Overflowing Grace

Matthew 25:1-13

In Paul’s letter to the Philippians, we read this: 

“Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus” (Phil 2:5)

Hold on to that thought for a moment.

(Take out the glass and water, and pour water into the glass to halfway.)

So, I have to ask what I think is probably an obvious question.

Is the glass half full or is the glass half empty?

Regardless of how you have answered, the nature of the question itself is interesting, because it implies there are only two options.

As human beings we do have this tendency to be attracted to thinking in binary ways, in dichotomies.

Half full or half empty? 

Wise or foolish young women? 

Sinner or saint? 

Good or bad?

In or out?

This kind of dualistic thinking appears to have become further entrenched in our social media feeds, our news reports, and our politics.

Either, or. Either, or.

Last week I read a report based on a survey called the MacKinnon Index, which tracks Australia’s democratic health. In reading this report I noticed that as Australians we have started to view our political life as a bit more half empty than half full.

The attack on Helen Haines has amplified our conversation about how we as Australians are thinking about each other and treating each other. In the days that followed, one news article suggested that the behaviour of our politicians, which I believe involves playing the person, not the policy reflects the behaviour of our wider society. We too have a habit of playing the person not the issue.

The MacKinnon Index tells us that 50% of Australians are satisfied with the way democracy works, but only 30% of Australians trust federal politicians.

One of the measurements that stood out for me is that only around 50% of young men between the ages of 18 and 24 believe that people can freely express political opinions. Alongside this, more than 1 in 4 young men say extreme measures such as violence can sometimes be justified to advance a cause.

Recall the words of Psalm 70. When people mock the psalmist – “Aha! Aha!”, as if they have caught him out – he turns to God in prayer and lament, not retaliation or violence.

I do not wish to deny that Australians are facing issues around the cost of living and housing affordability, but I do wonder whether, under the influence of our schoolyard-like political discourse and our sensationalist reporting, we are being trained to live with a dichotomous worldview and see the glass as half empty.

By most measures we remain a lucky country. But I am not suggesting we simply swap pessimism for optimism. The gospel offers us another way. A third option.

So where does our faith speak into this? Today we heard the story of ten young women waiting for the bridegroom. What might we be discerning as lifelong disciples of Christ in this story? How might we be transformed by the renewing of our minds?

The young women in this story would have been close friends, sisters, maybe cousins, waiting for the bridegroom to arrive, as ancient wedding practice required. The timing of his arrival was not set. We hear they all fall asleep.

Suddenly there is a fuss and a flutter as the figure of the bridegroom approaches. Now is their moment, now is their time! But given the delay the oil has run low, and an issue arises and becomes somewhat ironically inflamed.

At first glance, this looks like another either/or. Five wise, five foolish. Half full, half empty.

Let’s think about this as a congregation. If half of you have extra oil and half of you need more, how do you think and feel about this situation?

Jesus’ story tells us this group are not willing to share. This doesn’t feel right, does it? Remember what I said before: these young women were close friends, sisters, maybe cousins. There is great hurt in this story. Selfishness even.

Commentators often say the oil can’t be shared because readiness can’t be borrowed. That may be so. But I can’t help hearing Jesus’ own words.

Jesus has already told us, in Matthew 5:40–42, as part of the Sermon on the Mount: “If anyone wants to sue you and take your coat, give your cloak as well; and if anyone forces you to go one mile, go also the second mile. Give to everyone who begs from you, and do not refuse anyone who wants to borrow from you.”

At the heart of Jesus’ message lies a generous God who invites us to generosity even at great cost to ourselves. In Paul’s letter to the Philippians, we find the great kenosis hymn. Kenosis is about self-emptying: Jesus empties himself, taking the form of a slave, to share in our human existence. Remember where we began: “Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus.”

Measured against Jesus’ own teaching, the so-called wise ones look less wise than we might expect.

What happens to those women left waiting outside? They act. They do not sit idly by and give up; they race off to the market in the middle of the night and somehow find someone to provide them with more oil. In the middle of the night! Their lamps were already out, so they find their way through dark streets to get what they need, and they return. What an effort!

They return to the wedding house. They knock on the door, equipped and ready to help the party, but the way is shut. The interaction sounds so final, so condemning.

The bridesmaids say, ‘Lord, lord, open to us.’ These words sound so similar to the ones we shared earlier in the service from Psalm 70: “I am poor and needy; come quickly to me, O God.” If those women had prayed in that moment, they might have chosen these very words. But the reply is disheartening.

‘Truly I tell you, I do not know you.’

I wonder if you, like me, have found this moment in the parable uncomfortable. Contradictory to the message of God’s unconditional grace. But Matthew is telling a bigger story, and there are more doors in his gospel.

