COLLECT FOR THE DAY:
Almighty God, your blessed Son, our Saviour Jesus Christ, ascended far above all heavens that he might fill all things: mercifully give us faith to trust that, as he promised,he abides with us on earth until the end of time through the same Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.  Amen

READINGS
Acts 1 15-17, 21-26
Psalm 1 1
John 5: 9-13
John 17: 6-19

HYMNS
Introit:                   371
Gradual:                 378
Offertory:              520
Post-
Communion:        538
Missional:             369 (t.388)
(tune Mission Praise 501)

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Tidings 20th May

I want to link back to the theme introduced from St. John’s Gospel last Sunday – the word and idea of “abiding”.  You might recall I remarked on the number of times the word appears in St. John’s Gospel and also in his first Letter; and the number of times specifically it occurred in last week’s Gospel reading.  Today, Jesus briefly continues the theme – he speaks of abiding in his love, or, as we could say, living in his love, and then he says (and if I have a text for today this is [1]it) “I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you and your joy may be complete.” (John 15:11)

What’s joy?  I think I have said before that joy can be such a subjective emotion – what gives joy to one person might cause another to say or think “What!  How come?”  Some find running brings them joy.  It did me once for a while _ I actually ran a marathon.  Can you believe it?  Now I can think of nothing worse.  I can be completely happy standing by a railway line waiting for that train to arrive – and hopefully the sun’s in the right place for a good photo.  Some in my family humour me.

Much of what we are told will give us joy are indeed passing and ephemeral things, shallow things.  Advertisers excel at suggesting if we use a particular thing, we’ll be happy and joyful.  Cars, fast food, cosmetics, financial products – you name it – they’re all enlisted in the cause of promoting some false and shallow enjoyment of life.  Let alone the crudeness and coarseness and violence that seems to pass for entertainment these days.  So where do we find joy?  The best definition I’ve found was some years ago and it’s stuck with me.  I found it in all places in a book titled “Principles of Christian Theology.”  It says “Joy arises from the sense of belonging to a mysterious totality and having some affinity with it, and in which, we as finite beings have, it seems, an insignificant place.” I’m not going to repeat it, but look at this morning’s theme picture.  It’s a stunning and beautiful sunset and I think illustrates what I mean.  Imagine coming across such a sunset – and feeling part of that great scene in the face of which we seem so small.  One of the hymns speaks of “being lost in wonder, love and praise.”[2]  And I’ve found that to be the case over and over again.  Retreat was joyful – I would stand by myself outside the monastery guest house and look out over a large crater lake with the rolling countryside beyond – hardly a road or vehicle to be seen  – and above it all a vast sky in all its moods.  How lucky, or should I say blessed, we are in Australia to have big skies.  The lake in its shape put me in mind of an immense font – and all created by God for the praise of God.  “Springs of water, bless the Lord” says the Song of Creation.[3]  I think the reason Libbie and I enjoy the seemingly rare occasions we get out in our kayak has to do with the same thing.  Not so we can get away from it all, but sometimes we feel joyful – immersed in great beauty on a quiet stretch of a river or creek or a lake.

Joy therefore is a deeply spiritual value.  The Westminster Catechism says that our chief end is to love God and to enjoy God forever.[4]  The call to God – our baptismal call – is an invitation to joy.  Christian life is the form of human life that seeks to live fully in and from the life of God – in the joy which God gives.  It’s the life of joy that chooses people  – we do not choose it, it chooses us, and it chooses us so we can be shaped in ways of joyful living so we can be inspired to say with the Psalmist this morning “Shout with joy to the Lord all the earth, break into singing and make melody.” (Psalm 98:5).  Or in this Easter Season we can sing of the joy that breaks forth from death’s grip:  “Now let the heavens be joyful, and earth her song begin.  The round world keep high triumph, and all that is therein.  Let all things seen and unseen, their notes of gladness blend, for Christ the Lord has risen, our joy that knows no end.”[5]

And the immensity – the mysterious totality – in which we immerse ourselves, in which we abide, is love.  The great love of God revealed in the Son.  The love from which, St. Paul tells us, nothing can separate us – not life, nor death, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor anything else in all creation.[6] And it is this love which we’re commanded to share.  Notice Jesus doesn’t ask, or suggest, or commend it to us – he commands us to love one another as he has loved us – a sacrificial, self-emptying love.

