If Christ could weep

If Christ could weep for friends, for death, for grief,

and still call out to one entombed: “Come out!”,

so we can grieve at this pandemic thief,

and still expect to hear or voice that shout,

and in the valley of dry bones, prepare

to fill our lungs with Spirit wind and cry:

“O dry bones, hear the living word and dare

to rise from that parched earth on which you lie.

Connected, lifted up, await the sigh

of Spirit wind to stir to life your breath!

For Christ could weep and pray his fate passed by,

avoiding suffering, sparing him from death,

but sharing all with us, he dared the cross,

and from his tomb, new life sprang out of loss.

                                       Barbara Messner March 2020

Sin is mainly exclusion

Sermon by Andy Wurm, Lent 4, 22^nd March 2020

Have you ever asked yourself the question ‘Am I a good person?’ Sherlock Holmes did – at least the one on the British series Sherlock. He’s someone who didn’t care too much about how his actions affected others, so he sometimes did things that he knew would be considered bad by society, and yet, he still wanted to know if he was a good person. It’s a question that’s often addressed at funerals, with a person’s plusses and minuses being tallied up, so that we can believe that, overall, they were a good person. Sometimes people tell me that even though they don’t believe in God, they live their life considerate of others and doing no harm, or I’ll be told about another person, who is so good, ‘they’re more Christian than many Christians’. The assumption there is that being Christian is all about being good (and nothing to do with what you believe or belonging to a community of faith). Sometimes I find myself thinking of another person as a good person, but then feel disappointed when they prove to have flaws, like everyone else. There is something comforting in believing that people are basically good, which makes me wonder how much I like to feel that about myself.

There was a girl who wanted to buy a fancy dress for her school formal. It cost $2,000. She only had $250 and her parents wouldn’t buy it for her, so she went to extraordinary measures to get it. She learnt to play Blackjack so she could win the money at a club. She lost it all in the first few minutes, but on the way out of the club, won $3,000 on a poker machine. That paid for the dress and a limo to take her to the dance. Why did she go to such an effort? Because she wanted everyone at the dance to be impressed when she arrived. It’s a story from a movie, but it’s real, in that it addresses that same question of ‘am I a good person?’, except that the girl was guaranteeing her answer. If everyone at the dance admired her dress, they admired her, and that made her into a ‘good person’. Being ‘good’, here meant being acceptable to her peers, being approved of, being ‘in’. It may seem that her sense of what being a good person is, differs to what we might mean by it (e.g. for us it more likely means being morally good – considerate of others, not selfish etc), but it is still the same mechanism involved.

Behind the question of whether or not I am a good person, is the assumption that I need to be. It is better to be a good person, than to not be. That’s because being a ‘good person’ is about inclusion, – being part of the group. Not just any group though. If that girl’s parents had forced her to wear a dress she didn’t like and wouldn’t win the approval of her peers, it would not matter that her parents approved, because they are not the people she requires approval from. It doesn’t really matter which group we want approval from, because the same mechanism is involved. We may even just want approval from ourselves, and here there’s a distinction between simply being happy with our choice and needing an actual sense that we’re doing the right thing or the best thing. Doing the right thing or the best thing indicates there’s a ranking and we’re still concerned with where we fit in the scheme of things. Equally, we might be concerned with where we stand in regard to God. There’s the story of the two men praying in the temple. The Pharisee’s prayer involves giving thanks that he is not like other people, such as thieves, rogues, adulterers, Crows supporters, or even like the tax-collector, praying next to me. I read my bible each day and give money to the poor. The other man, the tax-collector, simply prayed ‘God be merciful to me, a sinner’. Jesus said it was the tax-collector who went home right with God. He was right with God, not because he put himself down, or wasn’t boasting, or because, human beings are generally bad and so should admit it. He was right with God because he didn’t compare himself with others, and so wasn’t run by that mechanism of inclusion and exclusion I have been talking about. It means if he went to a school dance, he would not be concerned about what he wore, because he had no need, no desire, for others’ approval. He would not ask ‘am I a good person?’, meaning am I acceptable?, because he knew with God, there are no such categories. What he was clear on though, was that he was imperfect. Asking God to have mercy on him, as a sinner, was really only part request for mercy or love. It was also a reminder to himself that he always had God’s mercy, God’s love. And his prayer was also a means of reinforcing that. Imagine if that schoolgirl could be like that –to really not need others’ approval. What a powerful person she would be!