For example, consider what Jesus taught his disciples in Matthew 7.

‘Ask, and it will be given to you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.’

For everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.

Matthew 7 does hold the other side too. A few verses later Jesus warns that not everyone who says “Lord, Lord” will enter. Matthew won’t let us flatten the gospel into a simple either/or.

Inside are a group who refused to do what Jesus taught, to share generously, even if it means your own suffering. Outside is a group experiencing rejection despite their last-ditch efforts to knock on the door, which Jesus said would be opened. 

Jesus sums up the parable for his audience with these words: “Keep awake therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour.” Notice that Jesus does not mention oil, nor the wisdom or folly of those who bring extra or those who fail to.

Jesus’ critique is for those who fall asleep. Staying awake here means more than not dozing off; it means being alert to Christ’s presence. Remember verse 5: “As the bridegroom was delayed, all of them became drowsy and slept.” I can just hear Paul writing to the Romans, “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God!”

Jesus’ dire warning to the disciples is to stay awake; to be ready for what is at hand, to be engaged with his presence, as the presence of the kingdom of heaven.

I wonder, does anyone remember what happens in Matthew 26? In the next chapter, Jesus shares the Last Supper with his disciples and then heads out to the Garden of Gethsemane to pray. He takes Peter and James and John and asks them to wait and stay awake with him as he prays. The disciples, who had not long before heard the story of the wise and foolish bridesmaids and the call to stay awake. But what do they do? They go to sleep.

They go to sleep as their master struggles with his fate and prepares for the end of his life. Three times Jesus returns to find them asleep. He doesn’t reject them or shut them out; despite the fact they were not ready. The third time he wakes them to tell them that his betrayer is at hand.

The wise slept. The foolish slept. Peter, James and John slept. And if we’re honest, we sleep too. But remember too it is these very same sleepy heads who are the ones the risen Jesus sends out into the world in Matthew 28

Awake or asleep, God comes.

Nonetheless still we are left with bridesmaids inside who seem selfish, bridesmaids outside excluded, disciples who fall asleep.

Where is hope?

In Matthew 27 we are told about another door that is shut: a stone rolled by Joseph of Arimathea across the tomb of Jesus. A door closed; a barrier between life and death, between the incarnate God and the creation. This is the most impenetrable of doors. How can we rise above these perplexing questions?

Matthew reports that three days later, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary, like the young women in our story, go out in the half-light before dawn to where the bridegroom lies. Once again there is a closed door. But as they approach, there is an earthquake, and an angel descends from heaven and rolls back the stone. The door is opened.

The angel invites the women to come and see, telling them, ‘Do not be afraid; I know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified. He is not here; for he has been raised, as he said. Come, see the place where he lay.’

Oil or no oil, awake or asleep, living or dead God comes – and the door is opened.

In Matthew 28, just before the verses known as the Great Commission, we are told that when the risen Jesus meets his disciples, “they worshipped him; but some doubted.” Worship and doubt sit together in the same group, and Jesus commissions them all.

For those of you who have doubts about your faith, and for those of you who worship, and for those who do both, there is more than enough room in Christ’s community of love and hope.

In faith and in doubt, oil or no oil, awake or asleep, living or dead God comes. The door is opened.

To excavate the hope from the parable means stepping back and taking a wider perspective. It involves moving beyond the simple dichotomy of those with enough oil and those without and considering the compassion and love of God revealed in the life of Jesus Christ. Jesus’ life, poured out for us, overflows into ours.

(Pour water until the glass overflows. "You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.")

For in the end, regardless of how we perceive the glass, God, who pours himself into us and pours his life out for us, gives us hope beyond measure. 

Half full or half empty, in faith and in doubt, oil or no oil, awake or asleep, living or dead God comes. The door is opened.

(Silence)

But may all who seek you rejoice and be glad in you;  may those who long for your saving help always say, “The Lord is great!” (Psalm 70:4)

What one thing might you take away? What might God be saying to you? Who will you discuss your insight with?

Give to Caesar!

 Reading Matthew 22:15-22

In a recent article titled “A confident nation does not fear diversity” Reverend Charissa Suli, the

President of the Uniting Church, says: 

“People who were born elsewhere and have chosen Australia as their home are our neighbours, friends and colleagues. Their stories are woven into the story of contemporary Australia. Our public discourse about migration should reflect this reality and avoid narratives of scarcity and division.”

Take a moment with the President’s words. 

What thoughts and feelings do they generate within you?

(pause)

When you think about it the President’s words, they reflect not simply the reality of the nation but of this congregation. Not all of us here today were born in Australia.

This statement of the President is set against the context of a rather heated current political landscape in Australia, and across the world. Her words weave our faith right into the heart of this debate.