Yet even though Jesus commands us, he says we are not servants (the Greek word means slaves).  Slaves were told what to do and when to do it.  They knew they had no choice.  Their position in life determined their obedience.  We are Christ’s friends – we’ve been called to be with Christ.  We’ve responded out of our free choice, and having responded freely, we’re called to love as he loves us.  This love we receive by being embedded or abiding in Christ.  We’re called to share this love in the life of the Christian community.

All this might seem a terribly tall order – we can be all too aware of our inadequacies, frailties, sinfulness, but we need to be more aware of the mercy and love of God reflected in Jesus Christ who came to show us the way of love.  My 17^th century namesake Samuel Crossman wrote:

My song is love unknown

My Saviour’s love for me

Love to the loveless shown

That they might lovely be.

Oh who am I, that for my sake

My Lord should take frail flesh and die?[7]

Who are we indeed?  We are those who have been loved, are loved, and will be loved by God; extravagantly, unconditionally.  We’re to abide, remain, live in that love – weave it into our lives as the vine and the branches are interwoven, and play our part in the life of the vine. By living lives formed and informed by love and allowing ourselves to be propelled into whatever ministry we might have by love – love lived in the life of a Christian community.

And in so doing we will find our true joy.

(Written whilst in retreat from 7^th – 11^th May 2012 at St. Mark’s Benedictine Abbey, Camperdown Vic)

COLLECT FOR THE DAY:
Loving God, your Son has chosen us and called us to be his friends: give us grace to keep his commandments, to love one another, and to bear fruit which will abide; through him who is the true vine, the source of all our life, Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen

READINGS
Acts 10: 44-48
Psalm 98
1 John 5: 1-12
John 15: 9-17

HYMNS
Introit:                   152
Gradual:                 699
Offertory:              534
Post-Communion:502
Missional:             595
(tune Mission Praise 501)

Thankyou to the new volunteers who offered to help with cash counting.  A huge thankyou to retiring counters CLARE TESCH, GEORGE BOURNE and PETER PAYNE who between them have countered for more years than most of us have been alive.

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Tidings 13th May

In response to concerns about the possible spread of infection through sharing the common cup at Holy Communion the practice of intinction, has developed, i.e. dipping the communion bread or wafer into a chalice of wine before consuming the bread. There are substantial risks in this practice, however. Christian Century of November 15, 2000 carried a report which pointed out that hands contain more germs than a person’s mouth. If the fingers of the person intincting come into contact with the wine in the chalice germs on those fingers may be transferred into the wine. Added to this, worshippers may well have shaken the hands of many other people at church either through greeting or sharing the peace, and if the communicant has not washed their hands before communion may well have many germs on their hands when they take the bread and dip into the chalice. All of this means that the health risk of many individuals intincting in this way may well be greater than any risk to health of sipping from the common cup. Church members should be educated about the risks of intinction and the practice discontinued.

I have expressed some concerns about intincting in the past, but not recently.  It is not a satisfactory or safe practice, especially when people rest their hands on the lip of the chalice as occurs reasonably often.   I, too, would be happy to see intinction discontinued.  If you do not wish to receive wine from the chalice other options are to receive the bread only, or to hold the wafer over the wine (perhaps making the sign of the cross) without the wafer contacting the wine or your hands the chalice. One or two people already do this.  If you would like the read the full text of the Archbishop’s letter, copies are available in the Narthex.

If you have questions, please direct them to me in the first instance, recognising that this matter has been raised by the Archbishop for the Diocese as a whole.

