Epiphany 2018

Matthew 2.1-12

There’s something on our pew-sheet each Sunday that I hope everyone notices. It’s always on the front page near the top.

We welcome all visitors and newcomers who have come to worship with us. Communicant members of other Christian denominations are welcome to receive the Sacrament of Holy Communion.

I think it’s one of the most important things God calls us to do; to welcome visitors of all kinds to participate as completely as they can in the Church community.

So I remember being a bit shocked once when I’d announced this at a Requiem Eucharist – a service where we didn’t have a pew-sheet – and afterwards, someone told me that he felt I’d excluded him with these words. He wasn’t a communicant anywhere else, he said, and so I was explicitly denying him communion there.

It’s hard when a welcome is heard as a keep-out notice. There are several questions this raises – do we have conditions of entry; conditions of participation; should we? A useful test is to ask the old WWJD question – What would Jesus do?

This is particularly the question to ask at the feast of the Epiphany. The day of Christ was revealed to outsiders – to foreign astrologers whose practice is frowned on by many parts of the Church and by Judaism. Epiphany is a good time to consider the extent of Christ’s welcome. Who did Jesus reveal himself to? Was there anyone he would have left out? Let’s think carefully about who was actually welcomed at Bethlehem. Who did Jesus have there to celebrate his birth?

First, there are his parents. The story goes that Joseph and Mary aren’t married yet. If you don’t think Matthew’s trying to make a point of this, look back a chapter at his record of Jesus’ family tree. You find relationships represented there which were illegal or unclean according to the Hebrew Scriptures (Tamar- incest, Rahab- prostitution, Ruth-forbidden inter-racial marriage and Bathsheba-adultery). If what we are seeing in our Holy Family is the first ever Christian gathering, this bids fair for a very broad-minded Church indeed.
Luke’s gospel gives us the detail about a manger – an animal-feed container that Mary and Joseph have to use as a bed for Jesus. So they were in the part of the establishment that housed animals. Tradition gives us the donkey and some cattle and sheep as Jesus’s fellow tenants; doubtless accompanied by their attendant insects. So the Church is more universal still.

Then there are shepherds; also in Luke’s account. Shepherds in the Middle East are still mostly children – kids aged between 5 and 11. The ones I knew in those parts were poor, grubby little urchins who’d invade people’s privacy and gawp at them endlessly if they weren’t chased away. So the earliest congregation included little children too. And of course they’d have brought their sheep and goats with them. I wonder if Mary and Joseph had trouble keeping the sheep from nibbling at the straw that Jesus was lying on. The goats would have eaten his clothes as well, given half a chance. And who would ever forget the smell of a billy goat?

Then there’s a star and its attendant Magi. A Magus is a magician, and Deut. 18 declares such a person abhorrent. And a major point of the first creation story in Genesis is to say that the stars and moon that people of the east worshipped as gods were to be seen as nothing more than clocks and calendars. So abhorrent people are there, and Matthew records their coming. How broad minded do you want to get!?

Finally, there are angels in their thousands. I think we can safely say they enjoy universal approval. But what a gathering! Parents of dubious status from an even more questionable pedigree; the animal, vegetable, insect, mineral and heavenly kingdoms all represented; strange foreigners from the east seeking a king – and risking the baby’s life by telling Herod about him!

That’s as broad-minded a church as you could want, isn’t it – and the infant Jesus, as he should, takes his place in the middle of it all. God, unflappably gracious, is apparently unfussed by the wild diversity of angels, people and creatures all dwelling under one little roof. They were all invited, or they were co-opted as hosts.

So WWJD? Is what we’ve deduced so far about God’s welcome – about Jesus’s inclusivity – consistent with Scripture? The psalm today reminds us of God’s special concern for the poor, the needy, the helpless, the oppressed and the violated. The reading from Isaiah joyfully proclaims the gathering in of a scattered family, all guided by the brightness of God’s light. And the epistle is a prayer for God’s wisdom to be revealed throughout the earth, and indeed beyond it.
That’s all pretty inclusive. And Matthew points us in two further directions – one at the beginning and the other at the end of the gospel. Matthew begins his gospel with Jesus’ genealogy. He begins that genealogy with Abraham. The most important moment in Abraham’s story is when God promises that through him, all families of the earth will be blessed; not only all believers; not just all peoples; all families. The tableau we have before us in the crib shows us this blessing come true.

The other direction Matthew points us is through the last verse of the gospel. Jesus commits his followers to work to fulfil God’s desire—Go…and make disciples of all nations. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.

