Philippians | In the depths of anguish, joy

In these days of terror and sadness, in this time of myriad personal and public griefs, in the bleak and terrible NO from the Australian electorate, in the anguish of many First Nations people, in the wounds of the earth and the worries about climate and the cries from Israel and Palestine and everywhere else, we can still know joy.

Read here or listen here.

Panmure swimming holy

I am prayer-reading the story of Jesus’ baptism. Using the tools of lectio divina, I read it slowly once, twice, three times. Using my sacred imagination, I place myself in the crowd, watching; as a priest, coming down against this baptism; as John, holding people close as I plunge them into the river … and suddenly I am in the golden light of the waters of the Panmure swimming hole ...

Read here, where you will find a daily reflection from a member of the Sanctuary crowd every day to Easter all about faith in our locality.

Pentecost | God's holy breath

Take a breath. The breath which you have drawn in, which fills your blood with oxygen and gives your body life, is the same air which —  who knows? — a pterodactyl breathed and a pobblebonk in the rushes and a kangaroo on a nearby plain. It’s the sigh of a cyclamen on a Florentine hillside and the blow of a blue whale arcing from the sea and the song of every ancestor who has gone before; it’s the original reuse, recycle ...

Read here or listen here.

The gift of God's words in a world turned upside down

Over the last two years, our world has been turned upside down. We used to meet inside the building for church, but last week we were on Zoom; and this week here we, worshipping in the garden. We used to leave the house for school and work; but during the many months of lockdowns, most of us learned to work and study from home ... 

Read here or listen here.

Job | Responsibility, awe and wonder

All of us have big questions about human suffering: our own, and that which we see around us. And twenty months into a pandemic, with other griefs and losses mounting, with the prolonged physical distance from family and friends, and with climate catastrophe unfolding all around, these questions feel more urgent, more desperate, than ever.

Read here, or listen here.

In a climate emergency, Jeremiah shows us how to lament

According to Jeremiah 12, injustice leads to land degradation and species loss. In an era of anthropogenic climate change, these words have new resonance and show us how to lament. Read here or listen here.

Liturgy for the longest night

Tonight we gathered around a fire pit in the church carpark (current COVID restrictions put the kybosh on a bonfire in a local paddock); and we marked the winter solstice. You can read the liturgy here.

When God seems absent

When God seems absent, we need each other.

Read here, or listen here.

Unless a seed falls and dies ... a guided meditation

Imagine: You are holding a seed ...

Read here or listen here.

Presence bathed the room with love

Who among us hasn’t said something like: God, show me your plan. Tell me what I’m supposed to be doing here. I need clear guidance, a proper sign. Not some mimsy-wimsy spiritual hint, but something solid, something real. Otherwise, how will I know that you’re even with me? And how will anyone else know?

Read here or listen here.

Not Donald, not Boris, but you and me

In this time of global pandemic, closed borders, economic collapse, isolation, and loneliness, ordinary people like us are needed to do God’s priestly work.

Read here or listen here.

Prayer, Pride and Prejudice

As Jane Austen didn’t quite say, “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a man in possession of a good fortune … needs absolutely nothing from God.” ...

Read here, or listen here.

The persistent widows of Liberia

A story of persistent widows, and the challenge to a middle class church.

Read here, or listen here.

Ask, seek and knock for the presence of the Holy Spirit. And that's it

An old friend of ours, Monique Lisbon, once wrote a satirical song with a chorus that goes like this: God can’t keep track of the human race / when everyone’s praying for a parking space. The song is her response to those Christians who quite literally ask God for everything: personal prosperity, a perfect spouse, a big house in a nice suburb, and a parking space right outside the front. Jesus says, “Ask, and you shall receive,” and so they ask, and ask, and ask some more: for the verse has been widely interpreted to mean that God is a fairy godmother just waiting to reward our earnest prayers by granting our heart’s desire.

Read here, or listen here.

Lady Wisdom and the gender diverse community of God

Once upon a time, long, long ago, Lady Wisdom called out at the public places—the city gates, the crossroads, the mountaintops—and she said: “The Lord began the work of creation with me ...

Read here, or listen here.

Seeing through God's eyes takes practice

Here we are, forty-one days after the hype of Christmas and just starting another year at kinder or school. We are a group of lovely ordinary people with lots of children among us, and we are gathered tonight to worship God and receive a blessing, just as, two thousand years ago, like every other ordinary Jewish family, Mary and Joseph went to the Temple forty days after their firstborn son’s birth to worship God and receive a blessing.

Read here, or listen here.

Love who?!

The Second Mile. This incredibly confronting image
was found at journeyswiththemessiah.org

Once upon a time, I was sitting in a class at the theological college when the concept of ‘love your enemy’ came up. The pastor of a large church became annoyed and said, “I’ve got no idea why we waste time talking about this. We’re Christians—we have no enemies!” His comment revealed what is actually a fairly common idea: Those of us who are not actively oppressed by a violent regime, and who work very hard to be nice, often think we love everyone. But is this true? And can we throw the whole idea of loving our enemy out?

