doors – and it consumes our thoughts and prayers. However on most days, with no disrespect to the house that nurtured us, we are out sailing.

We are looking to the horizon and the horizon is looking at us. Our website statistics tell us that nearly 4,000 new and unique visitors come to us each month. Some are looking for a house and its God; but not many. Most are looking for a different hope, a different way of Church that includes their difference, and a different way of envisioning and experiencing God. And that's what we offer. Welcome aboard.

[i] Camara, D.H. A Thousand Reasons For Living, Darton, Longman and Todd, 1981, p.40

September 17, 2006

Glynn Cardy

Pentecost 15     Mark 8:27-38

“What does it profit a person to gain the whole universe and lose their own soul?”

When I was a teenager I spent many nights each year sleeping under the stars. There is nothing quite like falling asleep beneath an enormous canopy of twinkling lights, variously arranged, and different each evening. Being a child of modernity I knew that the blackness of the sky was not a great dome that encompassed the earth and above which a kingly God sat. I knew the blackness was all I could see of the fathomless depth beyond, where the experience we call God might or might not be. For everything that astronomy could tell us there was always more it couldn't. Yet, like the best of theology, its purpose was to ignite wonder.

As adults, wonder is not a daily experience, unless we make it so. The journey from childhood to adulthood is usually marked by a diminution of wonder. As explanations from science and history are given to the child, linking effects with causes, the moments of awe often evaporate. So while the acquisition of knowledge can be exciting there can also be the sense of loss.

Some interpret this sense of loss as a direct attack on God. Like the Pentecostal bishop in Kenya this week who wants to hide away the fossils of pre-humanity currently in the Nairobi Museum, they see knowledge as threatening religion. Yet the religion they wish to defend is the sort that can be threatened by knowledge. It is the sort that tries to give you answers instead of better questions, offering a kitset God: 'Just follow instructions and all will be well.'

What could be called the theological task of the sciences is to open the windows of the mind to all the possibility, awe, and wonder of the universe. The enormous space that astronomy opens us to elicit in many people not batten-down-the-hatches fear but mind-blowing delight.

“Honk if you love Pluto” declares the T-shirt. Not too dissimilar to the old ones promoting honking for Jesus. And, like so often happens when discussing God, the Pluto debate is up and raging. The International Astronomy Union meeting in Prague last month adopted a new definition of a planet – one that knocked Pluto out of the club.

Pluto is used to being knocked about. Living on the extremities of planetary imagination - even with the Hubble Space Telescope it is still merely a bleary sphere in shades of grey - Pluto didn't join the club until 1930. That was the year when a 24 year old American Unitarian by the name of Clyde Tombaugh mapped movement where movement had not been mapped before. A young girl from Oxfordshire suggested the name of Pluto, Roman God of the Underworld. Beyond Pluto was the abyss of unknowing. Many imagine that Pluto got its name from Mickey's dog; but not everything originates in Hollywood!

Since the 1930s Pluto has shrunk. With each advance in technology Pluto's measurements have diminished. It's now smaller than our moon. Hence the T-shirts, without the honking, that proclaim 'size doesn't matter!' and 'is a dachshund not a dog?'

What does matter to the astronomical elites is the discovery in the 1990s of other Pluto-like bodies on the edge of our telescopic vision. And not just one, or five, but hundreds, and probably thousands!

Interestingly this naming debate has spilled over into popular consciousness. The public wanted a voice. The planets mean many different things to many different people. Pluto was not just a bleary dot out in space it is something people love. It inspired and inspires myths, art, and poetry. It is part of astrology charts – 'Pluto direct' is a way of talking about transformational energy. Kids identify with Pluto's smallness. Adults relate to its marginalization ['poor oppressed planet!]. In particular those who forlornly hope that 'whatever has been will forever be' find its demotion out of the Big Nine major league of planets difficult to accept.

The pragmatists of astronomy suggest that instead of knocking Pluto out of the club that they change the rules. In other words expand the definition of planet to include not only the eight and Pluto but also Eris [formerly known as Xena] and Ceres. The purists though argue that this will open the doors to hundreds maybe millions of potential new planets. This is a debate about who can join the club, who controls who joins the club, and the fear of loosing control of the boundaries. Sounds very much like the Church to me!

In ancient times the word 'planetai', meaning wanderers, was applied to the seven heavenly bodies that moved. They couldn't see Neptune and Pluto. Also, being pre-Galileo, it was assumed the sun was one of the seven and the earth wasn't. The definition of planet was therefore not fixed but to be influenced by changes in science and thinking in the years ahead.

This is not so different from the Christian history of God. Within the pages of the Bible God progresses from being a personal deity ['the God of Abraham'], to a tribal deity ['the God of Israel'], to a deity who is pan-tribal [a God of Jews and Gentiles], to one that transcends all human constructs [the God of earth and heaven]. The location of God moves from the desert, to the Temple, to a literal realm in the sky, to the presence of the historical Jesus. Later in the early centuries of Christianity, via an intricate weaving of Greek and Hebrew thought with the experience of transformative love, God was woven into a magical carpet called Trinity. But the development of God didn't stop there, locked in the 4th century. God as 'process', as 'go-between', as 'liberator', as 'power within', as 'matrix of grace', as 'deep silence'… were all still to come.

The influence of science and philosophy on the definition and development of God is not to be underestimated. Indeed it is the interplay between experience, history, and science that has pushed at and shown as puny the easy and simplistic notions of God.

I find it interesting when language runs out. Language is a system of signs and codes that is based around the visible and tangible. When language has to be found for the invisible and intangible then we are into the realm of multiple metaphors. We say the thing we are trying to describe is something like this, but also not like that. It is also something like this, but also not like that. No one set of metaphorical clothes quite fits. In theology we surmise that such is the nature of God that no sets of clothing will ever quite fit. God is both knowable and unknowable, both here and beyond.

There are two words in theology that defy close definition. One, of course, is God. The other is soul. Soul, or 'heart' as it's sometimes called, is an attempt to talk about God in us and us in God. It blends passion, feeling, wisdom, and wholeness. A person can gain the whole world, nay the whole universe, be as rich and successful as he or she could possibly imagine, yet without attending to their soul they gain nothing. To nurture the soul, the task of spirituality, is therefore very important. All sorts of little things help – that walk in the bush, playing with the dog, listening to a child, smelling the coffee before you drink it, laughing lots… Yet answering the question of why these things help is harder. It is as if the universe is inside us and all the spinning, pulling, moving and amazing wonders need to be held together in some way.

The Pluto debate asks some deeply theological questions. Firstly, who has the right to name heavenly bodies? Secondly, what is their matter? Thirdly, does the re-naming of them matter when their matter doesn't change? Or does it? And lastly, what do we do when we reach the limits of our knowledge and speech?

Theology and astronomy have at heart the same purpose: to excite the imagination, to encourage us to wonder, and to think about that which we struggle to name and understand.

For the sake of your soul, look at the stars tonight and the dark beyond.

September 10, 2006

Clay Nelson

Pentecost 14
     Mark 7:24-37

Every male of the species knows he's no match for a cheeky woman when she wants something and today we learn Jesus isn't either. He is clearly outfoxed by the Syrophoenician woman.

Mark places this story at the end of his account of Jesus' ministry, just before Jesus heads to his certain fate in Jerusalem. It is not a happy time for Jesus. He has essentially gone underground. He has left Israel for some peace and quiet. It is a time for reflection and reassessment.

It is hard to miss the irony that he seeks quiet in what is presently a war zone. He is in what we know as southern Lebanon where we have just witnessed Israel use superior strength and weapons to pound their enemies, the descendants of the Syrophoenician woman, into the ground, only to make them stronger than before.

He has sought some quiet because his ministry is in crisis. In fact it is in shambles. It has gone to the dogs. He is wondering where it all went wrong. At first it seemed to be going great. He was attracting good crowds. He gave some sermons that were well-received. But quickly he came up against increasing surveillance by the authorities who were nipping at his heels, there were public attempts at entrapment, and he was accused of committing capital crimes. The poor, the very target of his ministry, misunderstood him. His neighbours in Nazareth were cynical and disparaging, while his own family doubted his sanity. Saddest of all, his beloved disciples suffered from ideological blindness. No matter how much private tutoring he gave them, they just weren't getting it. He has to face up to it, despite some cracker healings and exorcisms, the kingdom had not arrived. His mission is looking more and more impossible.

While into his reverie, his private pity party perhaps, he is interrupted by a doggedly determined anxious mother. Her daughter is possessed and rumour has it that he can help. What seems to us like the normal and understandable actions of a loving mother is actually quite extraordinary in that time and place. A woman just doesn't approach a rabbi. Perhaps, horror of horrors, she even touched his feet as she kneeled in supplication. And she isn't just any woman. She is a gentile. Not just a gentile, but a pagan. Not just a pagan, but a Canaanite. She represents the people Israel as the chosen of Yahweh had vanquished from the Promised Land. Her gods had lost to their God, and just because they were all now under Roman domination, that reality had not changed. She had no claim on him. A Jewish rabbi, and certainly not one who might be the Messiah, shouldn't even acknowledge her presence. He abruptly, if not rudely, dismisses her with a proverb, “Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children's food and throw it to the dogs.”

In ten years of weekly Sunday school I have only one memory of one class. It was on this Gospel and I was incensed by Jesus. In preparing this sermon I checked out what the scholars had to say about his stroppiness. There were all kinds of suggestions trying to explain away his harsh words. He was only being ironic some said. He said it with a smile and used the Greek word for puppy or pet dog to soften the words. His bark was worse than his bite. Others argue he was testing her faith. Would she persist? Still others explain that Jesus was using this as a training session for his disciples so they would know his message was for everyone, not just the so-called Chosen people. Certainly Matthew's version of the encounter validates this hypothesis. But I think Mark's version is more honest. Until this moment I think he saw his ministry as being only to the Jews. At best he thought, maybe in time it could be extended to the Gentiles.

No, I and a couple of other scholars believe he was just cranky. No getting around it. Calling someone a dog, small or otherwise, is rude. He had much more important things on his mind — like his own misery. He wasn't in the mood to be either welcoming or inclusive, nor did he have the motivation to confront his own culturally conditioned racism and sexism.

Perhaps that is what's going on with the Archbishop of Canterbury these days. Last week he said the church is welcoming but not inclusive. Seeming to contradict his previous more enlightened views on gays and lesbians in the church he argued that the church welcomes all who want to come but they have to conform to church teaching and scripture. Maybe he needs some face time with a cheeky woman too?

She certainly did Jesus a world of good.

As a mother worried about her child, she wasn't going to roll over for a self-centred bloke in a position to help because of some stupid taboos and prejudices. Nor was she going to growl menacingly at him like two alpha males might either. She was too smart for that.

This formidable woman makes herself small on behalf of her daughter. She kneels, begs; gives honour as an inferior. By her actions she is one of the least of those he's been talking about.

Her littleness though is only a posture, a negotiation, a canny playing of how he sees her but not how she knows herself to be. She uses the possibilities of either shame or honour in a verbal exchange that doubles his word back upon himself, by quoting another proverb, “Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children's crumbs.” One would hope Jesus had the good grace to laugh at her response.

He refuses in the name of children; she accepts his refusal and links human little ones and canine little ones. Their value is in their littleness she implies. Her response allows him an honourable way out. He only has to expand his mission to include her. If he doesn't, he is shamed.

Mary didn't raise any dummies. Jesus gets it. He has been cleverly out-manoeuvred and like any smart man with his back to the wall he takes the route of honour she has provided him. He casts out the demons in her daughter. He doesn't require her to be baptised first or become a follower of Yahweh or even express belief in the kingdom he is trying to inaugurate. In fact, if he perceives any faith in her at all he doesn't mention it, as he does when justifying healing other Gentiles or unclean women. He doesn't welcome her; she just makes herself at home. He doesn't include her, she makes sure she is included, not with power but by simply sitting herself down at the heavenly banquet. She is declaring the reality of her presence not unlike women seeking their rightful place in the church today or cheeky gays who point out “I'm here, I'm queer, get used to it.”

My question is who was exorcised? Yes, the daughter was healed by Jesus, but Jesus was also healed by the Syrophoenician woman. He was brought up short. His prejudices were confronted; his tunnel vision was expanded. Not only did a healing word come from a pagan woman but a whole new approach to his ministry was revealed in her. Like any smart woman she even lets him think it's all his idea, but her influence on his future ministry is clear.

He adopts her approach when he arrives in Jerusalem. He uses Scripture in a way similar to her use of the proverb to silence the outraged priests and scribes after cleansing the Temple. He doesn't claim his authority, he lives it. Her wily ways pop up again when the Pharisees tried to entrap him into either calling for insurrection against the Romans or denying God's authority in their question about is it right to pay taxes to the emperor. I can almost hear him asking, “Now what would that cheeky Canaanite say?” Later he foils the Sadducees attempt to reveal him as a heretic by similar means.

But her ultimate influence is seen in how he approached his immanent death. He did not look or sound like a man defeated before his mission was accomplished. Thanks to her he knew the kingdom had come. Nothing could change that. It's here. Those who think otherwise need to get used to it. He is the evidence. It has broken forth in him. The God of love doesn't differentiate between us, even between him and a pagan Canaanite woman. No one is excluded from that love. Not even tradition or Scripture can change that. Jesus didn't heal her daughter to grant her God's love, but to acknowledge she already had it, no matter what the archbishops of his day said.

As one who society and the church have always invited to the table, I hope those of you who at best have only received the crumbs will not wait for people like me to include or welcome you to the table. Take a chair. You are already there. Those who would deny you do not have the authority to exclude. It's not their table. Your uninvited presence points out the obvious. God reigns. You are the Gospel. Be Cheeky. Live it with authority. We'll get used to it.

September 3, 2006

Glynn Cardy

Pentecost 13     Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23

'Always wash your hands before eating' said granny, said dad, said the doctor, said I. Good common hygienic sense. A gang of critics, a religious club from down Jerusalem way, reprimanded Jesus' followers for not washing their hands. Hand washing however was not about hygiene. That's our post-Florence Nightingale thing. Hand washing was about symbolic purity. 

In the Bible hand washing was something priests did in the Temple – it was not a requirement for laypeople. Yet the Pharisaic movement was trying to promote the idea that every home is like a temple and every person is like a priest. 'Holiness' they would have said, 'is not just something that happens in Jerusalem, but also something that happens right in your midst'. Not too different from some of Jesus' ideas really.

The actions of Jesus' disciples were not seen as dirty because of a lack of soap. Rather they were seen as in need of a moral scrub-up because they had been out mixing with “undesirables”. It was their social contacts that made them unclean.

This passage from Mark's gospel is about the purity code – that code of conduct that defined ethnic and religious boundaries. It determined who was in and who was out, what was acceptable and what was not, and who was in control. Before we get too hard on the Pharisaic movement (a number of whom would have had sympathies with Jesus' interpretations), let's recognize that every group has boundaries. Every group has ways of determining who's in, what's acceptable, and who's in control. Schools, pony clubs, AA, bowling clubs, and the Church all have boundaries. The critical questions are: how rigid or porous should boundaries be, do they reflect the core values of the group, and is the leadership accountable to the values?

As an aside consider for a moment baptism. This, on one level, is a boundary ritual. We are welcoming a child into our group. Should the child, or parents and godparents on the child's behalf, meet a certain doctrinal criteria to get in? Right belief is a core value for many Christians. 

I take the view, however, that the core value of the Church is God's acceptance of all people regardless of belief. Belief is a byproduct of Christian community, not a gate to exclude. If someone wants to come, participate in this ritual of welcome, celebration, and blessing, then that is enough. The boundary is porous, holey.

These scriptural debates between Jesus and certain Pharisees and Scribes lead me to suspect that the latter had put purity, right belief and practice, as a core value around which their world revolved. They interpreted God's holiness as demanding an elaborate system of rules and regulations, and then vindicating the systems they created. On the other hand, Jesus interpreted God's holiness as compassion and an embrace of all, particularly those who were excluded and oppressed.

With compassion and acceptance at the core of his values Jesus got a reputation for wild dinner parties. Around the same table would sit a rural fisherman, a one-time leader of the Synagogue, a prostitute, a local bullyboy, a Roman soldier, an immigrant woman from over the border…. Jew and gentile, male and female, strange and familiar…

The purity system was constituted by external boundaries: “Don't eat with them, don't touch that, don't fraternize with her… Look out or you'll get grubby, and then you won't be able to eat with us!” Purity was about rules. Piety meant adhering to them.

For Jesus purity was constituted by what was in one's heart. If compassion was in one's heart, then piety meant being hospitable, generous, and willing to suspend one's prejudices in order to meet with strangers. For Jesus it wasn't what you put in your mouth, but what came out of it. It wasn't about keeping to the rules; it was about letting love be the measure of all you do.

It's not that Jesus was into a tolerance that says, “Everything is okay”. It is possible to find verses that infer, for example, that Jesus was opposed to the Roman occupation and unsupportive of bullying and prostitution. At the same time I don't think it is possible to categorically say that every soldier, tax collector, and prostitute Jesus dined with had renounced the morally disagreeable aspects of their professions.

In other words, at the table with Jesus the agreeable and disagreeable sat together. The sinners and saints broke bread together. The ideas, comments, and chat were not religiously sanitized. I imagine there were some pretty colourful words and some pretty novel views bandied around. The good, the bad, and the grubby were all together. 

“What makes a person holy,” Jesus intonated, “is not who you mix with or what they say. What makes a person holy is being true to the God of compassion that wants to include everyone. It's the words you say and things you do that will reveal that God.”

Anglicanism at its best is into diversity but not apartheid. You can't go off into your corner, erect your security walls of right belief, and stay there. We are not the 'closeted brethren'. Like it or not you have to relate to the hetero-orthodox. You have to relate to those you find repugnant. We call it being in communion. 

All of us are invited to Jesus' cosmopolitan dinner party. You are invited along with the weird, the wacky, the wonderful, the heretics, the harmful, and the harmless. And we don't sit in silence eating our own pre-packed sanitized meal. We talk, we share food, and we listen... Some have washed their hands. Some have washed their hearts. Others are dirty. Infection is possible. Purity is out the window. If you don't want to risk getting grubby don't come.

Jesus is there too. But, and this is the hard bit, he's in disguise. None of us are sure who he is. It's not like he's got a crown plastered on his head or a cross strapped to his back. Is Jesus that nice person or that disagreeable one? Is he the pain in the neck that won't shut up, or the quiet morose one sipping his merlot? Is he a she? And which she is he? Like I said, this is hard. We don't know whom he is agreeing with, if anyone. All we know is that he is there. This is what I think our new archbishop, David, was meaning when he said recently that “in any discussion the first principle is that Christ is in the room.”

The hard part of not knowing what Jesus looks like is that in our discussion and arguments around the dinner table each of us will have to find authority within ourselves. We can't turn to Jesus and seeing him or her nodding in agreement with us. There will be no external reference point, no judge or encyclopedia to determine right and wrong. On second thoughts I wonder whether any archbishop would really want that.

My punt is heaven's going to be a little like this. For some it will be hell.

August 27, 2006

Glynn Cardy

Pentecost 12     John 6:51-58

Jesus said, “For my flesh is the real food; my blood is the real drink” [John 6:55]

Real food. It sounds like part of a lecture given by a diet guru. Lettuce, lentils, and legumes. Someone else's idea of what is good for us. No bacon, or burgers, or yummy pink-icing buns. Real is a loaded word. It slips out of advertisers' holsters and aims at us. To be 'real' we need to do this, dress like that, behave like them, be a 'real man' or 'real woman', and eat their 'real food'. Real can be a word of social control; controlling us.

That's why I like Garfield the cat - he of comic-strip fame; he of smart tongue, large appetite, and slothful demeanor. He is a nineties parody of the well-dressed, good-looking, and correctly behaved culture. Garfield irreverently debunks real culture. If you are what you eat, Garfield is a lasagna. He's a cardiological disaster.

Not that I think there is anything wrong in people choosing to go on a diet. I've done it myself and will, alas, probably do it again. What is wrong is someone else defining your reality, taking away your choice of deciding what is real and unreal. Garfield debunks any 'real' box that others want to slot human or furry-kind into.

When I think of real food I think of Niger, in the Sahel region of Northern Africa. We were sick, as only one can be sick in Africa! Finally we got up. We strolled and chanced to meet a family. Dad, mum, mum, kids and cuzzies... They lived in a lean-to on the side of a wall. On their two-stick fire they brewed coffee. With camel milk [acquired then and there from mummy camel], plenty of sugar, and lashings of hospitality we received some real food. Together, with few words in common, we communed and our souls were fed. Soul-to-soul.

This was real food not because of the taste or nutritional value. Neither would have scored very highly if served in a Viaduct cafe. This was not something real because it was common or unique to this family or this part of Africa. This was real simply in the subjective sense that the food was a vehicle of grace to us.

There is a story from the Hebrew Scriptures about food being a vehicle of grace. It's called “Manna in the Wilderness”. The Hebrew people were hungry and hot. Which is not surprising being in a desert. They were in the Sinai, miles from anywhere. Many longed for the days of the whip, back in Egypt, when there was some certainty about food, and some certainty about the real world of pyramid manufacturing. Now there was only the uncertainty of the desert and the rumbling in one's belly.

Then the manna fell from the night sky. Indiscriminately it fell on grumbler and grateful alike. The word manna is a pun and can be translated as “What is this?” 'This' was probably the nutritious droppings of thousands of little flying insects that ate one of the desert bushes. The manna fed the body. The travellers physically survived. Even though the manna quickly rotted, the miracle occurred fresh every morning. There was a special provision for the Sabbath to prove that the world wouldn't collapse if Yahweh, their God, took the day off.

One reality in this story was new economic principles that differed markedly from Egypt. Every family, for example, were ordered to gather just enough manna for their needs. Enough for everyone was the goal, unlike in Egypt. In God's world there is such a thing as “too much” and “too little” – something that our capitalistic economies need to be very mindful of!

Another new principle was that the manna bread should not be “stored up”. Wealth in Egypt was defined by surplus accumulation. For the Hebrews wealth was to be kept circulating through strategies of redistribution.

Another reality in this manna story was the feeding of the soul. Yahweh was meeting them in the midst of their uncertainty and on their road to freedom. Yahweh was a travelling companion who knew their needs. Yahweh was the chef who cooked up a feed. The food was heavenly - it was miraculous and plentiful. No one made a profit out of it. It was uncertain, non-marketable, and transient. For that group of desert wandering Hebrews it was real food.

It's hard to describe the miraculous. The miraculous happened in Niger and it happened in Sinai. It wasn't about a big God up in the sky doing a “suspend all natural laws” number. Yet it wasn't just a cup of camel milk coffee or solidified insect poo. It wasn't solely about hospitality or feeding the belly either. The miraculous did happen in the sense that somehow on our journeys God was encountered, soul-to-soul, and we were changed.

The debate around real is ongoing. For some people the word 'real' means objective, concrete, verifiable, and beyond doubt. For others 'real' is subjective, changing, bound up with experience and the doubting of absolutes. The political question of the debate is “Who defines and categorizes what is real?” The religious question is, “How is God real?”

One of my favourite children's stories is that of the Velveteen Rabbit. The rabbit, a ragged stuffed little animal, was made real. This didn't happen through believing the authorities in the Nursery. Nor did it happen by philosophical or theological deliberation. It didn't happen through market forces or the curtailing of the same. Instead the Velveteen Rabbit was made real by the love of a child. When you are loved it doesn't matter what you look like," says the wise old bear, "you have become real."

I think it is the experience of Christians over the last 2,000 years that God has been made real for us not because we were told to believe by “our betters”, nor by the insights of theology, philosophy, or other disciplines, but because as we have journeyed we have experienced something real touching our souls - soul-to-soul - and the closest word we have for that real is love.

The tension in the Gospel text today is between the real literal and the real metaphorical. Jesus' opponents say, "How can he give us his flesh to eat?" [v.52]. In the Aramaic tradition the "eater of the flesh" is the title of the devil - he of tail and pitchfork fame. The drinking of blood was looked on as a horrendous thing forbidden by God's law. To take this text literally invites us into some sort of cannibalistic carvery – if Jesus' flesh is real food and his blood real drink in a literal sense, then Christian Eucharist is dead meat.

The experience of Eucharist is something best understood with the heart, not the head. Its reality is found in the truth of encounter not in literal foolishness. Jesus is bread. Jesus gives himself to fellow travellers. We are bread. We too are to give ourselves in the service of justice and peace. This is what eternal life is - not some palace in the sky - but the giving to, and receiving from, others. The Jesus bread, food for the journey, is a vehicle of grace to be shared.

This is what real food can be: food by which we experience a God-imbued reality with each other. Soul-to-soul we find it together. Often in strange places, like Niger, or Sinai, or an upper room. We become real to each other and glimpse again the possibility of what the world might be.

My friend runs across the road, flagging me down. He has some lunch, and looks with utter disdain at my brown bread and bean sprout sandwich - "Hey, mate, have some real food. Got some chips and a fish. That rabbit food is bad for you man... Gee its good to see you." We sit down, open his greasies, and sprinkle some grace on top. We eat, we share, and we commune. Soul-to-soul. Its strange how in the midst of the mundane miracle can appear.

August 20, 2006

Glynn Cardy

Pentecost 11     Exodus 16:1-4, 13-15     
John 6:51-58

I dreamed I saw Joe Hill last night,

Alive as you or me:

Said I, but Joe you're ten years dead;

I never died said he.

In Salt Lake, Joe, Great God, said I,

Him standing by my bed;

They framed you on a murder charge,

Said Joe but I ain't dead.

The copper bosses framed you Joe

They shot you Joe said I;

Takes more than guns to kill a man,

Said Joe I did not die.

Joe Hill ain't dead he says to me,

Joe Hill ain't never died;

Where working men are out on strike,

Joe Hill is at their side.

And standing there as big as life

A-smiling with his eyes.

Said Joe, what they forgot to kill

Went on to organize!

From San Diego up to Maine,

In every mine and mill –

Where working men defend their rights

It's there you'll find Joe Hill.

I dreamed I saw Joe Hill last night,

Alive as you or me:

Said I, but Joe you're ten years dead;

I never died said he.

I never died said he. [i]

There is obvious Christic allusions in this ballad eulogizing Joe Hill, a working class hero, who was killed in 1915. Like Jesus he was concerned about injustice. Like Jesus this concern rallied the forces of wealth and might against him. Like Jesus he was killed. Like Jesus he lives on, immortalized in song and deed.

Let's imagine that Joe had been with his friends the night before he was arrested. Let's imagine that he'd taken a pint of beer and a chunk of hard tack, [ii] likened them to his body, and shared them round. And let's imagine Joe told them that every time before they go out on the picket line, every time before they stand up to injustices, every time before they fight for what is right, they are to eat and drink and remember the spirit - that is Joe's spirit, and the spirit of their forebears who struggled, and the spirit of those standing beside them.

