Love is not the easy thing

1 John 4:7-16

I was around 15 years old at the time. I was the son of a Uniting Church Minister, and he was preaching. I was sitting in the balcony of the church with a few of the other young people. It was small country town where everybody knew everybody. 

As dad was preaching, I heard him say these words, “A young man came up to me the other day, I won’t tell you his name because it would embarrass him, and he said ‘dad’” … At this moment numerous members of the congregation glanced back to me in the balcony. It had to be me, my brother was away at boarding school in Sydney.

In that moment I knew the betrayal not simply of my father but the betrayal of the church. It was a betrayal my father experienced many times himself in ministry.  Such to the point that when I came to give my father a letter to candidate for ministry my mother who was here simply said, “You should know better.”

“You should know better.” Clearly, I didn’t, but I did come into ministry with my eyes wide open to the failings of the church and its people.

Just this week I was teaching a Year 10 religion class and I shared with them the Compass episode entitled “For the Love of God: How the church is better and worse than you ever imagined.” It covers the Crusades and association of Jesus with violence and then moves into the 'troubles' in Ireland during the late Twentieth century before moving on to the message and ministry of Martin Luther King Junior.

In teaching this lesson I made the comment that taken at face value, based on the history of the church and its current failings, you would not want to touch the church with a 10-foot pole. Part of why I am saying all of this is to recognise difficulties are nothing new for us as Christian people. Division, mistakes and failings are par of the Christian life.

Yet here we are. Here I am. Here you are. But, why? 

I think that the first letter of John gives us a clue. “We love because God first loved us.” Or maybe we stay “because God first loved us.” It is God’s love which holds us fast beyond the failings of us as individuals and as an institution. The God who comes to us in Jesus.

So, in this moment, on this day, in the midst of your personal life journey and your journey as a congregation my question is how you understand and find love now. What does it look like? What does it feel like? What does it sound like? What does it taste like? Because it is precisely in times of trouble that we need to draw on love and to recover its meaning. 

But as U2 sang in their wisdom in the song Walk on “love is not the easy thing.” 

Love is not the easy thing.

• Not when we have encountered suffering.
• Not when we have encountered betrayal.
• Not when there has been a break down in trust.
• Not when we are dealing with grief.
• Not when we say the injustices of the world around.
• Not when we feel as though we are walking through the alley of the shadow.
• No, love is not the easy thing.

And as Christians we know this for it is seeing Christ on the cross that we see and know God’s love. As we sing in the old hymn “When I survey the wondrous cross”:

• See from his head, his hands, his feet,
• Sorrow and love flow mingled down;
• Did e’er such love and sorrow meet,
• Or thorns compose so rich a crown?

But what does it mean for us to love one another having encountered this love of God. Firstly, we should know that love is far more than an emotion.

Working in an educational setting I’ve often encountered the quote by Maya Angelou, the American writer, poet, and activist. 

She said, 'I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.' There may be some truth in her words but what is done and what is said matter, and these things matter because they lead us to how we feel.

So, as we contemplate our human expressions of love and how we are feeling now it is worth reflecting on our human expression of how we love one another.  

Back in 1992, a few years before I was giving my dad the letter to say I wanted to candidate for ministry, Gary Chapman wrote this great little book called The Five Languages of Love. 

In the book Chapman spoke about how we as human beings express and receive love with one another. He spoke about these five ways we give and receive love:

• Words of affirmation
• Acts of service 
• Receiving gifts
• Quality time, and 
• Physical touch

Whilst I don’t think Chapman’s work is grounded in empirical research, I would suggest that there is something valuable here for us to reflect on because his work helps us understand why love is not the easy things.

You see if you gave me a gift thinking that I would understand that you love me but what I needed was to hear was words of affirmation that told me I was doing a good job then the gift and its intention are lost in translation. If I gave you a hug and then moved on but what you really needed was quality time then you would be left wondering why I didn’t care. Even the basics of understanding how we can love one another are not an easy thing. The requires us to listen deeply and take notice of each other and consider how we connect to another person’s need to feel loved and include.

