Reflections from The Hill – Questions and Promises – Luke 4.21-42

 

It’s hard enough just visiting one’s home town without having the difficulty of taking a service in the church you grew up in or wearing the embarrassment of preaching a sermon.

 

The closest I’ve ever come to doing any of that was to give the eulogy at my Dad’s funeral. The Requiem and all the other bits were done by the Rector.

 

There is a case to be made for not playing the Hometown Boy/Girl Made Good part. Just allow the one who has the job to do the job.

 

However, it did strike me the other day that we clergy actually have our own version of Hometown Boy/Girl whenever we take services and/or preach in a parish we’ve previously worked in. I suspect it happens quite often.

 

No matter how much people remember about us, foibles and misadventures are always overlooked; we are still treated like family; the congregation is still pleased to see us and proud that they’ve had some input into who we are today.

 

“Why, he was just the son of a humble carpenter when he left us. Now look at him. Born to it, he is. I always knew he was special.”

 

So, what went wrong? How could a homecoming turn so ugly? One minute people are amazed at his gracious words; next, he’s criticising them by assuming what they’re thinking: “No doubt you’ll quote the proverb …” That’s always a good place to start a blue.

 

It’s his fault really. He’s probably offended that they’re surprised at how well he’s done. And he’s turned around the warm-fuzzy they gave him about his genealogy and turned it into a challenge: “Isn’t this Joseph’s boy?”

 

Perhaps he’s just sceptical about every attempt they’re making to be nice. Perhaps he feels he can’t trust them. Perhaps he’s just having a bad hair day. We’ll never know.

 

What we find out is this: his listeners might have reckoned that they knew him – and they may well have, at least to a point – but he knew them better.

 

For starters, he’s talking globally, not locally. He’s declaring something about God’s concern and love for all people, not just for the mob who are standing in front of him; his friends, neighbours and the kids he went to school with.

 

His use of the Isaiah quote (we heard/read it last week) is as important for what he doesn’t read as it is for what he does. He doesn’t read the nationalistic bit about crushing Israel’s enemies, for example.

 

He only reads about God having a special focus on the poor. There’s an important difference right there.

 

For this global view to become real, he’s saying that there’s going to have to be some changes. Just doing the logic will show that if God is to raise the lowly, then the powerful will be brought down.

 

Simple maths tells us that, in order for the poor to be fed, the rich are going to have to go away empty. The pie is only so big.

 

No, this speech isn’t about who’s The Favourite. It isn’t about The Big Man, who s/he is or where s/he comes from. It’s about change and the challenge this brings to the gatekeepers.

 

The sadness is, as we watch Luke unfold his Gospel, that it’s the messengers, the ones who have the vision, the dream, who pay the price, often at the hands of the gatekeepers.

 

The only thing that keeps our heads above water is to keep looking to him, the only one who God raised from the dead. The rest have gone the way of all flesh.

 

But he’s still out there, bringing forgiveness and grace – passionately and relentlessly – to all of God’s people.

 

We can start this new life by giving up the pretence of being perfect, of having it all together, of being able to make it on our own.

 

It ain’t easy, as I keep saying, because making a promise and then doing it can be really tough. The promise is that God will fulfil his word and, really, that ought to be enough to propel us all into a life of service, purpose and meaning.

Reflections from The Hill – Grace – Luke 4.14-21

 

Once upon a time, I had the world at my feet, my shoulder to the wheel and my eye on the prize. As a result, I now have constant leg cramps, rotor-cuff damage and myopia (short-sightedness).

 

In those days, I had no money, no wife on my arm and no job to go to. Now look at me.

 

The condition in which I once wallowed highlighted just how individualistic our world was back then. My guess is that nothing has changed in the meantime. That’s sad because it’s still all about me.

 

Church stuff just adds to the sadness. Right at the point where salvation came to my precious soul, right there at that sweet spot where amazing grace became a reality, we have persisted in the belief – and dare I say, the practice – that this saving grace has been brought on by some decision or action on our part.