The Rev’d. Bill Crossman        Rector

COLLECT FOR THE DAY:
Jesus, good shepherd of the sheep, by whom the lost are sought and guided into the fold: feed us and we shall be satisfied, heal us and we shall be whole, and lead us that we may be with you, where you live and reign with the Father and the Holy “Spirit, one God, now and for ever.   Amen

READINGS
Acts 4: 5-12
Psalm 23
1 John 3: 16-24
John 10” 11-18

HYMNS
Introit:                   188
Gradual:                 659
Offertory:              239
Post-Communion:444 (t.56)
Missional:             456

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Tidings 29th April

Jesus asks his disciples “Have you got anything to eat”.  So they give him a piece of grilled fish which he eats in their presence.  What is it with the scriptures and food?  An old friend of mine once said to me that you can’t read the Bible without becoming a bit peckish.  Just thinking back over the last couple of weeks, Libbie and I went to the Cathedral for the Chrism Eucharist and Renewal of Ordination Vows in Holy Week.  The Dean’s sermon began with a poem about potatoes and olive oil – and I could see where he was going.  How potatoes are transformed by oil into golden chips – and hardly anyone had eaten their dinners at the time.  We were practically licking our lips.  We were back at the Cathedral last Sunday as you know for our grandson’s baptism.  The sermon was preached by the Cathedral’s formation student.  It was her first sermon and I happen to be one of her Examining Chaplains.  Lest she felt she’d drawn the short straw I said to her afterwards that my presence there was entirely coincidental.  But – she started her sermon with a really lyrical description of her favourite cup of coffee.   We were all sniffing the air for the aroma of freshly brewed coffee.  Our gospel this morning follows on from the wonderful story of Jesus’ encounter with the two men returning to Emmaus – and how he becomes known to them in the breaking of the bread as Jesus avails himself of their offer of hospitality.  We don’t have it in Sunday worship this year – but it was the gospel reading for Wednesday in Easter Week.  And now, Jesus eats a piece of fish with his disciples.

Meals or table fellowship are an important context in St. Luke’s Gospel – so many significant events take place around the meal table.  And I guess in one sense that’s not surprising.  Meals are important times of sharing and social intercourse, family bonding, making and maintaining friendships.  That’s when we take the time for meals – I don’t mean zapping something in the microwave and repairing to the couch in front of the TV.  When I think of some of the meals I remember in our own family, the memorable ones were when we all were involved in some way in preparation as well as in the meal itself.   Our children as teenagers liked to get the good cutlery and crockery out and help set the table – and all the while we talked.   I get together with one of my oldest friends once a year generally – and we always have a leisurely meal.  So it’s no accident of course that we gather for this meal – here, today.  Symbolic of course, but a foretaste of the great heavenly banquet – and we gather to share, to grow closer together as people of faith, to maintain our companionship with each other and with Christ who himself said that we should do this to remember him.

So what’s going on at this particular fish meal that Jesus has with his disciples?  There are two distinct parts or phases to it.  In the first part, Jesus appears to the disciples while they are still talking and no doubt wondering about the earlier appearance of Jesus on the Road to Emmaus.  Having recognized Jesus as he shared a meal with them – they dropped everything as soon as Jesus has left them and gone back to Jerusalem to tell the disciples what has happened.  They know as well, Luke tells us,  that Jesus has appeared to Simon.  But despite this, when Jesus appears and says “Peace be with you” they’re afraid.  They think they’re seeing a ghost.  So at considerable length, and with a degree of over dramatization, the story describes Jesus’ attempts to assuage their disbelief by emphasizing the physicality of his presence.  He urges them to touch him, to look at him, and he eats the piece of fish in front of them. Here, as in so many of Jesus post-resurrection appearances, the gospel writer – Luke in this case – wants to say something about the reality of the resurrected Jesus.  And there’s a degree of ambiguity about their descriptions.  The resurrected Jesus is no apparition, but neither is he the same as he was before.  Her is not just a resuscitated corpse.  In all the accounts there is something different about him – in many instances he’s not recognized at first, he seems to appear and disappear at will.  In St. John’s Gospel, you may recall that Mary at first thinks he is someone else when she encounters him in the garden.  Or when he appears to the disciples on the beach – another fish meal follows – they simply don’t recognize him at first.  And I think there is a reason for this ambiguity.   And that has to do with the second part of the gospel account this morning.

