5th December 2004 : Advent 2 : Year A
Isaiah 11:1-10 : Romans 15:4-13 : Matthew 3:1-12
In the hospital world – and it doesn’t matter whether it’s public or private – patients often use the state of the world as a metaphor for the turmoil they are feeling and experiencing as they lie in their beds waiting for the next set of observations, the next visit from their doctor, the next test result, the next pill, the next needle – or that stoically-dreaded procedure from which they will awake possibly in great pain.
It matters little whether the concerns are global, local or historical. “It’s a tough world to bring up kids,” the patient sez. “Look at all the drugs.” “So much unemployment.” “It wasn’t like this when I was growing up.” “All this terrorism …” they might say, with a shake of the head.
What they mean is: My world is a mess right now and I’m terrified.
Of course, much of this pseudo-sociological discourse is quite true. The world we live in – if we knew our neighbours intimately maybe we could even say The street we live in – is hardly harmonious. Even if we read nothing but Australian newspapers, listen to or watch little but Australian radio and television, we’d know that global, national, local and economic and social mayhem exist on a level which is deeply disturbing.
Yet we sit here today as mostly silent witnesses to a sometimes tenuously-held belief that more than mayhem exercises our thoughts and indeed our lives. Our belief has a name – Jesus. That belief is held within the often-tense relationship we constantly seek with the Being we call God.
We do not need to live among rubble like so many human jellies waiting for the next shriek from the sky - we do not have to concern ourselves about anything more serious than tomato sauce or red wine stains, while others routinely stain their already-soiled garments with the blood of their dying children because an unseen enemy has destroyed their local hospitals and clinics – we can generally feel secure that our children will arrive at or return safely from school because we do not live in neighbourhoods where snipers routinely “accidentally” target school children …
So we have the much harder task today of grappling with a notion which most piquantly pricks the skin into life of those who really know the minute-by-minute desperation of wondering what the next moment will bring. Even if we never had to think about bombing raids, loved-ones bleeding to death or dead children, we’d need to understand that the world into which John the baptiser came as a spiritual icebreaker for our Jesus WAS such a place of terror, insecurity and desperation.
It was the world of the prophet Isaiah.
And the only reason it was not Paul’s world was because he had grasped the notion of Jesus and fashioned a belief system whose genius transcended human suffering while still seeking to articulate human experience.
I am not wanting to devalue our own Westfield experiences, many of which will be and are as devastating in their own way as those of Fallujah, Ramallah or Kabul.
Anyone here who’s seriously done the hospital thing, complete with catheter and needle-wielding nurse, will readily appreciate the desperation to hear that something more than this present suffering makes today bearable and tomorrow viable.
This is essentially what John the baptiser is trying to say – that Jesus is our viable tomorrow, that Jesus is our hope for more than mayhem. The message is the same as Isaiah’s – exile and occupation do not define his people. What defines them is their faith in the hope of the Living God that harmony will replace uncertainty and terror.
Isaiah is not talking about Jesus – he couldn’t possibly have known, and he wouldn’t have dreamt of befouling his soul with that kind of witchy-pooh chrystal ball-gazing – but he did know the Living God, who is timeless and ageless, whose entrance into our history from the beginning speaks of care and concern for all creation, whose presence and power human beings have always sensed and still do.
We tender, however, to fall upon the shell and ruthlessly and thoughtlessly devour it, discarding the core – a process which leads to literalism, fundamentalism and extremism, leaving a bitter taste and an even more bitter legacy.
Our task in our sitting and waiting is to taste and savour the core – the Living God’s love of all creation – and to proclaim boldly in our lives, our thoughts and words and deeds that more than mayhem guides us, that tomorrow IS viable – not because it’s a gritty piece of wishful thinking we can’t dislodge like leftover food stuck in our teeth – but because paradoxically what we show TODAY is the foretaste of that tomorrow.
And the viable tomorrow is not dependent on what this day brings or threatens or promises to offer but on whether we live NOW as if it were already THEN. The foretaste of tomorrow we waft towards Westfield will inevitably be imperfect but the point is not perfect reproduction of a notion that can only be grasped imperfectly anyway.