Today’s gospel story of Jesus healing a blind man is a huge story, with a lot going on in it. Jesus says something about the man’s blindness being a means through which God’s works might be revealed in him. That’s all about Jesus’ role in completing God’s unfinished work of creation, so let’s put that aside for now. It’s amazing that Jesus could help a blind person to see, but the story is really to do with what I have been talking about. It’s yet another story from John’s Gospel, involving a revolution in the understanding of sin. The story begins with someone being excluded as a sinner on the grounds of having some sort of defect, and in the end, we are shown that the real sin is the act of excluding. This excluding peaks at the point where the religious leadership drive the man who had been blind from the synagogue. The mechanism of exclusion is what the church calls original sin. In other words, it is the flaw in humanity from which all other flaws flow. Even Jesus’ disciples are caught up in it, driven by it. It is something we inherit though, in the sense of taking it on through socialisation, and so we don’t have much choice in regard to it. We take it on because it’s ‘normal’, it’s the way the world operates. It’s what put Jesus on the cross, and because it’s not a conscious choice, but something we are socialised into, Jesus asks God to forgive those who exclude him, kill him, for they don’t know what they are doing.

In other words, they are blind to what they do, and that’s what’s also revealed in today’s gospel story. Jesus’ disciples, the man’s neighbours and the religious leaders are all blind to what they do to the man who was born blind. They are the real blind ones. At the end of the story, Jesus tells the religious leaders that their blindness remains, that they remain in sin, because they are in charge of one of the institutions through which the mechanism of exclusion operates, and worst of all, operates in the name of God. The greatest sin of all is to exclude in the name of God, to claim it is what God wants, to justify it as God’s will. The others, those not the religious leaders, are not doomed to remain in their sin, because they’re not opposed to Jesus, and therefore are able to be set free of their addiction to exclusion.

That setting free is done by the risen Christ, who declares all who engage in exclusion, forgiven. And only by being forgiven, can they then look back and see what it was they are forgiven for. The same is true for us. We might think that God forgives us because we say sorry for bad things we have done. That may be, however, if our saying sorry is another form of exclusion, then our very act of saying sorry for our sins, is actually the real sin. Being obsessed with how bad we are, because it makes us ‘not a good person’, is being run by the mechanism of exclusion. It’s acting in the same way as those who drove the ex-blind man out of the synagogue, except it is ourselves we’re driving out. This is why our confession and absolution isn’t about God letting us off the bad things we have done. It’s the other way around actually. We’re actually forgiven before we confess our sins. (Even though it’s the other way around in our service.) First, we are forgiven for being run by the mechanism of exclusion, which is a form of rivalry, and then, being made aware of that, or remembering that, we say sorry, we confess that it has been so. Doing so enables us to receive forgiveness. For this reason, the question of whether or not I am a good person is totally meaningless and irrelevant. What matters, is that I am loved by God.

Reflection for Mothering Sunday 2020

I was two thirds through this reflection when the email came from the Archbishop urging us to cancel worship this Sunday if possible, and in the foreseeable future. A bit like having the rug pulled out from under you – I’m sure you know the feeling! So I have deleted my introduction which was making a case for delighting in worship, cake and flowers on Mothering Sunday as a respite from stressing out about coronavirus. Sorry, I don’t think I can come up with a written substitute for cake and flowers, but I do want to thank those who had already prepared to offer those gifts! I want to say: “God bless you, and bless us, and may our care for one another find different pathways of expression!” Perhaps one point I was trying to make in my original introduction might be even more valid now: in this context of temporary loss and isolation, we are even more aware of how much we value the nurturing relationships of family and church communities. Perhaps we are being challenged by the absence of worship, cake and flowers to let the Spirit move us towards spiritual care, nurture and flourishing by different means, spurred on by our awareness of how we miss our normal togetherness in the joy of worship.

So where to now? We do need to continue to find refreshment in Sunday prayer and reflection to give us respite from the all-pervasive anxiety. However, anxiety leads to protectiveness of those we love, and Mother Church is being protective of us in deciding to pause worship. The over-riding concern is to keep the family well and safe, and our church family has many who might be particularly vulnerable. As a mother, I feel empathy for the Archbishop and the pastoral leadership team as they make hard decisions to care for the health not only of the church community but of the wider community as well. Now the mothering role of all clergy and lay leaders will need to be extended in creative ways to care for the psychological and spiritual health of people in these challenging times. We are being challenged to see the potential in the crisis, to listen to what the Spirit is saying to the churches.