 

In a world that has taught me to believe that life is all about No1, my actions, my strategies, my plans and my decisions, it’s confronting to discover that things aren’t like that at all if we’re serious about our faith-life.

 

In that setting, there’s nothing I can do because it’s all been done.

 

In a lot of ways, it would have been easier if we stopped reading at bringing good news to the poor, proclaiming release to the captives and setting the captives free. At least there’s plenty of action in that.

 

This part of the Gospel Reading today is the classic passage for every Liberation Theologian, every Evangelist and every preacher who can say “Jesus” in three syllables. It’s The Bloke’s Manifesto, his Inaugural. First words are important.

 

In a remarkably short sermon in which he uses only nine words, one of which is ‘fulfilled’, The Bloke lays down what he’s really on about. We modern day preachers could learn a valuable lesson here about the length of our sermons.

 

When something is ‘fulfilled’ – as in “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing” – then that’s what it means: something that’s crammed full to the brim. It’s complete accomplishment. It’s something where there’s no space for me to do anything. And, frankly, it drives me nuts.

What does it mean that this scripture has been filled up and by whom is it filled? What does the promise mean for the poor, imprisoned, blind, and oppressed? Should it be limited to just those people?

What about the abused, the addicted, the put-down? What about them? And what does it mean for those who don’t suffer such difficulties? Are they to be left out? If not, is there another level of meaning here that I’ve overlooked?

There’s no easy answer to these conundrums (or is it ‘conundra’?) except that it doesn’t mean ‘no compassion’. What it does mean is that there are to be no whimsical feelings without my presence.

 

It doesn’t mean there’s to be no activity. What it does mean is that there’s to be no planting of a culture in someone else’s, something for which we in the west have been famous and for which the costs are just beginning to be counted.

 

The long and short of grace, for that’s what all this is about, is for us to realise and recognise and accept that The Bloke who read the scroll in the first place is fully aware of what he’s doing and saying and that we will too when and if we but stay close by him.

 

I guess that’s why we call it “Amazing”.

Reflections from The Hill – Wine and Time – John 2.1-11

It’s been said that while I mightn’t have learned a lot of theology in the seminary, I did graduate with a prodigious knowledge of red wine. I dispute that, of course: it took me another 4 years just to pass my final exam.

My tutors each said, in an attempt to pacify me: “That’s OK; you’re just a late bloomer. Your time will come.”

I’m not often likened to the Messiah but, honestly, it’s not difficult to miss the connection. Either that or I’m sillier than I thought.

Stories about grog being in short supply at weddings abound, at least in the community, where turning water into grappa – and walking on water – is part of the vernacular. While I might wonder about the truthfulness of such accounts, it’d be fair to say that there’s a fair bit of hyperbole at play here.

Truth is, most of the stories I’ve heard about weddings are about the quantities of alcohol that get consumed by the guests. (By far the best is the one about the mob who drank 21 bottles of cognac in one sitting. Even Napoleon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.)

Spare a thought for the wait-staff, though, those who had to clean up the empties and vacuum up the crumbs under the tables and dispatch the linen to the laundry. Spare a thought for those who were privy to what was a miracle of abundance, who actually saw it with their peepers, and probably didn’t even get as much as a sip.

Can you imagine the story that was told by the servants in their living rooms when they got home after work? Can you imagine the dawning understanding that they, unseen by most, were/are the ones for whom God’s abundance was especially meant?

Can you imagine that it was in the simple act of rescuing the reputation of the host of a wedding that the world itself was about to change, if only you had eyes to see? John is trumpeting it for us in today’s Gospel: this is just the first sign.

Knowing just this much makes a huge difference. Mary testifies to that simplicity: every moment we live in Jesus, she says, has the capacity to tell us something about The Big Fella. Bread, wine, water, even a hug – given at the right time – can convey something spectacularly supernatural.