The point is authenticity. Do our deeds match our words? If we say God is loving, do we show love ourselves? We say God forgives, but are we forgiving also? We claim a God of mercy: are we too merciful? We believe God cares for the poor and oppressed, but are we involved in the lives and struggles of the oppressed and poor of Westfield? We reckon God heals the sick and makes whole the broken, so are we ourselves participating in that healing and wholeness?
Isaiah, Paul and John today speak of the hope of God’s viable tomorrow. Our deeply-traumatised world – whether of bombed cities or hospital-bound procedures or family crises – needs as desperately as ever to believe in that tomorrow. But unless we ourselves, in Westfield and beyond, live today the viable tomorrow we’ve just encountered through holy scripture then why should anyone believe our message?
All they will see is bits of sticky shell stuck to our lips … But when our words and deeds align, when what we say meets what we actually do, then all our worlds and all the people of Westfield and beyond can indeed begin to believe that despite the terrors and insecurities of this today, what lies beyond is indeed more than mayhem.
Sunday, January 16, 2005
Thursday, January 13, 2005
THE CHRIST MASS Year A
On Wednesday the 22nd of December 2004 The West Australian newspaper published a photograph on its front page showing a very young girl wearing a head scarf, white jacket sporting a flora motif - and a Barbie tee-shirt. As far as the eye or magnifying-glass could tell, the clothing was fresh and clean, suggesting that it had been presented to her or her surviving parents or relatives, after the devastation which caused her face to be splattered with dark, dried blood and her left eye caked shut.
The pungent heading above the photograph asked the apparently-disingenuous question: If they do this to one of their own, what hope is left?
Leaving aside the legion of questions which that photo - which screams “set-piece!” and “manipulation!” - raises, almost NO ONE gathered here could fail to answer The West’s puzzling question.
If they do this to one of their own, what hope is left?
The very fact that we ARE gathered is an answer in itself. I suspect we may not be able to articulate all our reasons for being here but that’s not a surprise. The whole issue of God and God’s dealing with humankind is beyond words, beyond thoughts, beyond the crudely empirical. We fumble with theology precisely because we cannot articulate the one thing we truly and uniquely possess – our experience of the Living God.
And that experience best reveals itself, not in learned volumes, not in creeds or anything written, not even in art or music (though art and music come much closer than words to expressing our experience) – that experience best reveals itself in actions, in that which is corporeal, made real by the will, effort and effect of human bodies. The paradox is that it is the ultra-nano-second speed of the neural transmitters firing in the human brain and beyond that, the ungraspable stimuli which trigger them, that causes the relative precision of physical activity.
Put crudely, our bodies do what they do because our brains tell them what to do. But when our brains sense the Living God even they become inarticulate and imprecise.
So it is little wonder that we might “know” why we’re here and at the same time not be able to give a sensible answer if anyone asks us.But here’s another paradox: even our most garbled responses suddenly provide their own internal eloquence when uttered in response to questions like the West Australian’s If they do this to one of their own, what hope is left?
If The West seriously wants an answer let it send its newly-embedded reporters into the churches and gatherings of the faithful this Christmass time. Most of us may fail to win essay competitions but we all come with some sense of hope and the Living God calls us collectively to BE that hope.
What hope is left? US! Living witnesses that, as I suggested a few Sundays ago, more than mayhem defines our world. The hope expresses itself through the faithful who are prepared to stand up and say, This is wrong! The hope resides in the voices and actions of faithful people, acting in response to what they read in the gospel and know from their own encounter with the Living God, who rise against injustice, intolerance, lies, oppression and manipulation and speak words and do things in the name of the Living God on behalf of those who cannot say or do them.
We celebrate the birth of Jesus precisely because deep within our beings we have heard or seen or dreamed that God’s own answer to that question, What hope is left? was, and continues to be Jesus.
Ironically, that question is clothed in shadows of despair and whispers desperately of ultimate chaos. But that is precisely the circumstance into which the Living God sends Jesus. That is precisely the circumstance WHY God sends Jesus. … Because of despair. … Because of chaos.
… Because chaos and despair strip away the flossy sentiment and confront us with things that matter most.
They say that an alcoholic – or any person self-destructing on addictive behaviour – does not realise their need for help until they “hit rock-bottom”. Rock-bottom is the place where all the soil of delusion and excuse is gone, where no more layers of deception exist, where the paradoxical effort to arrive at the worst of places suddenly offers us, despite our life-threatening exhaustion, the clarity to enable us to reach the best, most glorious of possibilities.