Where might reflection on mothering take us at a time when many need spiritual resources and caring relationships to support them? Are there meaningful connections to be made between human mothering, God as Mother, and the Church as Spiritual mother? Let me reflect on this through the lens of my own experience of mothering and ministry. I came late to mothering, and I found it to be a challenge to who I was, and to who I wanted to be, but certainly it prepared me to be who I am now. I was a chorus singer in opera and I wanted to be a soloist, and motherhood swept all that away. For a long while, I felt lost in the unrelenting demands of mothering, demands of service to another while setting aside my own dreams. In grieving my losses, I was aware of some significant gains, especially the passionate love I had for my child, and the beautiful experience of reconnecting with my own inner child by sharing the developmental stages of my son, and by being drawn into the generous delight, openness and affection of a young child. How might my experience help me to understand God and the choice of God to share our lives in the incarnation of Jesus? Perhaps God accepts all the losses of having a parental relationship with human beings because of the supreme joy of loving and being loved in return. Although a patriarchal society and church emphasized the fatherly nature of God, there are motherly and feminine images of God in Scripture. One of the myriad names of God in Hebrew Scripture was God of a thousand breasts. There’s a beautiful image in Isaiah 49:15, portraying God in comparison to a human mother: “Can a woman forget her nursing child, or show no compassion for the child of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you.” In Matthew 23: 37b, there’s the motherly image of Jesus in his lament over Jerusalem: “How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing.” Then there are the lovely images of the Spirit as mother in the hymn we would have sung today if we had been at church:

“she sighs and she sings, mothering creation,

waiting to give birth to all the Word will say.”

“she nests in the womb, welcoming each wonder,

nourishing potential hidden from our eyes.”

“she weans and inspires all whose hearts are open,

nor can she be captured, silenced or restrained.”

Thanks to John Bell and Graham Maule of the Iona community for those vivid mothering images of the Spirit.

As for the Church as spiritual mother, we are in a time of uncertainty and struggle as church communities, but the gain of loving each other and loving God counterbalances the demands of service despite the time and effort involved. Our Vestry reports celebrate that service and show the love that empowers us to live up to the demands. I have often reflected on the connections between mother and priest. How did mothering prepare me for ministry? I have never wanted to be called Mother Barbara, even though some male priests from a similar worship style call themselves Father. The whole “Father knows best” style of leadership is not congenial to me, and I don’t think “Mother knows best” is any more life-giving. I have come to that conclusion from my own failed attempts to know best and to impose that knowing on my son. Now I aim for collaborative leadership where decision-making and responsibility are shared. I think we are very fortunate in this parish that we have a respectful and collaborative leadership team.

Turning to our Scripture stories today, there are relationships between parents and offspring portrayed in the story of Samuel anointing David, and in the story of the blind man whom Jesus healed. Are there any lessons to be learnt from those stories about relationships in church and home? When Samuel came to Jesse seeking to anoint one of his sons as future king, the sons paraded before Samuel in order of age, and the father almost ignored the youngest who was out keeping the sheep, but it was the boy David who was chosen by the Spirit. The lesson I take from this story and apply to family relationships and ministry is to give due value to children who are important in God’s eyes. David and Jeremiah were both children when commissioned for their roles, and Jesus valued children, welcoming them and making them an example to adults of how to enter the kingdom of heaven. In the story of the blind man who was healed, Jesus made an important theological point at the beginning of the story, that the man’s blindness is not a punishment from God either for his own sin or that of his parents. Therefore, perhaps we ought not to blame ourselves or our children for physical or psychological ailments that might afflict them, nor blame Mother Church for the blindness of institutional religion at times. Jesus said the man was blind “so that God’s works might be revealed in him.” Can we apply that to the affliction of the coronavirus, or the temporary loss of worship gatherings? God does not inflict illness or loss or disaster as a punishment for sin, as some Christians have arrogantly claimed about AIDS or the tsunami. Rather when afflictions happen, we can look for God’s works to be revealed even in tragic or difficult circumstances. In the incarnation of Jesus and in his death and resurrection, we see that God is with us in all the circumstances of our mortal life, including suffering and death, and God brings new life when all seems lost.

Like aristocrats, our identity from God can never be taken away

Sermon by Andy Wurm, 12^th January 2020, for the Celebration of the Baptism of Jesus

This week the Duke and Duchess of Sussex (Harry and Meghan) announced they would be stepping back as senior royals. Today I invite you to do something like the opposite, which is to imagine yourself as an aristocrat.