The tableau before us at Epiphany is a call to us to see what God does truly desire – universal blessing; grace; peace – a call to see all that, and then to work for it in the power of Jesus. It calls us to ask how wide we can open our stable door? How wide we can open the hearts of those inside – us? It challenges us to open wider still – to embrace what we can’t yet. But it also challenges us to go outside – to go to the other – and to trust that Jesus goes with us, to whatever family of the earth our mission takes us.

And who are we in it? On this Epiphany Sunday, we recognise that God calls us to live in ways that acknowledge God’s grace. We are provided with the gifts and skills to do this. Our calling today is to identify our individual and community gifts, and to exercise them so we live our calling?

Amen

Christmas 1 – Circumcision – Presentation of Christ

B 31-12-2017 A & C – Luke 2 21-40

One of the things I find myself involved with very often is a hand-over – baptisms, confirmations, marriages, being with the dying and funerals.

Custodians of a tradition – of a practice, of special knowledge, custodians of a particular hope – have to pass it on into the care of the next generation; to pass it on, and let go in trust.

It’s seldom as explicit in the Scriptures as it is in today’s Gospel reading.

Old Simeon and Anna saw in the Christ-Child the fulfilment of all their hopes.

His coming set them free to declare what they knew – to hand over the tradition, and in Simeon’s case, to delight that he could finally close his eyes and rest in peace for ever.

Listen to Simeon’s words as he takes Jesus in his arms:

“Master, now you are dismissing your servant in peace, according to your word; 30 for my eyes have seen your salvation, 31 which you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, 32 a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel.”

Mary and Joseph had gone to the Temple to fulfil some ancient Jewish customs. For seven days after a Hebrew woman gave birth to a boy, she was viewed as being ritually unclean (14 days after a girl). At the end of that time, the boy would be brought to be circumcised and named. Then his mother would enter thirty-three days of purification (66 days after a girl: Lev 12.2-8). Jewish Law required that at the end of that time, she present an offering for her purification.

This ritual also looked back to the escape from Egypt. Exodus 13 says that every firstborn child of the Hebrews was to be especially dedicated to God – to serve in the Temple. But as the ‘ordained’ service of God came to be something that only tribe of Levi did, the law was softened so that parents could ‘redeem’ their children. They went to the Temple to make an offering which ritually bought back their firstborn from God.

Today, Luke shows the Holy Family coming to the Temple a couple of weeks after Jesus’s circumcision for the ritual exchange which sees Mary restored to ritual purity, and her first-born son at once offered and redeemed.

But the song of Simeon and the prophecy of Anna burst into this ritual. Simeon declares Jesus to be ‘a light for revelation to all peoples; God’s glory’. He sees everything which the Temple had embodied now lying cradled in his faithful old arms. And then the ancient prophet, Anna who also comes at that moment ‘began to praise God and to speak about the child to all who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem…’

Simeon and Anna had lived very long lives of faithful service to God. For them, this was at once a moment of exultation and one of release. They could let go; they could die in peace; somebody else could carry the load now.

It takes the eyes of age – the experience of years – to be able to trust that all this hope could possibly be left safely in a baby’s hands. It takes the certainty that God is involved.
Simeon’s song is sometimes called the night-prayer of his life and it remains the Church’s night-prayer; handing over to God the troubles of each day. It’s also the prayer of priests as we lead a funeral procession from the church, and into the graveyard. The message Simeon gave the parents of the Christ-Child was not all rosy. He blessed them and then told his mother Mary, “This child is destined for the falling and the rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed 35 so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed – and a sword will pierce your own soul too.”
This has always been the experience of hand-over in the church. The falling and the rising, the opposition, the exposure and the agony are what Simeon foresees for Mary, for Jesus – and prophetically for us, the body of Christ too.

These are very much our predicament and our blessing. They are part of our experience of holding on to faith. Simeon and Anna know this about life, and nevertheless they proclaim it as revelation and understanding.

We have faithful seers and servants who have been holding on to faith here for a very long time; people who have received the faith from their forebears, and by God’s grace, have borne the light aloft for many years.

The younger ones here now share the burden with you, faithful fathers and mothers of our church, and must hold the light aloft in a different world. What do you see ahead of us?

Perhaps it’s strange for us to have to proclaim that the life of faith is just as vulnerable and exposed as anyone else’s life. If it is, then what, indeed, are we proclaiming?

In the Christ Child, we are proclaiming that God is with us in those trials and joys; that the difference about a life of faith is that it’s in shared hands, no matter what may befall. And the mark of that sharing is that it’s chosen, and marked by mutual love and respect. And that holds good even if our hands seem as feeble as a baby’s for holding that trust.