This was the kind of world into which God sent Jesus. This was the kind of world where God whispered into the soul of a faithful girl who responded in a spirit of faith and co-operation – as a co-worker and co-producer. She did not understand, she could not articulate why she did what she knew she had to do, and like us she would not have won any essay competitions no matter how many people asked her.
But God’s whisper led to her actions. God’s whisper triggered her neural transmitters and she went and conceived and carried and bore and suckled and nourished and nurtured the kid her yet-to-be hubby would name Yeshua and we call Jesus.
All that happened because her world, the world in which she lived, had hit rock-bottom and the embedded reporters of The West Judaean were asking, What hope is left? and the Living God had sed: YESHUA!
And now we find ourselves in a world which may well be nearer to rock-bottom than any of us care to imagine. We again encounter the desperate question but this time the Living God whispers into our souls and sez: JESUS! - and all you lot going to church this Christmass!
From the beginning, the story of Jesus involved human co-operation with God. That human co-operation remains essential. Perhaps we tend to forget.
Perhaps we are buried beneath layers of tinsel, snow-filled carols, thoughts of familial responsibility and anxieties about organising the logistics of the luncheon gathering. Fair enough. These are real things. They won’t go away and they SHOULDN’T go away. Nowhere is it written that soul-work happens without perspiration.
And Christmass is more about our souls than about babies.
But its meaning turns on how we receive a Jesus who was only ONCE a baby. Have we actually understood that Jesus grew up, became an adult, and spent his ministry showing and teaching others how to follow where he led? We assume we celebrate a birth but what rightfully excites our joy is the meaning of that birth – and the meaning speaks about our souls, not our stomachs or blood-pressure …
The meaning of the birth of Jesus is the first, most profound and timeless answer to the question What hope is left? Jesus is the hope, and if we are truly in tune with this Jesus then we too are included within that hope, both as honoured recipients and as gifted co-labourers with Jesus, wandering rock-bottom and inviting the damaged and broken to become part of God’s good news in the very act of accepting and receiving it.
We are part of the hope for that poor manipulated Iraqi girl on the front page of Wednesday’s West Australian. We are part of the hope for the homeless, despairing, unemployed, abused and beaten people of Westfield. We are part of the hope for which the world yearns and now cries for salvation from the myriad evils of injustice and oppression besetting it.
As we celebrate a birth and a baby, let us remember that this is Christmas – the Christ Mass – and that EVERY Mass is about going out into the world: Ite, sed the deacon, Missa est. Go, she sez, It is the dismissal. A Dismissal into a world hungry for love and salvation. May that world – our world – hear the answer, see it, and receive it as our own gift passed forward.
Let us remember that it can NEVER be the Christ Mass until we go out and our own lives and faith provide the answer to the question What hope is left? … Until our own words and deeds show that Jesus – in whatever form the world needs to receive, recognise and understand him – is that hope and we too journey within it.
The pungent heading above the photograph asked the apparently-disingenuous question: If they do this to one of their own, what hope is left?
Leaving aside the legion of questions which that photo - which screams “set-piece!” and “manipulation!” - raises, almost NO ONE gathered here could fail to answer The West’s puzzling question.
If they do this to one of their own, what hope is left?
The very fact that we ARE gathered is an answer in itself. I suspect we may not be able to articulate all our reasons for being here but that’s not a surprise. The whole issue of God and God’s dealing with humankind is beyond words, beyond thoughts, beyond the crudely empirical. We fumble with theology precisely because we cannot articulate the one thing we truly and uniquely possess – our experience of the Living God.
And that experience best reveals itself, not in learned volumes, not in creeds or anything written, not even in art or music (though art and music come much closer than words to expressing our experience) – that experience best reveals itself in actions, in that which is corporeal, made real by the will, effort and effect of human bodies. The paradox is that it is the ultra-nano-second speed of the neural transmitters firing in the human brain and beyond that, the ungraspable stimuli which trigger them, that causes the relative precision of physical activity.
Put crudely, our bodies do what they do because our brains tell them what to do. But when our brains sense the Living God even they become inarticulate and imprecise.
So it is little wonder that we might “know” why we’re here and at the same time not be able to give a sensible answer if anyone asks us.But here’s another paradox: even our most garbled responses suddenly provide their own internal eloquence when uttered in response to questions like the West Australian’s If they do this to one of their own, what hope is left?