The Uniting Church has had a long history of engagement with political issues including how we relate to first nations people, distribution of wealth, gambling, domestic violence, refugees and asylum seekers, climate change and environmental issues, and the list goes on. The church has taken prayerfully considered theological and pastoral stances on many of these issues.

Sometimes these responses appear to favour a particular side of politics and on some occasions another side of politics. On this point I am reminded of a conversation with a colleague who highlighted that in Australia both the Labor and Liberal movements have Christian roots in the origin stories. How you personally feel about these statements is no doubt influenced by your political allegiances whether consciously or subconsciously. 

Whilst the Uniting Church has rarely suggested to people how they should vote on an issue these statements on political matters invite us to engage in deeper theological reflection on the public political discourse.

In naming this context today I am doing so in direct response to an adage that is often shared with me that “religion and politics” don’t mix and for many people they would say the politics certainly do not belong in the pulpit. This view about the relationship between religion and politics is often associated with Jesus’ saying found in our reading today. “Give therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and to God the things that are God’s.”

Unfortunately, the notion that Jesus is separating out the kingdom of this world from the kingdom of God misses the point that Jesus is being both religiously and politically nuanced. He was making a political and religious statement.

To wrap our heads around this better means unpacking a little bit of the first century context in which he was speaking. The first thing we should understand is that the two groups coming to Jesus were not natural allies.  

The Herodians were a political faction loyal to Herod and the Romans to retain their authority.  The Pharisees were devout teachers determined to be faithful to the Law despite the Roman occupation. 

When these groups team up to confront Jesus, they choose to set aside their own differences to attack him as a common enemy.  Jesus was the meat in their sandwich.

The aim of the question about taxes was not to get an answer but to trap Jesus.  Jesus’ response was to ask them to show him a coin, and they bring out a Roman coin!

The Pharisees would have regarded these Roman coins as idolatrous.  The coin contained an image of Tiberius, Caesar, considered as divine by the Romans. It had an inscription “son of the divine Augustus.” Notably the Emperors were sometimes also referred to as the Son of God. The point can be made that by simply producing the coin in the Temple, they had shown themselves up as hypocrites.

It is more than likely that the Herodians had no problem with the Roman coin, after all they had allied themselves with Rome. The question Jesus had been asked was whether they should pay Roman taxes? This was a census tax that was hated so much there had already been revolts against paying it.

I wonder if you can see the trap.  

What will the Pharisees say if Jesus says ‘Yes’?  

What will the Herodians say if Jesus says ‘No’? 

The question was intended to back Jesus into a corner so that whatever his answer was Jesus would get in strife with both the religious and secular authorities. The New Testament scholar William Loader suggests that the two groups are trying to set up Jesus so that he will be executed.

Jesus’ answer cleverly avoids the trap. He was not going to be reduced to a slogan for either party.  Yet, at the same, Jesus time confronts his adversaries with a conundrum in terms of their loyalties. "Give to Caesar what is Caesar's, and to God what is God's."

In trying to see behind Jesus’ words what should be patently clear is that Jesus believed everything belongs to God. All things were derived from God, even political power. Think about it in this way. The coin that they had produced bore Caesar’s image, but what bears God’s image? We do. Each every one of us, everyone who is our neighbour, regardless of wherever they were born.

The separation of religion from politics was a key issue at the time of the Reformation and the influence of Martin Luther on this topic means that many Protestants have misinterpreted this separation of the two kingdoms. Luther’s view of the two kingdoms though was a view that suggests that these were two ways in which God governed. It was not about saying religion is here and politics is over there!

In the scriptures, both the Old and New Testaments, there is an intermingling of religion and politics that is constant.  In the Old Testament God ascribed political power to even the foreign rulers and enemies like Cyrus in Isaiah and Nebuchadnezzar in Jeremiah. They ruled because God made it so, but they were also accountable to God for their rule. 

In Jesus’ teaching there are often political ramifications, and this is highlighted in his words that we just heard. Give to God what belongs to God: everything!

If we consider that all things belong to God, including the way in which we structure our society, then as Christian people the way we live, who we vote for, what issues we choose to fight for, become for us both political and religious outworkings of our faith.

Even what we choose to pray for, or even not to pray for, in our prayers for the world indicates both a religious and a political stance!  The words and phrases that we use indicate what we think about in terms of our allegiance to God and to God’s coming kingdom.  When we pray ‘your kingdom come your will be done’, surely, we are praying for political and social change as well as spiritual and religious change.

The good news of Jesus infiltrates every aspect of who we are and should invite us into the deep pastoral and theological consideration of the issues that we are facing in our daily lives. 

Returning to the words of our President Charissa Suli she uses one of my favourite phrases “political discourse”. For me this word discourse has layers of meaning. Discourse invites dialogue and discussion, deepening into deliberation, differentiation and decision. This discourse is directed towards discerning God’s desire, which is one of the values of our congregation.