In our attempts at loving one another and finding the right way to do this I was reminded of the words from Philippians:

“Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of others. In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset of Christ Jesus.”

No, love is not the easy thing. And rebuilding that sense of love which involves trust and hope and new life after encountering confusion is hard work. But for me it is the work of resurrection.  It is the work of understanding love. It is not the easy thing but it is the work of a resurrection people.

During Lent I read daily devotions from a book called On Earth as in Heaven. It is quotes from the works of N.T. Wright compiled by his son Oliver. In one of his reflections Wright acknowledges lent as a time to weed the garden and maybe even to do some serious digging to root things out. 

Then he goes on to say, “Easter is the time to sow news seeds and to plant out a few cuttings.” To be able to do this requires us to have hope. Hope in the signs of new life and resurrection because how often to we lean on the words, “God’s mercies are new every morning, great is thy faithfulness.”

Hope doesn’t lead us to complacency though. It leads us to action. I saw an add on TV for an interview with Jane Goodall which is coming up. At aged 90 she is still working, and it is hope that drives her to do so.  I did a little googling, and she has lots of quotes about hope. This one comes from here book aptly titles The Book of Hope: A Survival Guide for Trying Times.

“Hope is often misunderstood. People tend to think that it is simply passive wishful thinking: I hope something will happen but I’m not going to do anything about it. This is indeed the opposite of real hope, which requires action and engagement.”

(Jane Goodall, The Book of Hope: A Survival Guide for Trying Times.)

In the midst of all the mistakes that we make as people in the church, whether personal or institutional, we nurture a hope in things not seen. This is faith. We tend the seedlings of new life, we plant new cuttings, we reach out to one another tentatively trying to find the way of love because God first loved us. We draw strength from the Holy Spirit, and we lean into our relationship with Jesus in whom we abide and who abides us for in him we know that we are loved.

It is said that Karl Barth, possibly the greatest Protestant thinker of the twentieth century, when asked what was the most import theological truth that he knew said these well-known words:

“Jesus loves me this I know, and the Bible tells me so.”

Many of you will have heard about the different words used for love used in the Scriptures. Love is communicated through four Greek words which are eros, storge, philia, and agape. They are characterized as romantic love, family love, brotherly love, and unconditional love. One of my mentors Professor James Haire once said to me that whenever we read the word agape in the Greek we should read it as “Jesus dying on the cross”.

Love is God’s action towards us and whilst we may seek to express agape in our community our stumbling attempts usually look more like eros, storge, or philia. But that’s O.K. because in these feeble expressions we encounter love and seek to love one another because God loved us.

To return to my religion lesson with Year 10 this week one of the students asked me the difference between Christian and Catholic. Having spent nearly 12 years on the national dialogues between the Roman Catholic and Uniting Church in Australia I could have said many things. But I would begin by reflecting on the idea that Catholics are Christians and denominations area a sign of our unfaithfulness to the teaching to love one another. 

But I would then also reflect on the reality that I learnt many things and one of them from Bishop Michael Putney, who I counted as a friend and mentor. He has a wonderful expression which connects to N.T. Wright’s concept that we plant seeds and cuttings. Bishop Putney used to say that when “When Peace breaks out we see the kingdom of God.” I would go to say that when pace breaks out, we encounter hope, and we act to proclaim God’s love. 

There are days that I am still that 15 year old boy in the balcony grappling with the failures and betrayal of the church of people I thought loved me. There are days that I reflect on my mother’s words “You should know better”.  But somehow the Holy Spirit has held me in, and I have seen signs of new life – seedlings springing forth and cuttings being planted. I have found hope in things not seen and when I am struggling, I often think of the last conversation that I had with my father who reminded me “it’s not you who finds God it is God who finds you.” Maybe this is love, that God finds us.

Or, as John wrote, “God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him.”

Take a moment to contemplate what love looks like now for you and what God is saying to you today.

All the world's a stage

Job 1:1; 2:1-10, Mark 10:2-16

The Kingdom of heaven is like a young child who has a big box of dress up outfits. Who comes out each day dressed as a different character to play its part in the day based on how it's feeling or what the child thinks the household might need.