It’s a curious thing, then, that the world seems to be drowning in a sea of Seiko and Citizen yet people never seem to have enough time. We might have lots of watches but time is of the essence.

Here’s the thing, when Jesus turns up, it’s always at the right time. However, what we’ve done is teach our young that time equals 5pm on a Friday, after which it’s our own; or it’s 8am on a Monday and it’s time to begin sorting through those invoices again. Everything between those two points is off-limits.

There is a time like this, make no mistake: a time that gets measured in minutes and seconds, weeks, months and years. It’s the sort of time that gets spent in lines at the supermarket or while idling the car at the stoplight. It’s the kind that relentlessly beats until our eyes close and there is no more.

Somewhere deep down, however, is another sort of time, the kind that displaces predictability with possibility. This is the sort that The Bloke talks about when he says that his hour hasn’t come yet.

Through and in the ordinariness of a wedding (and all that entails, as we have read), we hear The Bloke talking, not about dates on calendars, but about The Big Fella revealing something special.

We see him showing the wedding guests, in the utter ordinariness of it all, something about the way The Big Fella will be understood in future: through ordinary things like water and wine, crosses and death.

Whatever time we might think it is, it is also God’s time. When The Bloke turns up, so does The Big Fella – accessible and available to everyone. That’s the time when everything becomes possible.

Reflections from The Hill – The Call – Luke 3:15-22

 

In just about any parish anywhere, hardly a month goes past where there isn’t a titanic struggle over the question of baptism. It generally starts with a phone call, proceeds to a meeting (or even a series of them), gets followed up by an arrangement about dates and times and finishes with The Show itself.

The warfare, generally, isn’t fought between the parties, although I’ve witnessed some humdingers of those. This battle takes place between the ears of the clergyperson who’s been given the job of doing The Show and it’s been known to have a debilitating effect on the inner peace of the said Sky Pilot.

This is due, in part, to the Clergyperson’s superior knowledge about the context of The Bloke’s own Baptism and what followed. S/he knows, for example, that his baptism wasn’t about candles, white robes and parties but about struggles in the wilderness with demons.

That warfare is taking place because the danger these demons pose and the connection this has with a person’s journey of the spirit has been swamped by the ritual razzmatazz of getting the kid done.

My guess, for what it’s worth, is that the first bit of that last sentence doesn’t rate a mention in too many Baptism Classes these days. More’s the pity.

Mind you, it wasn’t the case when I was at The Coalface, either; I’ve always found it easier to go along with organizing The Show than to introduce folk to demons who can turn rocks into bread.

All this raises the question about the reason for baptism. The Bloke’s baptism, for example, is about his identity (read: vocation or calling): “You are my Son, my Beloved”, words coming to him in the intimacy of prayer.

From what I can read, there may not have been a whole bunch of eavesdroppers there, either, so it was for his ears only, a really personal encounter.

There’s still a lot of stuff to happen in Jesus’ life. Whatever else there might be, there’s the life-long drama of him living out his identity (read: vocation or calling) and meeting the great expectations that get laid upon him as he goes.

Maybe it’s worth pointing out that The Bloke’s calling (read: vocation or identity) isn’t about his job or his career; it’s not about a challenge to mission, that he should get out and talk up the Kingdom. Not yet anyway.

The Baptism is first and foremost the delight that The Big Fella has in his beloved, this chosen one, this child. It’s not a call to do stuff but a call to be something, not an activism but a vocation that names.

As with him, so with us: our first calling, our baptism (read: vocation) is one that simply loves and names us: “You are my child. I am well pleased with you.” This is where it begins and – let’s be bold to claim – it’s where it finishes, in the arms of the One Who Holds our Future.

Between the one and the other, between the beginning and the end, this identity (read: vocation or call) will sometimes morph into action.

The old books call it mission and ministry but there are other things here as well, not the least of which is learning how to wrestle with demons and to be waited on by wild beasts. As I say, it ain’t an easy road.