Sadly, much of our public political conversation is reduced to unhelpful dichotomies. We hear sound bites, memes and slogans as opposed to deeply thought-out research, theological reflection, pastoral consideration, and discourse which listens to other points of view without attacking people.

For instance, this week I read an article by Peter McDonald, a demographer at the University of Melbourne, who pointed out that the policy decisions around immigration by all of the political parties are being made before we have the 2026 census data on how temporary residents actually affect housing and jobs.

Maybe the better question isn’t ‘what should the number be?’ but ‘what does our economy need, what does our education sector need, and what do we owe those seeking asylum?’

This is but one of the complex political issues that our country is facing and in each of these issues Jesus’ words are a reminder that God is all and is in all – people and situations. “Give therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and to God the things that are God’s.” 

What does this mean when seeking to regulate how Generative Artificial Intelligence is being used or trying to create guard rails in social media platforms that protect people from harm? What does it mean for funding of social support networks in contrast to user pay systems? What does it mean to consider the responsible use of public money or religious freedoms? And the list goes on. 

Each of these should be a matter of entering into the public discourse in a way that leads us to discerning as best we are able God’s desire.  Now I am not so naïve to think that through these processes we will all come to the same conclusion. The diversity of political views and even how politics and religion should mesh is significant. 

However, returning to migration issue the President, Charissa Suli, offers these helpful words.  “As followers of Christ, we believe every person is created in the image of God and worthy of dignity and respect. We pray that Australia’s conversation about migration and humanitarian protection will be grounded in those values and shaped by a vision of a society in which all people can flourish and contribute to the common good.” 

These things might stand out for us as values to hold on to. Every person is worthy of dignity and respect. We are called to work on a “vision of a society in which all people can flourish and contribute to the common good”.

Jesus’ response to the Pharisees and Herodians avoided their trap and we are told that after Jesus words “they were amazed, and they left him and went away”. I imagine they walked away pondering what it meant to live in the context of the Roman rule whilst also acknowledging that giving to God what was God’s created a tension for them. Maybe they were reminded that the story of creation in Genesis pointed to God’s rule over all things. 

And maybe as we walk away today, we might consider what is it in my life, my political views, and my spirituality that bears Caesar’s stamp and what in my life bears the image of God?

Good News: Hip, hip, hooray!

Romans 12:9-21, Matthew 16:21-28

The word “gospel”, as many of you will already know, means good news. When we share good news, there is often excitement, as we experienced at the beginning of the service: a reason to say hip, hip, hooray!

But when it comes to the good news of our faith, there is a strange dissonance in the gospel accounts of Jesus’s life. In Matthew’s gospel, Peter hears Jesus speak about what will happen to him. Peter cannot bear it. He tries to reject what Jesus is saying. And Jesus says to him, “Get behind me, Satan.”

Jesus goes on to say, “If any wish to come after me, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.”

Ouch! That doesn’t sound much like good news. This would have been understood quite literally. Jesus was anticipating his death. And he was also pointing to the reality that following him could mean risking a horrible death by crucifixion. The cross was a symbol of torture and Rome’s power. So pause with that for a moment. How can taking up your cross be good news?

But then, we hold that strange idea of good news in tension with what is written in John’s gospel. 

“The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.”

This sounds more like good news. Abundant life. Overflowing life. Enjoying life to the full. Having what we need. Life that is full and good. A rich and satisfying life. Now that, in my mind, is a reason to say hip, hip, hooray!

So, which is it? Is the good news about taking up our cross? Or is it about receiving the gift of abundant life? I think it is both. Not as a neat dichotomy, but as the truth of human existence. Joy and suffering are often held together. And if we are to be witnesses to God’s love, then this is the honest message we have to share. Our experiences of life are filled with complexity.

Pause for a moment and consider what the phrase “good news” means to you when it comes to being a Christian. If you told someone that you believe in the good news of Jesus Christ, how might you put that into words so that a person who knows little or nothing of the Bible might find a point of connection? Would there be joy in it? Would there be honesty? Would there be a sense of saying hip, hip, hooray?

Personally, I know that the phrase “the good news” no longer means what I thought it meant when I was 15 years old at my confirmation. It means something different from what I thought even 10 years ago, and I suspect it has changed again in the last year. Maybe, when I talk about it now, I feel less like saying hip, hip, hooray and more like conveying a deep sense that we are not alone in this universe. And more specifically, I believe we are not alone because God has become known to us in Jesus. In Jesus God shared both the flourishing joy of human existence and its deepest pain.