As I contemplated the difficult readings set down for this Sunday, both in Job and in Mark, the phrase which stood out to me, as possibly the easiest to preach on, was this one: “whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it.”  There is an innocence that is being suggested in the faith of a child, an innocence that we are all encouraged to learn from.

Yet Jesus is speaking to adults and as I thought about young children the image of a child playing dress-ups day by day stood out.  We start our acting career early, but the reality is that as we go through life our acting career continues. 

     We play the part of a school student in a uniform. 

    We play the part of an athlete as we participate in sport. 

    We play the part of a dutiful son or daughter to our parents, or maybe the rebellious one!

    We play the part of an employee sometimes dressed in a uniform for the job that we work. 

    We play the part of being a faithful husband or wife or a loyal friend. 

    We play the part of being a parent and then possibly even grandparent or great grandparent.

    And dare I say, we play the part of being a Christian.

It is as Shakespeare observed in his play “As you like it:

     “All the world’s a stage,

    And all the men and women merely players;

    They have their exits and their entrances;

    And one man in his time plays many parts.”

 Each person plays many parts through their life as they navigate life's complexities and seek to live a “good” life.  So, the innocence of the child, playing dress-ups and becoming different characters, helps form us for our daily existence.  And our childlike play prepares us for the kinds of complexities that we have struck in today's readings.

Today's sermon then is a preparation for you to go from this place to play-act your part and enter the world that is a stage.  There are three phases in this preparation.  The first phase is to understand the theatre of our existence and the stage on which we will tread the boards. The second phase is to consider the prompts and the cues that we will receive from side stage as we enter each act.  In the third phase, I will consider our freedom to improvise as we respond to those prompts. And finally, with these three phases of formation and preparation completed we will prepare ourselves to go from here as God's people into the world.

The first phase of our preparation and our formation is to consider the theatre of our existence.  To do this I take us back to the book of Job and the central character. He was a man from the land of Uz.  It has long fascinated me that Job is from this faraway land called Uz. In reading various commentaries about where this land of Uz actually is, there appears to be some agreement that wherever it is, it is not Israel.  Now there is a possibility that Job was a Jewish man living in the diaspora, but scholars seem to agree that by locating Job in this fictitious and faraway land the author was expanding our understanding of Job’s story as transcending the history of the Israelites.  The theatre of our existence is the cosmos created by God. The cosmos which unfolds in the stories of Genesis which transcends the limitations of our ethnicity, our politics, our religion, our race, and our gender.  It is a place in which we encounter blessings and a place in which we encounter suffering.

Thus, Job’s Story has implications for all people and for all time. This is the world in which we as characters will tread the boards. The stage itself has been set.  Below us, supporting us, is the story of Jesus Christ.  The very first words of Mark's gospel are this, “The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the son of God.” The story of Jesus Christ is the story of God's grace and God's love en-fleshed and living among us.  The book of John begins with these words “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God.”   Paul in his letter to the Colossians wrote this, “For in him [that is to say Jesus] all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross.”  Again, Paul writing to the Romans said this, “but God proves his love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us.” This is the stage on which we walk in the theatre of our existence - God's unconditional grace and love in and through Jesus.

This is vital for us to understand because the reality is that we all make mistakes as we walk on this stage. Not one of us lives a perfect life. In fact, far from it.  Kathryn Schulz Says this of human beings:

     A whole lot of us go through life assuming that we are basically right, basically all the time, about         basically everything: about our political and intellectual convictions, our religious and moral beliefs,     our assessment of other people, our memories, our grasp of facts. As absurd as it sounds, when we         stop to think about it, our steady state seems to be one of unconsciously assuming that we are very         close to omniscient. (Schulz Wrongology)

I have much empathy for what Schulz is saying here. It is difficult for us to really know whether or not many of our decisions are right or wrong. So, what most of us assume is that we're right, most, if not all time. When we gather for worship, in the presence of God, prompted by the Holy Spiri,t we reflect on this reality when we say a prayer of confession. This prayer helps keep us humble and listening for the prompts from side stage as we act out our lives.