This ritual is about re-membering, bringing together the past with the present, and the dead with the living. It is a ritual that empowers people. It focuses them on the tradition of protest of which they are a part. It focuses them on the cost of that protest. And it focuses them on the dream of life lived free of oppression, hatred, classism, and prejudice.

I don't know very much about Joe Hill. I do though know his song. And I have met his spirit and joined with it. I know a lot more about Jesus, been taught his songs, and have met and joined his spirit too. While every spirit is unique, there is a resonance between these two spirits.

Listen to one of our Eucharistic prayers:

“Here today, through bread and wine, we renew our journey with Jesus and his disciples. We renew our unity with one another, and with all those who have gone before us in this place. We renew our communion with the earth and our interwovenness with the broken ones of the world. We take bread, symbol of labour, symbol of life. We will break the bread because Christ, the source of life, was broken for the excluded, exploited and downtrodden. We take wine, symbol of blood, spilt in war and conflict, symbol too of new life. We will drink the wine because Christ, the peace of the world, overcomes violence.”

This is a call to political action. This is a call to stand with Christ on the picket lines of history – everywhere oppression is rampant, freedom is suppressed, and bread is not shared. The spiritual is political, it can be no other. This Eucharistic act re-members the past and binds it to the present in order to build the future. It is holy, and it is potent.

The biblical antecedent of Eucharist is the manna from heaven story. [iii] Manna, the food of liberation, is found not in the Big Red sheds of Egypt but in the wilderness beyond Pharaoh's control. Manna is bread that is to be shared, not stored for profit. It is bread that comes courtesy of God, not from the machinations of the market with more landing on the palates of the rich than on the plates of the poor.

It will be no great surprise to you to hear me say that it has served the interests of the ruling classes to de-politicize the Eucharist and turn it into an individualistic private act of devotion. With our sins of disobedience confessed we were to kneel and bow our heads to God, as we would to the king. We were to receive of the king's bounty and go forth quietly to live subservience lives. We dressed our bishops and priests like royalty. “Yes, m' Lord, you know best.” From Constantine on the primary political function of the Church has been to sanction, and thus sanctify, the power of the state.

As God said to Moses; 'Stop groveling and get moving. I want my people to be free. I don't want to hear about your shortcomings and guilt. I don't want you to wallow in it. Saying sorry isn't going to free my people. Decisive, confrontational, planned action is. When you act, you'll find me acting with you. Together we will walk out of slavery into freedom.'

It is no mistake that Matthew's Gospel pictures Jesus as the new Moses. It is also no mistake that Constantinian Christianity removed Jesus from the picket line, stuck a crown on his head, and plonked him in a starry heaven – as far removed from working class people as possible.

The Eucharist has also been de-politicized by debate. Is the bread and wine real flesh and blood, transubstantiation, consubstantiation, or symbolic substance? Who can receive it – divorcees, children, gays and lesbians, Buddhists and Muslims, anyone? Such disagreements still divide the Church, diminish our potency, and serve those who fear our power.

The Eucharist is marching food. Think of it as a high-protein energy bar for those communities that passionately burn for justice. It brings us individuals, all the little spluttering, erratic flames and the torches that we are, into one bonfire. Together we can light up the sky bringing hope to those in darkness.

Eating is a communal act more than an individual one. Some days as individuals we can't even amble to the clothes line let alone stand on any picket line. Yet we belong. We belong to a community that stands for justice. Newborn babes belong, folk stricken with ailments belong, the brave belong, the weak belong, and even those who don't believe can choose to belong.

For too long the high-protein power bar for the visionary Jesus movement has been reduced to a pious after-dinner mint for individual penitents. We need to recover the potency of the Eucharist. It is God's gift and it's divine. In eating we come together. In solidarity there is healing. With healing comes the ability to re-vision. With renewed vision comes the passion to plan and act. With action we live our prayers.

The Eucharist calls us to action. Not for action's sake, but for all the forsaken. It is a holy meal for the sake of the whole world.

[i] By Alfred Hayes and Earl Robinson

[ii] Hardtack is thick cracker made of flour, water, and sometimes salt.

[iii] Exodus 16

August 13, 2006

Clay Nelson

Pentecost 10     Deuteronomy 8:1-10     
John 6:35, 41-51

It is late afternoon in the office. Ian and Linda are trying to be productive, Nelson and Cardy are just being bad, giving each other a hard time, laughing a lot and generally being disruptive. Linda continues against all odds to finish her task. “I'm updating the website calendar, who's preaching when?” Glynn says, “Good question.” Picking up the lectionary starts thumbing through it. “What are the worse lessons I can find to give Nelson.” I groan with my eyes rolling heavenward.

Now I know he was kidding, but he did pretty well putting it to me with today's Gospel -- not that I realised it at first.

“I am the bread of life” is a pretty familiar passage to most of us. Nice imagery. John's metaphor hearkens back to the story of manna from heaven feeding the Hebrew people in the wilderness. Our daily need for it is tattooed on our consciousness thanks to the Lord's Prayer. We hear it echoed as we are given communion, “Te taro o te ora” -- “The bread of life.”

I've preached on it many of times. I'll just go back to the barrel and see what I can rework from an old sermon.

Let's see, there is the “What have you done for me lately?” sermon. Yesterday, John tells us, Jesus fed five thousand people who had just dropped by without bringing a plate. They were impressed with how far he could stretch a couple of fish and a few loaves of bread, but that was yesterday and they are hungry again today. That sermon reminds us that we are not an easily satisfied people with our endless needs. God knows, its all about us.

Ok, what else is there in the barrel?

If I hadn't just preached on it, the grumblers in the Gospel give another opportunity to preach the prophet is without honour sermon. “Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, 'I have come down from heaven'?” As you remember that sermon points out that finding the extraordinary in the everyday, common and mundane aspects of life is not our strong suit as human beings.

Then there is the history lesson sermon. I do love that sermon. It gives me a chance to be erudite and show off my theological training and it does make a good point. The Eucharist has been evolving, taking different forms and meanings, since before the Gospel writers had Jesus saying, “Do this in remembrance of me.” By the time John wrote this reflection about who Jesus was, identifying him as the main course of the heavenly banquet, Christians had been celebrating the Eucharist for about 70 years. But for most of that time it was celebrated on Friday or Saturday night as part of a potluck at their local synagogue. Instead of the traditional Jewish grace praising God for the creation that provided them the meal and thanking God for saving them in the rough patches of the past, they would remember Jesus' death and resurrection as they waited for his imminent return.

The problem with the history sermon is I can't find a way to make a discourse on how Holy Communion has subtly evolved over two millennia into a life changing moment for you today. Even the clergy listening to me would check out as soon I start talking about the theological fine points of anamnesis and epiclesis. At that point I'll only be talking to myself and I won't be sure why.

Getting near the bottom of the barrel, I find a dusty sermon on the Holy Mysteries. Hmm, that should make it a memorable morning for the congregation. I know they dragged themselves to church this morning to hear about a mystery made up of mysteries. I'm sure as you ate your Weetbix and Vogel slathered in Vegemite, you wondered if Clay was finally going to answer those nagging questions: How does bread and wine become the mystical body and blood of Jesus? What happens to us when we receive the heavenly Word made flesh into our bodies? How does it bring our souls to a supernatural life of grace that entitles us to see God on the last day and assures us that our bodies will be raised up on Judgment Day? Sounds like a sermon guaranteed to take the life out of a life-giving sacrament to me.

At this point I now know there is nothing in the barrel, I'm going to have venture out into new territory without a map. Thanks Glynn.

To help you understand the scope of my problem, I'd like to ask you to take a risk -- a small one but a risk all the same. You don't have to play if you don't want to. I'm going to ask you in a moment to raise your hand. I'm not going to try to make you look foolish, like then having you raise your other arm and shout. “Alleluia!” I want to give you an opportunity to examine your beliefs. The risk is inviting you to do it somewhat publicly. It will give you a little idea of what it is like to be up in the pulpit without leaving your pew and all you will have to do is put your arm up or take it down. If you are willing to live dangerously raise your arm now and leave it up until invited to put it down.

I appreciate your bravery. Ok, let's begin.

If you think Darwin 's theory of evolution is more reliable than the account of creation in Genesis, leave your hand up. If not, you can put it down.

OK, now if you think of God as an objective, physical being —someone like Michelangelo painted on the Sistine chapel who listens to and answers our prayers, you can put your arm down.

If you believe heaven is a physical place you can put your arm down.

If you believe that God required the sacrifice of his son so we could be saved from our sinful nature you can give your arm a rest.

If you disagree with the premise of my recent sermons that Jesus embodied love, life and being, but was still biologically just a homo sapien sapien like you and me, you can put your arm down.

If you believe that Jesus was physically resurrected to heaven you can put your hand down.

Now for those of you who still have your arms up, we admire your upper body strength, but you are clearly heretics. If that bothers you, you may put your arm down. Are you sure? This is your last chance.

OK, this sermon is particularly for you. Those of you who put your arm down earlier don't particularly need it, for there is no disconnect between your world view and the central event of Christian worship. But the rest of you have a modern secular world view and the Eucharist, as we presently celebrate it, presents some major challenges.

John and the church's view requires having a personal God. John's Jesus was the Word of that personal God who came down from a physical heaven like manna to save a corrupt human race by becoming a once and for all sacrifice to his father God. Unlike the manna in the wilderness that lasts for only a day, Jesus is eternal bread. He has no expiry date. He is eternal because after meeting the need for a blood sacrifice he overcame death and was physically resurrected back to heaven to await his return in glory. We participate in this event according to John by not just eating bread and sipping wine, but by chewing the flesh of Jesus and drinking his blood. By this act we become one with Jesus and will be taken to heaven when he returns in glory to destroy evil and establish God's realm.

Even if John was being purely metaphorical, the church became quite literal about this over time. While there would be arguments about whether the bread and wine were literally or spiritually Jesus, the rest remains the orthodox position.

None of this makes sense literally or metaphorically to a modern secular view. So what are people with a secular view doing in the church anyway?

It would probably surprise most who consider themselves orthodox that our secular society emerged from the radical notion of putting flesh on God, an idea that offended and still offends Jews and Muslims. We call this idea the Incarnation which is the focus of our Eucharist where we consume the body of God to become one with God. That is where the idea that the material secular world could be sacred began.

As long ago as 1891, Anglican theologian J.R. Illingworth was warning Christians not to regard secular thought as the enemy of Christianity. In his words, “Secular civilisation has co-operated with Christianity to produce the modern world. It is nothing less than the… counterpart of the Incarnation.”

Lloyd Geering explains the Incarnation eloquently “as the humanisation of God, the secularisation of the divine and the earthing of heaven.”

That the secular world is the offspring of the Christian west may be a shock, since it swallowed up and eliminated the idea that the world was divided into the supernatural and the natural, but in return it gave us an awe-inspiring physical universe full of mystery as revealed by the Hubble telescope. It has given us a new appreciation for the mystery of life as uncovered in the double-helix of DNA.

While the Incarnation has resulted in consigning an objective personal God to the pantheon of history, it has still left us with values we attributed to that God. Values like love, compassion and justice. We now just refer to them as human values. Modern secular Christians see Jesus as historically the fullest embodiment of those human values.

This is not as radical as it may sound. While eventually Christian orthodoxy would see only Jesus as God “enfleshed”, Paul reveals that first generation Christians saw Jesus as the new Adam. Meaning, Jesus encompassed the entire human race. Jesus gave us a new understanding of ourselves. In Paul's language, in Christ we are a new creation. All humanity is part of the incarnation of the divine.

It is this understanding that preserves the importance of the Eucharist for the secular world. It celebrates the best of our humanity as revealed by Jesus.

It reminds us daily that it is not all about us and challenges us to ask what have I done today to meet the world's continuing need for the pursuit of truth, the practice of justice and the nurture of compassion, freedom and peace.

It invites us to find divine attributes in the world and people around us and in our very selves, no matter how ordinary and mundane they may seem. We are no less ordinary than bread that sustains life.

The mystery and power of this secular Eucharist is that those of you who were left with your hands up and those of you who had put them down can still join hands to receive the bread of life and be one. It also invites those who are outside of our tradition to eat at the table for they share the human values we celebrate and nourish.

In a little while from now, when I give you bread and say “Te taro o te Ora,” I'm not only describing that which I give you, I am addressing you with honour. You are the Bread of Life for which I give thanks.

Now in case you think this is the last word on the subject, let me share with you how clever, if not devious, your Vicar is. When Glynn skewered me with this Gospel lesson, he knew that John's discussion on Jesus as the Bread of Life continues next week. He has saved the last word for himself. Don't miss it. I know I won't.

I didn't notice. Was his hand up or down at the end?

August 6, 2006

Glynn Cardy

Feast of the Transfiguration

The young woman who sat in my office was soon to be married. “Glynn, I want you to know,” she said, “that I don't believe in God.” “Which God is that?” I replied. She proceeded to describe her auntie's God who kept guard of the planet, barking at moral turpitude, and biting offenders. “Sounds like a bit of a mongrel,” I said.

We all have our Gods. Indeed we all live our Gods, for better or for worse. An agnostic and atheist may think they are immune, but how they live will reveal what they believe, and to what or whom they pay homage.

I was sobered this week to read in The Observer that the huge support the militaristic faction in Israel receives from the US populace is not due so much to Jewish lobby groups but allegedly to the support of conservative American Christians whose God is cheering for the Israelis regardless of how many casualties. Their God is worshipped amidst blood and broken flesh.

The bride's auntie had had a spiritual experience. She had gone up the mountain, had her vision, and had come down to build on it. God had confronted her up there. Yet what she built down here was more a reflection of what she wanted a God to be. She built a security wall, entrenched it, and created a God who would patrol it.

In contrast I knew a lady who went to a large fundamentalist church. She liked the singing, but the rest she pretty much ignored. She hadn't met her God on a mountain. God had just wandered in through her backdoor one day, eaten the cat's food, found a warm hearth and heart, and decided to stay. Her God was a playful God. It would giggle or yawn at inopportune times. It enjoyed the antics of children, and like a puppy wanted to join in. The lady's fellow parishioners in the large church disapproved and dismissed her as being rather simple. The children though liked her and she ended up assisting in the nursery. There her God found the freedom it needed to be real.

On life's pathways I've met a number of Gods. Some are well behaved and some not. Some are on leashes, some straining at them, and some wandering free. Some Gods bring joy, healing and inspiring the best in the human community. Some Gods are frightened, trying to protect their owners from the inevitability of change. Some Gods are frightening, destroying anything seen as threat.

Rex and his God were very similar. Both preyed on people. Anybody who felt a bit insecure, who had been bruised or battered by life, anybody who didn't fit and felt it, was fair game. Gently Rex would befriend them, stroke their wounds, and get them on side. It was nice, until they wanted to leave. Then Rex got nasty. He prayed for, and preyed on. The Rex-God took over the house, and then started a church. Not infrequently I meet people with scars from where they had been bitten in that church.

Jimmy had a God that didn't need a leash because it never went out. It lived on Jimmy's sofa. Jimmy would take it and stroke from time to time, particularly when he was watching TV. When his brother died, Jimmy stoked it a lot. The God was a great comfort. It helped Jimmy to keep going. Jimmy's God never complained, barked, or bit. It demanded very little of him. Jimmy did though need to keep it looking good, grooming it fortnightly. It was a well-trained ornamental house-God.

Pete wanted a God with clout. One that was big and had connections. One that people wouldn't mess with. In other words, a reflection of how he wanted people to see him. So, up the mountain, where heaven and earth collude, and mist and mystery dwell, Pete went. He wanted a God of majesty, power and glory, and he found it. The two Hebrew heavyweights of old, Moses and Elijah, supposedly turned out in the blazing white jersey to bind with the Messianic Hope. It was glory all round. And Pete was part of it, swigging it back.

Pete wanted to build a house for this God. Like kings David and Solomon before him Pete wanted somewhere for God to be comfortable and under his control. Leader's Handbook p.343: 'To control the people first control their military, then control their God.' [Its rumoured George Bush read a copy of this handbook]. Pete, Dave, Sol, and Dubya all tried to tame the untamable and transform Her into a house-God.

As David and Solomon learnt, Gods that aren't house-Gods misbehave. They mess up well-laid plans and other expectations. Pete would learn. Majesty, power, and glory came to a sticky end. Pete's sword wasn't needed and then when it got tough he chickened out. Only the women stayed staunch. Later, much later, Pete would learn about the God-in-Jesus who broke chains, removed leashes, undid collars, and tore down fences – bringing liberty, joy, and mayhem. This was a God who had never been and never will be anyone's pet.

The bride who didn't believe in her auntie's mongrel had some questions for me. “What's your God like?” she asked. “Well, not only does it not have a leash,'” I replied, “It doesn't try to put one on me either. It's not afraid of playing, cuddling, upsetting things, or doing it differently. It is a powerful, unrestrained, transformative energy whose best name is Love.” She left my office thinking.

July 30, 2006

Clay Nelson

A sermon Clay Nelson was invited to preach at the Auckland Unitarian Church on the subject of "universalism".

I don't know if you are surprised or not to have an Anglican priest in the pulpit this morning, but I'm surprised. No, I'm not surprised that I'm in the pulpit of a Unitarian church. It is by no means the first time. No, what surprises me is that I'm here wearing an Anglican collar.

To appreciate my surprise you need to know that when I emigrated to New Zealand from the U.S last August as a political refugee protesting the war in Iraq and the systematic destruction of the American Constitution I was one small step away from being received into fellowship as a Unitarian Universalist Minister and I had spent the last eight years administering 400+ member Unitarian Universalist congregations after 15 years of active ministry as an Episcopal priest.

When I decided to leave America, I put aside dreams of returning to the active ministry in either tradition, so that I'm here dressed as I am is purely by accident.

If I believed in predestination, I'd feel a little like the Presbyterian minister who after finishing a sermon about the graciousness of God fell down the pulpit stairs, got up, dusted himself off and prayed, “Thank God that's behind me.”

While I don't remember it being offered in seminary, I wish there had been a paper on the Theology of Accidents. It would've been invaluable as I have come to understand it as the foundation of my religious beliefs that encompass universalism, which is what I was invited here to preach on.

My premise is that accidents of faith are part of our common humanity. That we call ourselves Anglicans and Unitarians may seem to separate us, but how we denote ourselves is historical and says little about our beliefs today. Those are grounded in what I would call accidents of faith.

The idea for “accidents of faith” came out of a conversation with an Auckland University professor of Computational Biology and Informatics. That means he studies how animals and plants evolved to their present state which requires analyzing immense amount of data that can only be handled by large computers. I asked him if he only studied the past or if he attempted to predict how species might evolve? He shared that predicting evolution is the Holy Grail for scientists like him. He said, it was one thing to study what accidents in nature resulted in changes to a species, predicting what accidents might occur in the future and how they would impact a species' evolution had far too many variables to be calculated at this time.

In the language of faith we can look back easily enough to see what “accidents” in history changed religion or our personal faith, but predicting where we are going in our faith is an open book. All we can say is accidents will happen and our faith will change. This alone is a challenging premise for those who want their faith and their God to be both eternal and unchanging.

An example of the lack of predictability of how faith might evolve would be if Thomas Cranmer, the first Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury were to read my sermons and writings online, he would not recognize any kind of Anglicanism he was familiar with. He might call me a Christian Unitarian after reading my declaration that the Trinity is a dangerous doctince of God or a Christian humanist after reading my belief that the best part of Jesus was that he was just a man. Either way he would consider burning at the stake too good for me. The same is true for you. Michael Servetus, Francis Dávid, Faustus Socinius, John Biddle, Joseph Priestly or even Charles Joy, who conceived of the flaming chalice, would not recognize the beliefs of most of you as being anything close to what they meant by Unitarianism. At best they would see you as atheistic humanists in the line of John Dewey or new age pagans at worst. I suspect this because of a class I taught to Unitarians in the U.S. on the history of Unitarian Universalist thought. Most of the students were appalled at how much of their historic theology was theistic and Christ-centered.

I am an Anglican first because of the accident of birth. I was born the great-grandson and great-great grandson of Southern Baptist preachers. While growing up, my mother hated Sundays. Church was boring and an all day long affair. Her grandfather's sermons were long and tedious in their conservative fundamentalism. When it came time to marry she wanted a very different religious experience. She and my father chose to marry in an Episcopal Church, I think mostly because their services were rarely more than an hour.

The rest of my faith story is shaped by a series of accidents, one after another so that I stand before you as an Anglican priest, but Anglican not because of my beliefs but because Jesus and the Anglican tradition are a part of my story and I am a part of it.

You sit before me as Unitarians not because you would go to the flames with Servetus or die in prison with Dávid rather than acknowledge the Trinity. They are part of your faith story, but accidents of faith have shaped your present beliefs.

An ironic example of evolving faith would be that of Charles Darwin. By accident of birth Charles was born into a Unitarian and Anglican mixed marriage, but in spite of a family full of free thinkers he did not doubt the literal truth of the Bible. He studied Anglican theology to become a clergyman only after neglecting his studies to become the physician his father desired him to be. As luck would have it most naturalists at the time were Anglican clergy who apparently had the time to wander the woods studying God's creation. In his studies he became convinced by William Paley's argument that design in nature proved the existence of God. However, his beliefs began to shift during his time on board HMS Beagle. He questioned what he saw — wondering, for example, at beautiful deep-ocean creatures created where no one could see them, and shuddering at the sight of a wasp paralysing caterpillars as live food for its eggs; he saw the latter as contradicting Paley's vision of beneficent design. While on the Beagle Darwin was quite orthodox and would quote the Bible as an authority on morality, but had come to see through the study of geology the history of creation in the Hebrew scriptures as being false and untrustworthy.

Upon his return, he investigated transmutation of species. He knew that his clerical naturalist friends thought this a bestial heresy undermining miraculous justifications for the social order and knew that such revolutionary ideas were especially unwelcome at a time when the Church of England's established position was under attack from radical Dissenters and atheists — that is, you guys. While secretly developing his theory of natural selection, Darwin even wrote of religion as a tribal survival strategy, though he still believed that God was the ultimate lawgiver. His belief continued to dwindle over time, and with the death of his daughter Annie in 1851, Darwin finally lost all faith in Christianity. He continued to give support to the local church and help with parish work, but on Sundays would go for a walk while his family attended church.

I suppose it is the accidents of faith that led Charles into agnosticism that have made conservative Christians so adamant in their opposition to his theories. They have even gone so far in the US as to build a $25 million natural history museum to support the ideas of Creationism and the inerrancy of scripture while they continue their fight to have Intelligent Design taught as a science alongside Darwin 's theory of evolution in schools.

But I wonder where Darwin 's faith might've ended up if his accidents of faith had included encounters with modern thinkers Karen Armstrong, Lloyd Geering, Don Cupitt, and Jack Spong? Their ideas include seeing God as a supernatural being in a three-tiered universe as a human construct that is no longer valid or useful, the divinity of Jesus being at best a fourth century explanation of his unique human qualities that continue to impact the world, that God was a metaphor for humanity living life without fear and with integrity, loving wastefully, and being fully one with the rest of the creation. Charles might have marveled at how his theories had not killed religion but helped set it free of an oppressive understanding of God.

When I was trained for the ministry I was taught about a God who acts in history, but Karen Armstrong turned my understanding of God on its ear with her book The History of God. If God has a history God has a beginning and an end. What she made clear is that a supernatural understanding of God or gods was born with human consciousness no more than 350,000 years ago. Considering the earth is thought to be 4.5 billion years old and the universe is between 11 and 20 billion years old — give or take a billion, God was born considerably after creation. Nietzsche in the 19th century pronounced the God of history dead, a victim of accidents of faith such as Copernicus and Galileo, Newton and Locke, Spinoza and Hegel, Darwin and Freud. To his announcement God might respond like Mark Twain after the NY Times prematurely published his obituary, “reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.” But these accidents of faith laid the groundwork for new thinking about God, a God who was not a supernatural, external being capriciously intervening in human affairs.

If God were dead, one might assume religion would die as well. But some religions exist where God was never born at all such as Confucianism , Buddhism and Ethical Humanism. And New Zealand theologian Lloyd Geering, argues that a Christianity without God is both preferable and possible.

Religions are human and cultural, not divinely ordained. They are a mirror of the best and the worse about us as a species. They can nurture fear or courage, war-mongering or peace-making, division or unity, oppression or liberation, desolation or hope, sickness or health, hate or love. Religion's role is to answer questions about what is ultimate reality and why are we here? Religion is our means of giving purpose and meaning to the brief span of years we call our lives.

Thanks to Darwin many of us now believe ultimate reality is a moving target, ever-changing. Creation was not a single act of the past but is an on-going event in which we are both being created and creating. Our purpose appears to be a willingness to engage that reality, much like going on a journey, traveling light, carrying with us only our capacity to love, to imagine and to create. That is our act of faith. For us God is the metaphor for this journey. One could argue that it will only be with the extinction of our species that this God will die.

It is this common journey — this common “God,” if you will - that unites all religions and belief systems. This is the basis of universalism as I have come to understand it. It is not about common beliefs or a common language or a common story. It is recognizing we are all on the same road, wondering what is around the next bend. No one system has a unique claim to the journey although they may describe it uniquely and some of its adherents may arrogantly claim knowledge of the road's destination. These fellow pilgrims have no theology of accidents to give them pause to question. They are like the male of our species who is genetically incapable of asking for directions. But no one knows where our journey is going, only where we have been. And even in that we took different snapshots of the countryside we passed. Our journals describe different experiences of the same road. It is that recognition that may preserve our species and our God. For it is the worst in religion, religion without a theology of accidents, that may be the undoing of our species. Evidence abounds. Religion is at the root of the destructive chaos in the Middle East and the melting of the polar ice caps. Unabated they may ultimately be God's cause of death. But the best in religion gives me hope. If despite our differing faiths and beliefs, we can encompass a theology of accidents we and “God” may extend a little longer our role in the ongoing evolution of the cosmos.

Unitarians and Universalists are one of my sources of hope. They recognized they were traveling on the same road and were humble enough to recognize that they not only did not know its destination but were helping to determine it, Unitarians and Universalists in the United States were able to merge in 1961 in spite of their differing beliefs, explained famously by Thomas Starr King. “Universalists believe God is too good to damn us, while Unitarians believe we are too good for God to damn.”

By your example I'm not suggesting that faith groups need to merge for our species to survive. In fact, quite the contrary. I think each faith group's experiences along the road provide us with insight and a better understanding of reality. The variety of faith stories enrich us no matter what our personal story is.

What the merger did was create a new reality. You created a microcosm of our universal task. You created a faith community that seeks ways for different faith stories to live in community honouring the common journey. Your experience so far shows us it is not an easy task, but not impossible either. It has created some interesting faith stories that we haven't seen before. In the U.S. it is hard to find a UU minister that doesn't have a hyphenated belief system. At General Assembly no one would be surprised to be introduced to a bi-sexual black-Latina minister who worships the Goddess as a Christian-Buddhist.