So, when I ponder the vision of this congregation, that we are “Growing lifelong disciples of Christ,” I hear an invitation for all of us to keep growing in faith at every stage of life. Faith is a journey, not a destination. And Peter helps us see that. He can be chief among the disciples and still get things terribly wrong. Jesus says to him, “Get behind me, Satan,” and even after Jesus’s resurrection and ascension, Peter still does not have all the answers.

There was a time when I was younger when I believed faith involved clear, dogmatic, orthodox, right answers. But as I get older, I am more aware of the limits of my own understanding. At times, we can pressure people to believe, think, or feel the right things about God, all shaped by the limits of our experience and knowledge. But God is bigger than all that, and the call of faith is not to master God, but to keep following Christ.

In speaking about the good news, I find myself drawn to Paul’s words at the beginning of his letter to the Colossians: 

“He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together.” There is no gap between any person, or any part of creation, and God, because in him all things hold together. As Acts puts it, “in Him, we live and move and have our being.” Our understanding of this, or whether we feel that we experience God, is not the measure of whether it is true. My sense is that God’s hand is upon all of us.

My thought is that, just as I do not think much about pulmonary respiration and barely understand it, I cannot live without it. So, we can all celebrate and say hip, hip, hooray that we have been breathing this whole time I have been speaking. In the same way, the hiddenness of God’s life within us is there in the background of each moment of our existence. God is closer to us than breathing.

But here is an interesting thing. 

One of the simplest ways to focus our attention is to focus on our breathing. This technique appears in many religious and mystical traditions, and it is also promoted in positive psychology and mindfulness. Paying attention to our breathing in and out can help us centre ourselves and connect. As people of faith, it can also help us become more aware of the presence of God with us and at work within us.

David Bentley Hart, in his book Experience of God, offers a philosophical exploration of God through three words: being, consciousness, and bliss. In slowing down and becoming present through our breathing, we can become aware of our being and marvel at our existence in the world. We can connect with the wonder of consciousness, our capacity to think and know. And we might even feel the joy and goodness of being alive: bliss.

Being, consciousness, bliss, or perhaps existing, knowing, and loving, are not simply an exercise in philosophy; they are part of being human. Hart’s claim is that all three point back to the same source: God, who is not only off in the distance but is the very ground we are standing on. This is one avenue for connecting with the good news of Jesus’s presence at work in and through us.

Yet not everyone connects with God in this way. 

So, to return to the beginning of our service, I think our sharing of good news may also have had the fingerprints of God all over it. Our hip, hip, hooray was a prayer of thanksgiving.

But as people who want to share our witness of faith with others, how do we move from a simple story of good news in our lives to the deeper sense of God’s presence within us that I have been describing?

On one level it brings to mind the old concept of the random act of kindness and maybe even the concept of paying it forward. Way back in the 1990s when you had to stop and pay a cashier at a toll booth, I still remember a friend who used to pay for the car behind her. A strange and simple gift. This might connect with a concept that is often attributed to St Francis, 

"Preach the Gospel at all times and, when necessary, use words". Good deeds are one thing, but we are called to share our faith in word and action. Another colleague when they heard a person tell their story, whether a good or bad story, would often offer to pray with or for a person. Small actions that might encourage curiosity in another person as to why we act and say what we do.

Those small gestures are great, but Paul gives us something more like a structure to grow into. Let’s look again at what he said to the early church in Rome. Paul’s ideas can be grouped in three widening circles, all driven by love. 

The inner circle is the love shared by the community. It is how we as a congregation notice one another, listen to one another, show affection to one another, and honour one another. These may seem simple things, but in every church community there are people who do not always experience them.

The next circle is love under pressure: the call to love one another through difficult times. Remaining hopeful. Being patient. Weeping with those who weep. I have learnt over many years that I cannot fix many of the problems people share with me, and there is no need to search for a silver lining. Sometimes all we can do is be present and pray that, in the presence of God, a person may know they are not alone.

And finally, and this is the hardest one, love toward the enemy. I recently had a very insightful email from someone in the congregation about just how difficult it is to love those we may not like, or those who may even persecute us. Blessing those who wrong us and seeking to overcome evil with good sounds like a lot. Perhaps this is where Jesus’s words about taking up our cross become concrete: not in seeking suffering for its own sake, but in costly love that follows him.

As people who gather and say hip, hip, hooray about the good stuff, and who support each other through the difficult stuff, we are doing more than simply being good and decent people: we are living out our connection to the good news. We are learning to receive God’s presence, to recognise God’s goodness, and to practise God’s love. What we practise with one another, however imperfectly, flows outwards towards the people we interact with day by day. Whatever our age and stage of life, and however we interpret the good news, I want to suggest that God is with us in it all, and that is indeed a reason to say hip, hip, hooray!