The prompts from side stage may come to us as the inspiration of the Holy Spirit or through the influence of the Scriptures.  When we gather for worship, we listen to words read from the Bible as prompts for us.  As I said at the beginning today's readings contain complex and difficult messages.  This means that the prompts we receive may not always be as clear cut and helpful for us as we might hope.  In the book of Job, we encounter a discussion around the origin of suffering and notions of determinism.  Job infers that what happens to us in life all comes from God, “Shall we receive the good at the hand of God, and not receive the bad?”  In his commentary, David Hester says of Job, “The book of Job is God's word in its most enigmatic form, carried in an ancient tale and poetic dialogue, that raises questions yet shelters answers.”  Thus, the prompts we receive cause us to pause and consider how we are viewing our lives, God, and the world around us.  But the answers are not necessarily in plain sight.

The same is true of the reading in Mark.  Many Christians these days interpret Jesus’ words about marriage to support the concept of the 1950s idea of the nuclear family.  To view what Jesus was saying, when the Pharisees were testing him about divorce, is take the conversation out of its context and impose our modern concepts of marriage on them.  In Jesus’ time women were viewed as the property of men. Without a family structure to support her a woman may have been isolated or even ostracized.  Primarily Jesus seems to be trying to protect women against being hung out to dry by men.  The difficulty in listening to the ancient prompts is often that we bring our own layers of expectation to them without considering their context.  Even people in Jesus’ time struggled with his words.  In Mark 4, Jesus says to his disciples:

To you has been given the secret of the Kingdom of God,

but for those outside, everything comes in parables; in order that

they may indeed look, but not perceive

and may indeed listen, but not understand:

so that they may not turn and again be forgiven.”

We, as Jesus disciples, may also feel that we have been given the secret of the kingdom of heaven.  However, when we consider this, we should remember the context of the conversation Jesus was having.  It was precisely because the disciples as “insiders” did not understand Jesus’ parables that he said this.  In fact, throughout Mark’s gospels the disciples constantly get it wrong whilst outsiders recognise Jesus’ identity.  Ultimately, it is left to a Roman centurion at the end of Mark’s gospel to echo the words from Mark 1:1 when he declares as Jesus dies “Truly this Man was the Son of God.”

 

There is a reminder here to remain humble in our acting out of our part and listening to the prompts that we receive.  Pride and hubris can blind us to the mystery of faith, the boards beneath our feet that support us is Christ’s unconditional love, not the self-righteousness of how we interpret our part or interpret the complex prompts we are given.  This should also mean that we take a step back before we judge anyone else and their interpretation of life.

This brings us to the third phase of the refection our adaptation to the theatre, stage and prompts.  Shannon Craigo-Snell suggests that as actors playing our part as Christians the Scriptures acts like a script.  She says, “Scripture, like script, is both complete and incomplete.”  In other words, it still requires our interpretation.  She is asking, how should we live treading the boards of God’s grace as we interpret the script?  But what if there is actually no script!

In his book on Christian Ethics Samuel Wells pushes beyond Craigo-Snell suggesting that as actors it is more like the craft of improvisation.  We listen humbly to the prompts from the Scriptures and the Holy Spirit, and we walk onto the stage of Christ’s grace, in the theatre of our existence, in a cosmos and creation which is full of both joy and suffering.  You could say we are set free to live an improvised life with Christ.  We are set free from the mistakes we will inevitably make, our missteps and misinterpretations, and we are set free to celebrate the good, to seek out signs of God’s peace breaking into the world, to speak out for justice, and to advocate for those who are oppressed.

This brings me back full circle to the children playing dress up day by day.  There is an innocence of children at play, experimenting with life and how to live it.  There are costumes and props to choose from and ideas that they copy from other people to help them interpret their playfulness.  Sometimes they make mistakes, sometimes it gets silly, sometimes its serious or sad or celebratory.  There are usually boundaries to their playfulness, to keep them safe, and then there are boundaries which they create for themselves, limits beyond which even they are not prepared to go.  How similar is our daily life as Christians to this?