I'm not sure what that means but she opens me up to new possibilities and ultimately for me that is one of religion's more important roles.

With that openness my faith journey is not halted when I encounter the next accident of faith: the next Darwin around the corner or learn that humans don't have that many more genes than a worm (our differences being more about what kind of bacteria we host in our bodies) or that we can introduce human brain cells into a mouse giving it a capacity to think to a small degree like us.

With that openness we come to understand that belief systems are less important for their ability to describe the journey than their capacity to help us and our fellow pilgrims survive along the way.

In the language of my Christian story, do our beliefs lead us to act in ways that bring forth the realm of God, the ultimate universal purpose of religion, that Lloyd Geering describes as taking place when:

“there is increasing personal freedom to think and to speak,

the slaves are being freed,

patriarchy is crumbling,

homosexuals are free to 'come out',

weapons of mass destruction are being widely condemned,

racist attitudes are being overcome,

equality of the sexes is being achieved,

the disadvantaged are no longer being ignored,

human worth and values are being increasingly honoured.”

May it be so. If not during our time on the evolutionary stage, may we be an accident of faith that brings it closer.

Namiste and Blessed Be.

Amen.

July 23, 2006

Glynn Cardy

Feast of St Mary Magdalene     Micah 6:8-12     Matt 25:31-45

In England I was accused of being a heretic. Considering those who have been so labelled in the past I took it as a compliment. I did however point out to my accuser that he was assuming there was a continuum between orthodoxy and heresy, whereas I believe there are a number of authentic Christian views that may be in tension with each other. So instead of there being one right way of thinking, say about the resurrection, there are a number of right ways to think.

There was however two things in England that irritated me, and the more I scratched at them the more irritated I got. Firstly, I was annoyed when people were put down either by being patronized, ignored, or excluded. Three examples are women in ministry, divorcees, and gay couples. Evidence of this was particularly strong in church publications.

Secondly, and related to this, is the captivity of God within the masculine gender. Peppered throughout the liturgies, papers and press statements were constant references to God as 'Father', 'Lord', or 'He'. They gave out the undeniable message that God is a male. To not recognise, name and address irritants such as these comes closer to what I might call heresy.

Now, please don't misunderstand me. I'm not talking about an Oxfordshire rash in the Benefice of Finstock, Ramsden and Leafield. You could not find a nicer eclectic group of generous people who engaged with me no matter how challenging they found what I was saying.

Rather I'm talking about an insidious infection, manifesting itself in many corners, committees, and communications of the Church of England. Indeed it is not restricted to the English Church but is of international pandemic proportions and long ago infiltrated these antipodean islands.

God can't be contained. When a religious system creates boundaries around God, invariably God jumps the fence side. When a fundamentalist preacher proclaims, 'Come tonight and God will heal you', that impish God who refuses to be in anyone's pocket smiles and says, 'Maybe, maybe not.' When a pope, archbishop, synod, or academic says that God is on our side blessing the way we play and condemning our opponents, then God chuckles and says, 'I'm not on anyone's team.'

God however is not an open slate upon which any group or individual can write their own meaning. Each culture, time, and tradition has its controls on the story of God. Each say, 'God is mostly like this.' When the faithful adherents however leave out the 'mostly', they begin that slide into certainty and the condemnation of those who think differently.

The second of the Ten Commandments reads: “Do not make for yourselves images of anything in heaven or on earth, or in the waters under the earth. Do not bow down to any idol or worship it.” [Exodus 20:4-5a]

The Commandment is saying that God can't be contained by our art or by our words. God can only be pointed to. Theology, doctrine, and metaphors are at best pointers. When we enshrine them as absolutes we commit idolatry.

The classic example of the ancient Hebrews disobeying this commandment was in the construction and worship of the Golden Calf. In their desire to have a personal God, one that was present and accessible, they made a beautiful object and imbued it with meaning.

I believe the Church has done something similar with the metaphor of Father. We have taken this paternal image, given it form, and painted it into some of the greatest church buildings in the world.

As one metaphor amongst many there is nothing wrong with it. It tells us that part of the infinite nature of God is a desire to be personal, loving, and to nurture and protect. Its use in prayer has a long history, not least in the Lord's Prayer. Yet common usage doesn't cease to make it a metaphor.

Wherever one goes in the Anglican world it seems that the God who is prayed to is always male. God is not just like a father God is a father. God is not just like a male God is a male. In our desire to make God relevant, to bring God near, to have a personal God, we have constructed a new Golden Calf called Father. We have broken the second commandment.

I do not want to change all the male references to God to female references. I am not proposing we lock God into another gender. That won't solve anything. It will just replace one idol with another. Rather in our liturgies, prayers, and language we need to use a number of metaphors and names for God in order that no one metaphor becomes dominant and absolute. Sometimes these names will contradict each other, for example 'comforter' and 'challenger', or 'mother' and 'father' yet in their contradiction they will point to the larger truth that God is bigger than any name or language.

I know the alleged maleness and anthropomorphic nature of the Divine is very important for a number of people. I also know that others enjoy the poetic nature of some older liturgies so much they are prepared to tolerate words they no longer believe. So for 20 years or so as a priest I have said and led liturgies where this male God is dominant. I have done this because the discomfort of some inappropriate language does not destroy for me the total experience of worship.

However in recent years I have become increasingly aware that God is constantly being reduced to maleness, exclusively so, and there is little liturgically that is countering such idolatry. The spiritual life of Christians is suffering and will continue to suffer if the infinite omnipresent God is only thought of in a male guise. God has been domesticated.

This also has social and political ramifications. The old slogan that 'if God is male then the male is God' contains some truth. There is a link between a church that worships a male God and a church that will only promote men to the upper echelons of its leadership. We need to soberingly recognise that most of the Christian world only have men as priests, and that England, New Zealand, Australia, and most of Africa have no women bishops. Yet it is quite clear that in the early years of Christianity women held significant positions of leadership – not least Mary Magdalene whom we honour today.

There is also linkage between an exclusively male God and the patronizing and prejudicial practices meted out to women in ministry, divorcees, and gay couples. To build an inclusive Christian community where all are not only welcome but also have the opportunity to exercise and develop their gifts, including leadership, we must denounce every attempt to fetter God, to make God in our own image, to chain and lock God into one form. In our language, art and practices we must use other metaphors and images, especially feminine ones, in order to honour and acknowledge the breadth, height and depth of Godness.

++++++++++

Mary Magdalene was a wealthy woman from whom Jesus expelled seven so-called demons. Despite Pope Gregory's reprehensible attempt six centuries later to label her a prostitute, Mary was a key leader in the Jesus movement and stayed loyal to him when almost everyone else fled. In the Eastern Church she is called “Equal to the Apostles”. She was an apostle.

After the Ascension Mary allegedly journeyed to Rome where she was admitted to the court of Tiberias Caesar because of her high social standing. After dissing Pilate, she told Caesar that Jesus had risen from the dead. To help explain his resurrection she picked up an egg from the dinner table. Caesar responded that a human being could no more rise from the dead than the egg in her hand turn red. Which it promptly did! This is why red eggs have been exchanged at Easter for centuries in the Byzantine East.

In Paris recently I heard of villages settling conflict with the symbol of an egg. When a dispute had lasted long enough for there to be significant damage to individuals and the community, the feuding parties were invited to come to a meeting holding an egg. The eggs are put together to form a nest. The idea was that the nest [community well-being] needed to be mended. The conflict had escalated to such a degree that children weren't being feed and the marketplace wasn't working.

The eggs also represented fragility – they need to be carefully handled, just like people. And they represented, like other fertility symbols, the possibility of new hope - that a desire for the good of all might triumph over damaged egos and vested interests.

Mary, apostle of the Church, brave holder of the egg, bring your healing magic to our divided world and church, that new life and hope may be born anew. Amen.

July 16, 2006

Glynn Cardy

National Bible Sunday     Eph 1:3-14     Mark 6:14-29

One of the treasures of the Christian community is the collection of writings which make up the Bible. The Bible includes all sorts of wonderful stories... experiences, poems, letters, prayers, speeches, legends, and prophesies. The Bible is a literary classic that has the ability to speak to different ages, times and tribes.

However, more importantly, there is also the treasure that can't be contained in any book: the Spirit of God. The Spirit permeates the pages of the Bible, and transcends them. For in the end God is not contained in a book. God is forever reaching out to us in whatever way we can listen to in order to guide us, to encourage us, and to dare us to love other people and our planet.

Anglicanism's unique approach to the Bible has been one that has cherished the broad range of God's revelation in the texts of Scripture, in the tradition of the Church, and in human experience. God can be found anywhere God chooses to reveal God's self.

Over a hundred years ago the then Dean of Chichester1 proclaimed: "Every book of [the Bible], every word of it, every syllable of it, every letter of it, is the direct utterance of the Most High". Although the Dean was a learned man, his view of the authority of the Bible could not be further from the normative Anglican historical position. In our own day, especially with the rise of Christian fundamentalism, many Anglicans feel confused about the role, definition and authority of the Bible.

The New Testament, the Christian Scriptures, developed over a very short period of time probably less than a hundred years. The books of the New Testament reveal the profound faith of their writers. The authors did not seek to write "theology", but to proclaim the excitement of their new faith in Jesus. Nor did they seek to write "history" as we understand it today. Instead they chose to tell their stories. But because such stories are personal they are also subjective and upon close scrutiny are found to contain contradictions.2

Following their personal experience, the earliest followers of Christ turned to their texts, to the books of the Hebrew Bible [in Greek translation3], to find help in that great collection of memories for understanding the powerful revelation which had changed their lives. The Hebrew Bible was searched for meanings, other than the literal meanings, and these alternative meanings were identified and developed. The writers used what we would call allegory or typology4. So for example5 the reference to King David as the son of God was borrowed and applied to Jesus. Likewise with the reference6 to the young woman, or [in the Greek mistranslation] virgin, who would conceive and bear a child during the Syro-Ephraimite War in 734 B.C.E. was borrowed and applied to Mary.

For the Christian writers their experience of God was of primary importance. They wanted to ground this experience in the Hebrew Scriptures and, believing themselves to be led by the Holy Spirit, they engaged in unprecedented applications of those Scriptures to create what we call today the New Testament.

Over the next four hundred years after Jesus' death there was little agreement on what comprised the Bible or what inspiration or authority meant. The New Testament was not definitively agreed upon until the Council of Trent [1545-1563]8, although by the mid-300s the four Gospels and a collection of some supposedly Pauline letters were in circulation. For the first fifteen hundred years of the Church the locus of the authority of Scripture was not in the literal words of collection of books. Rather, the primary locus of authority was in the Tradition of the community alone - which after all had preceded and given rise to the books. It was the Tradition of the community that could teach the correct way to read the text, and biblical literalism was held by many to be a form of idolatry. No reading of scripture was accepted within the community when it violated either human reason or common sense.

Augustine of Hippo [354-430], for example, believed that the inspired Scriptures were true, but insisted that Truth could neither be limited to nor limited by the Bible. He insisted, more strongly than most, on the importance of God's revelation outside of the Christian tradition, an idea with strong precedent in Clement of Alexandria, Origen and St. Basil.9 Like so many of his predecessors, Augustine considered that every passage of scripture could have multiple true meanings.

The test in the early church to determine what was true and false in both Scripture and Tradition involved the triple standard of ecumenicity [what the leadership of the Great Churches believed], antiquity [what was the oldest], and common consent [what the people in the pews thought]. These standards emphasised the role of the believing community. Authority lay outside the scriptural text. Doctrine and biblical understanding were understood as free to evolve in faithful response to unfolding new understandings within the community itself. The Scriptures were certainly not a straightjacket or a book of irrefutable rules or a programme for living. As the Psalmist said the Scriptures were a lamp for our feet and a light for our path. They weren't to lead us, nor do the walking for us, nor the thinking for us.

The Holy Scriptures encourage us to explore. They are not a rule book to restrict our experience but a body of wisdom to use as a guide. If you've ever used a guide book to explore a complex city such as Rome, or Jerusalem, or Istanbul, you will know that the guide book gives great in-depth assistance in some places - but there is nothing like departing from the book to discover that special little place that you stumble into and wonder afterwards why it is not mentioned anywhere. So it is with our exploring in the fascinating city called God. Many paths you won't find mapped.

The Holy Scriptures also, and primarily, encourage us to love generously. Our treasure is not just a book, or a relationship with the God who permeates it, but is in the love that we have received and share with others.

There is a story told of a monk, Simeon, who resolved on a mighty undertaking: the printing of seven thousand copies of the Holy Scriptures in his native tongue, which until then had only been available in Latin.

He travelled the length and breadth of his country to collect funds for this project. Some wealthy people offered him as much as a hundred pieces of gold, but mostly he received small coins from peasants. Simeon expressed gratitude to each donor, regardless of the sum of money given.

After ten long years of travel, he finally collected the funds necessary for the task. Just then the Great River overflowed and thousands were left without food and shelter. Simeon spent all the money he had collected for his cherished project on these poor people.

Then he began the work of raising funds again. Again it was several years before he got the money he needed. Then an epidemic spread over all the country, so Simeon gave away all he had collected to help the suffering.

Once again he set out on his travels and, twenty years later, his dream of having the Scriptures in his own language finally come true.

The printing block that produced this first edition of the Bible is on display at the country's National Museum. Parents tell their children that Simeon got out three editions of the Holy Scriptures in all, and that the first two are invisible and far superior to the third. 10

The Scriptures are reproduced, are lived, and are proclaimed each time we love generously, we love selflessly, and we love in the Spirit of God.

+++++++++++

1 John Burgon.

2 The books of the New Testament differ, for example, in their use of the Hebrew Bible and in their record of Jesus' life and ministry. Some writers found the work of Jesus foreshadowed in one part of the Hebrew Bible; others found that work foreshadowed in yet other parts of the Hebrew Bible. Each tells the story of Jesus' life somewhat differently: in Mark the women ran away from the tomb, but in Luke they remained there [Mark 16:8 and Luke 24:51; John places the driving out of the money-changers from the Temple near the beginning of Jesus' ministry, but Matthew places it near the end [Mark 16:8 and Luke 24:5]; the events of Pentecost look very different in John than in Acts [John 20:21 and Acts 2:5ff].

3 Christians should make a careful distinction between the "Old Testament" and "the Hebrew Bible". The order, the message, and even the text of the two are different. When the Old Testament is quoted in the New, it is not the normative Hebrew text which is quoted, but usually a subsequent Greek translation known as the Septuagint.

4 This resulted in conflicting readings of Hebrew Scripture among the Christian community, for example Matthew's and John's presentations of Jesus' disputes with authorities, Orthodox opposition to Gnostic mythic interpretation of Genesis, and the Nicene-Arian disputes over the meaning of Proverbs 8:22.

5 Psalm 2:7

6 Isaiah 7:14

7 This was mainly due to the fact that there was so little agreement on how to read and interpret the various inherited Jewish and Christian texts.

8 It should be noted that the New Testament I am referring to here is that of the Western Church - the New Testament canon of various Eastern Orthodox and Eastern Catholic denominations differs from ours today. For example the Revelation to John and the Epistle to the Hebrews are excluded in some canons

9 Augustine, Confessions, chapter 12

10 Adapted from De Mello, A., Taking Flight, New York: Doubleday, 1988, p.60

July 9, 2006

Clay Nelson

2 Corinthians 12:2-10     
Mark 6:1-13

I've never had to issue a warning before I gave a sermon before, like they do sometimes on the news before they read a story. But I need to today, some of the content in this sermon may be uncomfortable for some of our listeners. I know it will be for me because it is a little too honest in places about some attitudes I used to hold of which I am not proud. You may share or have shared some of them as well. But it also may make you uncomfortable because sharing my story in involves mentioning others you know. You need to know that everyone mentioned in this sermon knows what I'm going to say and has given me their permission to refer to them or use their name. Now that I am certain I have your full attention I'll begin.

It probably won't surprise you that I am the son of an iconoclast. That's a big word for someone who believes sacred cows make the best Big Macs. He was a professor of Special Education who challenged established notions about learning. The conventional wisdom is that Johnny can't read because and then fill in the blank: He's a boy, from a one parent household, watches too much TV, is mentally challenged, of a certain race, etc. Dad's alternative wisdom was that every child can learn; not every teacher can teach. The question for him was not why can't Johnny read, but why can't Mr. or Ms. Smith teach him to read. His belief that the responsibility should be on teachers and not children made him a controversial figure amongst his peers. He was considered subversive. He handled his notoriety with self-depreciating humour that also made him beloved. So, it is not surprising that the most frequently quoted piece of scripture heard in my home was a version of Jesus' observation after a disheartening visit to Nazareth, quoted by my father with a wry smile and a heavy sigh, “A prophet is without honour in his own home.”

I have often wondered if that is how Jesus said it as well. He has just returned from a successful preaching and healing mission to the Gentiles, but in his own hometown no one expects such things from him so they don't happen. They expect him to follow convention and be a good carpenter like his father, not a prophet and teacher. Besides he is a particularly uncomfortable prophet and his teachings weren't in touch with their reality. He was being subversive; challenging his hometown's long held views about how things were. Unlike two weeks ago when he was napping during the storm, this time it was he who was rocking the boat. They'd like him to stop now. Since he doesn't, they need to discount the reality he proclaims. What choice did they have, accepting his teachings would unravel the social order?

All his neighbors knew God is punishing and judgmental – the evidence was all around them, but this kid whose nappies they once changed is telling them God is gracious. If that's true why should anyone be a good, productive member of society? Everyone knows you reap what you sow, but he says nonsense like “consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin.”

Even the poor, the lame and the blind had trouble accepting his words. At least they understood why they were rejected and despised. They must be sinners and so deserved it. Remembering some of the misfits he spent time hanging out with as a kid, instead of sweeping out his dad's workshop, they angrily challenged his assurances that they were all equally loved by God. If God didn't do this to them, who did? If we aren't sinners, who are we?

Why the strong reactions? Anyone who challenges common wisdom will evoke the same response. Conventional wisdom is based on our common agreement about the way things are. It tells us what the rules are in our culture. We may not like them but it is better than no rules at all. If we want to succeed in life we play by them. If we don't play by them we at least understand our lot in life. Conventional wisdom gives us an identity, we may not like it, but at least we know who we are. Conventional wisdom using language, words and social ordering helps us to domesticate our reality. It tells us what or who to value and our place in the social order.

I'm not suggesting that common wisdom is bad or even always wrong, but to confuse what it says about reality as being the same as reality has problems. Subversives like Socrates, Buddha, Jesus and my dad are the way those problems get challenged. When conventional wisdom preoccupies us with measuring up to society's standards, puts us in bondage to the cultural definition of reality, alienates and estranges us or those around us, and blinds us to a reality and possibilities beyond its definitions, it is essential that it be challenged.

Twenty years ago yesterday it was illegal to be gay or lesbian in New Zealand. Today is the anniversary of its decriminalisation. For most, if not all of us at St Matthew's this is a moment of celebration. Treating people of a different sexual orientation as felons makes no sense in our reality. But that isn't a universal view. Today there are lots of other church congregations, maybe the majority, who while reticent to throw them in jail, consider them to be sinners and a threat to well-ordered society and still worthy of condemnation and marginalisation. Our differing views here are not because we are Anglican. A group of clergy I meet with would like to see Synod approve the public blessing of same-sex relationships as Canada and the US have because we see unconditional love and commitment as the reality behind the word “marriage.” But we are being told by the bishop it will never pass in today's climate because for too many in the church the reality behind marriage is procreation, which conveniently excludes gays and lesbians. Those who hold this view of reality use scripture to defend it, rejecting Jesus' alternative vision every bit as adamantly as the folks who knew him growing up.

These differing views of reality are so at odds, that the Anglican Communion is no more. It exists in name only. It is dead and gone and only remains to be buried.

It is tragic but just as Jesus didn't back off pointing out the obvious that to not welcome all of us to God's banquet table, is not to welcome any of us, neither should we. Our common wisdom tells us that if those of us who are straight reject them, what's to stop others from excluding us for having a different colour of skin, or the wrong genitals, or a tattoo and a pierced navel, or being divorced, or too old or too young? It's all of us at the table or none of us.

If we are 30 or older we remember what it was like when it was perfectly acceptable to label “those perverts” as sodomites. If we were straight, we probably didn't know we knew many who weren't, but we had questions we didn't dare articulate about our maiden Aunt Winifred and her roommate of 20 years, Mary. Our parents might have given vague warnings about being careful in public loos. We were careful not to hug or make other public displays of affection with someone of the same gender. And it didn't pay to admit liking poetry if you were a bloke or rugby if you were a Sheila.

If we weren't straight, it was much worse. Unless you were a glutton for punishment it was wisest to hide your sexual identity. The law and society's view were extremely punishing. You could lose your job, your self-respect, your family, not to mention be arrested and jailed. But probably the worst thing was you could not be yourself except in hiding. Such a loss of integrity often led to suicide. Sadly today, you are considerably more likely to die by your own hand if you are a homosexual teenager than one of your straight friends.

Now let me take a breath here and point out that I know I'm preaching to the choir. The subversive thinking of 20 years ago that changed the law, is the conventional thinking here. Most of us know and love my work mate Geno and his partner Reece and are grateful they are a part of our lives. We are justly proud of our relationship with the Auckland Community Church whose mission is to attend to the spiritual needs of the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community. But this sermon isn't just about the importance of continuing the work begun 20 years ago today to eliminate completely cultural barriers between gays and straights. It is an invitation to become a prophet without honour in your own home. It is a call to challenge your own assumptions about your definitions of reality, especially those that evoke fear and judgment or separate you from yourself and others or hold you back from being all you can be. It matters to me because of something that happened to me last week. It was one of those moments that Jesus came to town and challenged my reality.

It was not on the surface such a profound moment. I was here early to open up and set up for the eight o'clock service. Our most faithful parishioner was there waiting to get in to make her cuppa tea. She is our most faithful member because she is here everyday from when first we open up until we close the doors for the night. When we asked everyone to update their parish roll, her form gave her permanent residence quite accurately as St Matthew's. So I was not surprised to see her, what surprised me is she asked if I had been ill, more specifically she asked if I'd had diarrhoea. Mystified, I said no. She then asked if anyone else in the office had diarrhoea. I told her we didn't usually discuss such things but as far as I knew everyone was fine. Why do you ask? She essentially said she didn't usually get as close to people as she was to us and she was afraid living as she does, she might make us sick.

I was quite taken back by her concern. She's the one we worry about. She's the one on the streets without benefits or a roof over her head.

But that thought really brought me up short. It made me realise how much I had changed, and not just me but the whole staff.

I remembered my first encounter with her. It was my first Sunday at St Matthew's. She was in the pew in front of me. What I remember is that she was a little bit intimidating due to size and demeanour and that her limited options for personal hygiene on the streets were quite apparent. I thought to myself that this is a good place if she feels comfortable being here, but next week I'll be more careful about where I sit.

Later when I came to work here she was often a topic of conversation. Because of her state of mind there were occasional unexpected incidents that were sometimes a nuisance and of course her fragrance announced her coming and remained upon her departure. When the staff gathered there was considerable time spent wondering how best to control her access to places in the church. I'm embarrassed to admit, we even considered briefly moving the pew cushions between services so that the church was a little less hospitable for sleeping.

Thinking back it was during Jane's time with us it began to change. She, like us, began by being a little intimidated and anxious about being alone in her office while she was in the church. With time however, they talked a little. Jane got to know a little of her story. Where she was born. What happened to her parents. What her Maori name was. By the time Jane left she found she had grown quite fond of our most faithful parishioner, and she of Jane, inviting several of her friends from the street to Jane's going away party. It was during this time our view of reality shifted. At some point she was no longer viewed as a nuisance our Christian duty required us to endure, but a full human being to be loved, respected and appreciated. We shared smokes. We had conversations. She began cleaning up the kitchen and moping the loos. Linda tried solving the more offensive aspects of our close proximity by washing her clothes. When that didn't fully solve it we learned she needed medical attention and made sure she got it. Instead of being annoyed when she would eat what we brought for lunch, Linda began bringing her a hot meal. Instead of being relieved on those rare occasions she wasn't here when we opened up, we were concerned. We came to respect her inherent dignity, survival skills and deep spirituality. Because our view had changed of her we were more open about getting to know others in her situation who orbit around us because of our location and they too, have enriched our lives. Through her we have found that compassion has replaced fear, resentment and intimidation in our hearts.

It was her concern for us last Sunday that caused me to wonder, was she our project or we hers? She is clearly a prophet without honour who has challenged our assumptions and made us more whole. I now even have to question my proposition that Jesus is just a man. Last Sunday I had to wonder if Jesus was just a woman. And this week I have to wonder about his sexual orientation.

July 2, 2006

Clay Nelson

The Feast of St Thomas the Apostle
     John 20:24-29

This sermon about Doubting Thomas got off to a good start. When Glynn told me I was preaching tonight, I doubted it. I thought he was kidding. Why would he want me to preach my kind of sermon to this very faithful and devoted congregation — the remnant of St Thomas', Freeman Bay. He said because I'm the resident expert on doubt.

He's right. I'm a strong believer in doubt. Like Frederick Buechner I believe “doubts are the ants in the pants of faith. They keep it awake and moving.”

So Thomas is my kind of Apostle. His demand for verification that Jesus had indeed visited his colleagues has tagged him as history's most well-known skeptic. “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.” Right on Thomas!

Later in the passage the resurrected Christ indirectly admonishes him for a failure of faith in spite of his being the first to declare Jesus God. “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”

Let me put my first doubt on the table. I not only doubt that this interchange between Thomas and Jesus ever happened I am certain of it. But it does say a lot about the faith of Johannine Christians living in Ephesus at the beginning of the second century. It is a faith I would will argue that has little value today for “what can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence.”

What would you think if I told you that while riding the ferry this morning a dolphin spoke to me and warned me that aliens were approaching from outer space? The dolphin wanted me to be the spokesman for all humanity. I must convince the aliens not to destroy earth. I can see you are sceptical, but I assure you it happened. Others on the ferry saw it, but as they don't speak dolphin, they didn't hear the message. Now at this point you have a number of choices that include calling the Mental Health Crisis Team stat or believing me?

As I have no evidence and what I shared does not fit with what you know about the world, my reporting it doesn't make it so. As a result I expect the men in white coats to appear any minute putting an end to this homily. However, if some of you have experienced conversations with dolphins and believe you have seen UFO's, you might be ready to help me save the planet.

I would argue that the doubters among you are no better than Thomas. You want some evidence to support the unbelievable before you buy in. Failing that you will dismiss me as a crackpot. Does that mean you have a lack of faith? No, it means you haven't taken leave of your senses.

Beliefs are serious business and while in our tolerant society we tend to say each to their own, I'm not sure we should. Some beliefs are somewhat benign. In my family we had to be very careful about not blowing Santa's cover as my mother was a strong believer or so she said. It didn't hurt anyone that she maintained this strong belief, in fact I probably reaped the benefit of her belief in what I found under the tree Christmas morning.