This suggestion is based on a proposal by Catholic theologian James Alison, who suggests it as a way of coping with the flaws and failures of the church. It provides a way of remaining a faithful member of the church, without its imperfection getting in the way.

The suggestion is that you imagine the church as a restaurant which serves top class meals, and you are an aristocrat who dines there. The chefs in the kitchen keep creating the meals, while the waiting staff manage the dining room. The waiting staff, however, get carried away with their power and self-importance, believing they should control where customers sit; their level of service depends on whether they judge the customers worthwhile or not; and they compete over which of them attends to which customers. The waiting staff engage in these petty games, but as an aristocrat, you remain totally unaffected, because you are not one of them, you’re on a different level to them, above their world. You’re just there to enjoy the food.

If we approach our belonging to the church to be like being an aristocrat in the imaginary exercise, we can belong in order to enjoy the spiritual nourishment that is available, without being affected by the games that go on. Such games involve who’s allowed to do what, who’s included and who’s excluded, and so on. We might even choose to try to influence how things work in the church, but remain ‘above’ the games, in other words, not be run by them or have our belonging to the church determined by them. In this way, we are also free of resentment towards those engaged in the petty games.

This imaginary exercise can also help us to live in the world, without having our lives determined by the ways of the world. What can help with that is our baptism. To understand how that can be so, we must look to Jesus’ baptism, which helps us understand the significance of our own. The significance of Jesus’ baptism is conveyed by the voice from heaven, saying ‘this is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased’, which can be translated as This is my Son, who I love. Love, here means ‘approve of’ or ‘value as worthwhile’. It is not God patting Jesus on the back for doing a good job, as Jesus has yet to begin to begin his ministry. It is God’s unconditional validation of Jesus’ worth, which became the foundation upon which his ministry was based. It was the most defining thing about Jesus, driving what he did and what he said, and keeping him unaffected by what others said about him or did to him.

Like Jesus’ baptism, our baptism, is our being told that we are loved by God. The psalms tell us God knew us in the womb, but at our baptism, we are given a sign of this truth: that our deepest identity is we are loved by God. Our worth is given to us from God as an eternal gift. Like aristocratic status then, regardless of what others think of us, or even what we think of ourselves, no-one and nothing can take away our God-given status. Aristocrats can be odd, obnoxious or crazy, and yet none of that impinges of their status. The same applies with God’s love for us: it has nothing to do with what kind of person we are.

Our awareness of this makes all the difference – like the aristocrats who know they are not like the waiting staff at the restaurant, and therefore unaffected by, not involved in, their petty games. It means we are not part of the games which involve our worth as a person coming from what we

achieve, or our worth as a person being given to us (or withheld from us) by others.

We all need some sort of affirmation, to feel that we are worth something. Either we receive it as a gift from God with no strings attached, or we spend our lives chasing it. Chasing a sense of being worth something can require a big effort, for example, striving to win the approval of a parent might take a lifetime. On the other hand, we might pursue approval within the short time we spend with a stranger at a party – even though we may never meet them again.

Basing our lives upon the foundation of God’s love for us, allows us to be free of the effects of the games people play involving the giving or withholding of worth. This applies to the past, present and future. It means we can stop holding on to any hurt we may still feel from being rejected in the past, or the ways we weren’t considered. It means we don’t have to worry about others failing to acknowledge our importance now. And it means that it’s not the end of the world if we make mistakes, for our value comes from God, not from our achievements or our failures. That frees us from resentment too, because resentment comes from a sense of missing out what we think we should have been given, such as recognition and respect, and as we are given our worth by God, we don’t have to resent human beings who didn’t give it us. Freedom from resentment can enable us to forgive others, and to let go of our demands for them to give us what they are not capable of giving us.

Of course, it is not only the baptised who are loved by God. Everyone is. Baptism is just a sign of God’s love which is given to us, and a way that God’s love is given to us. That means everyone can be aristocratic-like, in the sense of living above, or being unaffected by the dynamics of giving or withholding worth, which is present in most interactions between people. The is the main gift that Jesus offers every person. The most basic form of faith therefore, involves receiving that gift of God’s love and trusting in it.

There are some who would not even mention the word God, yet for all intents and purposes, receive their identity as loved by God, because they refuse to receive their worth from other people. They may not define it as such, but in a way, they too, live by faith.

As Christians, we sometimes forget that God’s love for us is the foundation of our lives. Confessing our sins is our way of acknowledging that and letting it be so once more. It is only us who sometimes forget about God’s love, or sometimes withdraw from it. It is never God who forgets to love us, or who sometimes withdraws his love from us, for what God gives, God gives eternally and never takes back.