We need to make it a prayer for ourselves, that when we hand over the light of faith to those who come after us, we do so without reserve and yet with an honest picture of what it entails – whether joyous or painful.

People are enabled to hold on to the faith by God’s grace; not by our own strength or worth.

In the company of the Christ Child, just as surely as in the company of the crucified Christ, we and our children are blessed to hold aloft the light of faith for long lifetime. This is our prayer and our faith. And it can be that with no regrets or fears, because what we place in others’ hands, we do with ourselves cradled in the hands of our maker, our judge and our lover. Amen

Once upon a time, the God of the universe became one of us – a newborn child.

I know we’ve heard the story; we know what happened – Mary and Joseph and the baby and the shepherds and the angels.

But the heart of the story is this; once upon a time, the God of the universe became one of us – a newborn child.

This is a miracle too huge to comprehend. Like most people, I can only come at it through the story. But even stories are hard if we can’t hear them like a child does.

Our adult concerns mix things up. There he was; the God of all, lying in a manger. The most important person in the world! And we start thinking about things like hygiene or security or privacy or protocol.

If he was such a VIP, who was looking after all those things? But the story ignores our adult concerns. Angels invite in a bunch of grubby gate-crashers. There are no special precautions taken – not even considering how young the mother is. No, she’d just had to endure a long journey on foot, or on donkey-back. And she’d had to give birth amongst farm animals.

Once upon a time, the God of the universe came among us as the first-born child of an unmarried teenager, and God took no special precautions for a safe arrival.

Why? Well, it seems that God just wanted to be with us on our terms; you can’t really be with people if you set yourself apart. That would have made Jesus something like a tourist in an air-conditioned bus who never gets out; just waves at us through tinted windows as the bus roars on to the next attraction.

But God didn’t just want to look at us; God wanted to be with us – Emmanuel – to be one of us. So, once upon a time, the God of the universe became one of us – a newborn child.

If a great ruler needed shelter and hospitality from us and asked for it, didn’t order us to give it – that’d make us equals, wouldn’t it; that ruler and us – on the same level as each other.

That’s what God has done for us; the God of the universe came among us as a newborn child, needing shelter, needing food, and not too much later, even needing to flee persecution as a refugee. By coming in that way, God changed us somehow; called us to care for God – to become like God is – givers of love and care. God’s need; God’s vulnerability; God’s helplessness – they call something from us which can heal the world far more wonderfully than power can.

Yes, power is another of those adult concerns we plague ourselves with. With all the problems in the world Jesus was born into, why didn’t he come as a super-hero, stop all wars, end social injustice and wipe away the evils of racial prejudice, sexism, dishonesty, greed, poverty and illness? Wouldn’t that have been better?
I don’t think it would. It’s hard to argue why, but essentially, it’s best demonstrated in the story of the life of Jesus. Once upon a time, the God of the universe became one of us – a newborn child. God is born, grows up, and lives for many years a life that is ordinary like ours; works, eats and sleeps. God takes the time needed to win our trust. God starts doing this in the baby we greet today; Jesus.
You can trust a baby. We can deal with someone who’s just like we are; we know where they’ve come from. We don’t feel threatened; we don’t think they’ll ask too much of us, or think too little of us. This is what God did for us; God took the time and the shape needed to win our trust. And because of that, when Jesus grew up and started telling us about the Kingdom of God, we could understand what that meant in a totally new way, because Jesus spoke in a language that emerged from human experience – think of his parables; Jesus spoke our language.

When he healed and forgave people, he scandalised those in power – and also many of us who prefer to see justice ‘really’ done. But slowly, gently, he taught us God’s way of healing, accepting, life-giving justice, peace and mercy. And we accept it from him because we know him; we can trust him. We can see the depth of his commitment to us.

In this baby, we can see how God works. Jesus comes gently to open up channels of communication with us that don’t threaten us. In Jesus, God models love and commitment and understanding and acceptance and everything else we need to become fully human – everything we need to live lives filled with emotional and spiritual security.

The Christ Child has done this – called us to look out the real resources of our humanity; simply to be there for each other in the same way as we would with a baby – with our compassion, our care, and our readiness to nurture.

God transforms humanity in Jesus; the baby of Bethlehem. In Jesus, God is seen to learn what it is to be one of us so that trust and understanding can be complete. So we’ll let him touch us and we’ll listen when he tells us that there’s a world beyond our minds, our pride and fear and guilt. It is called the Kingdom of God.