Some beliefs are quite positive. That many believe that all people are created equal and are entitled to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness has made the world a better place than it might have been otherwise.

However, many beliefs are dangerous and destructive. That there are Muslims willing to act on their belief that martyrdom guarantees them the good life with 70 virgins in heaven has had devastating results for humanity.

Nazi belief in the superiority of the Aryan race was all the justification they needed to commit genocide for a good cause in good conscience.

Christian belief in a better life in the world to come has had a particularly negative effect on the environment which they have been told they were given dominion over but would not need after the Second Coming. It is merely a stopover on a journey to better place.

Beliefs have another problem. They change with experience and knowledge. Beliefs about the earth being flat changed with Columbus. Beliefs about the earth being the centre of universe changed with Galileo. Beliefs about humans being created during a seven day creation changed with Darwin. About the only beliefs that don't change with more information are religious dogmas.

Therefore, not all beliefs are created equal. Those which threaten survival of the species; those that perpetuate injustice and blind us to compassion: those that perpetuate ignorance must be challenged. It is a moral imperative. We must challenge them on the Thomas principle. We must see and touch. Faith without reason does not bring happiness or prevent suffering, the bottom-line of living an ethical life.

As Christians we are free to challenge the destructive beliefs of others, but not without first examining our own and judging their consequences.

Let us look quickly at one: Thomas' declaration of Jesus being his Lord and Saviour, the first of the apostles to do so. However, this is not his belief statement but the early church's about 70 years after the crucifixion. The image of Jesus being Lord and Saviour made sense in their world. They needed rescuing from a harsh and brutal Roman occupation that had already identified Christians as excellent scapegoats for persecution. The idea of a divine Jesus impervious to death who would eventually save them had understandable appeal. But is that what Jesus believed about himself? There is no evidence of this. That the early church reported it is not evidence. The downside of this belief is expressed well by Sam Harris in his book The End of Faith. “It is not enough that Jesus was a man who transformed himself to such a degree that the Sermon on the Mount could be his heart's confession. He also had to be the Son of God, born of a virgin, and destined to return to earth trailing clouds of glory. The effect of such dogma is to place the example of Jesus forever out of reach. His teaching ceases to be a set of empirical claims about the linkage of between ethics and spiritual insight and instead becomes a gratuitous, and rather gruesome, fairy tale. According to the dogma of Christianity, becoming just like Jesus is impossible. One can only enumerate one's sins, believe the unbelievable, and await the end of the world.” [1]

Would Thomas doubt the words the church put into his mouth 1900 years ago as if nothing had changed since then to re-evaluate them? I hope so, for his example is what will redeem our faith. Faith without reason deprives us of its benefits. Demanding to touch and see will bring out the hidden Jesus in each of us.

[1] Harris, Sam, The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and Future of Reason. W. W. Norton & Co. New York: 2004, p. 204.

June 25, 2006

Clay Nelson

Second Sunday after Trinity     
Mark 4:35-41

Wimps! Chucks! New Zealand chickens. That's what the disciples were. Maybe that's why Jesus asks them to take a little boat ride as if it was a riddle, “Why did the disciples cross the lake?” Granted it was a change in the itinerary. Instead of just bringing the realm of God only to the Jews like any good Jewish Messiah should know, he wanted to take it to the Gentiles on the other side as well. Why, for God's sake?

Well, whatever his reasons, the trip across the Sea of Galilee showed that the disciples certainly weren't Kiwis. The Sea of Galilee isn't a sea at all and it isn't much of a lake. Lake Taupo is four times larger and deeper. I've seen the Sea of Galilee during a storm, and sure it's choppy, but the disciples should be grateful they never had to cross the Harbour Bridge on a Vespa with a small fuzzy white dog strapped to their back during a southwesterly, like my mode of commuting requires. If the boat ride our Gospel describes brought them to their knees, they should count their lucky stars that they never had to fly into Wellington on a “calm” day.

For that matter they should give thanks that they don't sit in the nave of this church where you have had to repeatedly endure my inviting you into exile from the church's traditional understanding of Jesus and God.

Ever since Palm Sunday when I began my exile by declaring Jesus just a man I have been tossed about in the storm of implications that this has for being a Christian; for being the Church. The result, five sermons later: last Sunday at eight o'clock I brazenly preached--to the four early risers present--that the God we have been praying to all my life and for the two millennia prior is in our post-modern world view both redundant and homeless. Science has given him very little to do and the Hubble telescope that has found the edge of the universe still can't find Heaven.

I've got to hand it to you. I haven't seen any of you jumping ship during this voyage. You could've just dismissed me as a JAFA. Just another you-know-what American. Americans seem to love stormy weather. Look at the Episcopal Church defying the rest of the Anglican Communion by ordaining a gay man as bishop, blessing same-sex marriages, and this week, electing the first woman primate in history. And not just any woman, but a scientist with a post-modern view of God and the church. Maybe you don't dismiss me because you remember that New Zealand was the first anywhere to consecrate a woman as bishop. Maybe you are aware that gays and lesbians have considerably more rights in New Zealand than they do in America. After my first winter in Auckland, it is clear you aren't troubled by stormy weather. Perhaps that because you live in the City of Sails. You know that if there isn't a little weather you're not going anywhere. A lively wind is immensely preferable to the doldrums or certainly to a dead calm.

So, where are we going this week? What does the story of Jesus calming the storm, have to say to those of us in exile? If it does have anything to say, it certainly isn't in Jesus telling the storm to be still. Living here we know how quickly the weather can change. Any resident of Auckland can go tell the weather the same thing as Jesus and have a pretty good shot at looking good. Besides, even Mark whose world view included the possibility of Jesus having authority over the weather didn't think miracles inspired faith in people. At best, faith has the capacity of making miraculous things happen.

For us in exile, it doesn't have much to say to those who don't experience a God who is going to come rushing in to rescue us whenever we find ourselves in rough waters. Sure for Mark that was possible. For Mark this was a classic story of two gods at war. The very name for sea in Hebrew was the name of an evil Babylonian god of chaos and death. The good God of Israel, Yahweh, had often been depicted on one of his wrathful days as being in the storm. Jesus calming both of them was giving a new understanding of God.

This is captured best in the original Greek, where the disciples are described as having two kinds of fear. They showed cowardice before the gods of the sea and storm and fear, as in awe, of Jesus, captured in their question “Who is this bloke?” Since we dealt with that question five sermons ago, what else might this story say to us who are living in a rather fearful exile.

We could use some reassurance from this story. We live in a frightening place where we no longer have a heavenly parent in the sky to take care of us. That is even scarier than that time that eventually comes for all of us when we realise we have no earthly parents to care for us or fall back on. Knowing we are alone, responsible for ourselves and there is no higher power for protection is not a warm, cosy spot to be in. Learning that meaning is not external to life but must be discovered in our own depths and imposed on life by an act of our own will is not place we go voluntarily. We are all too aware that life is not fair and will not necessarily be made fair in this life or in any other.

So how can this story help us to live with this reality now? Is it able to bridge drastically different world views to be of any use to us?

I'll let you decide, but I think ironically the most valuable part of the story is Jesus being asleep at the helm. If he was in the navy, that would be a serious offence. He might be made to walk the plank, but in his taking a nap while all hell breaks loose around him could be a helpful model for us.

Mark was probably writing this in Rome while Nero was busy crucifying Christians along the roadsides, dousing them with pitch and setting them on fire as particularly gruesome street lamps. To Christians at the time it must've seemed like God was taking a nap.

But is it any better now? Is God asleep while innocents die cruel deaths? Why hasn't God intervened to stop AIDS and Malaria, war and terrorism, famine and natural disaster? Where was God when twin infants were being battered to death by a family member in Mangere? Those of us in exile cannot blame a God who never was for permitting such evils and tragedies. We are forced to look to our own accountability.

I am quickly repelled by such a notion. I defensively ask what can I do. I'm not the cause and I don't have the resources to respond.

Here is where a napping Jesus is helpful. He is the picture of calm in the midst of unbridled anxiety.

Edwin Friedman, a rabbi and family therapist, wrote years ago a book entitled Generation to Generation about how to become and remain healthy in dysfunctional family systems. And all families are dysfunctional; it's just a matter of degree. The trick, he explains, is to remain a non-anxious presence in the midst of the hysteria. We refer to it as NAPping. An example of napping is taking your fiancé to a family Christmas dinner to introduce him. Such occasions are fraught with pitfalls. Too many toasts and too many stories that accompany such moments can create a great deal of anxiety in the future bride. What will my fiancé think? I better explain my crazy family before we get there, but how do I explain my mother or Uncle Albert or my nephew Stanley? If the bride-to-be arrives too anxious it is likely to make the event even more bizarre. But if she is a non-anxious presence trusting what is good in her family as well as their idiosyncrasies and trusts her fiancé to sort it all out, it can be a fun and joyful occasion.

This sounds good except those around us don't want us to take a nap. They want us to participate in the craziness. I once asked my mother how she always knew how to push my buttons. She replied, “That's easy dear, I installed them.”

Friedman conveniently uses the analogy of a boat to explain it. When someone decides to be a non-anxious presence, that is nap in the boat, this is seen as confrontational by the others. The person napping is usually the healthiest member of the family. Her healthy behaviour of not getting sucked back into the family's dysfunction is a challenge to the others to either become healthier themselves or jump overboard. Eventually all will do one or the other, but first they conspire to get the napper to wake up. They rock the boat in hopes that they won't have to change. They rock the boat to raise up fear in the non-anxious presence, for it is fear that returns us to our old dysfunctional ways.

Friedman argues that to change a dysfunctional system, be it family, church, community or world begins with the power of one. The more we seek to become and remain healthy, the healthier those around us become.

If you find that hard to believe go back to the disciples' boat. See the man napping. Now do you question the power of one? This is the man who let nothing draw him away from spiritual health even unto death. This man knew that no matter what tragedies or evils befall us, nothing can take that which we experience as God, love, life and being, from us. So there is nothing to fear. We are free to do as he did, seek God in this journey we call life, and offer our healthiest selves to a broken world in need of our compassion, our hope, our love.

To seek to be as healthy as Jesus is our Christian responsibility. It is not beyond our ability. We are no less human than he. We are the second coming of Christ to this broken world so desperate to know a God that cares. We do that by not letting the storms in our life cause us to retreat from our mission to reveal the faith, hope and love that is within us.

June 18, 2006

Clay Nelson

Three Tikanga Sunday

I was hoping to give you a break from me this week after suggesting last week that the doctrine of the Trinity had outlived its usefulness and was in truth destructive to both the church and our individual journeys in faith. But I was unable to convince Sir Paul Reeves to get up early enough to preach at 8:00am. He doesn't want you take that personally, it's just one of his prerogatives of being retired, that is not having to get up so early on a Sunday. In hopes of changing his mind, I told him that if his present schedule was his idea of retirement, he might as well come at eight. He was flunking retirement anyway. I got a laugh, but as you can see, no joy. So my payback for last Sunday is addressing Three Tikanga Sunday from the perspective of being an American ex-patriot Pakeha, who after only ten months here isn't even certain he is pronouncing it correctly.

When I first heard the phrase Three Tikanga I wondered if it was Maori for the Trinity. But as all of you know and I have come to learn it is the name given to how the Anglican Church in Aotearoa New Zealand and Polynesia has been organised since 1992. Each of the three Tikanga represents a different strand of Anglicanism, Maori, Pakeha and Pasifika. Each strand has it's own bishop or bishops, and as of a month ago the office of Archbishop is now filled by three bishops, one from each Tikanga. It is a revolutionary approach to multiculturalism and yet it is very Anglican in its respect for local cultural values. At the same time it reflects Maori cultural values and spirituality.

Tikanga can't be captured by a single English word. The root, Tika, means things that are true. For Maori, Tikanga embodies history and future, right and wrong, caution and expediency, courtesy and reprimand, survival. In its most basic form, Tikanga is a set of guidelines to follow. It is the blueprint of how to operate to ensure the survival of Mokopuna, the generations to come.

The foundations of Tikanga rest at the dawn of time, when events were happening, the worlds were being made, domains being decided. All Tikanga stems from this time. I nga wa o mua translates literally as from the times of front but this phrase means the past. Therefore the past is always in front of us, there for guidance, and the future is behind us, as very few can see the future and what it has in store for us. And since peoples have different pasts the one thing that we should realize is that each iwi or tribe, each hapu or village, each whanau or family has different Tikanga, which is tika for them. A Maori does not judge a Tikanga different from theirs as being wrong, for what others see in their past has developed their Tikanga. A very useful concept for those of us trying to form an inclusive community in a multicultural environment.

Maori today look at their past and it now includes other cultures with different values. Their ancestors before the arrival of the Pakeha would not recognize the Tikanga of those who came after them. But the Tikanga of Maori today includes the Tikanga of their ancestors. It is that immovable peg in the ground. It is the foundation that cuts through everything else. In a fast changing world it is always there to guide them. They look for it in the Tika, the things that are true, and they find it in their ancient past and within their own Wairua, their own spirit, for their Wairua is as old as the worlds themselves.

While the individual concepts embraced by Tikanga are not new to me, collected together it is eye opening. The wisdom behind Tikanga is self-evident. It is a world view that enhances life in the moment. I find it both spiritual and pragmatic; flexible yet solidly reassuring. Ultimately it is inclusive not only of Maori of different iwi, but of all who now share this archipelago with them and of all yet to come.

After expressing my beliefs last week about the inadequacies of the Trinity's concept of God, a concept that has been the foundation of Christianity for 18 centuries, I am delighted to discover Tikanga. I think it has something to offer people such as myself, people John Shelby Spong, a controversial American bishop who was my mentor as a young priest, calls Christians in exile. To be taken into exile is to leave where you have been comfortable. Where you understood how things work. Where you knew the rules. To be exiled means never returning to that for which you long and where the future is uncertain.

We are exiled because our Tikanga includes Copernicus and Galileo, Newton and Darwin, Freud and Einstein, Carl Sagan and Stephen Hawking, vaccines and antibiotics, electron microscopes and the Hubble telescope. They have made the God we once worshipped and counted on redundant and homeless. We don't pray for him to cure us from illness anymore, we go to the doctor. If we still pray to him in times of drought we no longer wear raincoats or take umbrellas when we do. If we are attacked we do not expect God to protect us and conquer our enemy's God unless we are George Bush. We no longer understand AIDS as God's judgment on gays and lesbians unless we are Bishop Tamaki. When famine strikes we do not look for manna from heaven, we contribute to the Red Cross. We now know that we are not in that God's image but that God is in ours and that that God is no longer of much help and like the gods of Olympus is, if not already dead, dying. Relying on this terminal triune God makes as much sense in our post-modern world view as going to the doctor and expecting him to use leeches to drain the humors from our body.

Those of us in exile wonder if we can be Christian and know there is no personal God? Some very learned people have said no and left the priesthood and the church. Others of us still experience the holy we just aren't sure what to call it, and remain, holding fast to Jesus as our peg in the ground. He is for us Tika, things that are true. Even in all his humanity, or maybe because of it, he remains our Lord, our past who is in front of us leading us into the uncertain future. Not because he was a wise teacher, though we learn from him, but because his life and death revealed holiness. He keeps us looking for a new understanding of God that does not require us to check our minds at the door when we gather as a worshipping community. We look back on our ancient past and see that our Tupuna, our Hebrew ancestors called God ruach, the wind, nephesh, breath and simply a rock, the rock of our salvation. Our Tupuna guide us in our seeking to understand God not as a being. They give us insights as to what to call our new understanding of God. Whatever words we find while wandering in exile they will still be words limited by our humanity, but until they are no longer adequate for the generations that follow us, they will help us deal with the here and now. While God is beyond our definition, God is not beyond our experience. In that I find hope and strength to go on. Maori spirituality tells me I must go on, I am part of my great, great grandchildren's Tikanga. They are counting on me to do so.

June 18, 2006

Sir Paul Reeves

Sir Paul Reeves, first Maori Archbishop of Aotearoa New Zealand and Polynesia and Govenor-General of New Zealand preached on Three Tikanga Sunday, a day celebrating the Maori, Polynesian and European expressions of Anglicanism in New Zealand.

June 11, 2006

Jane Knowles

Trinity Sunday     
Isa 6:1-13     
John 3:1-13

The following sermon was preached by Jane Knowles upon return to her benefice of Ramsden, Finstock, Leafield and Wilcote, Oxfordshire, England after a three month stay as Visiting Vicar at St Matthew-in-the-City, Auckland

We are back, and true to the old adage, travel certainly broadens the mind. We have had a wonderful time in both church and country. New Zealand is a really fabulous place to visit, bright and clear and with beautiful skies and seas and mountains and all the rest of it, but more than that the people are beautiful too; they really try hard to be outgoing and friendly and loving, The efforts that are being made to bring the three historical cultures together in worship are to be marvelled at; Maori, Pacific ad now what I have learnt to call white people, Pakeha. There is a huge Chinese population in Auckland too and everyone seems to be tolerant and keen to get on with each other and life. It is safe to say that Auckland is truly multi cultural, and over a quarter of the country's entire population live there.

St Matthews as its name implies is right in the city centre and next door to the city mission and so included in the congregation are street people; the homeless and waiting for me every day was Caroline, a streetie from Gisborne who had come years ago seeking working and now lives on the streets. Although I was a bit frightened of her at first, she became quite a friend. (I have brought my liturgical photograph album with me, and she features in that.)

I'd like to tell you just a little about St Matthews.

It is probably the most prominent church in Auckland, if not also on the North Island and is often mistaken for the cathedral. It is a progressive and inclusive church and many different styles of worship take place there, not least a meditation service for all faiths, somewhere in the bowels of the building whilst the BCP early morning Eucharist is taking place. It is a remarkable building, not particularly old, by British standards, but is big enough in all senses of the word to host many different styles of service as well as functions. It has a Peace chapel where visitors often light candles and a wonderful chancel and very holy space, but it has movable pews too and these are moved to the side whenever there is a function or a dinner, or indeed the preview reception for the Da Vinci Code which was held quite recently, and made the headlined of the newspapers. This is just a flavour of the place.

I have written a journal and hope to put it in some sort of readable form before long, because for me this has been the trip of a lifetime, both spiritually and physically. I know that you too have had a stimulating and enjoyable time with Glynn and the family and I'm sure you have been really refreshed and challenged in your worship and conversation. I have been challenged theologically and have enjoyed many interesting debates and new concepts and most of all my understanding of the presence of the Holy Spirit has grown.

Today is Trinity Sunday and today we celebrate three parts of the Godhead. . All through history God's name has been changed; Yahweh, Jehovah, Lord, etc; and the historical Jesus the man has been argued about for 2000 years, but the Holy Spirit, the one which seems the most illusive is the one part of the Trinity that has probably changed the least. I don't know how you celebrated Ascension Day; we had a special Ascension Day service (which incidentally they had not had before in St Matthews|) and in the holy space of that occasion we celebrated Jesus' last appearance on earth in human form ...and so he returned to his father.

At Pentecost, 10 days later, we had a wonderful day; that was the day when we projected your photograph on to a screen and wished you and the whole church “Happy Birthday”. We had balloons and cake and we burst a balloon to remind ourselves that the Holy Spirit can indeed be everywhere; here and in Auckland and right around the world. The Holy Spirit is that mysterious something that joins you to me and to our creator. On Pentecost Sunday I was aware of it as never before, and the result was an outpouring of love and a joining together to make a strong and complete whole.

As part of the offertory, I was presented with this, a Maori Te Manaia. It is a symbol of the guardian spirit, another name for the Holy Spirit. Waiora, a remarkable, courageous, strong, Maori lady with a deep traditional Christian faith, and with whom I have had many interesting discussions, gave it to me and explained that it had been held by everyone in the church, and so it was truly a gift from the whole church.

She spoke to me for the congregation, in Maori and whilst I did not understand the words, I for sure knew the meaning; Pentecost writ large. In some way they had all been empowered by the Holy Spirit to love me and I them. As I said on the day, if that's not the Holy Spirit in action I don't know what is... and then spontaneously and led by Waiora the whole church sang a Maori Hymn of blessing, even though the vast majority of them are Pakeha, as you know from the photograph.

An unforgettable eternal moment in time.

You see the concept of it all is this; each individual is special and precious, but woven together we all become one strong rope; individual strands, but one strong rope. I have had had both photographs incorporated into one frame ; our benefice and St Matthews church and if you look carefully you will see surrounding the photographs is a rope. This benefice and St Matthews are now joined; we cannot be unjoined; we are part of each other's history. St Matthews now has this combined picture and each of our parishes will have one too; the Holy Spirit joining us all together; all nations, all colours and with all spectrums of Christian belief.

We have come home and we are delighted to be here. It's so lovely to see you all again, and we have missed you very much, but I have a tale to tell, and I have plans; things we can do together and things we can do separately. The church is an exciting place; by comparison everything else pales into insignificance. It is a family; we do belong; it is our home wherever we are and it is the place from which we can go out and face whatever we have to. Jesus left his disciples, and his leaving empowered them through the Holy Spirit.

Today I thank God so much for all of that, and for the created world and particularly for the people and country of NZ, and I pray for the energy and courage to share with you the things that I have found; but today I also thank God for your generosity and love and for the way in which you enabled me to leave and to go to the other side of the world, and I thank God for the way in which you have made Glynn and the family so welcome.

We have all learnt a lot and we can go on learning with enquiring minds and excited hearts. We are born again through the Holy Spirit. Alleluia.

June 11, 2006

Clay Nelson

Trinity Sunday     
Isa 6:1-13     
John 3:1-13

Just as the Queen's Birthday gave us our last three-day holiday for awhile, Trinity Sunday is our last major feast day for this church year. As the only feast dedicated to celebrating a church doctrine, and a fairly incomprehensible one at that, the only rational thing to do is tell a joke about it. But I'm going to break with the long tradition of preachers on this Sunday and invite you to a place in your imagination instead. Think of a town or village by a river. It could be the Waikato, the Thames, the Mississippi or one from Middle Earth. You're call. Just make the setting one that is beautiful and tranquil. Where the soil is rich; the foliage is colorful; and the snow-crested mountains in the distance stand like protective angels. The village is well-kept and picturesque. It still qualifies as quaint even though it has broadband, cable and excellent coffee bars. You know every nook and cranny. Your fellow citizens are your friends and family. You know each other's stories and they weave seamlessly into one story. Harmony is the rule of life and everyone understands the rules. The river that bends around it is a source of life. It provides food, water, transportation and sanctuary.

It is a place that has been there for generations and generations and generations beyond knowing. It has developed its own rhythm of life that has become one with its people. Its music, art and language are steeped in its history and they colour the present and proclaim with assurance the future. It is a place where you know who you are.

But even into this idyllic place some rain must fall. It isn't noticed at first that the normal annual rainfall, which has always been just the right amount, has been exceeded. But day after day the rain falls relentlessly. Memory doesn't serve when it last rained this much, this long. And still it doesn't let up. The ground becomes saturated, and then the river begins to rise. As it threatens to breach its banks you and your fellow citizens form sandbag brigades to keep the formerly friendly waters from engulfing your homes and destroying that which you value. But no matter how fast you fill the bags and how high you pile them, the rain keeps falling and the river rises faster. Soon the floodwaters cover your fields destroying the crops and drowning the livestock. Retreating from the river you and the townspeople watch with horror from your homes as the water continues to rise, helpless as your livelihoods are destroyed. You want to flee but where do you go. Your roots are too deeply planted. You are too attached to this place and the values it enshrines.

You cannot leave. The waters enter the first floor of your home and you watch family photos curl up and float away along with the very meaning of your lives. And still you stay. And yet the floodwaters continue to rise threatening your physical existence. The groundwater is contaminated. Options for reaching higher ground are quickly disappearing. Soon you will be cut off. Your mind tells you to run for your life, your heart says stay no matter how unlivable the place.1

Now using your remote, freeze frame that image. Feel the anxiety, despair, ambivalence. Then you will know how I feel today for it is “Here am I,” to quote Isaiah in today's first reading. In his vision of the holy, he despairs at what will become of his beloved land of Judah if they join in an alliance with the northern tribes to battle the Assyrians. In my glimpses of the holy, a new light has been shed on the church for me. And it is not a vision I welcome. The church, like the village frozen in our collective imagination, is becoming an unlivable place. And the rain destroying it is our ancient way of describing what the holy is. It begins:

I believe in one God,

the Father Almighty,

maker of heaven and earth.

No, your ears don't deceive you, it is the Nicene Creed. The one repeated endlessly by the church for 1681 years, and which ironically defines what we celebrate today, the Trinity. It is our formula for the holy. I don't like saying that it is “Here am I” in a flooded church for it is uncomfortably close to his next statement, “Send me” to bail it out.

The prophetic role has never been one to which I aspired. Prophets have to have thicker skins than most. They never get dinner invitations. Folks tend to cross the street when they see them coming. I never felt comfortable in a beard and when was the last time you invited the local prophet to the pub for a few frosties? You'd rather just toss them into the nearest cesspool. And that isn't unprecedented, ask the prophet Jeremiah about the experience. There is a reason. The occupational hazard for prophets is that they can confuse their message with themselves. They become all doom and gloom and begin to sound like “Johnny One Note.” To quote the modern prophet William Sloan Coffin, “There is nothing quite as small as a person wrapped up in themselves.” And I might add, “in their message.”

So, I'd rather be pastoral about the present soggy state of the church and use some of those great Kiwi-isms I've learned like “No worries, mate,” or my personal favorite, “She'll be right.” And then tell a joke or two and let this Sunday pass and hope Glynn is here to preach on it next year.

My problem is that after a quarter of a century of trying to explain the mystery of the Trinity and it's attempt to say who God is, I now see that it's a dangerous doctrine of God. It is life threatening. So, it's no joking matter. It can't be ignored. So, here am I… damn it. You may be thinking, yeah, it's boring and incomprehensible, and of no apparent relevance to my life, but how is it dangerous?

The first problem the Nicene Creed has is it's a creed. Creeds by definition are the ultimate barrier to our being an inclusive community. Creeds are the product of debate. Who is Jesus? Human or Divine? If divine, is he the same as God? If not, how is he different? If so, how is he the same? Is there still only one God? If human, how can Jesus also be divine? If he is one with God how do he and God act in the world today? These were all hotly debated questions that would have been common on the 4th century's equivalent of talk back radio, like such modern controversies as whether or not Rodney Hide can dance or whether or not exotic trees should be replaced with natives on Queen Street. In 325 AD, the winners of the debate were declared and their positions were summed up in the Church's creed. That was supposed to end the conflict. It was an attempt to unify the church. That hope was not realized. What it actually did was divide the faithful into insiders and outsiders. The orthodox and the heretic. The Nicene Creed became a line in the sand to intimidate our personal authority to explore our spirituality and it has been used historically and in the present in very destructive ways. Considering the position I'm taking this morning, we thankfully don't burn people at the stake to defend it… anymore. But we have and a lot worse.