The Honours List

Last week, the annual Australia Day Honours List was announced: a list of people recognised for their contribution to our nation. So it is timely that in tonight’s reading, Jesus gives us his own honours list: the people honoured for the way they embody and contribute to God’s culture. The Australia Day Honours List usually includes politicians, military officers, scientists, sports stars, charity workers, artists, businesspeople, and others. Who do we find on Jesus’ honours list? Well, as you can imagine, it’s a bit different.

First up on Jesus’ list are the people who have no sense of entitlement. We all know people with a strong sense of entitlement: they are arrogant and proud. They grab at everything, but they are never satisfied. On the other hand, those who know that life is a gift and that the world owes them nothing will be constantly delighted by God’s goodness, and always eager to share. And so of course they are honoured in God’s culture!

Next, we find people who enter into their grief. You might have noticed that those who shy away from their suffering become brittle and hard; but those who face up to their suffering learn much about themselves and others. They often discover God’s extraordinary comfort, and learn compassion, a compassion which they pour out on the world. Their compassion softens hearts all around them, and they are greatly loved—and they are honoured in God’s culture!

On Jesus’ list, we find people who engage in nonviolence, and who hunger and thirst for justice. For those who refuse to participate in the violence of the world align themselves with Jesus. They have caught a vision of a life greater than their own; this vision will give their own lives great meaning, and they will be deeply satisfied. And they are honoured in God’s culture!

We also find the contemplative, for they have turned their backs on the rat race, and opened their hearts and minds to the love of God. By taking the time to pray, and facing up to their own shadows, they see God’s face: and so they are honoured in God’s culture!

Of course, the people honoured by God are not the people most often honoured in our society. Some of the people on this year’s honours list might fit the bill, but many of our leaders do not. A quick flick through any newsfeed suggests that we usually value other qualities instead. Jesus honours the humble, the peacemaker, the compassionate and the just, but we seem to reward the arrogant, the wealthy, the hard-hearted and the corrupt, placing them into positions of leadership and remunerating them greatly. Yet too many of our leaders are bullies, braggarts and liars. Too many refuse genuine dialogue; they speak only to tear others down, build themselves up, and win political points. Too few show compassion; too few take responsibility for their actions; too few have a vision of a just world.

Next week, we will be choosing leaders for our congregation, and I hope it’s a no-brainer when I say that we are not looking for the arrogant and the proud! But what are we looking for? The book of Acts tells of a time when the early church needed to appoint people to positions of responsibility. The apostles decided not to select the new leaders themselves. Instead, they asked the congregation to choose from among them people of “good standing, full of the Spirit and wisdom” (Acts 6:3). Not people with a particular skill set, not the privileged, but those full of the Spirit and wisdom. If we are to follow their example, then our leaders should be chosen from among the regular attenders by the congregation; and they should be people who demonstrate the fruits of the Spirit, that is, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.

These qualities are rarely seen among our public leaders, and they are often mocked—but they are what we are looking for here. For they require courage, and they lead straight to Jesus’ honours list. It takes courage to be good: to stand up for justice when doing so causes others to mock and even attack you; it takes courage to exercise self-control, and not fight back. It takes courage to relinquish privilege, and to live humbly. It takes courage to be vulnerable, and to do the hard work of grief. It takes courage to live authentically, rather than hide behind the shallow masks our society hands out. It takes courage to pray and face our shadows, rather than fill our days with busy-ness and clutter. Living courageously, living a wholehearted life, means walking through conflict, refusing to retaliate, being vulnerable, offering and accepting forgiveness, seeking freedom, living joyfully, and learning to love. We may not see these practices among many political or corporate leaders, but then, we’re engaged in a very different project: for we are called to model a different way to the society around us, a way that is shaped not by and for the privileged, but shaped by God’s culture and God’s heart for the world. 

Jesus tells his disciples that the kingdom of heaven, God’s reality, is very close, and is even now sending shoots and sparks into our world. Like yeast in the bread, like salt in the soup, God’s culture is what gives this world flavour and life—and we are the bearers of this culture. So let us all pray for the courage to open ourselves to the Spirit, that God’s culture might blossom among us, and bear much fruit. And next week, let us choose courageous people full of Spirit and wisdom, to lead us in the year to come. Ω

A reflection for Sanctuary, 29 January 2017, referring to the Beatitudes in Matthew. My paraphrase of the text is here.

Love despite fear, fear despite love

What sort of crazy person would buy this building?

I have staggered to the end of another semester, a semester in which I overcommitted to study, kept working, kept raising children, kept combing out nits and cooking meals and sweeping floors; and somewhere in the midst of everything, a whole new surprising project took root. Now I am emerging from the fog of study and the chaos of family life and the demands of work to discover that I am moving to a regional city in a few weeks’ time to start a new church. I should be thrilled and excited—and there are many times when I am—but I am also just as likely to feel overwhelmed. I think often of Leunig’s observation that there are only two emotions, love and fear, for the new project certainly arose out of love, and yet it fills me with fear.

Resurrection!

Image from http://www.servicioskoinonia.org/cerezo/dibujosC/30pascuaC5.jpg.