So when once upon a time, the God of the universe came among us as a child, needing shelter, needing food, and soon, even needing to flee persecution as a refugee, God changed us all. God our shepherd somehow lifted us from dwelling on our battles and our fears and weaknesses, and made us like shepherds too. God called up our capacity for transforming love from deep within us all.

When I, when you meet this Child, God begins a slow, intricate process of calling from our most profound depths the greatest gifts and the truest strengths our humanity can give birth to. God calls up our true selves, made like this child we worship, in the image and likeness of God.

And that’s something no superhero can do.

Once upon a time, the God of the universe became one of us – a newborn child. Glory to God in the highest.

God bless all of you and yours this Christmas.

Amen.

Advent 4 B 24-12-17 Bridgewater Luke 1.26-45

Waiting for Jesus

Today’s Gospel tells us about a young teenage girl; she’s engaged to be married, but an angel visits her and tells her she’s having a baby.

Mary’s immediate response was to say,

38 I am the Lord’s servant … may it be to me as you have said.’

What would you have done?

When Gabriel told Mary that she would be Jesus’ mother, he also told her that her cousin Elizabeth was pregnant in her old age. Mary may have known that already. But the way Gabriel gave her both bits of information together somehow linked Mary’s and Elizabeth’s destinies.

Mary twigged to this, and her active discipleship to Jesus began with her response to this message: a hundred km journey!

It’s a decisive beginning. She sets out to visit Elizabeth. Mary’s decision to believe Gabriel’s message is vindicated when she reaches Elizabeth’s house.

41 filled with the Holy Spirit …42 [Elizabeth] exclaimed: “Blessed (eulogemene) are you among women, and blessed (eulogemenos) is the child you will bear!”

Mary responded to God’s prompting by going to see Elizabeth. Elizabeth responded to the prompting of the Spirit by teaching Mary that she was blessed in the sight of people because of what was happening to her, but she was blessed in God’s sight because she believed (v.45 where she uses the word makaria) ‘blessed is she that believed…’

Mary responded to this teaching with the joyous canticle of praise that we sang after the Gospel reading. She’s waiting for Jesus, and today we sing the song of the prophet Mary which models the way we should pray and the priorities we should set for our own words and actions as we also wait for him.

She teaches us to pray and to proclaim the kingdom; Mary’s Song is a model of prayer and testimony. It begins with a spontaneous outburst of Mary’s wonder and delight.

‘My soul glorifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my saviour…’

Her soul and spirit are the deepest level of Mary’s being. There’s nothing more important in her life than her relationship with God.
Then Mary gives her testimony. The most miraculous discovery of all for anyone getting to know God better can often be the realization that God cares for you as an individual, in detail. Like Mary did, the moment we sense the love of the God who created and sustains the whole universe – that God loves us – we can also be overcome with awe.

Mary goes on to sing that she will be known forever as someone blessed (makaria) by God because she has been called to join in God’s work. Prayer and testimony; it’s vital for us to pray and testify, because it takes our focus from our own concerns, and we can open ourselves to God’s perspective.

That’s what happens to Mary – she opens herself up to God’s perspective by praying as she does.
Mary dwells on three characteristics of God. God is the Mighty One; God is Holy, and God is Merciful. Dwelling on these is what helps her to open up her perspective. Mary sings about God the mighty one in relationship to herself – [who ‘has done great things for me’] – she sings of God’s holiness – she sings of God’s love and care for all of humanity in all time.

This links the personal, loving God that Mary knows with the God of Israel whom she has learnt to know, and now to proclaim as the merciful and just ruler over all. This very young woman has a lot to teach us about prayer and a healthy relationship with God.
Mary teaches us that we can’t just relax in God’s embrace, trust to his love, and ignore the rest of humanity. No, Mary sees God’s concern for all humanity in all time, and she tells us that if this is God’s concern, it must be ours as well.

The God we meet in her song is a God who is involved – a God who acts with mercy and with justice. Mary’s God is described time and time again in this way throughout the Hebrew Scriptures. God’s acts described here are at once vigorous, political and tender.

God is a tempest raging through the petty conceits of our inner worlds; God is disgusted by oppression and willing to fight it; God is passionate for the restoration of the lowly, passionate that the starving should be fed. We must open our hearts to these things by praying about them, by proclaiming them fearlessly and, as God’s servants, by modelling courageous justice and compassion in our own lives.
In the final part of her song Mary declares that God is trustworthy and unchanging. The promises God made to people centuries earlier remain true for all their descendants forever. Where we see the Church formed of praying, proclaiming, responsive disciples, we see all the marvellous things Mary proclaimed as she waited for Jesus to come.