If we think we’ve got the resurrection all sewn up, there’s a danger of just resting comfortably there with what we’ve come to accept.  Jesus won’t let us do that.  Simply recognizing the risen Lord isn’t enough.  As the scene unfolds, Jesus repeats for the disciples the scriptural explanation he’s already given on the road to Emmaus.  Even the words Luke uses “Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures” are very similar to the words used in the Emmaus story.  So it’s not just a matter of encountering the risen Jesus and saying “How wonderful”, it’s a matter of being willing and open to having our minds and understandings stretched.  True faith comes about when we grasp all that has happened to Jesus – his living, his suffering and dying, and his rising again – and then allowing all of that to inform, underpin, guide, sustain, challenge our own lives.  This scene takes a fairly significant step beyond the Emmaus episode.  The disciples see the risen Lord, they gain some understanding as he explains the scriptures to them, but then – and this is the significant step – they are challenged if you like to do something – to not only be hearers, but doers.  What the scriptures that Jesus explained to them foretold was not simply that the Messiah was to suffer and to die and to rise again on the third day – but that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations – beginning from Jerusalem.  And who’s going to do it?  That’s right.  The disciples.  So what was hinted at right at the beginning of Luke’s gospel, when, for example Simeon tells Mary that her infant child will be a light for revelation to the Gentiles, now becomes explicit right at the end of the gospel – the mission that the disciples will take up in Jesus’ name is to reach everywhere and everyone.

The disciples are witnesses not only in the sense that they’ve seen the wonders of Jesus ministry and the amazing events of the last few days.  They’ve also been instructed by Jesus to see how it all fits together and fulfils everything that was said of him.  So the message that they carry to the nations, their witness, will be the culmination of all of this.

We are witnesses too.  The words of Jesus “You are witnesses of these things” are for us as well.  We too have walked the Easter journey, we too have glimpsed something of the risen Lord, we too are sent from here to love and serve the Lord as Easter people – as thankful people, as filled with light despite our frailties, as joyful people and as hopeful people.

And we don’t do it alone – in the very next verse Jesus tells the disciples to wait a little while until they are “clothed with power from on high”, so as we have journeyed with Jesus in Holy Week and Easter, we in a sense wait now with the disciples as Jesus asks them to wait for what God has promised them – another helper, an advocate, the Holy Spirit – so our minds now begin to turn towards Pentecost – some weeks off yet, but the culmination of this wonderful season of Easter

COLLECT FOR THE DAY:
Lord of life, by submitting to death, you conquered the grave; by being lifted upon the cross, you draw all peoples to you; by being raised from the dead, you restore to humanity all that was lost through sin: be with us in your risen power, that in word and deed we may proclaim the marvellous mystery of death and resurrection.  For all praise is yours, now and throughout eternity.   Amen

READINGS
Acts 3: 12-20 Psalm 4 1 John 2: 15-17,3: 1-6Luke 24: 36b—48

HYMNS
Introit:                   361
Gradual:                 429
Offertory:              259
Post-
Communion:        514
Missional:             531

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Tidings 22nd April

The outline of the story is fairly clear, and Mark in his usual style wastes few words in telling the story.  Three women who Mark tells us a little earlier looked on from a distance as Jesus was crucified come early in the morning to his tomb with spices to anoint his body.  They wonder who will roll the stone from the entrance to the tomb.  They arrive and find the stone rolled back, so they enter and see a young man.  His clothing identifies him as an angelic messenger.  He is seated, and on the right – both descriptions signify authority in the Jewish tradition then.  He tells the women not to be alarmed, that Jesus is not there, that he has been raised.  He directs them to tell the disciples and Peter that Jesus has gone on ahead to Galilee – Mark recounts in Chapter 14 that Jesus tells the disciples that after he is raised up he will go ahead of them to Galilee.  The women react by fleeing from the tomb in terror and amazement, and tell no one, because they are afraid.

And that’s how St. Mark’s Gospel ends in the original version – later writers add different endings – but originally, the account of Jesus resurrection ends with the women terror struck and afraid to tell anyone what they had seen.  How do we understand that?  Do they fail to report what they had experienced because they remain paralysed by fear?  Are they afraid of being disbelieved by the male disciples and regarded as foolish women with an idle tale as Luke recounts in his version?  Are they afraid that the male disciples in their guilt at having deserted Jesus will react badly to the idea that women should be the chosen means by which the amazing story of resurrection is made known?