If The West seriously wants an answer let it send its newly-embedded reporters into the churches and gatherings of the faithful this Christmass time. Most of us may fail to win essay competitions but we all come with some sense of hope and the Living God calls us collectively to BE that hope.
What hope is left? US! Living witnesses that, as I suggested a few Sundays ago, more than mayhem defines our world. The hope expresses itself through the faithful who are prepared to stand up and say, This is wrong! The hope resides in the voices and actions of faithful people, acting in response to what they read in the gospel and know from their own encounter with the Living God, who rise against injustice, intolerance, lies, oppression and manipulation and speak words and do things in the name of the Living God on behalf of those who cannot say or do them.
We celebrate the birth of Jesus precisely because deep within our beings we have heard or seen or dreamed that God’s own answer to that question, What hope is left? was, and continues to be Jesus.
Ironically, that question is clothed in shadows of despair and whispers desperately of ultimate chaos. But that is precisely the circumstance into which the Living God sends Jesus. That is precisely the circumstance WHY God sends Jesus. … Because of despair. … Because of chaos.
… Because chaos and despair strip away the flossy sentiment and confront us with things that matter most.
They say that an alcoholic – or any person self-destructing on addictive behaviour – does not realise their need for help until they “hit rock-bottom”. Rock-bottom is the place where all the soil of delusion and excuse is gone, where no more layers of deception exist, where the paradoxical effort to arrive at the worst of places suddenly offers us, despite our life-threatening exhaustion, the clarity to enable us to reach the best, most glorious of possibilities.
This was the kind of world into which God sent Jesus. This was the kind of world where God whispered into the soul of a faithful girl who responded in a spirit of faith and co-operation – as a co-worker and co-producer. She did not understand, she could not articulate why she did what she knew she had to do, and like us she would not have won any essay competitions no matter how many people asked her.
But God’s whisper led to her actions. God’s whisper triggered her neural transmitters and she went and conceived and carried and bore and suckled and nourished and nurtured the kid her yet-to-be hubby would name Yeshua and we call Jesus.
All that happened because her world, the world in which she lived, had hit rock-bottom and the embedded reporters of The West Judaean were asking, What hope is left? and the Living God had sed: YESHUA!
And now we find ourselves in a world which may well be nearer to rock-bottom than any of us care to imagine. We again encounter the desperate question but this time the Living God whispers into our souls and sez: JESUS! - and all you lot going to church this Christmass!
From the beginning, the story of Jesus involved human co-operation with God. That human co-operation remains essential. Perhaps we tend to forget.
Perhaps we are buried beneath layers of tinsel, snow-filled carols, thoughts of familial responsibility and anxieties about organising the logistics of the luncheon gathering. Fair enough. These are real things. They won’t go away and they SHOULDN’T go away. Nowhere is it written that soul-work happens without perspiration.
And Christmass is more about our souls than about babies.
But its meaning turns on how we receive a Jesus who was only ONCE a baby. Have we actually understood that Jesus grew up, became an adult, and spent his ministry showing and teaching others how to follow where he led? We assume we celebrate a birth but what rightfully excites our joy is the meaning of that birth – and the meaning speaks about our souls, not our stomachs or blood-pressure …
The meaning of the birth of Jesus is the first, most profound and timeless answer to the question What hope is left? Jesus is the hope, and if we are truly in tune with this Jesus then we too are included within that hope, both as honoured recipients and as gifted co-labourers with Jesus, wandering rock-bottom and inviting the damaged and broken to become part of God’s good news in the very act of accepting and receiving it.
We are part of the hope for that poor manipulated Iraqi girl on the front page of Wednesday’s West Australian. We are part of the hope for the homeless, despairing, unemployed, abused and beaten people of Westfield. We are part of the hope for which the world yearns and now cries for salvation from the myriad evils of injustice and oppression besetting it.
As we celebrate a birth and a baby, let us remember that this is Christmas – the Christ Mass – and that EVERY Mass is about going out into the world: Ite, sed the deacon, Missa est. Go, she sez, It is the dismissal. A Dismissal into a world hungry for love and salvation. May that world – our world – hear the answer, see it, and receive it as our own gift passed forward.