The stage of grace on which we walk with humility gives us freedom to be the best versions of who we can be.  As inspired by the prompts of scriptures, of the Holy Spirit, of each other we improvise our being Christians against the backdrop of a constantly changing and complex context.  The safety net of God’s grace is below us and the love of Spirit prompts us to live in freedom, free from our constant mistakes, and free to live gratefully towards the God who gave us our part for if all the world is a stage, then the theatre is and can only be, God’s.

Amen

Schulz, Kathryn. Being wrong: Adventures in the margin of error. Granta Books, 2011.

Wells, Samuel. Improvisation: The drama of Christian ethics. Baker Academic, 2018.

A Message in 3 Gifts

 Ephesians 1:3-14, Mark 6:30-34,53-56

For those of you whom I teach you will be used to a return to term ritual in which I invite you to share something from your holidays as we first call the roll.  It provides a moment of reconnection not just as your teacher but with one another as a class well.  No doubt, for staff and for students alike, the next few days will provide moments of such reconnection as we return from our time off.

There is a beautiful moment in the Bible passage from Mark's gospel in which the disciples returned to Jesus after being out working among the people teaching and healing.  We are told that the apostles, which literally means the ones who were sent, gather around Jesus, and shared their stories. 

In contrast to us, the disciples though were returning from their labours and even in that moment we are told that they were so busy that “They had no leisure even to eat.”  This phrase is another reminder of the busyness of our term life when students come to my classes after first or second break and ask for permission to eat during class because they had a meeting during the break.  Jesus recognises the busyness of the disciples and as we follow through the short story that we have heard from Mark I believe there are three key ideas contained in the story for us.

On the first weekend of our holidays the Uniting Church in Australia celebrated its anniversary and so today as we reflect together on the reading from Mark, I want to offer the message in the form of three gifts.  I'm going to invite students to come and unwrap these gifts as we explore each one.

(1. Clock/Celtic Cross 2. This book will make you Smarter/Bible 3. Medical Kit/El Salvador Cross)

Part 1 - The Gift of Time

Let’s unwrap the first gift.

The first gift contained within the passage is the gift of time.  Jesus says to the disciples who were so busy, “Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while.”  As a school community most of us have just received a similar gift, the gift of time.  And, for many of us too, this was a much-needed break.  But I want to explore the gift of time that Jesus was offering the disciples and to connect it with the idea of holidays.

You see the word holiday has its origins in the phrase holy day.  It stems from a time that the only holidays that were granted to people were days that were considered holy. This included the Sabbath, which is Saturday.  On the blog Rest and Work it says this, “After six days of creation, God looks upon the works of his hands and pronounces it “very good” (Gen 1:31). But it is not until the seventh day that God calls something, “holy,” the day of rest that he interjects into the time and space of creation. The day of rest receives the attribution of holiness, which is the very essence of God’s character.” https://www.theologyofwork.org/key-topics/rest-and-work-overview The story of creation in the Bible is not a scientific explanation of the origin of all things rather it teaches us how to be in the world and one of the things it teaches us is that resting in God’s holiness is important because in this we encounter and are shaped by the character of God.

For Christians Sunday, the first day of the week, is the day that we remember the resurrection of Jesus and is consider it the first day of the new creation.  For Christians it is the day of rest.  It is a reminder of the beginning of the eternal Sabbath promised for the whole creation where we can rest in God’s holiness together eternally. Whilst this ancient idea may have been lost on most of us one of the implications of holidays becomes how we conceive of the time into which we are entering. 

In the Greek language, that the Bible was written in, there are two words that are used in association with time.  The first is chronos. Chronos essentially refers to the ticking of the clock, the sequential passing of time.  Whereas the second word, kairos, has a different connotation.  Kairos infers the opportune time, the right time, maybe even the time for encounter.

When Jesus offers that the disciples come away to a deserted place what I believe he is offering them is not simply chronos but kairos.  This time of encounter had already begun in his process of reconnecting with them and them sharing stories. But in the invitation to come away from the crowd Jesus was inviting the disciples to come with him to rest in God's presence.