Mark leaves all of these questions open.  He leaves us with an unfinished story?  Why?  Because the real end of the story will only come with the advent of the Son of Man, whose coming is described in Chapter 13 of the Gospel.  The gospel addresses the present time of the church as it proclaims Christ has died, Christ is risen and then locates itself in the in-between time by adding Christ will come again.  Brendan Byrne, an Australian biblical scholar comments that “the odd ending of the gospel, the breaking off in mid-sentence so to speak, is an invitation to allow our own lives to be written into the ongoing story – so that we too can be not only beneficiaries but also servants of God’s costly outreach to the world.”  The story is broken off, and readers who may have thought that the story was about somebody else are left with a decision to make – will they allow their lives to become a part of the story?

How do we allow resurrection to become a part of our story?  In some ways it can seem very remote from what we do day to day.  It feels a bit abstract and removed from our everyday lives.  It’s all very well talking about it, writes Paula Gooder in her lovely and easily readable book “This Risen Existence”.  (Paula was guest speaker at our Clergy Summer School a couple of years ago and I draw on some of her insights later).  It’s all very well talking about it, but what difference will it make to me as I go to the supermarket, or go to meetings of my service club, or have lunch or coffee with my friends, or have the family up for Easter.  Well, it makes all the difference in the world – who we are and what we do is completely different as a result of resurrection.  And briefly, I want to suggest four ways in which it can be different.

Resurrection can mean we are called to live thankful lives.  God in Christ has done so much for us in his living and dying and rising that our only response can be one of thanksgiving.  “Father, I thank you for all that you’ve done, you gave yourself freely for me” goes the song.  What we do here now is thanksgiving – the meaning of the word “Eucharist”.  Thanksgiving is so important.  I know from my own experience in this last week how life giving it is to receive an expected letter of thanks.  Part of living the resurrection life involves recognising all that God has done for us, recognising all the astounding gifts that God has given us and learning to give thanks, Living thankful lives takes practice.  Too often, particularly as we grow older, it is too easy to learn pessimism and cynicism which squeezes out thankfulness.  Living the resurrection life in all its fullness asks us to be thankful people, not grumblers, not expecting things as a right, but thankful, always willing to thank others even for small things – a thankfulness that is deep in our hearts and bubbles outwards to everything we do.

Resurrection can mean we are called to live with our weaknesses and failures.  The apostle Paul writes in great detail sometimes of his own suffering and weakness – sometimes going to great lengths with a long list of everything he has suffered.  We can find that difficult sometimes.  You know the sort of person – we have one in our family.  You never ask them how they are because you end up being told in great detail.  My mother used to call such talk “organ recitals”.  Paul does not list his weaknesses in order to draw attention to himself – he lists them in order to draw attention to Christ.  We are all clay jars writes Paul in a letter to the church at Corinth.  We are all fragile, cracked, easily broken, but we have this amazing treasure in us – the light of Christ.  Christ’s light can only shine through cracked and crumbling jars.  Nicely finished and fully glazed jars would only keep the light in and people would say “what nice jars they are.”  It goes against all our instincts to embrace weakness rather than strength and failure rather than success, but this contradiction lies at the heart of the Gospel.  God chose what is weak to shame the strong, Paul writes to the Corinthians.  Living the resurrection life in all its fullness asks us to not be afraid of embracing our weaknesses and to learn to live joyfully as cracked and crumbling clay jars so the light of the risen Christ can shine out.

Resurrection can mean that we are called to live joyful lives.  How can we be joyful some say, when so many terrible things happen.  Joyfulness is not a reaction, nor is it unthinking jollity, nor is it a shallow emotion that comes from having the latest kind of thing we are urged to buy by the advertisers. What so often passes for joy is shifting, not fixed, so that when the tides of adversity sweep over us as they surely will, it is quickly washed away. Joy is an attitude of mind – a deep contentment in the realisation that we are a part of something much larger than ourselves, while at the same time being aware that we are not the sum of all things.  Deep relationships of love are like that, or the experience of being alone, yet suddenly coming upon a view of a vast, beautiful landscape.  Living resurrection life in all its fullness asks us not to be dour wowsers, or to be stuck in past disappointments, slights or traumas as difficult and painful as these can be, but to open our hearts to that deep contentment – let my joy be in you so that your joy may be complete, Jesus once said to his disciples.