Mary’s prophetic actions and her wonderful song are powerful models of prayer and proclamation for us to emulate. Acting on what God says, giving a testimony, praying a prayer that comes from God’s heart – these were the right things for Mary to do while she was waiting for Jesus.

They are also the right things for us to do as we wait for him to come again.

Amen

Reflecting the love of Christ – 3rd Sunday in Advent B-3
Object: A mirror and a torch
Scripture: John 1: 6-9

Have you ever sat outside on a bright sunny day and used a mirror to reflect the sun’s light? If one of you will take this torch and shine it on me I will show you what I mean. You see, as the light shines on me, I hold up my mirror and I can reflect the light to shine on you. I am not the light, I am just letting my mirror reflect the light to shine on you.

If I am going to reflect the light on you, there are a couple of things that are very important:

• I must keep my mirror facing toward the light. If I turn away from the light, I cannot reflect the light.

• I must make sure that nothing comes between the light and me. If that happens, I cannot reflect the light.

The Bible tells us that

“There was a man who was sent from God; his name was John. He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all people might believe. He himself was not the light: he came only as a witness to the light. The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world.”

Who do you think the true light is that the Bible said was coming into the world? That is right! It was Jesus. Jesus is the light of the world.

You and I need to be like John.

The Bible says that we are to let our light shine, but we need to remember that “Our Light” is Jesus. We are not the light, we are just mirrors that reflect His light.

If we are going to reflect the light of Jesus, we must remember a couple of things:

• We must keep our faces turned toward Jesus.

• We must not let anything come between us and Jesus.

When we remember those two things, we will reflect His light to the entire world.

Dear Jesus, we want to reflect your light in the world. Help us to keep our faces turned toward you and help us to keep anything from coming between us and you. Amen

Advent 3 b 17-12-17 – The Sunday of the Baptist – Ps 126 Jn 1 6-8, 19-28

The Sunday of the Baptist

Today’s Psalm begins as a song of the returned exiles. We joined in their joyful song, celebrating their home-coming from a far-away country. They were proud that other nations saw how much God cared for them. But the second part of the Psalm becomes suddenly more worrying; the people are asking God to restore them again. They’re asking God, Bring water to our drought-stricken lives, so we, who are planting our crops in tears now, might shout with joy at the harvest.

Something’s gone wrong. This Psalm’s joyful freedom song has become a sad prayer to be restored from exile again. But they’re praying to be set free from a different type of exile this time. They’re caught in a spiritual drought. Is God still with them? A special sort of divine watering is what’s needed.

So it’s no accident that the last prophet sent to Israel in answer to this prayer is John the Baptiser. Water was the means God called John to use when he tackled his people’s spiritual exile – their spiritual dryness – very special water. We read in today’s gospel that ‘John was baptising in Bethany on the other side of the Jordan’. We remember that this is the river the people of the Exodus crossed when they followed Joshua into the land of promise. This is probably also the river the people crossed when they finally returned from exile in Babylon.

John has gone down to that river – the lowest point on Earth. He’s gone to the other side of that river – because you have to cross that river if you’re coming back from being a slave – coming back up to be one of God’s free people again.

Our Psalm reminded us of these things; reminded us particularly that the gift of being restored to God’s people is a gift to those who were God’s people once before, but who were lost. And once again they feel lost to God. But they remember that by God’s grace, their ancestors were granted return from exile. So now the Psalm asks if that grace is available to them again in their time. That question stayed with them: How long, O Lord?! Restore us again?!

John has gone down to the river to show them the way God provides for their return. They need to leave the land again, and ask for the grace to return. John calls those whose lives are in spiritual drought to come down to the river; to come and cross it again. He asked people to come to where he was on the other side of the river; he went physically to the place where the people were spiritually. He called them to that place too, to show with their bodies what had happened in their hearts.

The Psalmist would have said that the lives they were living were nothing for the nations to marvel at now. In fact, they shamed God’s name before the nations. John came to change that. They were a people called to be a light to the nations. They were meant to be a people ready to greet the coming one. John came to turn them to the light; to prepare them for Jesus’ coming.
In calling people to baptism on the other side of the Jordan, John was asking Jewish people to do two things.

As we’ve seen, in asking them to leave their land, he was asking them to acknowledge that the lives they were living were not up to scratch. They weren’t the lives of a people who were to be a light to the nations. You couldn’t live in that land and live the sort of lives they were living. So he called them back to the river – to the other side; the side where exiles and outsiders belonged.