So, one of the questions this raises for us is whether your holiday was simply experiencing time as chronos or whether you made space for kairos.  Experiencing time as chronos means that time is something that needs to be filled up, that time is something that causes us to be restless, or that as time passes we experience boredom.  So it is, that we scurry about trying to keep ourselves occupied - bingeing the latest Netflix, or Stan, or Amazon, or Disney series.  Our fingers race across our phones searching for content in Instagram, or Tik Tok, or messages from friends that will satisfy our restless hearts and minds.  Yet, the research shows us that we feel disconnected and lonely as we search for meaning by filling our lives as if there is only chronos.  Is this really a holiday? Do we really come away feeling rejuvenated and renewed in our sense of purpose and meaning in life?

Sometimes it is the ancient wisdom that can help us.  Pope Gregory I, sometimes referred to as Gregory the Great reminds us, “We make idols of our concepts, but Wisdom is born of wonder.”  When we spend our fleeting and fragile lives simply filling up time as chronos, with distractions, there appears to be little space for wonder which is why the concept of taking notice in our wellbeing framework is so important because it is about moving from chronos into kairos.  Almost two centuries earlier the great teacher of the church St Augustine said, “God is always trying to give good things to us, but our hands are too full to receive them.” (St. Augustine, City of God)

We fill up our time just as we fill up our hands.  As full as our time may be, we remain restless.  Augustine also said in his book Confessions, “Our hearts are restless until they rest in you.”  Kairos is the time when we take notice, we take notice of God, we take notice of God’s presence in and around us and we lean into the invitation of Jesus to come away, to transform our holidays, or at least moments within them into holy days.  To enter the kairos moment which is also beyond time - eternal.  Looking at the Celtic Cross in the gift we see the circle which represents eternity. 

In her song the Well the singer JJ Heller reflects on the Well of Jesus’ presence of the source of life in contrast to the pursuit of her own desires.  For me going to the Well of Jesus’ presence is her acknowledgement of being in a karios moment with God rather than simply living life in chronos.  I invite you to listen to the song now as a kairos moment, a time to connect with God.

Song for Reflection You are the Well that never runs dry 

Part 2 – The gift of a Teacher

It is somewhat ironic that whilst Jesus offers to his disciples the gift of time to rest in God's presence the crowd follows them.  It is a telling moment that we see the character of Jesus reflecting the character of God when on encountering the crowd we are told, “He had compassion for them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd; and he began to teach them many things.”

So, this is the second gift that we are given. (Unwrap the gift) These books represent the gift of a teacher.  Returning into our context here at school and contemplating the term ahead it might be difficult for us to sometimes see our teachers as a gift but a gift they are.  The gift of Jesus as our teacher is represented by the Bible which I will return to in a moment. Whilst, the gift of our education system, is represented by this book of mine entitled This book will make you smarter.  I will leave it up to you to judge whether me owning this book is actually reflected in who I am.

Whatever you may think about my knowledge and wisdom let me quote from Carlo Rovelli who writes in the book about “The uselessness of certainty.”  He says this:

 

There is a widely held notion that does plenty of damage: the notion of ‘scientifically proved.’  Nearly an oxymoron.  The very foundation of science is to keep the door open to doubt. Precisely because we keep questioning everything, especially our own premises, we are always ready to improve our knowledge. Therefore, a good scientist is never ‘certain.’ 

It may surprise some of you to know that Rovelli is a physicist who works in France at the Centre de Physique Théoretique.