The second problem with the endlessly repeating of creeds is they have shaped our thinking and our living to the point where we cannot think of God outside the forms they affirm or the boxes they create. They have permeated our land, and shaped our values. Ultimately they have shaped our religion.

What's wrong with that you might reasonably ask? Because the God this creed has given us killed his son, damns disbelievers, subordinates women, blessed the bloody Crusades of the past and blesses the Iraq war in the present, brings his wrath on gays and lesbians, justifies literal and spiritual slavery, under girds racism, encourages subjugation of the environment and according to conservative Christians in the paper this week endorses smacking our kids.

The third problem is not what the creeds contain but what they don't. Ultimately every creed is limited. No matter how it is massaged it can not be a full statement of faith. They are only reactions to arguments. All the undebated issues have been left out. There is no mention of love, or living out the Christian life, or living in the realm of God in the here and now, or experiencing the divine in the world or in ourselves.

Over the centuries and in particular, recently, we have tried to modify the Creed to make it more palatable. The one we use at St Matthew's is an example. But these efforts are like trying to damn up Niagara Falls with sandbags. We cannot protect ourselves from this God with sandbags. Tinkering with the creed won't do it. Making the language less sacrificial, less masculine, more inclusive won't hold it back. We must seek higher ground.

Perhaps, at this point in your thinking I am not alone in the flooded church. Perhaps now we can say, “Here are we.” To test that I would ask you to return to that frozen image in the village and hit the play button. The waters are continuing to rise. Yet, this creed and the definitions that arise from it are so powerfully present in our emotions, that even when we know it to be a destructive document killing our souls we have trouble leaving. It taunts our fears saying we will be lost without it. We must stay where we are. Do we listen to it and climb to the roof and pray that God will save us or make a run for higher ground?

For the sake of argument, let's say our desire to survive wins out and we leave the village and head for the distant mountains. Taking our memories but little else. We discover that it was not the village that unifies us, but our pilgrimage. We begin to understand that we cannot define God. If we believe anything in common it is that we cannot say “God IS anything.” We can only experience God and describe that. When we do, that is a very personal experience that may help us form a personal creed, but not a corporate one.

In our common journey, we may discover that God is not love, but love itself. God is not life, but life itself. God is not a being, but being itself. That insight begins to give Jesus new influence in our lives not as a deity but as a man through whom we experience the holy. That experience opens our eyes to the holiness in one another and in ourselves, drastically altering how we relate to one another and to ourselves. Judgment evaporates. Barriers dissolve. Hope flourishes. The world is enlivened and sanctified. We rejoice at the end of the day's journey for the freedom and sense of liberation we feel. Our joy becomes infectious and others not from our village join our little ragtag army of refugees. We enter neighboring villages and find kindred spirits who call themselves Humanists, Hindus, Muslims, Buddhists and Jews. And together we express relief that the God wrapped up in the Trinity was always too small. We conclude in prayerful silence humbled before the holy of which we now know we are a part. Thankful that we can now say, “Here are we,” creedless, but alive. Creedless but not Godless.

1 The preacher is indebted to Katherin Ford whose metaphors and ideas inspired this sermon. A New Christianity for a New World, John Shelby Spong, HarperCollins: 2001, pp 243-266.

June 4, 2006

Jane Knowles

Pentecost Sunday     
Acts 2:1-21     Matt 18:15:20

Alleluia; God's love is spread abroad in our hearts through the Holy Spirit.

Who would have thought that this exchange would work out so wonderfully? Several years ago I began serious planning although even when I was a little girl -- I think only of about 5 or 6 -- I first saw photographs of boiling mud pools in New Zealand and have wanted to visit ever since. Mud pools went on to geysers, and volcanoes and bush and tracks and Maori, and in my planning I suppose last of all Pakeha. I had a cousin who had emigrated and we heard wonderful tales from her, and I have been thrilled to meet up with her daughter and family whilst we've been here. Many friends have visited and returned to England with travellers' tales. There was no question, I was going to make a trip, and so how amazing that at the same time that I was making enquiries of the Bishop here, Glynn was doing the same with the Bishop of Oxford, and the rest is history.

Well, what have we found? To begin with, tremendous brightness and colour, and I now understand a little of New Zealand art. We found grandeur and beauty of scenery hard to exaggerate. We found out the reason that New Zealand is so green; we have found the majesty of mountains, rivers and seas, and trees and flowers and all the rest of it, but more than that, much more we found a people who were open and generous and welcoming and tolerant. We found enthusiasm for new ideas, whilst maintaining and cherishing the old. We found an excitement and quest for understanding and knowledge particularly in church circles and we found a freshness and progressiveness which I have not encountered before and will certainly take home with me.

But what has all this got to do with Pentecost you may be thinking; it's all very nice, but not very theological. Well actually it has everything to do with Pentecost and everything to do with baptism as well. Today we welcomed little Matthew into the church with enthusiasm and joy, just as you welcomed me; new life, new beginnings.

Today we celebrate new beginnings, and we think of the future. Today we celebrate love, and the gift of life and love. Today we celebrate being together as a church and enjoying each other's company and today we celebrate a meal together, a holy meal to which everyone is invited, and as with all good celebrations we share a cake too. And as we remember those disciples empowered by the Holy Spirit we pray that Matthew will be empowered by the Holy Spirit too.

During my time here I have had many theological discussions with lots of people and whilst it seems we are continually changing our names for God, (and people have been doing that from the beginning of time) and whilst we have been hearing how Jesus was just a man, or not, …the one thing that seems to be most constant is the power of the Holy Spirit. I like to think of the Holy Spirit as God in action. I believe it is the Holy Spirit that joins you to me, and to your neighbour and to all the people with whom you come in contact, and it is the Holy Spirit that is joining us here in St Matthew's in Auckland, New Zealand to the villages of Ramsden and Finstock and Leafield and Wilcote, and we cannot be unjoined. We are mysteriously woven together now. I was told recently of the Maori concept of the rope, individual strands woven together making a strong whole; I like that, and in England we might think of it as being woven into a tapestry. It cannot be undone. We are part each other's story.

I cannot explain the incredible generosity that we have received; You are good people; you are faithful and positive and generous and not afraid to make your opinions known, and active and all the rest of it, but there's something else; somehow you have been empowered to love me, and I in my turn have been similarly empowered and so, if that is not the Holy Spirit at work, I don't know what is.

We had a party the other night and no one was turned away; no one was excluded and those who could, came, rich and poor; those with lovely homes and those with no homes at all. That was the church in action as it is supposed to be; that's what Jesus taught us; that come what may love is at the top of the agenda.

So today we have a birthday cake, because it is the church's 2006th birthday, and we have balloons and candles and photographs and the world seems a more got together place; but within that huge family of human beings we have tragedies too, and whilst we celebrate we cannot forget the suffering that is going on in East Timor and Java. We can't send birthday cakes to Java and they would not be appropriate, but today, I ask you in the generosity that I know you have to open your hearts for the people who have suffered as a result of the earthquake there, and give generously. We will make sure that the money goes to the appropriate organisation. The strange thing is that in your giving you will receive so much more. The stories of Jesus may be simple, but the message is profound. Love one another as I have loved you, that your joy may be complete.

On Ascension Day we had a bunch of balloons in the Chancel, and in the morning of that same day we released balloons into the sky as a symbolic gesture reminding us of all those children who had died as a result of heart disease. Jesus and those children all died, and today we celebrate the fact that as they left their bodies behind so their spirits are with us always.

Today the Holy Spirit comes to us again; today and every day; as I burst this balloon the air will be free to travel where it wills; it can travel to you and if we open the doors, to those outside and who knows, to those across the seas, and even to the little rural benefice where I come from whose photograph we can all see; so it is with the Holy Spirit.

Happy birthday. 

May 28, 2006

Clay Nelson

Sunday after the Ascension 
    Acts 1:1-11 
    Luke 24:44-53

Considering how deadly dull they can be, you may be surprised to learn that sermons are living, breathing things and sometimes have a life of their own. If you were to live with a preacher the week before his or her sermon you would discover that the thoughts expressed are the nugget where the preacher's life that week and the Gospel intersected. It continues to live and breathe if it intersects with your life.

Today's sermon is no exception. What is different is it has already been preached. It was my sermon at our celebration of the Ascension last Thursday. After hearing it, Jane, who was scheduled to preach today, told me like she was Humphrey Bogart, “Preach it again, Clay.” That led to a theological reflection between us as to how pastoral is it to challenge our congregation's traditional beliefs? Is it a loving thing to do? As a result I will preach Thursday's sermon, but now it is a sermon within a sermon informed by that reflection. Here is a revised version of what some of you have already heard. If you were one of those eleven I'll wake you later.

Considering my last two sermons were on Jesus being just a man, I can be excused for wondering if Jane's invitation for me to preach tonight on the Ascension was a reflection of her mischievous sense of humour. I can hear her saying, “OK Clay, you're on record now, tell us how JUST a man ascended into heaven like an unfettered balloon.”

I confess it is clever of her. She's got me. For over two decades I've tried to preach on this event and squirmed. Suspending my disbelief, I dutifully stuck to the party line about the physical resurrection of Jesus' body. I only expressed my real beliefs off the record and out of earshot of the bishop.

So what do I believe? Unlike the people in Luke's time, I know about DNA. I know that the universe is infinite. I know about gravity. I know how babies are made. I know that Jesus was just a man, conceived like every other human being. I know helium didn't flow through his veins and no physical heaven on the other side of the clouds exists. I know that human life at some point ends and that when it happens human beings don't resuscitate and then float up to an imaginary heaven. I also believe that Luke was not using poetic license.

For him, Jesus' ascension was not a metaphor. He heard the story, in fact, two different versions of it and recorded them both because he believed it literally happened. Even if he was speaking metaphorically, neither a literal belief or a metaphorical one challenged his world view. He didn't know what we know. What he did know was that Jesus had changed the landscape. He had changed the rules. This man was so unlike any man anyone living knew he must not be just a man. He must've been God paying us a visit, and the Ascension was just his going back home. Made sense to Luke. Made him feel less alone in this hostile world. Made him feel better that God would make the trip to visit and on his return would look after him from his throne in heaven.

What made sense to Luke doesn't make sense to me.

I was first confronted with this conflict between my beliefs about Jesus and the Ascension and my faith years ago when I visited Israel. In Bethany in the eastern hills that overlook Jerusalem is the Chapel of the Ascension. It is a very small circular structure, maybe 5 metres in diameter that has since been turned into a mosque. Inside there are only slits for window light and a small niche on the eastern side to tell Muslim worshippers which way to pray to Mecca. But what is most unique is that the floor is dirt with a large stone in the center. We were told by our guide that this was the very stone from which Jesus ascended to heaven. Furthermore, those who were true believers could still see Jesus' last footprint on earth in the stone.

You and certainly Jane won't be surprised to learn that all I saw was a rock. I really did try, but it was just a rock. And not a very memorable one at that.

What was memorable was upon leaving the chapel I was greeted by a camel and his driver. Who explained that this was no ordinary camel. This was a kissing camel. He said if I didn't believe it, for one dollar, the camel would kiss me. I told him I would accept it on faith.

So clearly, I'm not totally without faith.

In fact, a long way from it.

For instance I do believe a man can ascend into the heavens like a balloon, with balloons. Larry Walters actually did it.

When Larry was 13, he saw weather balloons hanging from the ceiling of an Army-Navy Surplus shop. It was then he knew that some day he would be carried aloft by such balloons. Twenty years later on July 2nd, 1982, Larry tied 42 helium-filled balloons to a lawn chair in the backyard of his girlfriend's house in San Pedro, California. With the help of his ground crew, Larry secured himself into the lawn chair which was anchored to the bumper of a friend's car by two nylon tethers. Among his supplies was a BB gun to shoot out the balloons when he was ready to descend. His goal was to sail across the desert and hopefully make it to the Rocky Mountains in a few days. But things didn't quite work out for Larry. After his crew cut the first tether, the second one also snapped. Larry shot into the LA sky at over 300 metres per minute. A TWA pilot first spotted Larry and radioed the tower that he was passing a guy in a lawn chair at 5000 metres! The Federal Aviation Administration was not amused. Larry started shooting out the balloons to start his descent but accidentally dropped the gun. After drifting for a couple of hours he eventually landed in a Long Beach neighborhood entangled in power lines. He was uninjured.

Now that is a true ascension. Funny, quirky, but not life changing. But Larry did inspire a wonderful Australian film, Danny Deckchair, which while untrue in fact is full of truth. The hero, Danny, a bored cement worker, is clearly an unlikely Christ figure. In a fashion similar to Larry's he ascends from his backyard in Sydney during a barbecue and lands less than gracefully in a small town in the Australian outback. By this act of departure and arrival everything changes not only for Danny, but for those in Sydney and those in the town. Danny's unique departure inspires those at home to take risks. To live life more boldly. To act on their dreams. To become all they can be. In having acted out his dream, he finds new confidence and becomes a source of affirmation for the townsfolk who used to see themselves as backwater short poppies but now see even delivering the mail as a noble endeavour. Everyone is transformed by his ascension. New life and love accompany his resurrection.

Luke's two versions of the Ascension are not true like Larry's lift off but are true like Danny Deckchair. While the event certainly did not happen in a literal way, the story does attempt to capture the quality of a real man whose coming and going in their lives changed them forever.

That's why Luke's surprising ending isn't so surprising.

The ending is about the joy the disciples felt upon seeing their Lord departing.

A surprising reaction considering they had allegedly just seen their beloved master fade from sight. Why no grief? Why no sorrow and tears?

Because the God they saw in him they found in themselves. In his departure they discovered they could love as wastefully as he did. They could live as abundantly as he did. They could bring about healing and reconciliation just as he did. With Jesus pointing the way, they had found God, and while Jesus was gone, the God he pointed to was everywhere, even in them. Now that's good news to have faith in. It sure beats kissing camels.

OK, those of you who already heard it can check back in.

That was the sermon that was. Now, back to the sermon that is.

Is standing in this pulpit telling you that Jesus was not some kind of incarnate deity, in contradiction to scripture and the historic creeds of the church, a pastoral, loving thing to do? Nevermind heretical.

For me it is a difficult thing to do. It may unsettle you. It may even make you angry. Some of you, if you buy what I'm selling, may question your faith or wonder why you even bother to come here on Sunday mornings. But I would argue it is still the kindest thing to do.

If your faith is sustained by a belief in a miraculous understanding of Jesus that has to ignore what you know about the real world, is it a faith that can help you in the real world?

Eventually this world of advancing scientific knowledge, that no longer requires a personal God to create, heal and sustain life will make the God we have had irrelevant, if it hasn't already. I think God would rather be dead than irrelevant. And if God is irrelevant, Jesus, who has been portrayed by Luke and the church as the incarnation of this God, will suffer the same fate. For many he already has.

The human Jesus does not suffer the same fate. The human Jesus, instead of only showing us God in all “His” glory, also shows us in all of ours. This Jesus becomes a window through which we can glimpse the mystery of love and life and being we are called into. This Jesus through his radical love of even his enemies invites us into that mystery that surrounds us and is part of our very being. This Jesus becomes the door way through which I'm willing to walk into that mystery. For this mystery, I am willing to die to have new life.

Mystery makes sense to me, the miraculous doesn't. The mysterious Jesus inspires me and calls me to new levels of being. The miraculous Jesus helps me as much as telling a child that babies come from the cabbage patch. The mysterious Jesus sustains my faith. The miraculous Jesus impedes it.

So if you were up here, which Jesus would you proclaim?

May 21, 2006

Glynn Cardy

A teddy bear blessing at St James Anglican Church, Ramsden, in Oxfordshire

Easter 7     1 John 5:9-13     John 17:6-19

I think there are many who are blest and who bless us. This morning I offer five beatitudes as a contribution to our 'gospel', that work-in- progress written in your life and in mine.

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Blessed are the storytellers, they remind us that reality is more than one-dimensional.

We live in a culture that can create a photograph of something that never happened, a movie where the characters have their body parts 'enhanced', and reality TV shows that bears little resemblance to anybody's reality. Truth is so evasive that some discourage us from even seeking it, telling us that the outward appearance is all there is.

The Man Whose Mother Was A Pirate is a children's book written by Margaret Mahy. On the man's journey to the sea, that he'd never seen, he encounters a philosopher. “Go back little man,” the philosopher advises, “because the wonderful things are always less wonderful than you [think]… the sea is less warm, the joke less funny, the taste not as good as the smell.” The man whose mother was a pirate responds: “I must go.” And off he ran towards the sea. He is true, not to his experience, but to the faint yearning of his heart. A yearning that grows stronger the closer he comes to fulfilling it. Truth, 'the truth that sets us free', is first believed in before it's seen.

Margaret Mahy is a storyteller. Her vocation is to stoke the fires of our imagination, as a stoker once fed the fires of an engine. It is in the imagination that dreams are developed. Imagination is the place where solutions beyond the realms of possibility are trialed. It is the place where love is believed in despite the lack of evidence

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Blessed are those who consider themselves blest.

I tire of the ungrateful. I tire of those who think that everything they have has been earned. They fail to open their eyes to the world, their ears to the music, and their hearts to the notes of kindness reverberating around them. Although I try to be understanding, I also tire of the miserable who can only see misery. The sunlight of hope shines on the happy and the sad. It is our choice whether hope will brighten our day, or whether we will go indoors and shut it out. I have a little coffee coaster embossed with the words: 'Don't forget to pause a moment and thank God for everything'. Thanking God for everything is difficult. Most of us want something different to have happened in the past. But thanking God is a way of accepting who we are. And acceptance is a precursor to a change of heart. And a change in the heart can change everything.

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Blessed are those who work for change – in themselves, their community, and our world.

Back in the days when I was a curate I was shocked to hear that my vicar had refused to pray for a lady. She had come to him to ask for a prayer, and he'd said no. It felt to me like he'd breeched the bedrock of priestly care. The lady certainly thought so. Sometimes what people ask for is not what we should give them. My vicar had prayed with this woman many times in the past. He became convinced that this prayer was actually a barrier to her spiritual growth, and he now refused to collude. It wasn't an easy decision for him.

One of the tasks of a priest is to help people find their own way into the expanse of God. It is a journey. The priest is simply a fellow traveller, who, like others, is pointing out things of beauty and interest along the way. The priest also has the job of encouraging people to get off their posteriors and keep moving.

Courage is a word that moviemakers and sports' commentators try to exclusively commandeer. Their usage of the word brings to mind battlefields, bravery, and a 'never say die' attitude. But courage is a word far larger than that. For Christians it is simply about following the example of Jesus. Being kind can be an act of courage. Being true to yourself can be an act of courage. Being different can be very courageous. It takes courage to work for change. We need to listen, to build trust, to be open to change within ourselves, as well as helping others on that journey. Change is a journey. And helping change come about is both an art and a prayer.

I'm reminded of the woman who had the difficult task of trying to get her dog to take a liquid medicine. The woman would gingerly approach with the spoonful of medicine as her husband held the dog. Inevitably there would be a struggle. One day the dog escaped the hold and knocked the medicine and spoon over the kitchen floor. The woman was exasperated. Imagine then her surprise when the dog then proceeded to lick up the spilt liquid from the floor. It wasn't the medicine the dog objected to, but the method.

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Blessed are those who know an animal as a friend, they will have their humanity enriched.

I heard a story of a fire officer entering a burning building in order to rescue a cat. Not once, but twice! The cat on being brought safely out showed her gratitude by heading straight back in. Her kittens were inside. The fire officer too headed back in, and this time re-emerged with both mum and the kids. In helping an animal, or being helped by an animal, our human spirit is nurtured. The spirit is the part of us that dances with God. The human-animal relationship is not the same as other relationships. That cat did not only get lucky, it reminded the fire officer of the heart of his vocation, namely to save life. Likewise animals remind us all of our vocation to befriend life. In befriending life we befriend our own soul.

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Blessed are the Teddy Bears and all who cuddle them.

Bears are an important part of many people's childhood. They come to us furry and clean and after seemingly only a little time start to lose both. As they're cuddled, carried, sucked, and cherished they lose their pristine appearance and gain love instead. Then, smothered in love, toast crumbs and honey, they become real. I heard last week of a bear being given to an elderly woman nearing the end of her life who had always enjoyed pets in the house. In her final months she directed her love towards that bear, and received comfort in return. The bear became real.

'How can you bless Teddy Bears?' asked one reporter over the phone, 'They're not real.' 

Words like 'real' are given substance by our experience rather than by rational scientific method. We decide what is real. I base my decision to bless on what brings forth life and love. I have a blog called Lucky Bear. [i] It is the title of a book by Joan Phillips. The luck of the bear is not due to circumstances but attitude. When bad things happen Lucky Bear uses them as stepping stones to the next adventure. It is an optimistic attitude. I chose the name for my blog site because spirituality and religion are about attitude. Are we, for example, primarily sinful creatures who need correction and rules, or are we magnificent creations whose imaginations and laughter are part of God? Is life dangerous, or wonderful? Is humour wicked, or holy? Is the jar half empty, or half full? We have a choice about which attitude, theology, and spirituality we want to follow. I choose to believe in Teddy Bears because I have known and seen the love and joy they elicit.

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Blessed are the storytellers.

Blessed are those who consider themselves blest.

Blessed are those who work for change.

Blessed are those who know an animal as a friend.

Blessed are Teddy Bears and all who cuddle them.

May the beatitudes of our experience mingle with the wisdom of the ages to continually open our hearts to the wonder of God and gift of one another.

[i] http://aluckybear.blogspot.com/

May 14, 2006

Jane Knowles

Fifth Sunday of Easter
     Acts 8: 26-40     
John 15:1-8

Once upon a time, all the best stories start like that; Once upon a time, I lived in the village of Little Sandhurst in Berkshire, and we had a beautiful but small garden and in the garden was an overgrown vine. Now that's quite unusual in England. It's usually too cold, but we had a vine and it grew and it grew and it grew, and no one touched it and it choked all the other plants around it, and then one day I decided to ask a friend to prune it and the other plants in the garden whilst I was at work. I came home to a veritable scene of destruction. It looked as if a helicopter had landed in the garden with its blades still running. I was horrified.

Gradually I got used to it and I could see that the plants and the vine began to flourish again and the whole thing looked much better, and then Alleluia in the Autumn the vine produced some fruit; not just some, a lot; it was dripping with large bunches of grapes, and I was able to take some to our Harvest Festival.

Now I know there are many gardeners amongst you and you will know the value of pruning. There is no doubt that with good pruning the plant will thrive and produce fruit and will continue to flourish.

The gospel we have heard today is one of the most well known passages in the bible, and we all can see in our mind's eye the picture that it paints of the vine with many branches, but behind it there is something rather frightening, for who is not afraid of the pruner's knife, and who is not afraid of the surgeon's knife?

But when I read this passage, I do not hear words of brutality, I hear words of love. I do not hear all that frightening stuff about withering away or being burnt. What I hear is the urgency of Jesus in his pleas to his friends. He is saying “for my sake, if you love me, please listen to me. It really is important, the difference between life and death. I can promise you everything if you listen to me”. He is saying I am the way and the truth and the life; that is his promise and it is such a huge promise.

How can that be? How can he make such a statement? What do we have to do? I'll leave that with you for a moment whilst I tell you something about the baptism services that I take.

Baptisms are some of the loveliest services that we have in church. They encompass the essence of the Christian faith even though those who attend are not always aware of that, and at a baptism, there is usually so much love around. There are 3 symbols that we use and 3 promises; one that with the oil of baptism, the child will be spiritually healed throughout its life come what may; 2 that with the water of baptism he will be forgiven by God throughout his life and will know forgiveness if he asks; and the 3rd symbol is that of a lighted candle, and that candle is a torch and then I remind everyone of the darkness of the night and the necessity to carry a torch to show them the way, and if they follow the light of Christ they will not get lost in the dark; special symbols and easy to identify with. Now do you see the connection?

Clay and I have been having very interesting theological discussions since I have been here and we have been exploring each other's belief's and thought processes and although we range far and wide, one of the conclusions we have come to at this moment is a very simple one and that is when all is said and done, look to Jesus. He showed us how to live; he was radical and beautiful and human and divine, and most of all he really cares for and loves us, and notice I use the present tense. In this passage from John, Jesus is desperate to show us the way, to be the torch, the candle, the light, and so often we are blind; we blunder around without a torch, but we know deep down that what Jesus says is true. We know that a plant thrives when it is pruned and cut back; so do we. We know that a vine bleeds when it has been pruned; so did Jesus. We know that a branch that is cut off and separated from the plant simply withers and dies and so do we spiritually; we need our community and we need to be in touch with God through prayer. We know too that the best thing to do with garden rubbish is to clear it up and burn it, and that's the difficult bit; but we do have to let go of the rubbish that we have allowed ourselves to store up.

That's why when we come to Holy Communion it is so special. We all have doubts and fears and we certainly all have faults and things which we would like to be rid of, and being here in church helps us to look towards the truth and beauty of Jesus, and as we do so to shed the rubbish as we say our confession; then we are able to share in the body and blood of Jesus. It is mystical and it is a mystery. When we come here with all our humanity, Jesus shows us how to live; and yes we fail time and time again. There are times when we are not kind to each other even here in this holy place; yes there are times when people get upset and there are times when outsiders can indeed point the finger and accuse us of not practising what we preach, but we are here and we are here because we want to be and we need to be and we are on a journey which will lead us more and more towards the love of God which is the centre of all our being.

So when you come to the altar rail today, if you have any grievance with anyone leave it at the foot of the cross. Let it be pruned away. It is the greatest gift that we can give to Jesus, and a gross arrogance on our part if we hang on to it. Jesus died so that we will have life in all its abundance; he wants us to be in true union, communion with him.

Our gospel reading for today continues with the words, “I have spoken thus to you so that my joy may be in you and your joy complete”; words that speak of the experience of pain and the knowledge that we all have to suffer, to dwell in the valley of the shadow of loss as Clay so eloquently put it last week, in order that our joy may be complete. Make no mistake about it God loves us, and wants to share that love with us, but we too have our part to play.

May 7, 2006

Clay Nelson

Fourth Sunday of Easter     
Psalm 23     
John 10:11-18

On Palm Sunday I tried to remind us that Jesus was just a man with an enormous capacity to love in the face of the ultimate human fear, death. And if he could overcome death, so could we. But today's Gospel challenges my view of Jesus in no uncertain terms.

Now four weeks into Easter John's gospel has Jesus saying he is the “Good Shepherd.” Does that mean he is just a man who tends sheep for a living? No, not anymore than he is a loaf of bread, a grapevine, or glass of water. All images Jesus applies to himself in this Gospel.

No, this beloved image of Jesus that is frequently used at funerals and is commonly captured in lovely stained glass, even here at St Matthew's over there in the Charles Tailby window, has a much more important purpose for John.