Being a Person in the image of God

Genesis 1:26-28, John 13:31-35 

I wonder where it is that you have learnt to be a human being? To be a person? 

I mean it is not as if there is a licence for it. No doubt your family of origin played a big part, but the whole of life can feel like falling from one test into the next as we learn about what it means to be human.

The question of what it means to be human has become even more pronounced in the last few years with the rise of large language models and generative artificial intelligence. In an age when machines can imitate language, generate images, and mimic aspects of creativity, the question is not simply what artificial intelligence can do, but what it means for us to remain human

In this rapidly changing world, how can we remember our humanity as we learn to be persons made in the image of God

In the movie Dead Poet’s Society. John Keating, the teacher played by Robin Williams says to his students: 

We don't read and write poetry because it's cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion... poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for.

Maybe in reading poetry, in listening to music, and in the stories that we tell each other, this is how we learn to be human.

As I was contemplating exploring this theme, I recalled a wonderful song by Rag’n’Bone Man simply called “Human”. The chorus repeats the refrain of the limitation of our humanity:

I'm only human after all.  

Don't put the blame on me. 

Being human means realising that we are all imperfect beings. Yet, this sense of the limitation and frailty of our humanity, especially in our relationships with one another, can cause us to withdraw as if it were better to do this thing called ‘life’ alone.

In my younger years I was drawn to Simon and Garfunkel’s song “I am a rock” which painted a bleak vision of human existence lived in isolation.

I’ve built walls

A fortress steep and mighty

That none can penetrate 

I have no need for friendship

Friendship causes pain

It’s laughter and its loving I disdain.

Maybe the attraction of that song was fed by the fact of more introverted and my mental health at the time. But I wonder too how the lyrics of the song feed into forgetting what it means to be truly human.

In contrast to Simon and Garfunkel, John Donne wrote these insightful words in 1624

No man is an island entire of itself; every man 

is a piece of the continent, a part of the main

No person is an island; no one is a rock. I think Donne’s insight takes us all the way back to the words of Genesis. 

So, God created humans in his image,

in the image of God, he created them;

male and female, he created them.

Whilst the Hebrew word for image here does indicate something like a statue, I think what is going on here takes us well beyond any physical form. To be created in God’s image is to be created as relational beings, God created them, male and female. Human are beings made for relationship for communion.

This idea of communion is an intimate sharing of life with God, with one another, and with the creation itself. It is life with others, life received as love and expressed as unconditional love. If God is love, as the author of the letter of 1 John asserts, then to be made in God’s image is to be made to be loved; to share love; to love one another. Genesis goes on to say:

And, God blessed them …. God blessed them … 

What does it mean that God blessed them?

In an age of AI, productivity, loneliness, and comparison, we are tempted to define persons by usefulness, intelligence, or success. This means that we often confuse blessing with favourable circumstances like health, wealth, happiness, security, or a life going to plan. But in Genesis, blessing is not first a reward for success. Blessing begins with God’s delight in the creature. It is God’s “yes” spoken over human life.

Discovering what it means to be human means remembering that every person bears the image of God before they are useful, successful, safe, happy, or well. Their value does not rise and fall with their circumstances. Their value is not determined by the colour of their skin, the language they speak, their gender or sexuality, or any other marker that we might use to divide ourselves from each other. God has made us and seen that we are good; we are worthy to be loved.

If Genesis tells us that humanity is made in the image of God, then Christ shows us what that image looks like in flesh and blood. This God, who is love, in whose image we are made, has been made visible for us through the incarnation when the Word became flesh in the person Jesus of Nazareth. I love the way the theologian Kathryn Tanner summarises what God is up to in the incarnation. “In the final analysis, God does not so much want something of us as want to be with us.” 

The great thinker of the early church Athanasius wrote that “Christ became what we are so that we might become what he is.” The emphasis of Athanasius can drive us to think that being human, being a person, is about being drawn beyond our embodied life towards the hidden mystery of God’s divine life. But what if, as well as this, when the Word becomes flesh and lives among us, our embodied, fleshy, earthly existence is not bypassed but affirmed, healed, and drawn into God’s life?

Linn Marie Tonstad puts it this way. “Christianity is a story about God’s incarnation, the making holy of the body, in which each person is the object of God’s care, attention, and love.”  So it is that throughout Jesus’ life and ministry God’s love is made visible, no longer abstract and distant. 

Jesus feeds the crowd, Jesus casts out the demons, Jesus heals those who are sick, Jesus restores people to their communities, Jesus teaches others about God, Jesus forgives those who do not appear worthy of forgiveness. And Jesus invites people to follow him. 

Jesus instructs his disciples to live out their lives sharing in this love saying, “Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.” Remember the old song “they will know we are Christians by our love”. Love is not an optional virtue; it is the visible sign of life in Christ. To be a person in the image of God and to grow as a lifelong disciple of Christ means to be turned outward in love towards others.