May we be led by the absence of fear to God

Sermon by Andy Wurm, Epiphany Sunday, 5^th January 2020

I once officiated at the funeral for the mother of a woman who was a professional astrologer. She (the astrologer) was fine about her mother having a Christian funeral, so I guess she didn’t see any great clash there. For me, though, I cannot see how one’s life can be explained and how one can receive useful guidance on how to live, based on the movements of stars. It’s interesting then, that today (on Epiphany Sunday) we’re celebrating the visit by three astrologers to baby Jesus.

There is a connection between astrology and Jesus which existed long before he was born and it’s to do with the number twelve. Jesus chose twelve disciples to represent the twelve tribes of Israel, making them symbolically into the new (spiritual) Israel. The reason there were twelve tribes of Israel was because there were twelve signs of the zodiac and all twelve together represented the whole sky, which stood for ‘everything’ – all humanity (or even all of creation). I’m okay with that, because, applied to Jesus’ disciples, it allows us to see them both as representing humanity as a whole, being called by God to become something new, then stumbling along with that, but eventually also succeeding and offering us examples of how to live. But what shall I make of the three astrologers? If they found Jesus through a means I consider flawed, then do I have to reconsider my understanding of how we find Jesus, or how we find God?

I read about a man who, in order to make a living for about eighteen months, wrote astrology columns. While knowing little about astrology, he used his creative writing skills to write material based on characteristics he could find on other astrology columns. Despite making it all up, he was surprised to receive feedback from readers who commented on how accurate his horoscopes were. One explanation of that was that he was providing his readers with a way of feeling connected with the universe, offering an alternative to the view that we are all just accumulated atoms, existing in a meaningless universe, without purpose.

Long ago, that sense of being connected with the world around you and so being part of God’s creation, was achieved through lists. For example, last week’s psalm contained a list of creatures being invited to praise God. Belonging to one list implies they’re joined together in praise and so something about each of them reflects God’s glory and so is part of God’s life. At the start of Matthew’s gospel, there’s a long list of unpronounceable names – representing Jesus’ ancestors – implying that he carries their history into his death and resurrection. In that way, both their good deeds and their flaws become part of God’s action in the world.

These days we haven’t got time for lists, so we usually go for one thing to connect us with the world around us, or with God. It might be gardening that makes me feel connected with nature, or studying physics that makes me feel part of the laws that hold the universe together (or push it apart). It might be that singing or playing music (or composing) involves something that is both within yourself and beyond yourself. It might be that you come alive when interacting with other people, or you enjoy the peace you find in your own company. These are all different ways that we might connect with what is within, but also greater than ourselves. They are like the star that the astrologers followed to find God. It seems that God has made us so that we each have our own way of finding God. As St Augustine put it: our hearts are restless until we find our rest in God. In other words, until we connect with God in the way we have been made to connect, we won’t be content. It can also be said that we only search for God because we’ve already found God – but not fully, in the sense that we haven’t fully grasped the significance of what God gives us. We’ve kind of had a taste of God and have some work to do before we can embrace what we’re being given, so for example, a person who has received unconditional love, may have to learn to let go of self-rejection before being able to really receive it.

If contentment, or fulfilment only comes through connecting with God, how do we know that our way of connecting with the bigger picture, connecting with what is within us and seems also beyond us, is really connecting with God? It’s the same question as how the astrologers knew that King Herod was not the One they were seeking. They didn’t lay their gifts at his feet. The reason is those astrologers were like dogs, in that they could sense fear. When I was young, I was scared of dogs, so being reminded that dogs could smell fear only made me more afraid. That shows that you can’t just turn off fear. And neither could King Herod. He could make out he wasn’t afraid – feigning interest in the location of the new king so that he could pop a card in the post, but that didn’t fool the astrologers, who accessed their super-dream-powers to discern that Herod was driven by fear.

In contrast to Herod, the message we get from Jesus, is to not be afraid of the life he offers. Angels and human messengers tell us not to be afraid of him. And behind that is Jesus’ total trust in the Father – the God we see only through seeing the Son. The Son trusts the Father because the Father is totally loving – in the Father and the Son there is no fear, only love.