What Rovelli is critiquing is what is known as scientism within our community, an assumption that science is about certainty.  James Tartaglia and Tracy Llanera in their article ‘Can we outgrow the problem of nihilism?’ on the ABC Religion and Ethics Website say this, the philosopher, “Heidegger warned how the culture of scientism, and of our obsession with manipulating reality, can obstruct the way the world might relate to human beings. Adopting a scientistic way of life, according to Heidegger, stifles our ability to listen to the voice of Being and kills off possibilities of wonder.”

https://www.abc.net.au/religion/can-we-outgrow-nihilism-james-tartaglia-and-tracy-llanera/13432122

As teachers and learners, we are constantly being challenged to have a growth mindset and to keep learning: to wonder and be in awe.  To be curious and agile as we reflect on what teachings we encounter.  When Jesus sees the crowd, he sees them as sheep without a shepherd.  This reality is more so given the scientism, consumerism, and individualism of our era.  Jesus is still looking upon us with compassion. 

Richard Kearny in his recent article ‘God after the loss of God: What comes after atheism?’ introduces us a new word, anatheism.  By which he means “returning to God after God.”  He goes on to suggest, “anatheism contains a moment of atheism within itself, as it does a moment of theism.”  To put it more simply anatheism suggests that we have moments of believing in God and moments of rejecting belief in God, sometimes at one and the same time, but in which we are caught up in mystery and wonder and not certainty.  A space in which we might still be prepared to listen for God speaking to us through Jesus.

https://www.abc.net.au/religion/richard-kearney-anatheism-what-comes-after-god/11719700

If Jesus is our true shepherd, then Jesus’ teaching is not simply a teaching about who God is but who we are in the midst of our seeking and searching for meaning and purpose.  The psychologist Martin Seligman in his PERMA model of wellbeing outlines five aspects leading to wellbeing acknowledging that one of these is having meaning. 

Further, studies have shown that those who receive the gift of faith and, for example, sit at the feet of Jesus as their teacher, have better outcomes for their wellbeing.  I believe approaching Jesus as our teacher is also about receiving the gift of teaching that comes through others and is connected to every aspect of our learning.  Alongside the scientist Rovelli I would encourage you to enter into having a lack of certainty or to receive the gift of doubt that the disciples Thomas encountered. This is a way of having a growth mindset and being prepared to learn from Jesus our true teacher about God, ourselves, and this creation in which we live.  Therefore. I included the Bible in this gift as a primary source in which we listen for Jesus speaking to us.

As we continue to reflect on this gift of a teacher, I have chosen a second song for contemplation released just 10 days ago.  A song which I believe has elements of anatheism, something being lost and re-found and then re-shared.  It is by the South African singer Matthew Mole and has implicit Christian themes within it.  As an artist Mole does not throw his faith in people’s faces but it is certainly there.  As you watch it, view the song with curiosity, as a parable exploring the possibility of God’s presence which is with you, even when you may be missing it.

Song for Reflection I’m with you

Part 3 – The gift of Healing

Unwrap last gift.

The last gift is the gift of healing.  After Jesus teaches, he and the disciples move off into the surrounding villages and everywhere they go people are bought for healing.  The healing provided by Jesus is a sign of God's care and concern for us and for all people.  Symbols within the gift of healing are the symbols of a medical kit and of the El Salvador cross.

Healing has many layers and expressions.  There is the healing of our sinfulness.  Healing of our souls as we are drawn back into relationship with God.  Healing of our bodies and our minds which stands over against the entropy of our existence. 

Unlike the first two gifts this gift of healing is one which is more complex in our relationship with God.  Recent weeks have reminded us of the ongoing pandemic that continues to unfold around us.  The devastation and heartbreak that has been wrought upon the world community is deep and abiding.  When we turned to God with our prayers for healing and for hope it is like the people who long ago carried people on their mats into Jesus’ presence.  They brough them to Jesus in the hope that even touching the hem of his robe might restore people to wholeness in their life.

Rather speak more about God’s gift of healing we are going to pray for the world and its people.  We will pray for this country Australia and for our community. We pray for each other and the ones whom we love.  We will come in faith and hope that we might reach out to touch Jesus’ robe.

Love one another

It seems simple enough, “As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you, abide in my love... love one another as I have loved you.”   


Seems simple enough to love one another, but what do we think love is.  When I shared about singing a new song one of the things that can become evident very quickly is how we have different tastes and preferences in our music choices.  Churches have split apart on what kind of music they should play.