That was the first thing. And the other thing was the baptism he gave them. In Judaism at the time of John the Baptist, there was such a thing as baptism. It was a rite of conversion. People who weren’t Jews were baptised as part of the process of becoming Jews.

So when he called the people of Judea and Jerusalem to baptism, John was saying they needed conversion.

It was complete renewal he was calling them to.

Looked at symbolically, you could say the Psalmist only asked for God to send rain, but John decided a river was needed. He was determined that when a person crossed the river with him back into the Land, the one who emerged from the water would be a new person; a converted person.

So there’s the symbol of leaving their own land, and there’s the symbol of the dead people of God being converted to become the living people of God again. And that’s on top of the two older images of the Exodus and the Exile. John’s baptism was an enormously powerful symbolic action. Accepting his baptism meant owning yourself to be a slave to someone else – to something else – an exile, someone who has turned their back on God; somebody who needs to be made completely new, and acknowledging all that, turning back to God.

It’s a tremendous gift that John has given to the church. Even though you may be facing into pitch blackness; even though you may be at absolute rock bottom; even though you may feel totally disconnected from God, John’s baptism shines a light in the darkness, and guides God’s people back to life. Our faith is a gift; the conversion of our hearts, which is at once, a call from God, and a gift from God which enables us to respond to that call; to accept the gift. The miracle is God’s.

Can you remember any time in your life when this has happened to you?

You’re here today; why?

Is it because you’ve always come? Or is it because at some point, there was a person sent from God; sent from God to call you; to show you the way to the light?

Has there ever been anybody who called you away from a state of spiritual drought – called you down to the river? Did they turn you around? Did they turn your life around?

In our collect prayer today, one of the things we prayed was that we might find time to rejoice and show the world what we believe. I figure it might help if we practice telling each other about something we believe.

So if you do remember a time when somebody called you to turn and you did, and it changed your life, I’d ask you to take a friend aside at morning tea and tell them a little bit about what happened.
Let’s sit and remember for a minute.

Amen.

Christmas 2017
Advent 2 B 10-12-2017 A & C Isa 40 1-11; Mk 1 1-8

In Pretoria RSA, down the hill from the Union Buildings – the very imposing parliament – there’s a colossal bronze statue of Nelson Mandela striding out over the city. He has his arms stretched out invitingly, and he has a beautiful smile on his face. It’s a welcoming statue, very like Silvio’s beautiful welcoming Christ in the Crafers Memorial Garden. And yet it’s also a reminder – a caution. Mandela’s life, his words and his actions are the measuring stick by which people judge everything that is done in South African public life today. And sadly, much of what’s happening these days falls badly short of this gracious standard.

Every now and then, somewhere around the world, a woman or a man will emerge whose life and words carry a huge moral authority. These people tell us that the world’s mountains of injustice and wrong and misery can be dealt with, and we believe them. They challenge us and we listen. Even though they make us feel very uncomfortable, our hackles don’t rise in defiance, because we know deep down that their challenge is justified. So we try to change. Who is / has been like that in your life, I wonder?

We heard from two such people today: Isaiah and John the Baptist; just such people for the world of their time. Both of them called normal, decent people to turn from familiar, mundane lives and head off into the wilderness. They called people to leave things behind and risk going to unthinkable places. Isaiah called to exiled Jews in Babylon; leave your homes and journey into the desert. It was like Abraham’s call all over again. And J. Bap called people to leave their homes in Jerusalem and Judea and go to the wilderness to receive his baptism of repentance.

Isaiah and John called them and they call us to leave our habitual life behind; to set aside our routine priorities which insulate us from life’s big questions. Isaiah and John call us to the wilderness – where people come face to face with God. They call us to turn (repent); to risk being truly exposed to God. How can we do this now?

The scriptures we hear in Advent call us to turn; to give and receive forgiveness; a process that might better be called healing. It’s what happens when we are restored to fellowship with our God and our world; re-connected with the source of our life; being made whole again where once we were broken. Cf iodine’s sting.
There’s a close link between the lives of people in physical exile and the lives of people in emotional and spiritual exile. Neither experiences all that their life can be. Today we’ve heard how God longs to reach people who are disconnected; people who don’t choose it, yet are cut off; but also people who choose disconnection.

The Jews Isaiah cried out to in chapter 40 were born in exile. Babylon was all they knew. They were a subject people, but they could own land, and they did have some religious freedom. For slaves, they were pretty comfortable really. So what was wrong? What more could they want? Well they didn’t know what more there was. They were God’s people; they knew that. But they weren’t living in the land of God’s people. They were cut off from its promises; from its history; and also, as slaves, they were cut off from shaping their community life according to their calling as God’s people. Isaiah promises these people a healing re-union with God. They’re lost, but their shepherd God is coming; coming to take them home.