We learn very early in life to tell when it’s our mum’s voice calling us for meals or the chores or our homework. There’d be demons there if we didn’t hear.

Then it became the voice of parents, teachers and others calling us, shaping our lives in some way or another. There might be dragons there, too, for many vocations (read: call or identity) were initially wrapped in the voice of someone else.

Not all of those voices were the Voice of God and not all of them had to do with our journey. That’s why we need discernment.

However, I believe it’s a blessing to thank God for the joy of purpose in our lives and for the times when the call to something specific was, and still is for some, crystal clear.

Even when that Voice is muffled and our responses almost beyond our abilities to perform them, it’s good to remember that the calling (read: vocation or identity) that actually matters comes first and will continue right to The End.

Tasks, activities and duties matter – of course they do – but what lasts, what abides – our calling (read: vocation or identity), our belonging and our future – is heard right there by the waters: “You are my child, beloved and delight.”

Reflections from The Hill – A Song to Change the World – Luke 1.39-45

 

Once upon a time in a faraway land, a young bloke from Dagenham (East London), who wasn’t Mike but Danny, was in big trouble: ‘e was lookin’ for someone to be his cheese (wife).

 

Because ‘e ‘ad two ov ‘em on a string, he needed to some divine intervention and make a decision, so ‘e wen’ up to ve church to find out from the Big Guy ‘oo it was gunna be.

 

The choice was ‘ard: Maria was a lovely lass with dark hair and big shiny eyes and Lorraine was a pert little blond wif a smile that’d knock ya teef art. The thought of makin’ a choice kept poor Danny awake at night. It was real ‘ard.

 

By luck ‘e survived an’ farned ‘isself in a church. It must’ve been a Roman Caflick Church ‘e went to because as soon as ‘e walked froo d’ door, ‘e knoo what ve answer was because vere, written in big letters ri’e over ve ortar were ve words Ave Maria. Danny and his Maria lived happily ever after.

 

For centuries, the words Ave Maria have brought peace to countless thousands of people, even if they aren’t or weren’t religious. They’ve honoured the gentleness of tender-hearted motherhood. They’ve brought tears of joy and inspired singers and musicians with their comfort.

 

These words (they’re actually the Latin version of a Hebrew greeting) are part of an interchange between Gabriel and the young Mary regarding her life, now and in the future. Her response to the angelic declaration was to sing.

 

In difficult times, when school shootings, financial crises, increasing violence and crime threaten to take their voice away, humans often turn to singing. It is a powerful thing to do under duress.

 

In the Gospel Reading today, our church is reminding us of the power of song. And not just any song like “My Favourite Things” but a song of both lament and praise, of promise and defiance, a song into which that first singer entered and now calls on us to join.

 

That song, Mary’s Song, the Magnificat, is an invitation for us to enter the promises to which she gives voice: the promise that God will lift up the lonely, the down-trodden and oppressed, not simply those of her day but of ours as well.

 

This week, let’s note that all the verbs Mary uses are in the past tense, indicating a relationship between her and her God, one into which she has already been drawn; a song to One who has been siding with the oppressed and who has been making and keeping promises since about Day 6.

 

As the words of this mighty song come to life for us in worship, in prayer, or simply in quiet reflection, we’ll find we are being drawn into taking them up on behalf of those whose loved ones won’t be coming home from school or hospital on this or any other day; on behalf of all who mourn, or who are lonely, or who don’t have enough food, or who struggle with mental illness, or so much more.

 

Mary’s song just doesn’t name these things; it gets us to sing them. It gets us to sing about a reality and an experience that is, at once, as profound as it is simple: that God’s promise is to change the world. In singing this – either aloud or in the deeper recesses of our spirit – we actually get to be part of that work.

 

Maybe it’s enough just to taste the words that encourage us to do good to the poor and weak. There’s no sin in that. But maybe there’s a bigger picture out there, a picture whose panorama stretches from Adam, Abraham and Moses through Mary and on to us, encompassing a company of saints who are to raise their voices in hope as they wait for the Lord’s comfort and peace to come.