This means that every person we meet is someone whose body, story, and life are held in the love of God. But more than that, it is also about the people we do not meet, those who are distant and unknown to us. To remember how to be a person is to remember those whom the world forgets and those who we see as other. Tonstad suggests that “Christianity is about a message of radical, boundary-destroying love.”    

Returning to the poem by John Donne he says:

“Any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind.”

Or to make it more 21st century

“Any person’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in all humanity.”

If it is in our being human that God’s “yes” is declared over us, then we should also remember this: if every person is equally loved by God, then the person living homelessly in a Brisbane park, the person running away from domestic violence, the person in a bomb shelter, the person under rubble, the person fleeing war, the person grieving after flood or fire, is not less blessed, less valued, or less held by God than the person whose life appears secure and prosperous.

So, in an age of AI, productivity, loneliness, and comparison, we may be tempted to define persons by usefulness, intelligence, efficiency, or success. But Genesis speaks a deeper word: every person bears the image of God. Every person is blessed before they are useful, successful, safe, happy, or well.

And in Christ, that image is made visible. The Word becomes flesh. God’s love is not abstract or distant, but embodied, particular, compassionate, and near. Jesus shows us that to be human in the image of God is to be turned outward in love. More than that, it is in meeting the needs of others that we meet Jesus, and in meeting Jesus in the other we experience the divine.

Remember what Jesus says in Matthew 25:

For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.’ 

When Jesus is speaking to his disciples, he does not say, “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you are cleverer, faster, more efficient, or more impressive.” He says, “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

Remembering to be a person is about moving beyond our amnesia: remembering that to be a person is not to be an isolated individual, but to be made in the image of the God who is love — embodied, relational, and called into communion: intimate life shared with one another, with the creation, and with God. The image of God is love, revealed in Christ, lived in communion.

I wonder where it is that you have learnt to be a human being? To be a person? 

And I wonder how your life as a disciple of Christ is shaping that?

"God"

Romans 8:26-39, John 10:11-18

Not so long ago I was speaking with a young person who grew up in the church but no longer attended. I asked whether they still believed in God. They answered, “I think I believe that there is more out there than we can explain, but I don’t think I believe in the kind of God that you believe in.” I replied, “I don’t think I believe in the kind of God you think I believe in.”

We make many assumptions about who God is and what kind of God we will believe in, or refuse to believe in.

Yet each of us, in our own way, suffers from the problem depicted in this cartoon by David Heyward.

The words we use to describe and speak about God are our theology. Each person who seeks to define God is doing theology. Yet all of us are tempted to limit God’s existence to our finite understanding. Our concepts of God are far too small.

The influential theologian Augustine Bishop of Hippo in the late fourth and early fifth centuries, taught.

We are speaking of God. Is it any wonder if you do not comprehend? For if you comprehend, it is not God you comprehend. Let it be a pious confession of ignorance rather than a rash profession of knowledge. To attain some slight knowledge of God is a great blessing; to comprehend him, however, is totally impossible. [1. Augustine, Lectures on the Gospel of John, as quoted in Reformed Dogmatics, vol 2, 48] https://aaronarmstrong.co/knowledge-great-blessing/

One thing I have come to understand in my journey of faith is that any experience of God is not God; it is my experience of God. I can only describe that experience within the limits of my human reason, vocabulary, thoughts, and feelings. My description of my experience of God cannot domesticate the divine.

In the Jewish tradition, and in the writings of the Torah and the books we call the Old Testament, God remained other and mysterious. This was emphasised by the fact that the people did not speak God’s name. When God appeared in the text, it was represented by the four Hebrew letters known as the tetragrammaton.

When the religious leaders saw these letters, they simply said the word ‘Lord’. These letters were poorly translated as the word Jehovah and then more recently as the word Yahweh. Neither really fits the original intention which was to suggest the mystery that lay behind and beyond these symbols. As an aside the tetragrammaton is a play on the Hebrew phrase, “I am who I am”.

When we are confronted by the mystery of the origin of all things, our temptation is to simplify God into something that reflects who we are. We make God in our image. However, God is utterly other and mysterious.  this mystery because God became human.

God is both utterly transcendent and completely immanent.

In his book exploring the concept of “God”, the philosopher and theologian, David Bentley Hart reminds us of Augustine’s teaching that “God is not only superior summo meo – beyond my utmost heights – but also interior intimo meo – more inward to me than my inmost depths.” (P.10)

We are going to explore these two aspects of who God is as beyond and within us after we sing the old hymn Immortal, invisible, God only wise.