Resurrection can mean that we are called to live hopeful lives.  Hope in the Christian sense is not an expression of a vague wish  as in “I hope I get a nice chocolate Easter Egg.”  It is a deeply grounded expression of faith into which Easter draws us all.  We have all been born anew into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, writes Paul.  A living hope – death did not defeat hope on Good Friday – there is nothing that is beyond the  transforming, life giving love of God, from which nothing can separate us. God can bring new life and new hope from horrific events – the resurrection story tells us that.  However bad things are, and however bad we may feel, there is always hope built on the God who raised Jesus from the dead.  “All my hope on God is founded, he doth still my trust renew, me through change and chance he guideth, only good and only true.  God alone. He unknown, calls my heart to be his own.” goes the hymn. Living resurrection life in all its fullness asks us to be hopeful people.

The challenge for us is that if God is this kind of God, what kind of Christians are we?  If God is the kind of God who breathes new life and new hope into a dying and hopeless world, then we who worship him should be the same. We are called to live the resurrection life.  May we go from our celebration of resurrection today as thankful people, as filled with light despite our frailties, as joyful people and as hopeful people.

The joy of resurrection fills the universe.  Christ is risen, he is risen indeed. Alleluia!

It was no different on Good Friday – crowds of people stood around as Jesus and two bandits hung on their crosses – an absolutely sickening sight.  Some watched in horror, no doubt Mary remembered the prophecy of Simeon that a sword would pierce her own soul.  Can you begin to imagine her pain and horror.  Some watched with indifference.  The Roman soldiers had seen it all before so they contented themselves in drawing lots for the last few possessions of the victims.  Others jeered sarcastically – “let’s see if you can save yourself now.”  Others, no doubt watched in triumph.  The ones who had led the cries of “Crucify him!”, and “Give us Barrabas!”  Those who had orchestrated Jesus’ arrest and show trial.

And then there was the unsettling darkness – Mark, copied by Matthew and Luke describes darkness over the land for three hours.  Maybe it was an eclipse.  If it was you know how eerie and unsettling the strange light of an eclipse can be.  Something of cosmic significance was taking place.  Something that would echo throughout the world of its time, something that echoes down the ages to us this morning.

How do we understand what has happened on the cross?    Bishop Godfrey Fryar of the Diocese of Rockhampton in his Easter message this year points out that while the church has come to a common view about the Incarnation, or perfect humanity and perfect divinity being uniquely held together in the person of Jesus, or the universal teaching about God as Trinity, there has never been a consensus about the atonement in terms of just how we were reconciled to God through Jesus’ death.  When I was a theological college, we were introduced to about nine theories of the atonement.  Too often, Christian theology has glorified suffering, portrayed a vindictive and capricious God, and proposed a morally deficient account of what God has done on the cross.  We know that without the cross, there can be no resurrection, but it still doesn’t make the cross palatable or easy.

Is there another way of thinking about it all?  A few years ago I was introduced to the writings of  Renee Girard who offers a different vision.  Human societies, he says, need to find some way of surviving and finding a measure of peace.  They do it by scapegoating.  Just as mutual conflict or tension reaches the point of crisis, the crisis is avoided by ganging up on certain individuals, blaming all the problems on them, and killing them or driving them out.  In the Book of Leviticus, the Hebrews are directed to once a year, lay the sins of the people on a goat and drive it into the wilderness, hence the term scapegoat.  Germany, facing runaway inflation and social disorder in the 1920’s and 30’s started blaming the Jews.  More recently, there has been more than one right wing political figure in this country, who, in seeking to address the sense of abandonment, depression and dislocation in rural communities has tried to find someone to blame usually Asians – just as the Chinese were blamed in the gold rushes of the 19^th century for social dislocation.   Maybe, these days in our society Muslims are being scape-goated by some.  In totalitarian regimes like Iran, or North Korea or Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe its western society.  In the Balkans in the 1990’s it was, I suspect, the mechanism that drove so called ethnic cleansing.  When we see other people doing it, we see through it and realize the scapegoat is really an innocent victim.  When we do it ourselves, we think the scapegoat is guilty.  The Gospel stories present us with a classic scapegoating story – a troublemaker who must be sacrificed lest the Romans crack down on everyone, or a blasphemer who must be punished for the sake of society’s purity, and the self-perceived status of the religious authorities and moral arbiters.  It leads inexorably to the conclusion of Caiaphas, the High Priest that it is expedient for one person to die for the people.