This is important because it is not enough to connect with what is beyond ourselves. It’s nice to feel at one with nature, but nature does not personally care for us. It’s nice to be taken out of ourselves as we listen to music, but that can also be just a break from hardship or the boredom of everyday life. We can also be fooled by something such as the transcendence we experience by being part of a crowd, a group, a congregation, or a nationalistic rally. We might experience a great sense of belonging and power, but it may be at the cost of our individuality and responsibility. That’s not freedom, but bondage.

The transcendence that is connection with God, binds us with life in general and with other people, by infusing us with a sense of care and an awareness that our welfare and that of others is integrally connected. That sort of transcendence transforms our ego into something which serves the common good, rather than something which drives us to get what we want.

The astrologers in the Christmas story remind us that the more fear is absent, the closer we are to God. Of course, when we first move towards God, we may experience fear, but that’s because we’re resisting God. We don’t want to give up something, we feel threatened by what needs to change, or we doubt that God will be in the place we need to go. But if we trust ourselves and trust God enough to go to that place, to face what we need to face, or let our defences against life be broken, we will eventually find ourselves in a place where there is nothing to fear.

There is nothing to fear when we are with God, because there is no fear in God and there is no fear in God because nothing can threaten God, even our rejection of God! Good Friday show us that even our rejection of God can be used for God to show us God’s true nature, which is love.

Today, following years of tradition, we inscribe above the entrance to the church, in chalk, the initials of the (three?) astrologers who found God by discerning the place in which there was nothing to fear. So too may that be what we allow to draw us to God. But if we find fear, or threat, rivalry, competition or violence, then we need to be wise, and turn and go another way, because instead of God, we have found something which is threatened by God.

In our powerlessness we find God knocking at the door.

Sermon by Andy Wurm, Christmas 1, 29^th December 2019.

It’s a bit disappointing that Matthew included the part about the slaughter of young boys in the end of his Christmas story. Instead, he could have finished off with the three magi arriving at the manger and rejoicing at how marvellous it all was. There is that, but the joy gets dampened down by the horrific action of Herod.

So why did Matthew ruin an otherwise great story? Especially when it seems that the killing didn’t really occur. The King Herod referred to in the story was definitely a nasty character – he even killed two of his own sons and knowing he was hated by his people, he arranged for 300 of them to be killed as he was dying, to ensure there would be some people mourning in the city when he actually died (fortunately the killing wasn’t carried out). Despite all that though, there is no record of Herod ordering that all the boys under two years of age be put to death, which there would be if such a significant thing took place. What this shows is that what we have in Matthew’s Christmas story is midrash. Midrash was common in Jewish writings and involved creating a story to make what you’re conveying relevant to your audience.

Looking at the detail of the story gives away what Matthew is trying to do. We see throughout his gospel that he was trying to present Jesus as the fulfilment of Judaism. One way he does that is by his constant use of the number five, for instance, presenting five teaching sermons by Jesus, and in the Christmas story, five quotes from the Hebrew scriptures (even though one is made up). The number five points to what was known as the five books of Moses, or in other words, the Jewish ‘Law’ (way of living). And then in the part of the Christmas story we read from today, Matthew presents Jesus as the new Moses, the great hero of Judaism. Notice the similar circumstances: his people (young boys) were oppressed, Egypt was involved and Jesus would set his people free, as Moses did for his people.

Here Matthew is trying to counter the opposition of the Jews to Christianity and help those in his community of faith, who were Jews to see that the God who spoke to the Jews was the same God as revealed in Jesus. At the same time, Matthew was trying to reassure his people who were suffering from persecution, that God was with them, and so they should not lose hope.

We too have issues which dominate our lives, such as bushfires, environmental problems (like how we’re managing our water), climate change, poverty, and I’m sure you can think of others, and there’s also the more personal issues, such as conflicts in our relationships.

In these circumstances it is easy to feel that the little you can do to improve things is hardly worthwhile because it won’t make much difference and this can result in a depressing sense of powerlessness. If we bring this sense of powerlessness into our prayer, however, we may see that at least to a degree, we are atheists. We don’t believe in God, we believe in ourselves, and realising that we are powerless, we feel there is little or no hope.

If I feel a depressing sense of powerlessness in the face of the world’s problems, it is because I have adopted a view that fixing the world’s problems depends on my ability as an individual to exercise enough power to change things as I think they should be changed. In my reasoning I have omitted God, God’s loving providence, and my interconnection with everything else in creation.

The Christmas story speaks to us when we feel enslaved or oppressed by powers too big for us to change. If the Christmas story is true, in the sense that God does act to rescue people from oppression, then when we feel powerless and overcome, we are being offered another way of seeing things.