Let us remember that it can NEVER be the Christ Mass until we go out and our own lives and faith provide the answer to the question What hope is left? … Until our own words and deeds show that Jesus – in whatever form the world needs to receive, recognise and understand him – is that hope and we too journey within it.
Sunday, January 09, 2005
QUIETLY AND FAITHFULLY AT WORK
9th January 2005 : Baptism of our Lord : Year A
Isaiah 42:1-9 : Acts 10 34-43 : Matthew 3:13-17
In many ways it is bizarre with the events of the Boxing Day tsunamis and earthquakes still very present to arrive today at a baptism, where we have already heard words about water and dying.
Some sensibilities will find this offensive or insensitive and the temptation is to sidestep our scripture and tradition by politely refusing to emphasise these crucial theological and symbolic aspects of entry into God’s Church. … But such choices are counterproductive because they devalue part of the Church’s greatness and God’s glory, which is about faithfully continuing the work of the kingdom, no matter what befalls us or our world.
The prophet Isaiah speaks with restraint and yet power about this:
Here is my servant, whom I uphold,
my chosen, in whom my soul delights;
I have put my spirit upon him;
he will bring forth justice to the nations.
He will not cry or lift up his voice,
or make it heard in the street;
a bruised reed he will not break,
and a dimly burning wick he will not quench;
he will faithfully bring forth justice.
He will not grow faint or be crushed
until he has established justice in the earth;
and the coastlands wait for his teaching.
These are images of God’s servant faithfully and without fanfare going about his business, day after day.
It is one of the things at which the Church excels: being present, going about God’s business, reminding the world that whether in the midst of individual, community or national calamity and tragedy, God does not abandon us.
This is one of the crucial underpinnings of the resurrection of Jesus, which is mirrored so powerfully in baptism: that although the calamity and tragedy should reach the ultimate point – the extinction of life – the Living God not only CAN but WILL proclaim the divine imperative to choose life.
And yet even so momentous an event as the resurrection of Jesus occurred quietly, in darkness, without publicity and the PR team, no headlines in the West Judaean, no two-page spread advertising that Jesus was back by popular demand and you could see him at the following locations, courtesy of Abba-Father Enterprises (Inc.) …
Two things come to mind: one is the motto above Carl Jung’s gate, which I’ve mentioned before – VOCATUS ATQUE NON VOCATUS, DEUS ADERIT – Called and Not Called, God Will Be There. And the other is an old Redemptorist pewsheet I used to keep on my desk when I worked in a library. It showed a quiet forest scene – it could have been a vignette from our own south-west – tall trees and a long, not-too-winding pathway into the heart of the forest. The heading for that Sunday was God is quietly at work …
I continue to draw strength from both elements of this equation, the refusal of God to abandon Creation, always being present, always mixing with those in need, always THERE, called or uncalled, always “quietly at work”, without fanfare or attention-seeking, acting in our own lives and in the life of Creation, acting through the words and deeds of the faithful.
Today we will baptise J_n into God’s Church (not the Anglican Church), and God will thereby – as we Anglicans understand it – add one to the number of the faithful who, empowered by the same Spirit who descended upon Jesus at his baptism, will quietly grow in the faith which surrounds him. And God – called and uncalled – will quietly work within J_n, through the love and nurture of his parents and family, and in the prayers and support of his sponsors and we in this community of faith who witness God’s actions this morning.
Yes, we will continue to speak of water and dying, but now we will also add life – new life.
May we all remember our own call quietly and faithfully to continue God’s work in Westfield and beyond, in the name of Jesus, in the power of the Holy Spirit given us at our own baptism …
Isaiah 42:1-9 : Acts 10 34-43 : Matthew 3:13-17
In many ways it is bizarre with the events of the Boxing Day tsunamis and earthquakes still very present to arrive today at a baptism, where we have already heard words about water and dying.
Some sensibilities will find this offensive or insensitive and the temptation is to sidestep our scripture and tradition by politely refusing to emphasise these crucial theological and symbolic aspects of entry into God’s Church. … But such choices are counterproductive because they devalue part of the Church’s greatness and God’s glory, which is about faithfully continuing the work of the kingdom, no matter what befalls us or our world.
The prophet Isaiah speaks with restraint and yet power about this:
Here is my servant, whom I uphold,
my chosen, in whom my soul delights;
I have put my spirit upon him;
he will bring forth justice to the nations.