Girard writes; “The violence of the cultural order is revealed in the Gospels….and the cultural order cannot survive such a revelation.  Once the basic mechanism is revealed, the scapegoat mechanism, that expulsion of violence by violence is rendered useless by the revelation…………the persecutors’ accounts of their persecutions are no longer valid, and truth shines into dark places.  God is not violent, the truth of God has nothing to do with violence, and he speaks to us not through distant intermediaries, but directly.  The Son he sends us is one with him.  The Kingdom of God is at hand.”

There is evil abroad in the world and we are sometimes complicit in it.  May God forgive us if we gaze indifferently on evil and suffering.  The Gospel teaches us that violence cannot cure violence, that all efforts to make it do so rest on a lie, and that our only hope is to learn to forgive each other – as Christ forgives those who torment and kill him.  Richard Holloway in his book “On Forgiveness” writes that “forgiveness, when it happens, is able to remove the dead weight from our past and give us back our lives.  The real beauty and power of forgiveness is that it can deliver the future to us.”  Jesus bears the violence of us all as he dies, yet he forgive his tormentors and opens the future – a future revealed on Easter Day.

2 Kings 2: 1-12; Psalm 50: 1-6; 2 Corinthians 4: 31-12; Mark 9: 2-9

We have an advantage – we have heard the Gospels read many times in the cycle of readings provided by our Lectionary.  This year of the liturgical cycle, Year B, is the year of Mark, so we read through his Gospel Sunday by Sunday.  Last year was Matthew, next year will be Luke…and we commence the cycle again.  We’ll get to Mark again in 2015.   But just for a while, I’d like us to try to imagine ourselves as members of St. Mark’s community who are reading it – or hearing it read (because in Mark’s community not everyone would be able to read – for the very first time.  And just imagine that we’re reading it, or hearing it read, in a single session.  It doesn’t take long – Mark is the shortest of the gospels.

Mark’s story begins abruptly – “The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.”  Who is this Jesus Christ we may well think, and how can he possibly be Son of God?  Remember, we’re hearing this story for the first time.  And before we know where we are in the story, this Jesus suddenly appears from Nazareth and is baptized by John in the Jordan River, and there’s this strange account of Jesus hearing a voice – maybe we’re a bit suspicious of people who say they  hear voices – but he hears a voice saying You are my Son, the Beloved, with you I am well pleased.”  And then he disappears into the wilderness for forty days, and after that he appears in Galilee with a message that God’s kingdom has come near – something we’d all been longing to see – remember we’re first century Jewish / Gentile community probably living in Rome.

Well, Jesus calls some disciples to follow him – and then he’s in Capernaum in Galilee and people are just amazed – his fame begins to spread.  He heals a man with an unclean spirit, he heals the mother-in-law of one of his disciples, he walks around preaching, cleanses lepers, heals a paralysed man, heals a man with a withered hand.  People flock to hear him, so many in one instance he gets into a boat and sets out from the shore.  He’s beginning to get into arguments with Pharisees about what is lawful to do on the Sabbath and what he says is liberating.  And he tells stories – things we understand.  Stories of a sower, or a mustard seed, or a lamp under a basket.  They’re stories as we hear them for the first time about the Kingdom of God.  There are even stories of him stilling a storm, or walking on water.  And maybe some are beginning to understand what the stories are about – and there not so much about storms or the rest of it but they’re about who this person Jesus really is.  The sea, the waters were the place of danger, chaos, darkness and only God had power over those.  Can he really be who Mark says he is – the Son of God.  The amazing things continue – he feeds a massive crowd, there are more healings, another argument with the Pharisees.   They find themselves in Bethsaida where a blind man is healed and they walk on towards Caesarea Phillipi and on the way, Peter guesses the answer to the question we’re asking ourselves as we hear the story read.  Who is this person?  Jesus puts it as “Who do people say I am” and Peter responds “You are the Messiah.”  And then Jesus shocks us by disclosing that he will be rejected and killed.  How can this be, Peter asks for all of us, and gets short shrift.