If the birth of baby Jesus in Bethlehem represents God coming into a situation of oppression, then God will be present at those times we feel overwhelmed and powerless. So instead of being pulled down by our sense of powerlessness, we can see it as God knocking at the door. God is there, when God is needed. If we let God in, we find that things are not quite what we thought.

It seemed that the problems were “out there”, in the world. Things out there needed fixing, but when I begin to let God in, I find that the real battle is within. The real battle is to let go of wanting to control things. I discover that what needs to happen is that I have to let go of wanting to impose my ideas of how the world should be, and let God take over my ego, so that I can become an instrument of God’s peace, God’s healing, God’s setting free.

Remember that we don’t have to be powerful, learned, able, healthy, wealthy or good looking. All we have to do is acknowledge our powerlessness and entrust it to God, who is at his most powerful in our weakness, whose folly is wiser than human wisdom, and whose weakness is stronger than our strength.

The message of the Old Testament can be summed up like this: you can stuff things up, but you can’t blow it. The reason is that God is in the world. We are not alone. Of course, God’s timing isn’t always the same as ours. The people of Israel had to wander in the desert for forty years before they got to the home God promised them. So too, with God’s help, world peace, environmental harmony, justice for all, and getting on with your family, probably won’t be achieved tomorrow.

We are more likely to let go of our anxiety over what’s wrong with the world and realise that God really is at work, if we feel less powerless about it all. The answer to our feelings of powerlessness in the face of the world’s troubles lies in our becoming instruments of God’s transforming of the world. God is the God of all people and all things. Whether or not we have a sense of and find assurance in the fact that God can change the world and bring healing and wholeness, depends on whether or not we let God be what God really is, within the depths of ourselves. Think of Mother Teresa. What did she do to solve world poverty? Nothing. She left that for others to deal with. And I bet she didn’t worry about it. That’s because she gave herself so deeply to God and became an instrument of God’s love for the poor, that she had a strong sense of God’s providence. Connecting with God’s action in one area of life, helps us cope with the rest.

A prayer to finish: loving God, so often we live with the anxious burden of wanting to control the circumstances of the world, or wanting to control the people we live with. Help us to let go of that burden and so be freed of the ways we try to manipulate others: consciously and unconsciously. As we do this, we offer ourselves for you to use in bringing healing and wholeness to the world. So may we come to see your purpose unfolding, and where we do not, may our closeness to you help us trust that it is. Amen.

Rejoicing at all times takes us beyond them

Sermon by Andy Wurm, Advent 3, 15^th December 2019

Our Prayer of the Day makes a connection between seeing God and rejoicing. It can work the other way around as well, in that when we rejoice, we see God, or connect with God, in some way. But for that to be the case, our rejoicing has to be independent of our circumstances, which it will be if it’s intentional, i.e. something we choose to do. One way to do that is to constantly give thanks.

Some years ago, upon entering the carpark at Norwood Foodland, I was surprised by a woman in her car waiting to leave the carpark, with a big smile on her face. It’s not often that you see someone who has got through the stress of weekly grocery shopping and is being held up in leaving the carpark, smiling. The reason for her smile was that the person holding her up, who was the woman in charge of directing traffic in and out of the carpark, could be described as the friendliest person in the world. She gave every driver arriving and departing a huge smile and long hello or goodbye wave, as if she was their best friend. As I ventured into the depths of the shopping centre carpark I noticed that I didn’t have my usual feeling of resignation at having to do the shopping. Instead, I felt grateful for the mega-warm welcome, and amused by its effects upon others.

If St. Paul was alive at that time, he would have done his grocery shopping at Norwood Foodland, because he was an advocate of giving thanks in all circumstances, and that’s what their traffic controller was doing. Her version was to give thanks for all people. In suggesting this, Paul was being very Jewish, for giving thanks in all circumstances has been part of their faith for thousands of years, and was then carried into Christianity, hence, scripture has over 130 examples of encouragement to give thanks.

To give thanks in all circumstances is a big thing to ask for, especially when life is hard. How can we give thanks when someone we love dies, or when a child suffers? How can we give thanks when we lose our job, or are grilled for not doing it well enough? How can we give thanks when the world seems to be in such a mess? Is giving thanks in all circumstances just a way of burying our heads in the sand and denying that things are as bad as they are?