John the Baptist is like Isaiah; he also calls out to people who’d go on living a half-life if he hadn’t been sent to wake them up. But they are living in the Holy Land this time! What’s wrong with them now? John calls people out of their everyday lifestyles and into the wilderness. John quotes Isaiah to help them and us remember our ancestors’ exile. People responded and thronged to John. He’d reminded them that they were like their exiled ancestors; living oblivious to their disconnectedness. So they responded to his call to repent; to turn and discover a new and more complete way to be with God. He tells them to watch with him for the one who will come; someone so wonderful that the Baptist feels unworthy to undo the strap of his sandals. He’s coming, ready or not. And that’s the great challenge of Advent.

Are we ready? Do we even know we’re waiting, or who it is we’re waiting for? If we’re half asleep – or if our nation seems asleep to the piercing cries for justice, mercy, peace, forgiveness, generosity, and thankfulness – asleep to the world’s desperate need for God’s love – then Advent is what’s needed. Advent – waiting for the Christ-child to come – it’s a wake-up call. Advent says it’s time to wake the world up. Christ must be fully alive in us and speak clearly through us today. Wake up! Get ready! He might have gone for a time, but he will return. And we’d better make sure everyone’s fully conscious – not half-living; not content with a passive, out-sourced responsibility for our time here. We must be fully alive.

So in Advent, we remember why we need him to come. We turn from our own lost-ness; our brokenness; our disconnectedness and face God’s love for a broken world. Today’s scriptures call us to wake up and journey out to meet him. It’s a journey that leaves comfort behind and risks desert and wilderness to seek God who is coming for us, and who will call us to account for the state of the world. Each year we renew our commitment to this journey – our commitment to be ready to meet this one who’s come once and is coming again; this Jesus.

The Advent call is one to leave behind the comfort of what we know. It’s a call to wake up; a call to be ready.

God’s challenge in these readings is for us to turn to the desert – turn to the wilderness – and prepare to travel through it. But not prepare with a GPS and air-conditioning; not take our comforts with us. They’re not what it’s about – that’s half-living. If we listen honestly for the call, we will know which way to go. Isaiah and John tell us the call will come from a frightening emptiness. We listen for the call, recognise it for what it is, and together, set out into the wilderness. The heat we sense is the Spirit burning with life within us; and the honest sweat of doing justice. And gradually, ever more clearly, we will discern Jesus coming to meet us.

Our task in prayer for this second week of Advent is to listen for the call, to dare to turn towards it, and to step out in faith towards this wholeness.

Amen

Advent 1 2017

The liturgical year challenges our attitude to time, our awareness of now and our readiness for the future. Sometimes the rhythm of the liturgical year seems at odds with the pace and preoccupations of the world around us, and even with the stages of life of our congregational community.

Our diaries in December are filled with social and religious commitments, leaving very little time to be spiritually attuned to who we are now, and what Advent might mean for us.

This first Sunday in Advent is the start of a new liturgical year. Yet in our Parish we are aware that we are coming to the end of a time we value, the ten years in which Peter has been parish priest.

Through the next two months we need to honour that ending. It’s hard to hold together this time of good-bye with its sadness and anxiety, and the beginning of a liturgical year.

We are not ready for a fresh start just yet: we are not even in transition yet.

The time following Peter’s leaving will be our waiting time, and it may feel a bit like the scenario in the gospel today where the man goes on a journey and the members of the household are left to keep everything ticking over.

It’s up to us not only to keep the Parish awake and active through the time of waiting, but also to keep hope for the future at the forefront of our prayers. Perhaps it’s a good opportunity in this Advent to reflect on who we are as individuals and as a parish, and to be open to discern the new direction of our calling.

Advent is a time of preparation through prayer, and of communal and private soul searching, seeking readiness for the surprises God has in store for us. That does seem appropriate to where we are in the Parish.

Advent 1 is often dedicated to the theme of hope, and hope is the challenge to look forwards positively, ready for anything, prepared to seek the presence and promise of Jesus in a new way. Wouldn’t it be lovely if we could begin this Advent feeling wide awake, hopeful, on the brink of a big adventure?

Advent and adventure ought to go together. I once wrote a poem about that, (surprise, surprise). Here it is.

Adventure in Advent
 
I want adventure in Advent,
the pregnant waiting and the journey,
not just memory of a gift
not particularly welcomed,
now relegated to a high shelf,
except for the gilded ribbon
and recycled wrapping that reappears
each year as though it were the gift,
the heirloom to be passed down.
 