John is echoing the 23rd Psalm. “The Lord is my Shepherd.” By the time John wrote this some 60 to 80 years after Jesus' death, Jesus has gone through a remarkable transformation in the mind of the church from an itinerant Jewish rabbi and teacher, to messianic leader in the line of David, to an adopted son of God, to the Son of God, to a Greek concept of being the incarnate Word of God, one with the Father, through whom the world was made. The Doctrine of the Trinity is still several centuries away, but the groundwork for it has already been laid. In having Jesus say “I am the Good Shepherd,” John is identifying him as God. The same God who keeps us from want, lays down with us in green pastures, and walks with us even through the valley of the shadow of death.

Not only does John say God and Jesus are all but the same, he goes further. Jesus has shown us that God will not only walk through the valley but has died for us as well.

Kiwi's are more than familiar with sheep. Even in this high tech world they are an important part of our economy valued for their wool for manufacturing and meat for food. But the beginnings of animal husbandry were not originally for food and clothing. Animals were first raised to be sacrificed to the gods, to please and appease. When John describes Jesus as the Good Shepherd, that is God, he has him go further to say the good shepherd lays down his life for the flock. By implication Jesus in his crucifixion was the lamb God sacrificed to appease God. Jesus is both the sacrifice and the one to whom it is offered. A concept that is hardly helpful to our modern minds.

For John, the early church, and up until about 200 years ago that was everyone's view. Jesus was very definitely not just a man.

That is when scientific knowledge made it challenging to understand God as a being on a throne in heaven who intervenes on occasion to deliver us from evil and give us today our daily bread. The world had matured and moved on, but our understanding of God was trapped in scripture and remained stuck in a time frame not our own. Many have decided God is no longer relevant. Even dead. And if God is no longer meaningful, neither is Jesus who was seen to be one and the same. Some have held on to Jesus just barely by appreciating only his teachings and wisdom. Still others reject and revile the modern secular culture and suspend their minds and disbelief to hang on fervently to a literal understanding of the God of the Bible and his son, the divine Jesus. They are like the Queen of Hearts who tells Alice that she believes “as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”

I think Jesus the man would weep that it has come to this. 

Jesus was not exempt from his time in history. God was still a being residing in heaven, just above the stars. He was a Jew. Like most he did not believe in an afterlife. Sheol was the place of the dead, who stayed dead. To be a good Jew you had to live this life well. Jesus as a Jew believed in one God, and would never have conceived of himself as the second person of the godhead. The most he would've agreed to is that we can choose life or death in how we live. His message and example was to choose life. When we do, we reveal the nature of God that is within us and that's cool. But more importantly we spread the kingdom of heaven. The kingdom was a state of being fully human where we lived fearlessly and abundantly and loved wastefully. It was a place where sin no longer separated us and all were welcomed to the party he called the wedding feast.

Jesus might have asked John, “Why do you spend so much time trying to explain me? Is it to avoid doing as I have done?” But he might not have minded being described as the Good Shepherd, but not for the reason John did it, which would have mystified him.

Shepherds by Jesus time were not much admired. They were barely above tax collectors in the eyes of respectable folk. Shepherds were the dispossessed, the lowest rung of society. No longer owning their own land, then losing their sheep, they often ended up as the hired hands of the Rome-oriented wealthy urban dwellers -- those absentee landlords of Jesus' parables.

These hired shepherd-servants depended for their livelihood on work that required them to be out in the fields and away from their mothers, wives, sisters, and daughters, whom an honorable man with the means to do so would have stayed home to protect. As a result, shepherds were considered the epitome of questionable honor among men -- unreliable at best, borderline bandits at worst. In such a context, a good shepherd was a contradiction in terms. As the author of the Good Samaritan, Jesus would've appreciated the irony and smiled with amusement at his portrayal as the gentle Jesus with the lamb in our window.

But it was not always thus. When Hebrews were nomads, shepherding was a noble profession. Shepherds moved daily into the unknown trusting God that there would be manna from heaven and fresh water from stones. They looked for God in the journey. Life was hard but they moved through it. It had to be lonely under the desert stars but they found comfort in community, in keeping their flock together. They understood that they were a partnered people. Partnered with God and each other.

When cities appeared not only did the nomadic life disappear so did their trust in the journey. Transition was no longer accepted as normal, it was feared. But transitions did not go away. We are still born, reared, schooled, employed, unemployed, partnered, unpartnered, care-givers and given care, bereaved, and eventually we die. Death though is not simply the end of the life of our bodies, it is the passage of each moment of experience as it fades into the next, each day as it darkens into the next. We are always moving, always walking, in the valley of the shadow of loss.

Fear is often the defining quality of our journey. But unlike the nomadic shepherd we have not been formed in the wilderness. We rarely experience community. To trust in the midst of our fear seems naïve in this brutal world. For many of us we no longer have John's God and John's Jesus to protect us. We are left to ourselves and the black hole of anxiety in our gut that threatens to suck us into oblivion. We resist it by hanging on to anger at feeling this way or by denying its reality or by offering it sacrifices of alcohol, drugs, work, food, or relationships, But nothing appeases it or at least not for long.

Jesus the man knew the same feelings, scripture, probably with some embarrassment, even records it. Once in the Garden of Gethsemane when he sweated blood and begged to be spared his apparent fate and once on the cross when he quoted a psalm, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

Jesus the man would accept the title “Good Shepherd” only as an opportunity to show us the nomadic way and to invite us all to be good shepherds. Don't fight it, don't deny it, don't appease it, he might say, we are all in continual transition and we are all in this together. It is both the blessing and the curse of our humanity. 

Life is letting go in order to receive - one moment to the next. We can be either fearful of that journey, or trust the power behind it. If we hang on in fear, our lives close in on themselves, leading to death. If we let go in trust, our lives open up to new life. Trust God's power which is found in love, life and our very being to transform us.

Resurrection isn't about resuscitated bodies it is about transformation, he might tell us. It is about experiencing that which we call God in every moment of our lives. Entering into those moments fully, be they difficult or joyous, gives us the possibility of living life to the fullest. Doing it with love assures it.

I, a man did it, he might remind us. You don't have to believe six impossible things before breakfast to do as well. The capacity is within us because God is there. We don't have to fear the journey because God is there as well. God goes before us and I have shown the way. Let go and be on your way.

April 30, 2006

Jane Knowles

The Third Sunday after Easter
     Passiontide 
    1 John 3:1-7     
Luke 24:36-48

We all know how many senses we have, don't we, and which ones predominate? Five I think at the last count. As civilisations have progressed so senses have changed. I think that originally our sense of smell was very acute, as was our hearing, but now the sense of sight seems to predominate, and many of you have been used to reading sermons or lecture notes as they are delivered; indeed in schools children have tremendous difficulty in concentrating or focussing their attention at all if they haven't anything to read, or if they haven't a fully activated computer screen in front of them with light and action and all the rest of it; so today I challenge you, if you have your sermon notes in front of you , put them down and allow yourself to be transported back to that 1st century somewhere in the middle east, to the hot dry dust of a small town during a Roman occupation, where fear and rebellion are in the air. Troubled times; rumours, threats, crowds, mobs -- not unlike that which we see in Palestine and Israel today.

Anyone who reads an account of the post resurrection narratives cannot fail to be struck by the contrast between before Easter and afterwards. Before Easter, great drama, heightened tension, fear, betrayal, humility, love all bound up together in a great journey along the road to Golgotha, step by ghastly step. I don't know how many of you have been to Jerusalem, I hesitate to call it the Holy Land, because that seems so far from the case these days, but when we went I was very impressed with the old stone cobbled road along which Jesus may have travelled carrying his cross. The end of the journey; horrendous, and yet from the moment that Mary Magdalene saw him in the garden and heard him call her name everything has changed. The tension disappears into the ether like so much mist rising out of the valleys in the Bay of Islands. Mary Magdalene saw him and knew him. The disciples in the Upper room saw him and to pick up from Denys' wonderful sermon last week, when he talked about the cowering disciples in a locked room, the transformation from that situation to the excited and strong and confidant evangelists that they became; surely all that is at the very least remarkable.

I love to hear and to read the different accounts of the post resurrection experiences in the gospels, and so many of them are involved with our senses. Mary Magdalene heard her name being called; Thomas was invited to touch; the disciples on the road to Emmaus were invited to see and to taste, and Simon Peter and the others must have smelt the fish being grilled from across the water, after Jesus had told them to put the net out again. Jesus appeared in so many ways to so many people, that gradually it was accepted; the impossible had happened; he had indeed risen from the dead, and his opening greeting was “Peace be with you”. I hadn't thought about these words in quite the way of a Jewish shalom, that Clay talked about recently. That bit's easy to imagine isn't it? Jesus the Jewish rabbi calling Shalom as he entered a building, and I think that's a wonderful image.

But I am struck too by the universality of it all. Here we are in New Zealand, with our own interpretations of Jesus the man; and there is something familiar of our own culture and heritage as well as the Jewish one. Last week I attended a wedding here and the hymn chosen was Jerusalem; I'm sure you all know it, and included in the words are “til we have built Jerusalem in England 's green and pleasant land”. How peculiar. What was Blake saying? I think it's something to do with connection and individuality as well as otherness. Jesus is here in this land identifying with you and me, and you and me with him from whatever culture or background we come. Those lines of Blake could have been written here too, except that they don't scan. Something about bringing Jesus here as well as we going there.

A couple of years ago I was privileged to attend a sort of English Oberammagau in a beautiful part of Surrey , at a place called Wintershall. I had my doubts before I went. English reserve and all that, (even though I'm Welsh) but in the event it was a wonderful day; a whole day. I can see in my mind's eye so many things from that day, not least when somehow the thousands of us who were there were able to share in the feeding of the 5000, out on the hillside and also being part of the crowd as we made our way, chatting and staring, and being just a little bit frightened by the dressed up Roman soldiers who were all around; but the thing I remember most was the resurrection appearance; of Jesus walking in bright white shining robes, (it was a beautiful summer's day) along the side of an English lake in dappled sunshine and a disciple leaping out of the boat and jumping into the water to try to walk and to swim towards him.

What tosh you may all be thinking; the first Easter wasn't a bit like that; but in some way I believe it was, because it's personal to me and to you wherever you may be. For on that day in Surrey we were able to identify with Jesus from our own culture, and to be moved and more than that to be uplifted and to have some understanding in the mystery of it all. He came to save us too. At Oberammagau, which is a passion play that only takes place every 10 years, the cast who rehearse for a very long time, become physically like those whom they portray? In S. America the crucifixion and resurrection are also re enacted in a different way, and here I am beginning to understand that the Maori culture contributes and receives in its own way.

Jesus said to the eleven “go now and make all nations my disciples,” and somehow that's exactly what they did, and that to me is the greatest miracle.

The events of small community at a time of great unrest, during Roman occupation 2000 years ago, have been passed on from generation to generation, to all people and all cultures because of one man, whose name was Jesus and today that name is known throughout the world .

More books have been written about him than any other subject; universities have been founded for the study of theology; great minds throughout the centuries have grappled with this great mystery and still we are grappling and exploring today and all because one man died for us and rose from the dead for us because he loved us.

April 16, 2006

Jane Knowles

Easter Sunday
     1 Corinthians 15: 1-11     
John 20: 1-18

Easter day! Alleluia. Christ is risen; he is risen indeed. Alleluia.

So What? What does it mean for you and me? Well this is the happiest day in the Christian calendar; more than Christmas, more than harvest festival, more than any other day for today we celebrate the fact that come what may we all have a future. We don't have to fear death any more.

On Friday I was preaching about the presence of fear all around in all those trying to put Jesus to death, but today that is behind us. We need not fear any more; and it is fear that is the opposite of love, not hate or bitterness but sheer blinding crucifying fear.

Jesus suffered so much, and we have particularly been reflecting in these last few days on exactly what he suffered. I think the hardest thing was that he was betrayed by his friends, and there was one wobbly moment when he cried out “My God My God why have you forsaken me?” After that, it was courage and resolution lit up by love all the way. He showed us that whatever the world throws at us, there is a way through. We don't have to be defeated by it, we just have to follow his example and always it is to love others as ourselves. It might mean that we have to suffer for what we believe to be right; it might mean we have to suffer for the sake of others, but through the suffering there is triumph and there is literally a light at the end of the tunnel.

Now of course it is difficult for us to believe that Jesus literally rose from the dead and different people have different interpretations of that, and so I love that passage in Corinthians in which St Paul states in a factual way as the result of eye witness accounts what happened; “Christ died for our sins; in accordance with the scriptures.” “That he was buried; that he was raised to life on the 3rd day, according to the scriptures; that he appeared to Peter and afterwards to the twelve and then to 500 of our brothers and in the end even to me Paul.” and remember that Paul's letter was probably written before any of the gospels, in about 54 AD to members of the church in Corinth who had been discussing the nature of the risen Christ, soul or body.

But all that is looking back at the events, from our historical perspective. Let us look again at the Gospel reading. It tells us with great drama that Mary Magdalene, couldn't wait through the night any longer and so went to the tomb when it was still dark, early in the morning. In the little villages where I minister we still bury the dead in the churchyards surrounding the churches and I know that people visit the churchyards very frequently, many every day following the death of a loved one, and of all the things that people get upset about it is the condition of the churchyard, and their particular graves and so imagine Mary Magdalene on that first Easter day, arriving at the tomb in great grief and anguish; the end of it all; all that promise had come to nothing; her beloved was dead, and she was in agony.

So imagine her thoughts when she saw that the grave had been disturbed and the body gone; and then imagine that through her tears, and we all know that looking through tears, light and colour can be enhanced and changed, looking through the tears she saw two angels, and she was so convinced of their presence that she was able to talk to them, and then, she turned round and still through the tears, in desperation asked the gardener “where have you taken him.” All he had to say was “Mary” and that was enough. Then she knew!

For some reason part of my journey this year has been a desire to know the face of Christ. I don't know why I want that, and others may think me stupid or immature, but that is what I have been desiring; but I can see that we don't need that. Jesus the perfect man died on a cross and appeared to so many subsequently, and instead of that becoming some spooky story in a little sect somewhere far away, it is the news that has changed the world, not just then but for the subsequent 2000 years.

Jesus Christ is risen today; he calls us by name; we need fear death no more; life doesn't stop. We have a future. Come what may there is hope; we are all children of God whoever, and whatever he or she is, and we are brothers and sisters of Jesus, and just as the earth consists of stardust so by definition we are god dust, made out of God for there was nothing else he could make us out of, and isn't that a wonderful thought? We are connected.

Today I feel particularly privileged and happy because not only am I connected to all the people back home who I know will be celebrating, some on a little hill, welcoming in the dawn of Easter day, but also with all the people here. The love of God goes right around the world. We are connected; we are an Easter people and today we celebrate. The news is so great that it cannot be contained and so just as the bubbles need to fizz out of this bottle, so we can fizz with the excitement of Easter Day. Have a very happy Easter.

April 14, 2006

Jane Knowles

Good Friday     John 18:1-19, 42

What can I say? The gospel reading has laid out simply and factually the account of the dreadful happenings leading up to Jesus' death. Usually the writer of the gospel of John punctuates everything with metaphors and hidden meanings but here in this passage we read the account seemingly as it happened, and all human life is there in all its frailty.

Peter, afraid, so he denies Jesus, Pilate afraid so he washes his hands of Jesus, the Jewish leaders afraid of losing their power so they kill Jesus. Fear, fear, fear; it seems that throughout it all fear is the emotion that rises to the surface.

Throughout history there has been so much evidence of that, and throughout history a key player l is the crowd; the fickleness of the crowd, one moment cheering and shouting hosannas and the next shouting crucify. What a strange thing it is that a crowd can be so easily manipulated; we only have to think of crowds today; football crowds in England, or student crowds in France last week. So often riots break out after a Mardi Gras or happy celebrations; and since time was individuals have used their power to manipulate the crowd; Hitler at the Nuremburg rallies, Mussolini, Saddam Hussein; power and fear, the two great evils, but in the midst of it all there stands Jesus; his hour had come; no fear is evident; he does not retaliate; he stands firm answering the questions appropriately; but there comes a moment when the reporting stops and the writer of John reveals one of the most loving and self giving moments of them all; Jesus looking down from the cross sees his mother, and the disciple whom he loves and he says “ Mother there is your son;” and to the disciple, “ there is your mother”. In his hour of distress and agony, he was able to reach out to those he loved dearly and individually, and enable them to love each other for his sake. Entirely self giving; he could do no more. Jesus the son of God, gave of himself completely and so he died.

So where does that leave us today? Today is not the day to think about Sunday, Easter Day. Today is the day to reflect, and to meditate on what happened all those years ago and to think about our part within the whole scenario. Where would you have been? Would you have been strong and impetuous and devoted like Peter, but then been found wanting at the important moment; would you use your power or influence to manipulate those around you; would you have been a bystander, watching it all but not wanting to get involved; would you have been one of the crowd blowing this way or that, or would you have been like Mary at the foot of the cross watching her son die, and we all know that to watch the beloved in pain is probably worse than the pain itself; would you have been like John, there to the last, close by; a true friend; Maybe you would have been a mixture of all these things; but behind it all there's only one thing that matters. Jesus died because he loved us.

This Good Friday, I pray that that's what will inspire all our actions and thoughts. No resurrection yet; just love.

April 13, 2006

Jane Knowles

John 13:1-17, 31b-35 

A special night. All over the world people are holding their breath as they come to this service. We have come in the dark, and in England I think it will be light, but dark or light tonight is the night when we have the opportunity to understand the intimacy of Jesus with his disciples and the intimacy of Jesus with us; as Clay was saying on Sunday, humanity in all its beauty and its frailty.

Just imagine the scene; Jesus in an upper room with his friends. Incidentally we have just recently created an upper room in one of the churches in the benefice, and that is a place where friends can go, particularly the young people; an upper room, and rather than the long rectangular table that we all think of as depicted by Leonardo da Vinci, probably the disciples were sitting around on low cushions, with the food in the middle, on a low table; an upper room with friendship and camaraderie, and yet something else was in the air. And Jesus waited his moment. He tied a towel round him and set about washing his disciples feet.

Now to some of us that is a very uncomfortable thing to do, and to others very common place. For the parents amongst you, it is the most normal and one of the loveliest things to wash your children's feet; to the doctors and nurses amongst you it is one of the every day activities, to wash those who cannot wash themselves and part of your vocation. Sometimes I wash my mother's feet, and I will admit initially I found that far less comfortable than washing my children's feet, I'm not sure why; and there may be some amongst you who have never washed another's feet.

What about the other way round. How do we feel about being washed? A child usually loves being bathed by its parent and it's a time of great bonding, fun and intimacy. It's a great treat as a grandmother to bath my grandchildren. But when does it stop, this enjoyment of other people washing us? At some stage it becomes almost an invasion of privacy; too intimate a thing to do in the normal course of events, and certainly we would not expect those we don't know well to undertake such a course of action.

But Jesus, the leader, the one who increasingly attracted crowds of people to him, the one who might have expected to be waited on hand and foot, kneeled down and washed his disciples feet, and after some protestation from Peter, they let him.

That was an intimate act, and an act of love. You couldn't do it to another adult unless you loved them, and that is what we are re enacting today; its not about subservience, or cleanliness, or hygene; it is an act of love. Jesus was prepared to wash his disciples feet.

April 9, 2006

Clay Nelson

Palm Sunday

Ever had a tune going through your head that just won’t go away? The one in my head this week is one I used to teach the children of my parish years ago when my theology was more uncritical. It started looping through my head while reflecting on what it is like for us to go as a congregation singing Hosannas to the anointed king to crying out in bloodlust for his death only minutes later. But what is even more annoying than having a cheery little tune running non-stop, is having to hum most of the words because the lyrics are a victim of an aging memory. What I do remember is its theme. It is about some of the surprises found in scripture like when David as a young boy goes out to do a man’s job confronting Goliath with only five smooth stones and a sling. To which David’s father observes in the song, “He couldn’t be my son,” he said. “God would have a better plan,” which is followed by the chorus:

Surprise! Surprise! God is a surprise. Right before your eyes.


It's baffling to the wise.


Surprise! Surprise! God is a surprise! Open up your eyes and see!

Then I hum a few more verses. But then there is one other piece I don’t have to hum. It comes after a verse that describes what we have just participated in, the crucifixion. In response the song observes, “He couldn’t be my God,” I said. “He’d have a better plan!”

That line is one more reason this song annoys me.

If I interpret it like the church has always done, that the death of Jesus on the cross was our God’s plan for making us feel better about ourselves, it fails miserably and is intellectually offensive. 

Suppose you come to me for spiritual support about something that is making your life hell. There are so many examples to choose from. Suppose it is a no win choice with which you are faced at work or guilt over hurting someone unintentionally or your partner has been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s or your doctor has just told you your cancer is no longer in remission and there is nothing more she can do. I have found the church’s response that everything is going to be OK because God sent his only son to a cruel and bloody death for me, totally stuffed. And if that is all I offered you at such a moment, some of you would tell me to sod off and the rest of you would think it.

To find any comfort and insight I have to look at the events we have relived this morning without the veneer the church has put on it. I need to look at its unvarnished truth. Remember that it took four hundred years for the church to reach the general consensus that Jesus must’ve been fully God as well as fully human. Then for the next 1600 years rarely mentioned the latter.

Let’s reclaim the truth that Mary Magdalene sings in Jesus Christ Superstar, “He’s just a man.” There is no evidence that Jesus saw himself as anything more. He didn’t know his “last name” would become Christ.

He’s just a man who faced a difficult world, like all other men and women who came before him and all who have come after him. Disease, poverty, injustice, death have always been part of the human condition and they still are and always will be. Our sense of powerlessness in the face of nature and human institutions is still a fact of life, just as it was for Jesus and for everyone before him. Life has been difficult for humanity ever since we sacrificed our fins to crawl out of the prehistoric soup and evolve to a point where we could trade relying on our instincts for free will.

As an aside, I have to wonder if that “free will” thing was an intelligent design decision. It ranks right up there with why God would drive wedges into humanity by making some of us attracted to the opposite sex and others attracted to the same sex or by painting our skins so many different colours. What was the point of that? Isn’t life tough enough without those hurdles?

But back to the point. Jesus was just a man. Yes, he was a man on a mission. The mission was to give us an “Aha!” moment. Yes, life is tough, but we are not its victims. We are more than our animal instincts or our totally unpredictable and inconsistent free will. We are something more because of our capacity to love. 

I don’t think scientists will ever find a gene that will explain that capacity. It’s source is beyond our DNA. Being human we hate mystery, so we keep seeking it source. Failing that, we all try to name it. Robert Burns named it a “red, red rose,” Jesus called it Abba, the one Moses called Yahweh.

What today’s reenactment reminds us of is that it is that capacity to love, from wherever it comes, that frees us from being victims. By entering Jerusalem in an ironic mockery of a royal procession to suffering betrayal from those who should’ve known him best, to being unjustly charged, to being rejected and cruelly mocked by those he came to serve, and finally being enthroned on a cross with the satiric label “King of the Jews” above his head, he became for us the ultimate embodiment of our capacity to love. Sadly, the church has confused his embodiment of love with being its ultimate source. Sad because it makes us forget he is just a man. It blinds us to our own capacity to embody such a love unknown.

While today this man’s story is still incomplete. Holy Week still awaits us. Easter is still only a promise. But today we cannot escape the truth that love preserves us from becoming victims of the powers and principalities that surround us. We now know that our capacity to love cannot be washed away by a Tsunami or killed by a pandemic.

It is what allows us to go on in the face of whatever comes our way and ultimately what unites us and makes it all somehow worthwhile.

Yes, it is a truth we know, but like the lyrics of an old song, we sometimes forget. That’s why we re-live it every year. That’s why we will continue to do so during Holy Week and why we will come back next Sunday to sing out joyfully its truth, to the words, “Christ is risen! He is risen indeed.” If just a man can do it, so can we.

April 9, 2006

Glynn Cardy

Lent 6     Palm Sunday     Mark 11:1-11     John 12:12-16

The disciples, most of them anyway, got it fundamentally wrong. Luke records in Acts 1:6 that they asked the Risen Christ when the Kingdom would be restored to Israel. Like James and John requesting seats of power, they didn't get it. They all thought Jesus was on about power and glory, expelling Romans and re-establishing the Davidic dynasty. After all wasn't this the Messianic hope and Jesus the Messiah?

One of the great things about the Bible is that the leaders of the 2nd and 3rd Century Church who oversaw the editing of the New Testament didn't expunge all the bits where the disciples are shown in a bad light. They kept them in, reminding us that we all make mistakes, big ones included. However we need to learn from our mistakes, and sometimes I wonder if even now the Church has.

Jesus chose a young colt or donkey to ride into Jerusalem. There is something ridiculous in seeing a grown man ride a donkey with his feet almost touching the ground. His alleged ancestor King David would have ridden into the Holy City on a great horse, adorned in armour, and supported by his formidable army. Jesus came in ordinary dress, supported by unemployed fisherman and socially marginal women, looking foolish upon an ass.

Symbolically and powerfully Jesus announced his reign: 'The Upside-Down Kingdom has arrived!' The reign of nuisances and nobodies had come. Here the first were last, and the last first. Here the meek inherited the earth and children owned it. Here leaders would no longer need swords and shields, only towels and basins. Here the rules had been changed. Here the sustenance was not the finest food money and privilege could get, but costly love freely given for no personal gain. The world was being turned topsy-turvy.

Yet we still don't get it. Through our inability to believe, and reticence to risk, we continue to want Jesus to be a king. We put a crown on his head, and insert him in the great east window of our churches. We write hymns, “Crown him with many crowns, the lamb upon the throne”, and elevate him to where he never wanted to be. We call him “Lord” when he never wanted to lord it over anyone. We treat him as God when he would have been appalled at the suggestion. [i]

There were only two titles that it is likely Jesus would have owned. One is 'Rabbi', translated as 'teacher'. Jesus' vocation was to point the way to God, by his words and deeds. In particular he was passionate about God's inclusion of the ostracized, and the proximity of God to such people. The second title was 'Son of Man', or 'Human One'. This title refers to a figure in the apocryphal Book of Daniel who was an advocate for the underdog, who stood alongside and with the people as they suffered.

Some of you might argue, as I have from time to time, that the Christian tradition of using monarchical and feudal titles for Jesus was a way of subverting normative understandings of human kingship. It was a way of saying that we only have one King, Jesus, and no one save Jesus will reign over us. It was a way of saying that we have only one Lord, Jesus, and though we may pay lip service to Caesar he will never have our allegiance. It was with this in mind and heart that many early Christians gave their lives, and we rightly honour them.

Unfortunately though 'Jesus as King' did not subvert human kingship, but the reverse. Human notions of kingship came to define Jesus. Blame Constantine if you must. Wealth, power, and prestige were writ large in Christian art, liturgy, theology, and practice.