 

We might think that our voices are husky, or out of tune or so quiet that they’re next to useless, but there’s strength in numbers. We are the body of Christ.

 

As we join together and sing, we’ll discover that we get stronger and that we begin to enter the oft-spoken but rarely lived reality of faith, courage and love.

 

No longer is it me against the world but together we’re witnesses of and participants in The Big Fella’s promise to change the world.

Reflections from The Hill – Luke 3.7-18 - Waiting

 

This year, 2012, has become something of a watershed year for me, not because I celebrated a momentous birthday (I didn’t) or because I don’t move across the ground as fast as I once did (I don’t). No, it was none of that.

 

The watershed is centred on the loss of what, for me, is the connection between God and the rest of society. Maybe T.S. Eliot was onto something when, in 1934, he wrote that ‘…The church does not seem to be wanted/In country or in suburb; and in the town/Only for important weddings’.

 

I think I’m still reeling from the awareness of an almost complete absence of Christmas paraphernalia like cribs, angels, shepherds and the like in our shops and halls of commerce. In homes, yes; in churches, no doubt, but at the shop? Nah. The time, it seems, has finally come.

 

To think that I am not wanted, or the group that I’ve become attached to is not wanted in the community ‘except for important weddings’ is enough to send me into a Decline from which I struggle to extricate myself.

 

It’s not just about Christmas is it? Eliot was taking a broadside at something more general than simply the Christmas season. He was addressing a whole-of-life decline, from X-mas and Jesus-is-The-Reason-for-The-Season to Happy Days and beyond.

 

Who really cares about Advent or Easter or Whitsunday or Epiphany or Saints Days except some we call Christians and not even all of them?

 

To deal with this broadside, we do all kinds of spiritual tumble-turns just to appeal to the community from what remains of their Christian collective memory. Some of these appeals deserve a place in the Ship of Fools website (check it out -(http://www.ship-of-fools.com). Some have done so already, some of them not.

 

So we come to Advent. I can put up with the 24 Day Advent Calendar (or is it 26?) where each day proffers a new treat, a chocolate or a whiz-bang thingummy. I can enjoy Christingle. I can even handle the 12 Days of Christmas Street Art website, even when they’re only offering 11.

 

What I find a bit awkward, though, is finding either no understanding of Death, Judgement, Heaven and Hell, as I did recently, or experiencing an exercise in what is called the ‘modern Advent’ of Hope, Peace, Love and Joy, complete with mauve and pink candles and an Advent wreath.

 

Leaving aside the candles, the four modern themes are important but to use them as an excuse for not raising the topics of the Other Four is a lame one, especially when we’re doing it because we believe these Other Four are too tough a call for modern wo/man to hear about.

 

What do we do? Retreat into our funk-holes and throw up walls that will keep us safe and everyone else outside? Probably not but it’s a tricky one.

 

I can put up with the offences that come my way simply because I live in a post-Christian community. I shouldn’t expect any concessions from our secular leaders, whether it’s Christmas stuff in our shops, RE in schools or discounts because I work for the Church.

 

I haven’t been invited to a Mayor’s Civic Reception for decades, which is not a bad thing. I’m told I’m not missing much. However, if for some reason these things come my way, things like access to schools or invitations to a mayoral knees-up, well and good, but I don’t seek them out as a matter of course.

 

The question still remains: What should we do? In today’s Gospel, the crowds asked John and John obliges with some specifics: check out your wardrobe and the people who come to your place for dinner; check out your bank account(s) and the people you pass on the street; check out God’s call on your life.

 

Here’s a clue: even if we don’t do anything about the answers John gives, the question is a good one. Simply by asking it, we are not only letting God inside to where his Good News lives, we are continuing the whole idea of Advent: waiting.

 

Losing hair or sleep or watching my blood pressure rise because it ain’t what it used to be is never an option. It’s not about being wanted. It’s about waiting.