I want the voice in the wilderness,
the cry of the wild man and the chill
wrestle in the water, leaving behind
the old, and rising mother-naked
to the new testament, new birth,
new heavens and new earth.
Let us make straight the rough
paths from reconciled exile.

Child in a trough is risk and right,
absurd yet awaited and foretold.
Shepherds astray upon the hills
and travellers perusing stars
are companions fit for adventure –
no piety, just mystery and awe,
gifts offered, gift received in straw.
 
What’s offered, what received
in Advent now when travelling days
it seems are done? Angels on strings,
electric stars: nostalgic trappings
substitute for joy. Desire gives way
to sentiment; the babe is banished
by banality. God with us exiled,
we are refugees in our own skins.
Wilderness creeps in and prophets stir
making space for angels in the skies.
Absence of wisdom makes a void
that draws the magi caravan toward
the lone star over the lonely child.
 
  Barbara Messner 2011

Times of transition are times for prophets to stir. In the transition between Hebrew and Christian Testaments, John the Baptist was the prophet to stir, the one to prepare the way. In the transitional time of reformations in the church, Luther was one of the prophets, and the Lutheran Church has been honouring his contribution in this 500th anniversary year. In Mark chapter 13, sometimes called the Little Apocalypse, Jesus is in prophetic mode, both in vision and challenge. He seeks to warn the society that will shortly bring about his death that they are going the wrong way, a way that will lead to destructive outcomes.

He also seeks to stir his followers to be prepared both for grief and for hope, as he is taken from them in death, and returned to them in resurrection. In our Parish Vision meeting last Sunday we sought to discern our strengths and weaknesses, our opportunities and challenges, our Parish profile and our Parish vision.

That’s a prophetic exercise as well as an appropriate preparation for Advent, a preparation we could all benefit from applying at an individual level. It’s an exercise of hope, because it presupposes a belief that who we are and who we will become is important to God, and is part of preparing for God’s kingdom to continue to come.
The people of Israel awaited the coming of the Messiah: he came in the unexpected form of a baby in a manger, not a conquering king.

We await the coming of a new Parish priest: it’s important to remember that that person may not immediately be apparent as the embodiment of all our ideals and hopes. The priest God calls for the Parish of Stirling may be as unexpected as a baby in a manger, for God is the God of surprises.

Being open to being surprised is actually a very hopeful spiritual state. It means trusting in God to provide what we cannot yet see that we need. There is a simultaneous need for discernment about where we are now, and vision about where God is leading us. Jesus presents a challenge that disturbs us. He offers an apocalyptic vision of the end of the age, in which everything but his words might pass away. Only if we hold to those words will we have the grounding that will carry us into a new and hopeful age, the time of fruition when the fig tree puts forth leaves and summer is near, when the returning Son of Man is near, at the very gates. Again and again, Jesus challenges us to be ready for anything, at any time – keep awake, keep alert. Advent is all about an unexpected coming of the one awaited, and our readiness to meet that time. Will we be asleep or awake when the kairos moment comes, God’s creative time, the hinge of transformation, the new “now”?
That’s a challenge to our Parish as well. As I said earlier, there’s a parallel between Peter leaving, and the man in Jesus’ parable going on a journey leaving his household to keep working and the doorkeeper on watch. In the time of transition, we need to keep everything here functioning and ready to move on in whichever way God intends.

We need to keep awake and open to what we might become when the future begins its time amongst us. As Christian communities we continually experience that sense of balancing between the past and the future. Perhaps we need to experience more fully the balance point of the “now”. On the one hand, there are traditions to uphold and existing communities to nurture and cherish; on the other hand, we are called forward into the future, seeking God’s will for a world that is changing rapidly.

Patient waiting needs to be balanced with hopeful awareness which creates a trusting readiness to act. Paul speaks of our call to wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ, and he assures us that we will be strengthened to the end. That is the forward looking dimension of hope, yet it is founded on the wisdom that comes from the past and from experience, “the testimony of Christ among us”.

It is also about the transforming awareness of Jesus here and now, being responsive to our enrichment in him, “in speech and knowledge of every kind”.

Mark chapter 13 ends with Jesus’ statement:

“And what I say to you I say to all: Keep awake.”

Richard Rohr points out that both Jesus and Buddha say the same thing: “Stay awake.” That means being fully open to the “Now” as well as being prepared to respond to whatever comes with openness and no agendas, what Buddhists call “beginner’s mind”.