It came to be believed that as a reward for his human sufferings Jesus was elevated to the throne of heaven, there to rule for evermore. His 33 years in Palestine were some brief, though traumatic, intermission between being in the clouds and ruling from the clouds.

I think this is a gross distortion of Jesus' self-understanding of his ministry and mission. When Jesus said 'My kingdom is not of this world' he was not talking about a kingdom out in space. He was not alluding to some celestial Platonist construct. Rather as we might talk of 'the business world' or the 'academic world', he was alluding to the fact that in different spheres different rules and ethics operate.

Pilate's world was the world of power, of might making right, of wealth indicative of status, of religion sanctifying the norm. It is world not unknown today.

Jesus' world on the other hand was the world of self-giving love. A world where the weak are welcome; where slaves, suspect women, and the sick are honoured; and where power is not the preserve of class, race, or gender. Is it any wonder that the leaders of empire and religion conspired together to get rid of him?

Kings operate in the world of power. Jesus operated in the world of love. Kings reward obedient subjects, promising much. Jesus gave no rewards, only the promise of suffering. Is it any wonder that most of his followers deserted him?

To follow Jesus today we must be prepared to be unpopular. To risk speaking up for an embracive vision where the excluded are welcomed and honoured, God among them. To be bold enough to change our theology in line with our vision. To be reckless enough to change our liturgy in line with our theology. And to be foolish enough to believe we can change the world of power by the power of love.

[i] Note that Jews such as Jesus and his disciples would not say the name for God, YHWH. When they came up to the word when reading they would say “Lord” instead. My point is that Jesus, as a Rabbi, would have been aghast to be called YHWH.

April 2, 2006

Jane Knowles

Lent 5
     Hebrews 5:5-10     
John 12:20-33

“And I when I am lifted up from the earth will draw all people to myself”

Since being here, I have had plenty of time to think and to wonder and to experience this lovely building. To me the fact that it has just celebrated its centenary means very little; its age or lack of it is immaterial. English churches, by and large are very old, so antiquity doesn't impress me. What I have been wondering most about is the fabulous diversity of the events that have taken place here. Last Sunday was a classic from my point of view. We started the day with a straightforward BCP service routed in the early formation of Anglicanism and which is much beloved by very many people. We then went into a service more modern in style, with a lot of lay participation and wonderful music and which was as inclusive and joyful as we could make it albeit in Lent. After that there was one of the most special services in the whole Christian experience, a baptism. A holy service where we ask the Spirit of God to be specially present and a service where we celebrate those precious gifts, love and life.

After lunch I came to the chamber concert, I and several hundred other people; the place was packed and if ever the Holy Spirit reaches us through music surely he does through Mozart. It was a wonderful concert. Back I came at 6pm, a sucker for punishment you might say, this time drawn by more music. I had heard of the wonders of Musica Sacra. I was not disappointed; here again a service of great antiquity; Cranmer through and through with music that preceded even that, and which soared through the vaulted ceilings of this place and I was able to forget the technique, and the choreography and was transported to another plane.

Back I came again at 8pm for the Community Church service. I didn't know what to expect, but the building was still the host in a way and instead of the smart suited Sunday dressed congregation of Evensong, in came a relaxed, diverse group of people, and food was being set out and everyone was very friendly and talkative. There could not have been a greater contrast between these services, and still the building looked on benignly, and in this last service of the day the love of God was palpable and the Christian message shone through and I felt that people understood.

Since then this week there has been a huge funeral, a city function, balloons, streeties, people in trouble, visitors, people wanting to pray, and the building encompasses it all. Yes I have had a lot to reflect upon, because all this has happened not because of the vicar, (I personally have done very little) but almost in spite of. You have here in your midst, holy space which is big enough to encompass the enormous diversity that is contained within a city and you are doing your best to keep some sort of balance in order that this diversity can continue; why? Why bother? Why not just keep it for practising Christians?

Well we have heard today one of the most special of all gospel messages and in this period of Lent, Passiontide, as we approach holy week and Easter, in a way the world holds its breath. Look again at that Gospel reading; its as if Jesus himself is frightened of all that lies ahead; frightened in his humanity and maybe his divinity, he knows that something is about to happen, the dark night of the soul. How many of us find the horror of waiting so much more terrifying than the action itself. Jesus knows his hour has come, but not quite.

So who were those Greeks that begin today's Gospel reading, who have suddenly turned up out of the blue, and why do they seem to have such significance in this part of the Gospel? Nothing in St John's Gospel is ever incidental. Look again; it feels in a way as if their coming signifies the start of a race, almost like the starting gun of a race in the Commonwealth games; once the gun is fired you are off, but until then all you can do is pace around the starting block like a hungry leopard. They have come the Greeks, like a signal; the time has come when the rest of the world, the Gentiles, want to know more about Jesus. He can no longer be contained. The news is out, the race is on; death, resurrection and ascension, and in his death he is dropping his seed into the ground; his body, and for the moment it can only lie there dead; an act of faith; winter. Will it grow? Will it develop? What will happen next? There is great suspense.

I have been thinking that something like that has happened here. A seed has been dropped into this place. St Matthews is like the ground, the womb; it is the sacred space within which that seed can grow. If it closes its doors and drives away the gentiles, or the strangers, or those who don't fit, it will become as barren as a husk or a shell, but if it allows the seed to grow, then who knows what lies around the corner. It is a risk. We don't know.

At this time in Lent I always feel a bit fearful. Scripture has told us of the events leading up to Holy week, and if we enter fully into them, we too will feel confused and unsure, like the disciples, but we are lucky because scripture has also revealed to us what happened next. Jesus died in order that we might live; the great paradox, and sometimes such a religious cliché. But think again, that's exactly what happened. Jesus came to this planet to show us the way; before that we had got it all wrong. In his death he showed us that love conquers everything; even death and that is such a wonderfully magnetic thing. Jesus in his own words promised us that he would draw all people to himself. That is what we hope for; that is what we are looking for; whether Jews or Gentiles slaves or free men home owners or streeties, men or women, Jesus draws us all out of the abyss through love and that is John's message then and now, and that is why this building is so special. All human life is here; let us pray that we will allow the walls to be thick enough to look after the weak, strong enough to protect the vulnerable and yet porous enough to allow the love of God to draw all people to himself.

March 12, 2006

Glynn Cardy

Lent 2 
    Mark 8:31-38

I love tigers. I love their colour, their size, their majesty, and, above all, how they move. I've never seen one in the wild. Of course, I've seen them in the zoo, but zoos usually feel like visiting time at Paremoremo. Its television and the cinema that brings me face to face with tigers.

The tiger is graceful, awesome, and beautiful. It is also powerful, deadly, and to be feared. The tiger embodies both life and death, and I suspect that is part of its appeal.

We have entered Lent, those forty days from Ash Wednesday until Palm Sunday, a sombre and sober time in the Church's calendar when we reflect upon our impermanence and the grace that sustains us. It is about death and life.

On a hillside in Northland there is a tree. It stands alone in a windswept paddock looking out to sea. It's a pohutukawa, and it's very old. It has stood its ground for perhaps two hundred years. Flourishing in good seasons, hanging on in bad. “Beautiful” is not a word that comes to mind when one first sees it. Twisted by wind, charred by lightning, and chewed on by insects. Human beings have chopped branches, stapled barbed wire to it using it as a corner post for a fence line, and nailed signs on it on three sides: NO HUNTING; NO TRESPASSING; and PLEASE SHUT THE GATE. No matter what, in dry seasons or wet, in heat and cold, it has continued. There is rot and death in it by the ground. But at the greening tips of its upper branches there is the outreach of life. I respect this old tree. For it's age, yes. And for its steadfastness in taking whatever is thrown at it. Most of all, I admire its capacity for self-healing beyond all accidents and assaults. There is a will in it – toward continuing to be, come what may.

Lent is a time when we take stock of what is, without fooling ourselves. We think about our world at its worst – war, murder, destruction, abuse, cruelty … and how the worst taints us, disturbing our eyes and our dreams, and seducing us with the simplistic notions of fighting war with war, murder with murder, destruction with destruction. We think too about our worst, our suffering and the suffering of those close to us.

Lent is also a time when, in the light of our stock take, we dream of what the world and our small part of it might be. We dream of the triumph of never-say-die faith, grace-filled actions, and above all the power of love over the love of power. We dream of having the courage of that windswept tree and still being able to sprout tender shoots come what may.

Most of us have experienced death. It has sometimes come as a friend, to take an old mate away from pain. It has also come as an enemy, stalking us, and pouncing on the one we loved, devastating us with its speed and finality. In the aftermath of death we have good days and bad days. On the good days we are strong. The sun is shining. Hope is in the air. The future is before us. On the bad days we feel brittle. Life is clouded. The air is stagnant. The past is oppressively in the present.

There is a tiger that meets us on the good days, and a tiger that meets us on the bad days. The good day tiger is that tenacious tiger of life. On these days we determine that the qualities in our loved ones will not die - that stories of beauty, love and hope will predominate. Death will not have the final word. Laughter, kindness, and courage will not be beaten by the grave, or by the guns of human hate, but will live on.

On these days we commit ourselves to live out in our lives that laughter, kindness, and courage, come what may. Terrible things have happened to us, and we have every right to feel miserable and depressed. Yet, in spite of it all, we still reach, albeit tentatively, for the best there can be. We call on the might of the tiger to help us hold on, to defeat the powers of gloom, and regain our grace and sense of life.

The bad day tiger is the tiger of despair. On these days we ask, “Why me? It is unfair.” Our beloved one is suffering or dead. And they should not be. Death has slunk into our lives, like a thieving predator, and snatched them away. Death and destruction pollutes our world, contaminating our relationships, making us fearful. When we eat our meals, walk the dog, and tend the garden, sorrow is our constant companion. It seems so easy to sit down, in the mud of nothingness, and let life cease. We live with this tiger which stalks us and makes us miserable. We try to tame it, but feel that it has tamed us.

These two tigers, of the good days and of the bad days, wrestle within. They fight. Sometimes one is on top, and sometimes the other. This was the Lenten wilderness Jesus endured for 40 days with the wild beasts [Mark 1:12].

The child listened to his grandfather explain about the tigers, and the child understood his beloved Granp was talking about his sad days and his glad days. But the child, as children often will, needed to know the end of the story.

“Granp, which tiger will win?”

The old man paused, looked him lovingly in the eyes and said, “The one you feed.”

February 26, 2006

Clay Nelson

Epiphany 8
     Mark 2:13-22

I was sitting in my office last week when Levi, also known as Matthew, jumped right out of the pages of the Gospel and plonked himself down. He had just had that 'follow me' thing with Jesus and wanted some vocational guidance. I switched off the computer and leant him an ear.

 “Crikey! What a week I've had Reverend Clay.”

“Clay is just fine Levi, want to talk about it?”

“Sure do ' cause nothing like this has ever happened to me. Everything is topsy turvey. Black is white, white is black. I just don't know what to think?”

“OK Levi, take a deep breath and fill me in. What's happened?”

“Well, I'm really not too sure. It all started about a week ago when this new preacher, teacher, whatever guy came to town. There was some buzz about him being the Messiah. I rolled my eyes when I heard that. Not another bloody Messiah I thought. They are a shekel a dozen in this part of the world. So I just tended to my business at first and didn't pay it any mind.”

“What is your business Levi?”

Well, it's nothing I'm proud of, but it pays the bills. Work isn't easy to get you know, so I took a position in the employ of the emperor.

Oh, you're a tax collector.”

“That's right Rev., I collect Roman taxes and road tolls. I hope you aren't going to get up my nose about that like everyone else?”

No, Levi. I'm of the render unto Caesar school of thought.”

“Thanks, I guess I'm a little defensive. People just don't appreciate how much work it is. Those Romans have heaps of different taxes to keep track of, so the bookkeeping is a bit of a nightmare. Remembering the tolls is no picnic in the park either. People walking alone pay one thing, but it changes if they have a goat or camel or if they are walking or riding the camel. Its hot work, and working with the public can be quite difficult really. Folks may not like a Jew working for the Romans, but if I didn't do it, there are plenty of others who would.”

“So, tell me Levi about this new guy in town?”

“Well, as I was saying, I couldn't be bothered at first, but one day a two shekel toll came by, a bloke with no goat or camel. He was all excited and said he just had to tell someone the news. “Could I keep a secret?” he asked. I almost said for another shekel, but I was curious. “Sure Mate, what is it?”

“This morning, he says, “I woke up with leprosy.”

 “Whoa man! There's an extra tax for lepers.”

“He says, 'Well, I won't have to pay then, because I'm cured!'”

“That's not possible. The emperor doesn't take kindly to tax cheats, you know.”

“No, it's true. I met this guy who told me I was cured and I was.”

“That's all?” I asked sceptically.

“Well, he did tell me to sin no more and not to tell anyone about being cured. Do you think telling is a sin?”

“Don't know Mate, but it is probably good advice. People are going to think you are a nutter if you tell 'em what you told me.”

“Well, I let him go on his way without reporting him to my boss, and didn't think much about it. But two morning's later four guys came along who were carrying their mate, a paralytic, on a stretcher. Now the guy wasn't riding a goat or a camel, so I had to look in the rule book. It said only the Governor is usually carried by people on this road, and he isn't charged, so I cut them some slack and gave them a group discount. I asked where they were going and they said to meet the new guy, the one who healed the leper.”

“'Sure is tough keeping a secret around here.' They nodded not really understanding and were off.”

“Then right after lunch, something I still don't believe happened. The guy who went by earlier on the pallet came back carrying it. I gotta hear this story mate.

“He was only too happy to tell me about this Messiah guy who told him to pick up his pallet and sin no more. I asked him if he was supposed to keep it a secret. He looked at me oddly and said, 'No, I made kind of a grand entrance and everyone in town saw it.' I asked him what happened to his friends. He said something I didn't quite get about their wives making them fix a roof.”

“I was so gobsmacked I forgot to charge him for carrying the stretcher.”

“So, what did you do then Levi?”

“I took off early and went to the pub to see if my mates and a few cold ones could help me make sense of all this.”

“What were you trying to understand?”

“Well, where I come from there are only two kinds of people. There are the righteous and the sinners. It's cool to be one of the righteous, as you might have guessed. They are clean in God's eyes, or so they tell the rest of us. That's why they get the good jobs and are invited to black tie dinner parties. As you might guess it's not as cool to be a sinner. The sinners are people like me who put bread on the table working at jobs the righteous are too good for. Prostitutes are included, of course. But it also includes people like the leper and the paralytic. Clearly they are unclean, the Righteous explain, since God wouldn't be punishing them otherwise with crummy jobs and serious health issues.”

“You seem to have that worked out, so what's so confusing?”

“Well, we are who we are. How can some shekel-a-dozen-Messiah just come and say we aren't who we are? Suddenly, on his say so we aren't sinners any more. I hear the righteous ones in town are in a little bit of a dust up over this. They are used to being the ones to decide who's righteous and who isn't. They like it that way and I guess I do to. Keeps things orderly. The new guy is trying to change the natural order.”

“Did your mates at the pub help you sort it out?”

“Hell no! They were too busy shouting drinks for the new guy. Telling jokes and laughing. I left sober but feeling befuddled. How can someone who dirties himself partying with the likes of me then purify us? Makes no sense. It's as crazy as trying to save money putting new wine in old wine skins.”

“So what happened next?”

“Well, the next day I took a mental health day. I couldn't take the pressure of wondering who was going to come down the road next.”

“Did it help?” 

“No, I was just sitting feeding the birds in the park, and the new guy comes up to me and parks himself on the bench as if I invited him. Doesn't say much at first, just helps me feed the birds. Then he asks if I want a job? 'Doesn't pay as well as collecting tolls, but we have good parties. ' He then tells me I'm highly suited for the position.”

“'Doin' what?' I ask cautiously.”

“You're going to give new life to people, helping me make the lame walk, the blind see, the leper whole. It's a family business, and I want to get you in on the ground floor.”

So what did you tell him Levi?””

“I told him it was a pretty scary thing to ask a bloke. 'Who am I if I am not a tax collector?'

He said, “You're Matthew, a gift from God. If you think I'm confusing the righteous, wait till they see a tax collector forgiving sins for no charge.”

“Matthew, huh? Sounds like a name you'd give a stone church, I tell him.”

“Or a car park,” he answers.

February 19, 2006

Glynn Cardy

Epiphany 7     
Mark 2:1-12

I was asked to be a pallbearer this week. An old mate had died. Six of us, robed priests, carried him shoulder high out of St Mary's Parnell. A thought stayed with me afterwards: Occasionally we carry each other in death, but do we carry each other in life?

It is possible to read the Gospels and conclude that Jesus was never carried. That he was a complete, self-sufficient human being that wasn't dependent upon anyone. He was powered by heavenly tonic. He didn't need followers, they needed him. Yet, as Jesus movies portray time after time, he wasn't a loner. He needed the intimacy of Mary, the tenderness of John, the volatile strength of Peter, the critique of Judas. Those around him influenced him. This is the way love is. There is no such thing as independent love. I think we need to be bold in our interpreting of Scripture and re-envisage Jesus as one carried by his friends, who at times carried them, and together carried others.

Likewise St. Paul: Was he really a one-man missionary band bravely battling the odds? Or was he connected to, reliant upon, and sustained by a circle of friends? Acts 14 tells of Paul's efforts in Lystra coming to a rocky end. Verse 19: 'they stoned Paul and dragged him out of the city supposing that he was dead.' Verse 20: 'But when the disciples surrounded him, he got up… The next day he went on with Barnabas to Derbe.'

It was the disciples of Lystra, the ordinary extraordinary pew-sitting parishioners of Lystra, who healed and restored the great Paul. Yes Paul inspired them, but they also inspired him. Early Christianity was about giving and taking, taking and giving. It's no different today. The Gospel is about love. Period. And love is not a solo affair. It takes though some effort to carry one another. It takes time, patience, and sometimes strength. We also need to let others carry us. This can often be a harder thing to do. Asking for help doesn't come easily.

The friends who carried the paralysed man in Mark 2 ripped off the roof. As their wives would have said: 'Most houses have a door darling.' These guys though weren't listening – they were on a mission from God. Knocking on doors and politely asking to enter wasn't for them. No, they had the bright and novel idea of making a hole. They sound like some guys I know who enter each year in the Birdman competition. If there is a wacky way to fly they'll find it. 'Conventional' is a swear word. And I confess without the brilliant stupidity of these guys life would loose some of its shine and many of its laughs.

Now this 1st century hole in the roof was no small thing. They were able to fit a whole stretcher through it with their mate attached. Can you imagine the dust as the boys went to work with gusto ripping through the mud brick and wooden struts? The debris would have showered down upon Jesus and the crowd below. As the four patient wives would have said, 'Darling we think you overlooked something.' 

Jesus though kept his cool. Maybe he recognised the potency of that divine blend of male friendship, compassion, enthusiasm, and stupidity? Maybe his actual words to the paralytic were: 'If I had friends like that mate I'd learn to walk.' But before Jesus could say much O.S.H. -- Occupational Safety and Health -- materialised. That is the theological O.S.H., guardians of the rules and protectors of convention. These were the guys who reckoned Jesus needed a license to preach, absolve and heal. Just as the guys on the roof needed a license to be compassionate and make a hell of a mess. That was the whole problem they'd taken license, just as Jesus was now taking license. If this continued things would get out of control. And control was very important. 

Sin was, and still is, a game. It's a control game. Those in power define what's sin and set the rules about how it's dealt with. The sinners are absolved when they recognise their failings, feel guilt and genuine remorse, and make recompense. Most religions get in on this game and some make a feature of it. But it all seems to me to be largely about keeping people paralysed lest they do something we're afraid of.

I see life as like riding a bike. From an early age you teach a child the basics of riding, hold the back of their seat, and then let them go. From an early age you encourage them to venture forth, to explore what's around the corner or over the hill and far away. Sometimes that can be scary for you as well as them. Sometimes they return with scratches, and sometimes with wildfire in their eyes. Falling off is part of cycling. Believe me, as one who has taken part in a number of cycle races, falling off isn't just a kid thing. Sometimes it's a car thing, or a corner thing, or a I-can't-get-my-foot-out-of-the-ruddy-clip thing. Like in life people fall, hurting themselves and often others. If you want to call falling 'sin' then do so.

But the important thing is not the fall, the 'sin' so to speak. It's not blaming yourself or others, feeling guilty or saying sorry. No, the important thing is getting back on your bike, aches and all. The important thing is getting up and getting going again. There is still a huge wide world out there in which to go exploring and in which to find God.

'Is it easier to say your sins are forgiven or to say take up your bed and walk?' This is getting on your bike language. The boys have done their outrageous thing, ripping the roof off convention. Jesus has done his outrageous thing defying the sin-police. Now it's time to do your outrageous thing – get up and on your bike. Don't be stuck within the limits and vision of others. Head for the horizon and make your own.

I wonder what the guys up top thought as they saw their mate walking off with his stretcher over his shoulder. 'Crikey, it actually worked', said one. 'Gee I'd love to see his kids faces now,' said another. 'I think he owes us a beer,' said the third. The fourth asked as they walked away, ' Who's gunna fix the roof?'

February 12, 2006

Glynn Cardy

Epiphany 6     II Kings 5:1-14

Teenagers are acutely aware of who is on the 'in' and who is on the 'out'. Most adults are too, though we try to be more sophisticated about it. Most people want to be on the inside if it means being included, accepted, and appreciated. Most people find being on the outside difficult, even if they pretend they don't. Societies have explicit or implicit borders about who is on the inside and how to join. Sickness, disability, and race are some of those borders. Ask any immigration consultation. 

Religions too have explicit or implicit rules about insiders and outsiders. There are boundaries about who is acceptable and who is not. One of the temptations of any religion is to equate its boundaries with God's boundaries. Presumption is dangerous. It is not difficult to find boundary verses in the Bible. Israel saw itself as the chosen of God, and other races as the 'unchosen'. In Amos 3:2, for example, God purportedly says “You only have I known of all the families of the earth.”

Christianity also has suffered similarly with bloated ideas of its own self-importance. Jesus' words: “No one comes to the Father except through me” [John 14:6] have usually been understood as divine sanction for Christianity's alleged superiority. Yet, as I pointed out recently in my sermon on Jonah, there is a subversive stream within the Bible. There are writers and stories that challenge religious elitism - which is often just plain old racism in holy drag. These stories often have a plot reversal where an insider is cast in a negative light and the outsider is portrayed as superior in virtue or faith. Think of the stories of Tamar [Gen 38], Ruth, Jonah, the woman at the well in John 4, the Syro-Phoenic ian woman [Mark 7:26], and, from our reading today, Naaman.

There was a history of conflict between Israel and Syria [aka Aram]. Recently, so II Kings 5 tells us, it had been Naaman who had led the Arameans to victory over Israel. It is fair to surmise he was not a popular man in Israel. He was an outsider, a man they feared and hated. A skin disease – probably psoriasis or eczema - afflicted Naaman. It was not what we would call leprosy. While Naaman's disease was no doubt irritating, the real illness was the personal and social stigma that went with it. Like Israel, Aram believed that such 'impurities' deemed one ritually unclean in the sight of God. The disease made him an outsider among his own people.

Naaman was part of the hierarchical male world. The message of hope though, in a topsy-turvy fashion, came from the bottom of that world. A girl, a slave, and an Israelite enemy, lit the spark. It took significant humility, as well as desperation, from both Naaman and his master, the King, to act on her advice. The King of Aram, who thought very highly of Naaman, petitioned the King of Israel, his defeated enemy, and offered significant payment. It was to be a king-to-king deal, as that was the way deals got done.

The King of Israel though did not have a master-to-servant relationship with the prophet Elisha. Prophets were a law unto themselves. Elisha also was a fierce opponent of the gods of Aram. Religious tolerance and inclusivity weren't his thing. Appeasing kings, especially foreign ones, wasn't part of his repertoire either. The King of Israel thought the King of Aram would know this. He thought the King of Aram was trying to bait him. He thought he was going to suffer. He rent his clothes in despair. Prophets always like it when Kings rend their clothes in despair. Rending shows they're desperate, and susceptible therefore to leverage. So Elisha stepped in to help the King of Israel, and Naaman came to pay Elisha a visit. 

Elisha then indulges in a little power game. Naaman expects to be treated with all the dignity and respect his position demands, but Elisha doesn't even appear. He just sends out an encrypted message: 'Go bathe seven times in a Jewish river you pompous foreign, heathen scumbag'. As you might imagine Naaman has had enough. He has humbled himself enough. He does not want to submit his honour to any more abuse. He imagined himself being instantly cured, not ridiculed.

Yet once again, by topsy-turvy subversive grace, he listens to the advice of his servants and does as he has been instructed. Grace though doesn't heal him, faith does. Not Elisha's bigotry but Naaman's willingness to listen to underlings, and in so doing lower himself, is the therapeutic potion. These things seem to affect God. Naaman dipped himself in the Jordan. Plunging into a foreign religion and river. Lowering himself to listen to servants, even a girl, and take orders from a foreign pestiferous prophet. The outsider, Naaman, dived in. Seven times. Humility and healing went hand in hand.

Although in the aftermath Naaman pledges allegiance to the God of Israel thus becoming an insider, the Bible also tells us that he went back to Aram and assisted his King to worship in the temple of the deity Rimmon. He was an outsider that became an insider, but then remained on the edge – the borderland. The borderland is that region where many of us camp. That place between being an insider and outsider, where creativity and freedom are cherished, but the night winds are cold. Where we live in the tension between belonging yet not fitting in; between believing yet rejecting many beliefs; between faith and skepticism. It is a good place, but often hard and lonely. St Matthew's exists for people on the borderland.

The saga of Naaman has a salutary ending, omitted by our lectionary. A Jewish insider, Elisha's servant Gehazi, is overtaken by greed. He connives to obtain the gifts that Naaman has offered Elisha but Elisha had refused. Gehazi is then struck with the skin disease that originally had afflicted Naaman. “The story that began with [an illness] ends with it, with the difference that its victims have been reversed: the Aramean outsider has become clean, and the Israelite insider has become unclean” [i]

The Gehazi addition is not to warn us about the dangers of greed so much as to warn us of the dangers in presuming. Don't presume that race, religion, heritage, and connections automatically mean that God will bless you. And don't presume the opposite either. Don't box God in, on the inside or outside. God, like the wind, blows where she wills.

To our peril we ignore, shun, and vilify the outsider, and smugly imagine that we have a monopoly on truth. This has been writ large last week in the controversy surrounding the lampooning of the Prophet Mohammed. Freedom of speech is critical in a democracy, and critical for any powerful religion, like Christianity, where piety, power, and corruption can too easily coalesce. Yet freedom of speech is like driving a car. You can do it recklessly, displaying your machismo, or responsibly, displaying your tolerance. Too many of the responses to both the cartoons and to the protests reek of cultural superiority, insider and outsider language, intolerance, and certitude. Presumption is the mother of all stuff ups.