He will not cry or lift up his voice,
or make it heard in the street;
a bruised reed he will not break,
and a dimly burning wick he will not quench;
he will faithfully bring forth justice.
He will not grow faint or be crushed
until he has established justice in the earth;
and the coastlands wait for his teaching.
These are images of God’s servant faithfully and without fanfare going about his business, day after day.
It is one of the things at which the Church excels: being present, going about God’s business, reminding the world that whether in the midst of individual, community or national calamity and tragedy, God does not abandon us.
This is one of the crucial underpinnings of the resurrection of Jesus, which is mirrored so powerfully in baptism: that although the calamity and tragedy should reach the ultimate point – the extinction of life – the Living God not only CAN but WILL proclaim the divine imperative to choose life.
And yet even so momentous an event as the resurrection of Jesus occurred quietly, in darkness, without publicity and the PR team, no headlines in the West Judaean, no two-page spread advertising that Jesus was back by popular demand and you could see him at the following locations, courtesy of Abba-Father Enterprises (Inc.) …
Two things come to mind: one is the motto above Carl Jung’s gate, which I’ve mentioned before – VOCATUS ATQUE NON VOCATUS, DEUS ADERIT – Called and Not Called, God Will Be There. And the other is an old Redemptorist pewsheet I used to keep on my desk when I worked in a library. It showed a quiet forest scene – it could have been a vignette from our own south-west – tall trees and a long, not-too-winding pathway into the heart of the forest. The heading for that Sunday was God is quietly at work …
I continue to draw strength from both elements of this equation, the refusal of God to abandon Creation, always being present, always mixing with those in need, always THERE, called or uncalled, always “quietly at work”, without fanfare or attention-seeking, acting in our own lives and in the life of Creation, acting through the words and deeds of the faithful.
Today we will baptise J_n into God’s Church (not the Anglican Church), and God will thereby – as we Anglicans understand it – add one to the number of the faithful who, empowered by the same Spirit who descended upon Jesus at his baptism, will quietly grow in the faith which surrounds him. And God – called and uncalled – will quietly work within J_n, through the love and nurture of his parents and family, and in the prayers and support of his sponsors and we in this community of faith who witness God’s actions this morning.
Yes, we will continue to speak of water and dying, but now we will also add life – new life.
May we all remember our own call quietly and faithfully to continue God’s work in Westfield and beyond, in the name of Jesus, in the power of the Holy Spirit given us at our own baptism …
Thursday, January 06, 2005
Epiphany A05
As most of the planet struggles to come to terms with the overwhelming devastation wrought by the earthquakes and tsunami which struck the coastlines of several countries in south east Asia, India and south eastern Africa, a few people have found comfort in these verses from the first book of Kings:
The first book of Kings suggests that despite the awesome power of the natural world, a power which the Living God may well control, God is not IN that power or those events. In other words, God did not personally and with malice aforethought pound the coasts of Indonesia or Malaysia or Thailand or any other nation where people were killed and lives rudely changed forever.
We might paraphrase 1 Kings with the additional observation: And after the fire, a tsunami – but the LORD was not in the tsunami …
This begs questions like: Could not the God who wrought creation from chaos prevent this catastrophe? Our natural response is to affirm resoundingly that God HAS this power. That God’s hand could have shot down from heaven to provide a barrier between the great waves and the lands those waves threatened.
Many will assume or believe confirmed their bitter suspicion that because God did not perform to these expectations then God doesn’t exist or God doesn’t care or that God is not the all-powerful, all-loving Being we deluded people of faith claim.
Faced with the aftermath, the devastation, the shock, the whimpering children, the rising stench of decaying bodies, we scream for an answer, we demand to know where the Living God was on the morning of the 26th December 2004 between the hours of 6:58 and 7:15 … And all we hear in response to our interrogation is the “sound of sheer silence”, or in the more poetic trad version: The still, small voice of God.
And that sheer silence enrages and inflames the fallacy implicit in our thinking on the problem of evil. WE know as good, decent human beings that WE would not stand idly by while terrible tragedies occur; WE know as good, decent human beings that WE would try to do something to make things right; WE know we would do everything in our power to prevent catastrophe, and in the event of catastrophe provide every assistance, heal the sick, bind the broken, feed the hungry, clothe the naked, offer solace and comfort to the bereaved and traumatised … WE know what WE would do – and so we can’t believe that the Living God isn’t doing exactly the same thing!