 

Getting stroppy because these or those Christians do Advent differently isn’t where it’s at, either. It’s not about being wanted. It’s about waiting.

 

I often wonder how I made it this far. Maybe I’ll hang about and wait next year, too.

Reflections from The Hill – Luke 3.1-6 – Inns & Outsiders

An old theatre, full of badly upholstered seats, dust and the smell of generations of sweaty North Queenslanders is not the sort of place you’d expect to get a fright.

It was only when the house lights were replaced by the dim glow of the EXIT signs and the last of the conversations had ebbed away that I began to be filled with anticipation. Like everyone else, my focus was towards the stage.

Then a single spotlight shone over our heads like a bolt of lightening and a voice from outside, from the darkness at the rear, pierced the fetid air: ‘Pre-e-e-pare ye the way of the Lord’ it sang. Loud. Clear.

We were forced to sit upright. Our eyes and ears were straining backwards. Our heart speed tripled. These physical things were still to catch up with our emotions. Raw. Shock. Fear. We knew we were in for the ride of our life.

In this place, at least, there were none that we could recognise as being special: community leaders, knights of the realm (when we still had a few), medicos, the odd sky-pilot, you know. We’d all paid our money and we were all together. Leaderless.

As it was in the theatre, so it is in today’s Gospel. The word came from outside, bypassed all the powerful ones – the Herods, the Caesars, the Pilates, the Lysanias’, the sites of power and influence – and came right here, bypassing the antiseptic surrounds of a home to arrive in a shed.

It’s the way it is in Luke. Ch 1 of the Gospel is set ‘in the days of King Herod …’ and tells us about the birth of John the Baptist. In Ch 2 the setting is ‘… in the days of the Emperor Augustus …’ and that other guy, Quirinius, and tells us about Jesus’ birth. Now, in Chapter 3, Luke sets the story in more history ‘…in the fifteenth year …’ and gives us John’s message.

Three times Luke has bypassed the toffs and nobs of the world. Three times Luke has chosen to place these events – at one level, about as small and insignificant as one can imagine – right alongside the movers and shakers of the day.

Three times Luke has illustrated that God’s mercy comes from outside the usual places disguised as human weakness; it bypasses everyone we’d normally expect to be there and, along the way, it introduces us to a couple of young blokes who will grow up to change the world.

For Luke, small is beautiful, especially when it can grow bigger. There’s something later on in Luke about mustard seeds, so I’m beginning to think that it’s a bit of a theme in his writing.

Whatever else you can say, though, it’s a change of focus. This God-word came to a no-body called John, in a no-where place called the wilderness and, yet, this small and insignificant thing is more important than all the important people and events of the day.

It is still the same. Not just to the nobodies gathered in a dilapidated theatre in tropical NQ during the flower-power revolution but to the nobodies in our congregations and in the no-where places of our unremarkable suburbs and communities.

There’s more. If something is coming to, chances are it’s also coming against, against the political, religious and economic principalities and powers of the Emperors, Rulers, Governors and High Priests of our day.

Against these powers of empire stands an odd little guy called John and his somewhat more respectable cousin Jesus.

Against these powers of empire stands a word that promises to fill valleys, level mountains, straighten crooked paths and smooth out the rough bits.

Despite that, as Fr Thomas Merton* reminds us in Raids of the Unspeakable, there is still no room for the Good News: we are being drowned out by the noise of our obsessions with technology, with what the Government is doing with our taxes while, all the time, being drugged by entertainment.

Some things don’t change: those who are outside the Inns of power still can’t find any room inside. It’s no mistake that Luke is making the point that the Good News is for the drowned-out, the crowded-out, the missed-out, the worn-out and the left-out.

We can get tired of waiting for the changes to come but even those things that are difficult now will become, like many of the other things, a distant memory, footnotes on a larger story of grace and mercy and life.

*Thomas Merton, Trappist monk who died in 1968