[i] Frank Spina, The Faith of the Outsider: Exclusion and Inclusion in the Biblical Story, 2005

February 5, 2006

Glynn Cardy

Epiphany 5     Isaiah 40:21-31
     1 Corinthians 9:16-23
     Mark 1:29-39

The Maori word 'taura' means a rope and 'whiri' means 'to plait', the technical process used in rope making. 'He taura whiri' is 'a plaited rope'. [i]

This is a metaphor used by orators to express the art of peoples – as strands in the rope - coming together, keeping their uniqueness but combining their strengths in order that the community as a whole becomes stronger

Making ropes the traditional way, Maori twisted and rolled strands of scraped flax together to make longer strands and then plaited as many as sixteen together to make ropes, some round, some square. The strands might vary in thickness and colour, and new ones were easily spliced in. A rope thus made was many times stronger than any of its strands alone.

Waitangi is about history and symbol. At its worst it is about devastating effects of losing land to greed and racism and the denial of injustice. It is about ignoring the need for reparation and rebuilding of justice-centred relationships. It is about blaming those oppressed for their oppression. 

We need to know the history of our land and feel the pain of it. But we need also to know the history of our land and feel its promise, the hope of our forbears, and work for it.

At its best Waitangi was and continues to be about bringing the strands together, without loss of mana and integrity. It is about welcoming other cultures being spliced into that rope. It challenges us to value the skills of rope-making, weaving diversity without losing identity. The Waitangi vision for this country is not a melting pot of races stirred into an amorphous mix. Rather it is about strong, independent cultures working together, sharing their strengths, and valuing the conciliatory art of talking and translating across difference.

Our Pakeha Anglican connection with Waitangi goes back to Henry Williams, he who with his son worked late into the night to translate the Treaty into Te Reo Maori.

Henry arrived here in this land in 1823 having fought in the Anglo-American War of 1812. That war convinced him of the futility of all war. He converted to a peacemaker.

In Aotearoa Williams could see that the other missionaries were not succeeding in converting Maori to Christianity because they spent too much time trying to make Maori live like the European settlers. He also told them that they should learn the Maori language and culture. Williams's courage [especially in settling disputes], his warm regard for people, and his acceptance of Maori custom [except where he saw it in conflict with the Gospel] earned him respect and affection. It also led to a huge expansion in the number of Maori who saw merit in Christianity.

Henry was a strong supporter of Te Tiriti O Waitangi seeing the rule of British law as a protection against unscrupulous land deals and general lawlessness.

After the Treaty was signed, there was a lot of conflict. Settlers became suspicious of Williams because he was very friendly with Maori. Williams was also overtly political. He raised the ire and hostility of the settlers, for example, when he purchased land in trust for the Maori owners to prevent further alienation of Maori land.

A number of accusations against Williams, one of which – the acquisition of land for himself in the Bay of Islands – continues today. That land was purchased with the full and continuing agreement of the Maori sellers. It is important for us to realize the political nature of such accusations as various church leaders, like Williams, tried to thwart the settlers' greed for land and the politicians' connivance. The issue of Church acquired land is still used today to thwart our criticisms of government.

As you may be aware there are a number of mistranslations between the English and Maori versions of the Treaty. Some Maori thought that Williams had misled them when he told them what was in the Treaty. He had not told them that the English version said that they would be under the control of the British Queen's representatives in Aotearoa. The Maori version indicated that there were two sovereign peoples in the same country, each with their mana intact.

The influence of Henry Williams was significant in convincing Maori to sign the Treaty. Was he therefore a puppet of European colonialism whose agenda was often to seize as much Maori land as possible, by fair means or foul? Or was he trying to build a country, based on peaceful interactions, where two races, two languages and two culture ways of operating existed? I think the latter. The failure of the Treaty to prevent land alienation was a great disappointment to him, as were the civil wars of the 1860s that he lived long enough to see.

The Christian faith is not culturally bound. Originally it was Jewish, then Greco-Roman, and came to this country predominantly via the Anglo-Saxon and Celtic cultures. Williams understood that Christianity must be freed from its cultural packaging in order to take root in another culture, and that that is not easy.

The Anglican Church of Aotearoa , New Zealand and Polynesia today has three major cultural streams – as our name suggests. Faith is expressed in the language and thought forms of all three. It has great diversity, great potential for conflict, and an amazing openness to grace.

What has been and continues to be important for our Church, and I suggest for our nation, is people who can talk across and between cultures. It is vital we have people who are bi or multi cultural; that is people who know more than one language and way of thinking.

In a recent review Vincent Ward talking about the movie River Queen says New Zealand has been formed not by Maori and Pakeha so much as by the people in between Maori and Pakeha trying to find a way of co-existing. [ii] His movie is about the experience of trying to fit into a community where you don't necessarily know all the rules, and in trying to learn about another culture learn mostly about yourself.

Those who can broaden their minds to understand contrary viewpoints and what gives rise to them are the peacemakers and nation-builders. Our world is badly in need of such people. We need people who have walked the path of realizing the iniquities of the past, feeling the shame of that and the communal culpability, and knowing the need for redress. We need people who see the continuing need for relationships across culture and difference, and work at those relationships, in order that the riches of both are shared with each other and with the world. 

Rope making is an art, like peace-making and nation-building. It involves skill, co-operation, and continuous hard work. As a nation we are at last beginning to recognize the enrichment and strength that comes from weaving many diverse strands together. But the task of creating a unique national identity is an on-going one.

At Waitangi on 6 February 1840 , Colenso tells us, Governor Hobson said to each rangatira who signed the Treaty: 'He iwi tahi tatou'. Presumably he was coached by somebody, probably Henry Williams. Colenso translated this into English as 'We are now one people'. In doing so, he overlooked three subtle points. First, the word 'iwi' means 'nation' as well as 'people'. Secondly, if Hobson meant 'one people' he should have said 'he iwi kotahi'; 'tahi' without the prefix 'ko' means 'together'. Thirdly, the last word, 'tatou', certainly means the first person plural, 'we/us', but it is a special form, one without an equivalent in English. Use of 'tatou' signals the fact that the 'we' in question comprises two or more distinct groups. This short sentence in Maori packs in a lot of meaning. A fuller English translation would be: 'We two peoples together make a nation.' Today we might give it a wider interpretation: 'We many peoples together make a nation.'

[i] I am indebted to Joan Metge for her Waitangi lecture found at http://www.waitrust.com/panui/waitangi%20doc.doc

[ii] http://www.nzherald.co.nz/search/story.cfm?storyid=0002199B-5DFC-13D0-BE5683027AF102CF

January 29, 2006

Glynn Cardy

Epiphany 4     Malachi 3:1-4
     Luke 2:22-40

There is a story of a young Navaho woman who came to visit a friend in New York City. The friend was delighted and escorted the woman around the bustling, noisy, polluted and vibrant city. As they were passing down Fifth Avenue in one of Manhattan 's concrete canyons with the sound of people and traffic all but deafening, the Navaho woman suddenly stopped. “I hear a cricket,” she said. Her friend gave her a queer look. “There are no crickets here in Manhattan I'm afraid.” But the woman went to the gutter and picked up the little cricket. “That's amazing,” said her friend. “Not really,” she replied, “it's all in what you listen for.” Then the woman tossed a coin in the air, letting it fall, clinking on the footpath. People stopped, heads turned.

Where your treasure is, there your heart is also.

God is all round us. We live within God. Yet oddly, like with the cricket, we are often not aware of God. We don't listen for the right thing. We don't hear, we don't see.

We are like Brazilian amphibian fish whose eyes have two lenses, one for seeing under the water and one for seeing above the water. But most of us, most of the time, have cataracts on our second lens. We commonly do not perceive the world of Spirit.

The Bible uses several metaphors to talk about our not being aware of the sacred realm of God. One such metaphor is 'hard hearts'. 'Heart' in the biblical tradition is an image for the self at its deepest level. For the ancient Hebrews the heart was not simply associated with feelings of love or courage. It was also associated with intellect, volition, and even perception.

What matters is the condition of the heart. One can have a 'hard heart' or a 'soft heart'. A 'hard heart' is also a heart that is 'closed' or 'shut', a 'fat heart' encrusted in a thick layer, a heart that is 'proud' and puffed up. Or one can have a 'soft heart', a 'tender heart', or a 'heart made of flesh'.

A hard heart is associated with sensory malfunction and intellectual incomprehension. A fat heart shuts the eyes, stops the ears, and darkens the mind. A proud heart goes with arrogance, with greed and strife. A hard heart does not know the sacred and has no sense of awe. With hard hearts, we have eyes but do not see, ears but do not hear, and minds but do not understand.

The reason we do not hear God, but hear the tinkle of a coin instead, is because our heart is clogged. Like arteriosclerosis there has been a hardening of our arteries and we need to attend to it for the sake of our spiritual health. As any cardiologist will say we need to attend to both diet and exercise.

A sustainable spiritual diet does not mean shutting oneself in a monastery, eating locusts and wild honey, and staying there. We simply need the discipline of eating less of some foods and more of others. In Philippians 4:8 Paul writes “whatever is true, honourable, just, pure, pleasing, and commendable… think about these things.” He's talking about filling up on good spiritual food and trying to stay off junk.

Spiritual junk food includes all the messages and symbols that tell us that more is better, size matters, looks are everything, misfortune is deserved, forgiveness is for sissies, and aging sucks. Staying off such junk will mean being very selective about what television you watch, what magazines and books you read, and what conversations you want to be part of and what you contribute to them.

Healthy food, to expand on St Paul, includes feeling the wind in your hair and revelling in it; walking without a cell phone; taking your shoes off on the beach; reading out loud to friends, children, or the elderly; singing in the shower [or anywhere for that matter]; reading something at least once a day that makes you feel good about yourself and about others; finding a few minutes to listen to your breathing; writing a letter telling someone that you appreciate them; smiling more often; thanking more frequently; laughing… These things will nurture and sustain your spirit.

This is diet. Exercise however is harder work. Exercise involves understanding the programming that gives rise to your emotions, language and actions, and freeing yourself from its control.

If you take a look at the way you function you will find that inside your head there is a whole programme, a set of demands about how the world should be and how you should be.

That programme was written and revised by your culture, family, and past experiences. Now, wherever you go, that programme is active and insistent that its demands be met. If they are met you are allowed to be happy and peaceful. If they are not met, even though it's nobody's fault, the programme generates negative emotions that cause you to suffer.

When other people, for instance, don't live up to your programme's expectations it torments you with frustration or anger. Or when things are not under your control or the future is uncertain, your programme insists that you experience anxiety and worry. Then you expend a lot of energy coping with these negative emotions.

Generally people cope by expending more energy trying to rearrange the world around them so that the demands of their programming will be met. But at any moment some trifle (a delayed meeting, an answer phone that doesn't work, an off-hand comment… anything) is going to be out of conformity with their programming and it will insist they become upset again.

Life then is lived constantly at the mercy of things and people, trying desperately to make them conform to your programme's demands, so that you can enjoy a temporary respite from negative emotions.

It doesn't have to be this way. You are not going to be able to change your programming all that quickly, or perhaps ever. But if you spend time seeing it for what it is it will cease to have the same power over you. This is spiritual exercise.

Try imagining you are in a situation that you find unpleasant and that you would ordinarily avoid. Now observe how your programming instinctively becomes active insisting that you avoid this situation or try to change it. If you stay on and refuse to change the situation, observe how your programming insists that you experience irritation or anxiety or some other negative emotion. Now keep looking at this unpleasant situation until you realize that it isn't what is causing the negative emotions. Rather it is your programming that is insisting that you react negatively.

You will see this better if you realize that someone with a different programming when faced with this same situation would react quite calmly, even happily. Don't stop till you grasped this truth: the only reason why you too are not reacting calmly and happily is your programming that is stubbornly insisting that reality be reshaped to conform to its ideal.

Once you have understood this truth and stopped your programming generating negative emotions you may take any action you deem fit. You may avoid the situation; or you may try to change it; or you may insist on your rights or the rights of others being respected. But only after you have got rid of your emotional upsets, for then your action will spring from peace and love, not from the neurotic desire to appease your programming or to get rid of the emotions it generates [i].

Real oppression comes not from people who make life difficult for you but from your programming that destroys your peace of mind the moment outside circumstances fail to conform to its demands. It is from the oppression of your programming that you need to be liberated. Only then will you experience inner freedom.

This is spiritual exercise. And like all exercise it needs to become habitual. This will get your spiritual heart pumping. Slowly and surely you will find your heart becoming tender, receptive, able to perceive God more fully and receive from God more willingly. Then you will notice the little things and not be blinded by the big things, you will hear the songs of grace and not be deafened by the traffic of self-centredness.

[i] I am indebted to Anthony De Mello The Way To Love p.13ff for his metaphor and thoughts on programming.

January 22, 2006

Glynn Cardy

Epiphany 3     
Jonah 3:1-5,10
     Mark 1:14-20 

Twenty five hundred years ago the people of Judah were captives in Babylon. They believed themselves to be the `chosen people'. The main problem with believing yourself to be God's specially chosen is that everyone else becomes God's specially unchosen. One nation cannot be chosen without other nations inevitably being defined as inferior. Before long rejection, hatred and prejudice are being justified by the chosen ones.

The defeat of the Jewish army and the subsequent captivity in Babylon raised troubling theological questions for the captive people: "If we are really God's chosen, how come we were defeated? Is our God impotent?” Unable and unwilling to give up the status of being God's elect and desiring to save God from the charge of powerlessness, the theologians got to work. They came up with a very neat solution. The defeat and exile were God's punishment upon a rebellious and unfaithful people. They did not obey God's law. They resolved, therefore, that when they returned to Judah they would be rigorous in obedience less we face again the wrath of an avenging God. And so they were.

There was, however, a nagging discomfort about this theological solution. It placed the blame squarely on the shoulders of the Jews' forebears. Were their ancestors so weak, so inept, so sinful? And if they were, why? Why were they disobedient, why did they not worship properly, why were they vulnerable to sin? As quickly as these questions played in the mind, answers began to emerge. 'It was not our ancestors' weakness at all,' the returning exiles argued. 'Some of our forebears had married non-Jewish spouses, who had contaminated us with alien traditions and different values. God's judgment fell on our nation when we condoned these evil, alien practices.'

The scapegoat had now been identified: the foreigners were the culprits. God's people therefore in future had to be vigilant to root out and expose any and all foreign elements. The theological problem was solved in a comfortable way. They did not relinquish that sense of being chosen, nor were they forced to entertain a vision of an impotent God.

Using the power of this theological mandate, Ezra and Nehemiah led the newly arrived pilgrim people in the renewal of their covenant with God. For good measure, these leaders proposed a statute designed to guarantee the racial, ethnic, and religious purity of the rebuilt nation of Judah. This statute required every Jewish man or woman married to a foreign spouse to divorce and banish the non-Jewish partner from the land. It further required that any "half-breed" children born of that union be banished with the non-Jewish mate. The enforcement of the law moved Judah into one of the uglier phases of her history. Racial purists organized vigilante squads. Bloodlines were checked. Tensions ran high, as the inquisition tore families apart. Judah was to be for the Jews only. Foreign elements must be purged. No protest was heard. The hysteria drowned out every objection.

There was, however, at that time at least one person in Jerusalem who was sufficiently disturbed by the prevailing prejudice to confront it. He decided to write a story. It would appear anonymously on the streets of Jerusalem, and by its very charm and persuasive narrative power it would seduce people into both listening to and discussing it. He was sure people would comment and laugh as they listened. Then the point of the story would strike their hearts, and they would see themselves as they really were, and their prejudice would be revealed. What follows is a retelling of the story that anonymous Jewish writer gave to his fellow citizens some twenty-five hundred years ago.

++++++++++++++++++++

Once upon a time, long, long ago, there was a prophet whose name was Jonah. Jonah was certain that God's love was bound by the limits of his own love, so he assumed that God rejected everyone that Jonah rejected and hated everyone that Jonah hated. With these prejudices firmly in place, Jonah settled into the predictable life of a righteous Hebrew.

But one day God spoke to Jonah and said, "Jonah, I want you to go to the people of Nineveh and preach." Jonah was aghast! "You must be kidding, God! Nineveh is a pagan city. It is the capital of the Assyrians - the scumbags of the world. You know that. Why would you want me to preach to the people of Nineveh?"

God was not deterred by Jonah's logic or by his distress, rising as it did out of Jonah's prejudice. With divine patience the demand was repeated. God's command was against everything Jonah had been taught. So, Jonah responded in the classic and time-honoured way that powerless people have of dealing with authority figures: He said yes, but he meant no. He pretended to agree, all the while hoping that God would soon forget this foolishness and turn the divine attention to some other part of the cosmos.

To show his good faith, Jonah returned to his home and prepared to leave. He packed his suitcase and went down to the seaport, where he booked passage on a boat - not to Nineveh but to Tarshish! 'It was an honest mistake,' he would plead, in case God noticed. Jonah checked, went to his cabin, unpacked his bag, put on his shorts, and went topside with his suntan lotion. Sprawling in a deck chair, he put on his dark glasses and began to read North and South. He played the role of a tourist brilliantly. As his boat began its journey into the Mediterranean Sea, Jonah breathed a sigh of relief. He had escaped the divine command, and in so doing had preserved his prejudices intact. Even better, he had saved God from a serious mistake. All went well for the first hour.

Then a dark cloud appeared in the sky just above the little boat. It seemed to move wherever the boat moved. No amount of navigational skill could elude it. From that cloud flashes of lightning, claps of thunder, and a torrential rainstorm descended on Jonah's boat. The God-fearing captain, observing this unusual phenomenon, knew exactly what was happening. "God is angry with someone on this boat," she shouted. To identify the culprit the captain used the technology at her disposal. She drew straws. The short one came to Jonah. "Jonah, what is this that you have done?" the captain demanded.

"Well," replied Jonah, "God did call me to go preach to the people of Nineveh, but I could not imagine that God meant it. After all, the Ninevites are Gentiles!”

The captain seemed satisfied with what was to her mind a reasonable explanation. Prejudice always seems reasonable to the prejudiced ones. So the captain decided to ride out the storm - but a sharp bolt of lightning and a reverberating clap of thunder greeted that decision. When a large wave broke across the bow of the ship the captain reconsidered.

"On second thoughts, Jonah," the captain said, "when a sacrifice has to be made and the choice is between you and me, I vote for you." With that she threw the hapless Jonah overboard.

God, however, had prepared for this eventuality by creating a great big fish. That fish had been swimming in tandem with the boat, evading stray Japanese and Norwegian harpoons, awaiting its moment on centre stage. The time had come, and the great mouth of the fish was open to receive the falling, flailing Jonah. Jonah slid into the unknown and found himself in the confines of a new, but relatively small, Mediterranean bungalow.

Jonah had a rather amazing capacity to adapt to new circumstances. He set out to make his living space comfortable. He hung curtains, rearranged the furniture, and settled down to see what might come his way in this strange new chapter of his life. For three days and three nights Jonah remained in the belly of the great fish, until even the great fish could no longer stand Jonah's presence. There was a great burp, and the fish threw up. Out tumbled Jonah, landing on a very convenient sand bar. While Jonah was clearing the water from his ears and out of his mind he heard that familiar voice say, "Jonah, how would you like to go preach to the people of Nineveh?" Jonah knew when he was outmanoeuvred. "Okay, God, you win. I'll go."

Persistent Jonah was not through in his debate with God however. Prejudice never dies easily or speedily. His first attempt to manipulate a powerful authority figure had failed. God had been immovable. His second line of defence is also familiar: 'I'll do what you demand God, but I'll do it my way.' God had instructed Jonah to preach to the people of Nineveh, but God had not told him how to do that preaching or where in Nineveh to preach, so he decided to preach only in the alleyways and back streets, and to preach by muttering under his breath.

So into the alleys and back streets went Jonah, looking disreputable and muttering under his breath, "God says, `Repent; repent and turn to God.'" He hoped no one would hear, and then certainly no one would respond. But to his disbelief, the people of Nineveh both heard and responded. By the thousands they poured out of their homes and onto the streets, tearing their clothes, beating their breasts, begging God's forgiveness mercy. The whole city was saved.

Jonah was the most successful evangelist of all time. Jonah, however, was in a rage. "God, I knew this would happen. Now you have to forgive these wretched people. Your merciful nature does not allow the destruction of penitent people, so you will save them. Why did you do this, God? Why can your love and mercy not stop at the boundary of my love and mercy? Why do you not hate everybody that I hate? These people do not deserve your love." Jonah stomped out of the city to sulk on a distant hillside, while the crowds of newly converted Ninevites raised their hands in prayer and praise and the echoes of "Amazing Grace" filtered into the countryside. In disgust Jonah finally fell asleep, only to have bad dreams.

He tossed and turned until dawn. Rousing himself, he became aware that God was strangely absent. During the night, however, God had caused a great tree to grow on the hillside. When the hot desert sun bore down on Jonah, he found refuge beneath that tree's rich green foliage. Jonah became attached to that tree in a deep, mysterious way. It seemed to sustain his life and his spirit. The next night, however, God caused a worm to attack the tree, boring through its trunk and branches and devouring its foliage, until the tree withered and collapsed into the dust. When Jonah awakened and saw that his treasured tree was now dead he was inconsolable. He wept bitter tears of grief. His compassion, his pity, and his grief poured out on the tree. Finally, late in that second day, God broke silence and said: "Jonah is it not rather strange that you can express all this grief and remorse over a tree, and not even a very impressive tree, since it was born in one day and died in another? You have the capacity to feel the pangs of a broken heart over this tree [dwellers of Queen Street note], yet you have no pity and no love for the 120,000 people who dwell in the city of Nineveh."

On this note the book of Jonah ends.

++++++++++++++++++++

For the people of Judah the Book of Jonah held up a mirror wherein they looked deeply into their own eyes. Slowly they had to see that God's love is unlimited. God's embrace is not restricted by their embrace. God's grace is not limited by their prejudices. It is important for Western Christians to realize that the first people to feel the sting of the church's prejudice were our own ancestors - the Gentiles.

They were not to be the only objects of prejudice. The church throughout its history has perceived a God who rejects whatever the church rejects. In almost every instance, it was ignorance that fed prejudice. Left-handed people were called "the devil's children" by church leaders. People who committed suicide were refused burial within the walls of the church. Mental illness made people different and, therefore, feared and rejected. Divorced persons were refused `Holy Communion'. Homosexual people have been despised and excluded. And so on and so on. The attitude of Jonah has been the attitude of the church. However, thank God, an ever-deepening understanding of God's love has time and again challenged and dismantled those barriers of prejudice.

Let us continue to hear the call of Nineveh: to set aside our fear and be open to the humanity in those we reject.

[i] Chapter 2, John Selby Spong, Living in Sin? San Francisco, 1988, Harper and Row.

January 15, 2006

Glynn Cardy

Epiphany 2
     1 Samuel 3:1-10     John 1:43-51

When the Hebrew text simply says “the Lord called Samuel” [I Sam 3:4] we aren't told the details. If the writer had been Irish maybe he would've said a fairy was poking him in the ear. The dreams, legends, and fables of ancient people invite us into different worlds with their own understandings of time and the place of the human heart. Dreams have their own time, as does love, as does God. There is a time for everything. Importantly, there is a time to slow down.

I've been musing about coffee, that wonderful stimulus that is so much a part of city life. The award winning cafes are all within easy walking distance of my home and office. For the last week however my consumption has taken a dive. I've been camping far from the seduction of computers, cell phones, and baristas, surrounded instead by the stimuli of native bush, sand and surf. The rising and setting of the sun is my watch. The casual conversation is my news. The walks on the beach are my Morning Prayer and Compline. I've been musing on coffee, not because I'm in withdrawal, but because I haven't missed it. The stimulus of this slower life creates its own energy. Speed, efficiency, and performance - all the so-called essentials of modern living – don't necessarily produce the dynamism they purport to.

When you live at a fast pace slowing down is a spiritual discipline that can bring its own rich rewards. Matakana is a small town north of Auckland . Unlike their near neighbours they've decided to be a slow town. In Matakana you won't find fast food outlets cuddling close to large red sheds. Gross mega-stores with their lure of cheap goods and employment aren't part of the town plan. Rather, slow food, aesthetically pleasing buildings, locally made products, are being woven into a commercial success. Assisted by entrepreneurial nous they are developing a different brand. It is a slow brand.

There is a 1970s book of theological reflections by Kosuke Koyama called Three Mile An Hour God - three miles an hour being the pace of walking. Koyama's point being that God is not in a hurry. When the world speeds up, God goes slow . Following God means going at a different pace than others. It's like love. You can't love fast. When a couple tells me they have known each other for six weeks and want to get married I tell them, very politely of course, to get lost. I tell them to get lost in each other in order to find the truth of each other and of themselves. Sometimes this can take only six months, but usually it takes a number of years.

Despite what magazines or soap operas tell you, you can't pull into a drive-through and order a double, crispy love burger with a side of meaning and a large commitment. For the simple reason it won't be love. Love takes time - both the time on the clock and the pace of the heart. Love is more akin to my nana's Christmas cake with multiple ingredients soaked for days and slow baked for hours.

There are two words in Greek for time: chronos and kairos. The first is chronological time, the time on the screen, minute upon minute. The second is the right time, the time of the heart, grace upon grace. In the Gospel of Mark [5:22ff.] there is a story of Jesus responding to the request of Jairus, one of the rulers of the synagogue, to come and heal his daughter. Jairus out of his love for his child had humbled himself asking assistance from a man that his colleagues and maybe even he strongly disagreed with. The need was urgent. His daughter was close to death. Time, chronos, was of the essence. Yet as Jesus hurried to the child's side he was violated. A haemorrhaging woman, ritually unclean, had grabbed his garments. Jesus stopped. He was now in the eyes of the law himself unclean. Her stain had become his stain. As a holy man he should have distanced himself from others and performed the necessary ritual ablutions.

Instead Jesus called the woman forward and spoke words of comfort and courage. Time, kairos, was of the essence. This was a moment of grace for that woman. Yet chronological time did not stand still. There was a child dying. Indeed as Jesus was speaking to the woman a messenger arrived from Jairus' household saying the little girl was dead. Life often seems to be a conflict between chronos and kairos, between the deadline and the life time. The more chronos dominates the less likelihood that moments of grace will occur, and the energy from that grace be absorbed into and shape the community. Yet there are consequences when we disregard chronos. We know that in Jairus' case everything turned out okay in the end. But our lives are seldom like that. Usually we have to make choices.

Summer is a time for slowing down. Long may January be a time when shops keep shorter hours, when the economy slows, when newspapers are thinner, and New Zealand goes on a picnic. If we like it this way we need to work to keep it this way, chiefly by lowering our expectations of others and ourselves. There is a time for everything – a time to slow down, to turn around, and see the agapanthus and the fairies dancing on top.