The irony of course is that we humans are thinking exactly the same thoughts as God, we are moved by exactly the same impulse towards bowel-wrenching compassion Jesus exhibited, we are overwhelmed by exactly the same heartbreak and outrage at suffering as the God of Creation – precisely because we are made in the image and likeness of the Living God.
At the end of the devastation we can confidently tell the world that God is NOT uncaring or powerless or, worst of all, indifferent – because WE are moving and doing, WE are weeping and digging and bandaging, WE are using what we have and offering it to those who desperately need it now.
On Mount Horeb Elijah hears God’s voice and what he hears are ultimate instructions, instructions which begin with the simple word, GO … Jesus used the same word when he instructed the post-resurrection faithful to share their knowledge of good news with all the world.
It may well be the word the Magoi heard within their soul as they surveyed the ancient Persian night sky. We do not know that one, of course, but we do know that the Magoi – the “wise men”, but not kings – got their camels and their tribute and their retinue together in good middle eastern, ancient-world fashion, and they went …
One of the temptations besetting us today is to toss around throw-away lines about the darkness of the time and hour, the darkness surrounding the events of Boxing Day 2004. But it is a conceit we who claim faith in Jesus can not afford. The journey of the Magoi – their GOING in response to God’s actions in the natural world – marked the nascent understanding and recognition of something we perhaps too easily affirm: that light had come into a dark world.
Ladies and Gentlemen: that light has NEVER disappeared! By what authority does any follower of Jesus speak of darkness now or ANY time since the birth of Jesus?
The Magoi confirmed that even aliens could recognise the light of the Christ. And so the Living God threw down the doors of revelation so that even those who did not belong, even those who had not paid their subscriptions, got a free look … The Magoi confirm that the Living God is available to all people and that the light of Jesus does not dissipate but grows and spreads, carried by prophets and apostles, and most important of all, by ordinary extraordinary human beings like us.
People want to know where God is in this tsunami tragedy – where the light is in this apparent darkness … Show them. God’s is the hand reaching into pockets and purses to offer money to aid agencies. God’s hand puts those extra tins of food into the shopping trolley. God’s love and compassion powers the actions of those who reach the desperate places of the tsunami-stricken. God’s ears listen to the fluttering hearts of south-east Asian children, God’s arms carry those too weak or damaged to walk on their own, God’s tears wash down the graves of the dead. The light of Christ blazes in every act of compassion, mercy, love and generosity, every moment of shared or vicarious pain.
This morning’s pewsheet offers a few concrete suggestions for providing assistance. It may be that some of us find ourselves on the shores of one of the areas affected by the tsunami but we can all bring some of the light WE have received to those who think only darkness prevails.
Our money is not worthless, our gifts are not valueless; our compassion is never wasted, our prayers are never useless.
We are the light of the Christ – may we shine that the glory of the Living God may be seen by all!
[The angel] said, "Go out and stand on the mountain before theMany will already be asking where God was when the tsunami was born, how God could have allowed so many apparently and surely unquestionably innocent people to die and continue dying, why God did nothing to prevent this tragedy.For if any of us had forgotten the thorny braids of the problem of evil, Boxing Day 2004 sent them wildly twisting round and choking our perhaps complacent Christmass equanimity. Searching questions about God and God’s role in Creation and in our own lives once more confront and challenge us.
LORD, for the LORD is about to pass by." Now there was a great wind, so strong
that it was splitting mountains and breaking rocks in pieces before the LORD,
but the LORD was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but the LORD
was not in the earthquake; and after the earthquake a fire, but the LORD was not
in the fire; and after the fire a sound of sheer silence. When Elijah heard it,
he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood at the entrance of the
cave. Then there came a voice to him that said, "What are you doing here,
Elijah?" He answered, "I have been very zealous for the LORD, the God of hosts;
for the Israelites have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and
killed your prophets with the sword. I alone am left, and they are seeking my
life, to take it away." Then the LORD said to him, "Go..."
The first book of Kings suggests that despite the awesome power of the natural world, a power which the Living God may well control, God is not IN that power or those events. In other words, God did not personally and with malice aforethought pound the coasts of Indonesia or Malaysia or Thailand or any other nation where people were killed and lives rudely changed forever.