In the Judeo-Christian traditions, giving thanks in all circumstances is not doing that. We just have to look at the psalms to find evidence that it’s not about ignoring hardship, because often the words of thanks to God (which are also words of praise) are preceded by expressions of grief and suffering, and sometimes anger for how bad things are. And it was reported that Jews who were killed in Nazi concentration camps, recited psalms of thanksgiving to God before they were led to their deaths. So giving thanks in all circumstances is not about being grateful for what is happening or for what you have received.

Giving thanks in all circumstances is not escaping from the way things are, rather, it is immersing ourselves in God. It is not a substitute for reality, but an awareness of another kind of reality. It is connecting with what lies beyond the present, which differs from what is being promoted, or valued, or used to justify what is happening. For the Jews being put to death, expressing gratefulness to God was a protest and a proclamation that there was a reality that was greater than the evil being done to them.

Giving thanks in all circumstances is putting things into the context of divine providence. In other words, believing that whatever happens, no matter how bad it is, in some way, will be caught up in God’s loving activity and redeemed. It is trusting God.

The Eucharist, which is at the heart of what church is, means giving thanks. The depth of what it means is conveyed when we consider that it was on the night he was betrayed that Jesus took bread and gave thanks. Jesus gave thanks to God, for all that God is, and all God gives, even when he was about to be killed. Perhaps it is when we are most threatened that we most need to give thanks.

Remembering the way God thinks of us is so important, especially in the times we feel bad about ourselves, such as when depression strikes. Giving thanks to God is another way of remembering how God thinks of us, which is with unconditional love and pleasure.

One of the oldest words of praise for God is alleluia. In fact alleluia means ‘Praise God’ (praise Yahweh to be precise). In the New Testament it is an emotional term of praise. In the Old Testament it is a call to see in life more than is visible at any moment and trust it. It calls us to see life as life-giving, even when that is not apparent, and so it can carry us through good and bad, confidence and despair. Alleluia welcomes the complexity of the moment, and subjects it to the bigger picture (Joan Chittister in Uncommon Gratitude). Giving thanks in all circumstances then, is a means of centering ourselves in God, and becoming less self-absorbed.

There can be good reasons to give thanks even when things aren’t going well. Often the times we have grown most have been the difficult times. It’s interesting that scar tissue and healed broken bone are the strongest. And often things that are unseen or taken for granted are the most valuable things in our lives, especially our close relationships, e.g. I may have just lost being elected president of the bowls club, but my husband still loves me. What is of spiritual value in life may not be valued in other ways.

These are obvious reasons for being grateful, but there are times when even with hindsight, nothing positive and worth being grateful for seems to be present. These are the most difficult times to give thanks, but they are when we go to the heart of what giving thanks to God is about – not what we get from God, but the value of our relationship with God and the trust that holds us close to God.

In the Christian monastic tradition there is a practice known as Statio. Its purpose is to centre us and make us conscious of what we’re about to do. It makes us present to the God who is present to us. Saying grace before a meal is an example of Statio. Giving thanks for food makes us conscious of God’s goodness to us, as well as our reliance upon other creatures of the earth for our sustenance. An ancient and pre-Christian version of grace was the practice of ancient hunters apologising to an animal they had killed for food. It was an acknowledgement of the life taken from the animal, as well as the hunter’s dependence upon the plants and animals around them. Gratitude like that reminds you of your place in the order of things.

Grace before meals isn’t just giving thanks for the food we receive. It’s also an expression of confidence in the goodness of life (that God gives us). And it’s another means of becoming conscious of our connection with all of life on the planet, and our responsibilities there, especially towards those who lack what we enjoy.

It is worth fostering a habit of giving thanks in all circumstances on a regular basis. Regularly doesn’t necessarily mean daily, or hourly, or according to any schedule, but in an ongoing manner. Some of the best times for the practice of Statio are times of transition, when between situations. It could be when waiting at traffic lights, or in the queue at the supermarket. Rather than being frustrated that things aren’t moving as fast as you would like, use the opportunity to give thanks to God for something.

We are about to enter the Christmas frenzy. Some of you may have already ventured in. In that, there are always moments when we feel that what we are caught up in is far from what Christmas is about. We can let that feeling smother us, or we can use that time to practice a bit of Statio. Use it to give thanks to God for something. It may not distract us from what annoys us, but over time and probably mostly unconsciously, it will shape our souls to become more centred on God, and in time that will give us a greater ability to be present amongst what is life-denying, because we will know, more and more, that the One who gives life is present, and whatever denies that or works against that is only temporary. There is another reality, and that’s where our hearts lie. We live on earth but are fed by heaven.