Six days after this incident, the story goes, we hear of this amazing mountain top experience – and the same words heard at Jesus baptism are heard again by those on the mountain.  We know from our own spiritual depths that the place of encounter between God and humans is a mountain top – Moses and Elijah met God on mountain tops, and they’re part of this story.  Suddenly, the penny – or drachma – drops and we realize that the whole story up to this point has been a gradual revealing of who this person really is.  He is the Son of God.  And then suddenly the story changes – we’re back down in the dirt and dust of the plain and Jesus says again what will happen – betrayal and death and as the story goes on from this point it leads inexorably there.

Bring ourselves back to the 21^st century now.  The whole Season of Epiphany we have observed up until now – the Last Sunday in Epiphany has been like the first eight chapters of St. Mark’s Gospel a gradual revealing of who Jesus really is – from the story of the visit of the wise men, the stories of Jesus baptism, presentation in the temple, various healings.  If you look back over the Gospel readings for the Sundays and major festivals in Epiphany they’re all there.  And now we come to this culmination, the story of the Transfiguration – the culmination of the hints large and small of who Jesus really is, and it’s a turning point.  Just as St. Mark’s Gospel turns its story towards the cross, as the disciples head down the mountain, we’re headed in the same direction. We turn our faces toward suffering and the cross as we begin the Season of Lent on Ash Wednesday – next Wednesday.   The disciples with Jesus on the mountaintop – misunderstanding and dumbfounded are thrust from the moment of glory on the mountain to the hard way down with Jesus to the cross.  He’s already said six days before that if any want to be his followers let them deny themselves and take up their cross.    They will soon learn what this means.  And so are we thrust from the moment of glory on the mountain to the hard way down.  It’s great to have the mountain top experience, but the test of our faithfulness, at least in St. Mark’s Gospel is this: can we follow Jesus on to the cross?  Lent gives us the opportunity to test our faithfulness on that journey.  On the mountain, Peter is so eager to be with Jesus and make the moment last forever: will Peter be as eager when the going gets tough on another night?  We know the answer to that question.  But before we get too comfortable about that, the question is for us too – will we be as eager when the going gets tough?

Jesus has a way of taking us to the mountain top, of filling our hearts with joy, but he also has a way of leading us toward the cross.  In our Sunday worship we praise God, we lift our voices in song, but it’s not real worship of God until we come down off the mountain and connect our heavenly praise with earthly need.  We hear and listen to God’s word, then we get up and come forward and hold our empty hands out to be filled with God’s grace in the Eucharist, but then we’re told to go in peace to love and serve the Lord.  The American commentator William Willimon recounts this short conversation:  “I fell closer to God in the celebration of the Eucharist than at any other act of worship,” she said.  “Your church does have a fine music programme,” he noted.  “I think the thing that makes our Eucharistic celebrations so special, “ she continued, “is not our beautiful building, or even our beautiful music.  It’s the beautiful 200 sandwiches that we serve to the homeless around our church every day of the week. Those sandwiches transform our bread and wine into the body and blood of the Lord.”  Willimon also recounts a much more pithy old saying in some Pentecostal churches “It ain’t how high folks jump in church that make ‘em Christians.  It’s what they do when they hits the ground.”

The mountain and the cross connected to the suffering.  This is the tension in St. Mark’s Gospel; it’s the tension in the Christian life.  Glory is not just in the high moments, glory is not just in heroic acts of Christian service, but it’s in the tension between the two.  Jesus’ disciples can’t stay on the mount of transfiguration.  If they wish to worship Jesus they must follow him down the mountain and journey with him.  And because of Jesus gifts of high moments of worship, so can we.  Will we journey with him through Lent as now we turn our faces toward the cross.