We might paraphrase 1 Kings with the additional observation: And after the fire, a tsunami – but the LORD was not in the tsunami …
This begs questions like: Could not the God who wrought creation from chaos prevent this catastrophe? Our natural response is to affirm resoundingly that God HAS this power. That God’s hand could have shot down from heaven to provide a barrier between the great waves and the lands those waves threatened.
Many will assume or believe confirmed their bitter suspicion that because God did not perform to these expectations then God doesn’t exist or God doesn’t care or that God is not the all-powerful, all-loving Being we deluded people of faith claim.
Faced with the aftermath, the devastation, the shock, the whimpering children, the rising stench of decaying bodies, we scream for an answer, we demand to know where the Living God was on the morning of the 26th December 2004 between the hours of 6:58 and 7:15 … And all we hear in response to our interrogation is the “sound of sheer silence”, or in the more poetic trad version: The still, small voice of God.
And that sheer silence enrages and inflames the fallacy implicit in our thinking on the problem of evil. WE know as good, decent human beings that WE would not stand idly by while terrible tragedies occur; WE know as good, decent human beings that WE would try to do something to make things right; WE know we would do everything in our power to prevent catastrophe, and in the event of catastrophe provide every assistance, heal the sick, bind the broken, feed the hungry, clothe the naked, offer solace and comfort to the bereaved and traumatised … WE know what WE would do – and so we can’t believe that the Living God isn’t doing exactly the same thing!
The irony of course is that we humans are thinking exactly the same thoughts as God, we are moved by exactly the same impulse towards bowel-wrenching compassion Jesus exhibited, we are overwhelmed by exactly the same heartbreak and outrage at suffering as the God of Creation – precisely because we are made in the image and likeness of the Living God.
At the end of the devastation we can confidently tell the world that God is NOT uncaring or powerless or, worst of all, indifferent – because WE are moving and doing, WE are weeping and digging and bandaging, WE are using what we have and offering it to those who desperately need it now.
On Mount Horeb Elijah hears God’s voice and what he hears are ultimate instructions, instructions which begin with the simple word, GO … Jesus used the same word when he instructed the post-resurrection faithful to share their knowledge of good news with all the world.
It may well be the word the Magoi heard within their soul as they surveyed the ancient Persian night sky. We do not know that one, of course, but we do know that the Magoi – the “wise men”, but not kings – got their camels and their tribute and their retinue together in good middle eastern, ancient-world fashion, and they went …
One of the temptations besetting us today is to toss around throw-away lines about the darkness of the time and hour, the darkness surrounding the events of Boxing Day 2004. But it is a conceit we who claim faith in Jesus can not afford. The journey of the Magoi – their GOING in response to God’s actions in the natural world – marked the nascent understanding and recognition of something we perhaps too easily affirm: that light had come into a dark world.
Ladies and Gentlemen: that light has NEVER disappeared! By what authority does any follower of Jesus speak of darkness now or ANY time since the birth of Jesus?
The Magoi confirmed that even aliens could recognise the light of the Christ. And so the Living God threw down the doors of revelation so that even those who did not belong, even those who had not paid their subscriptions, got a free look … The Magoi confirm that the Living God is available to all people and that the light of Jesus does not dissipate but grows and spreads, carried by prophets and apostles, and most important of all, by ordinary extraordinary human beings like us.
People want to know where God is in this tsunami tragedy – where the light is in this apparent darkness … Show them. God’s is the hand reaching into pockets and purses to offer money to aid agencies. God’s hand puts those extra tins of food into the shopping trolley. God’s love and compassion powers the actions of those who reach the desperate places of the tsunami-stricken. God’s ears listen to the fluttering hearts of south-east Asian children, God’s arms carry those too weak or damaged to walk on their own, God’s tears wash down the graves of the dead. The light of Christ blazes in every act of compassion, mercy, love and generosity, every moment of shared or vicarious pain.
This morning’s pewsheet offers a few concrete suggestions for providing assistance. It may be that some of us find ourselves on the shores of one of the areas affected by the tsunami but we can all bring some of the light WE have received to those who think only darkness prevails.
Our money is not worthless, our gifts are not valueless; our compassion is never wasted, our prayers are never useless.
We are the light of the Christ – may we shine that the glory of the Living God may be seen by all!
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