Immortal, invisible, God only wise

When we begin to contemplate the mystery and otherness of God, I am often reminded of something that the 16^th century reformer, Ulrich Zwingli said, in his Commentary on True and False Religion. "Of ourselves, we know no more of God than a beetle knows of man".

Yet even this statement is inadequate as an expression of the gap between the divine, uncreated mystery that is God and our existence as created, finite beings.

There is a well-known mystical writing from the 14^th century called The Cloud of Unknowing which helps us consider the problem that we face. Written as a guide from a teacher to a student the teacher expresses the problem like this.

By your eyes you can know only what has size and shape—what is large or small, round or square, near or far, light or dark, coloured or shaded. By your ears you perceive only sound. By your nose, only scent. By your tongue, only taste—sweet or bitter, sour or fresh, pleasing or foul. By your sense of touch, only heat or cold, hardness or softness, roughness or smoothness. But neither God nor any spiritual reality possesses any of these qualities.

As such we might say that God does not exist in the way that anything else exists. God has no form, no matter, no time, requires no space in which to exist. God is no thing that we can describe. God is nothing.

Possibly, the most that we can say about the nature of God’s existence is what the author of 1 John postulated “God is love” (4:16).

Love here is not merely an amorphous emotion or an abstract idea; love is what God does. God creates and sustains all things, and God’s love is made manifest in the Word that becomes flesh. In Jesus, the God who is totally other enters time, space, and matter as a person.

This is the paradox of mystery of the divine that the philosopher David Betley Hart describe when he says,

“To speak of “God” properly, then…. is to speak of the one infinite source of all that is: eternal, omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent, uncreated, uncaused, perfectly transcendent of all things and for that very reason immanent to all things.” P30 God Bentley Hart God.

Through Christ and in the Holy Spirt the unknowable God seeks to be known to us and is, as the saying goes, closer to us than breathing because as Paul puts it, "In him we live and move and have our being". (Acts 17:28)

Then let us sing of God’s love coming to us in such a personal way as we sing The Great Love of God.

The Great love of God

The incarnation emphasises how close God wishes to be to creation, because through the eternal Word becoming flesh God shares in what it means to physically exist. When Paul reflects on God’s love and closeness to people in and through Jesus, in his letter to the Christians in Rome, he asserts, as we heard today:

Neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

The intimacy of God’s relationship with people and with the whole creation is reflected in the intimacy expressed between Jesus and the one whom he names as Father and in the invitation for we as people to come to God through Jesus as his followers.

Jesus says, “I am the good shepherd. I know my own, and my own know me, just as the Father knows me, and I know the Father.”

The intimacy of the relationship between Jesus and God, expressed in the language of fatherhood, should not lead us into a single conceptualisation of God as male or as Father. Yes, the language is important because Jesus used it, but we should not reduce God to a bearded old man in the sky. Jesus’ language is a metaphor that emphasizes intimacy and sits alongside a vast range of other images and ideas that express who God is.

The literary theorist and philosopher Paul Ricoeur asserts that the Bible is polyphonic in the naming of God. That means the Bible presents many ways of describing God. The Uniting Church theologian Sally Douglas, in her book Rewilding Prayer, which we have in the library, outlines some of the myriad metaphors for God that are used.

For example, God is a rock (Ps 18:2) and the Most High (Ps 56:2); God is a bird (Ps 57:1); God is a refuge and stronghold (Ps 144:2); God is a mother who holds us on her lap (Ps 131:1–2). She also emphasizes that the biblical warrant “for using male and female language for God is clear. So too is the invitation to utilize non-gendered imagery for the Divine”. It was this range of imagery that inspired the book, What is God Like? that I read at the beginning of the service.

A few weeks ago, at the open evening, I answered a question that I have been asked numerous times, “Do you think that God is non-binary?” The answer that I gave I think reflects how I think about God’s immanence or closeness to us as well as God’s transcendence.

My answer is that non-binary is a term drawn from human understandings of gender. Like all gendered language, it seems illogical to apply it directly to God. For the God who is beyond time, space, and matter, gender is an irrelevant category. However, because we use many words and images to help us come closer to God, including gendered language that describes God as both male and female, I think that if imagining God as non-binary helps a person come closer to God, then I would consider that O.K.

The immanence and closeness of the God, who is love, transcend all our human differences. God is close to us no matter if we are 8 months old or 88 years of age, whatever our economic or social status, regardless of our gender or sexuality, whether we are healthy or confronting a terminal illness, wherever we come from and whatever our ethnicity. Christ is all and Christ is in all and the Holy Spirit lives within us and intercedes for us. This is love.

The gift of connection with this God, who is totally other, is a glimpse into eternity. The good news we share is that we can encounter and experience God, and through that encounter we are transformed and can come to live on earth as it is in heaven because we find ourselves in God’s company.