Just as there is a great diversity of ideas on music so too when it comes to loving one another we have different ideas on what it means to love each other and how we define love seems to change through time.


So to love one another appears simple enough but love is complex in its simplicity.


If you will indulge me I would like to share a short video entitled “What is love?” from one of my favourite websites Soulpancake.

 

So what does love mean to you.  What does it mean for us to love one another?


Right at the beginning of the video a young boy says that “Love is a complicated thing” and I would agree with that.  And maybe you picked up on some of its complexity in listening to all the different answers.


So when it comes to Jesus commandment to love one another as I have loved you we already have our own ideas and biases about what love is.  I want to pick up on what one of the women in the video said in her answer.


“It is something you do on a day to day basis. Love is active.”


Now many of you would have heard that the word we translate into love from Greek has 4 different forms.  The ancient Greek language had 4 different ways of categorising love.


The word being used in this passage is the word agape.  This is generally understood to mean unconditional love – love that does not expect anything in return.  But I want us to push a little deeper into that idea.


How does God love us?  By sending Jesus into the world.  By Jesus proclaiming the good news of God’s love to us.  By Jesus dying for us.  By Jesus rising for us. By Jesus ascending for us to pray for us forever.  God loves us by doing something.


Love is not a feeling or an emotion love is what God does.  Or as John put in his letter “God is love.”  Love is what God does – so if we are to love one another it cannot stop at an emotion, an interior feeling or thought that I keep to myself.  No, love involves us acting, doing something.


Now in loving like God loves us we cannot make the same sacrifice that Jesus makes on the cross for us – that was a once and for all moment.  But we can act in love towards one another as a sign of this love.


Quite a few years ago a friend recommended a book to me that some of you may have also read.  It was written by a guy called Gary Chapman and was called The Five Languages of Love.  Have any of you read this book?


In the book Chapman outlines these 5 ways we express our love in action and as we think about loving one another in all its simple complexity these 5 ideas can be helpful.  Words of affirmation. Gifts. Physical touch.  Quality time. Acts of service.  I want to go through each of these and give some examples, or maybe more accurately some homework to you because as you listen to them I want you to be thinking about how you might express love to someone this week.


Words of Affirmation

• Write a letter or card to someone to express your thanks or congratulations.
• Ring an old friend and reminisce together
• Be grateful to someone who serves you in a shop 

Gifts

• Take your gift of flowers from the church today to someone special
• Give an extra gift of money to a charity
• Make a gift or card for a member of your family

 Physical touch

• Remember to hug a member of your family every day!
• Embrace a friend when you meet them this week
• Hold the hand of someone you love more often

 Quality time

• Put a person you love in your diary this week, listen to them and enjoy their company
• Take some extra time with God: express gratitude and pray for others
• Have a technology ‘fast’ and spend more face to face time with friends

 Acts of service

• Take on an extra chore around the house
• Commit yourself to do something for the church or a charity
• Ask a family member, friend or even a stranger what you can do to help them out

Now what is very interesting is that what Chapman emphasises is that each one of respond more strongly to a different expression of the giving and receiving of love.  A good example of this is that for some people a hug is important and for us well it is more like an invasion of their personal space.  We are all unique in what our preferred expression of love is and how we interpret loving actions towards us.  This is why I think we miss the mark so often in trying to love one another – because we are complex and unique individuals.

To jump back then into the passage and think about how Jesus loves his disciples.  His actions towards them which include his choice to call them friends, his choice to teacher them, his choice to entrust them to bear fruit on his behalf is all done in the context of knowing that these men are far from perfect people.  Jesus actions of love towards his disciples is not reliant on them getting everything right or understanding it but on the choice Jesus makes to go on loving them.

For me this is the hardest aspect of love.  To love another person whom we may find difficult to get along with.  To love another person who is not loving us back or not acknowledging our acts of love towards them.  To love others when are not feeling loved ourselves.

 

For me this is where God steps into the gap between our call to love one another and our ability to love another.  There are days I do not feel loved and also days I do not feel very loving – more often than not these days coincide!

It is in these moments that God’s ultimate action of love in Jesus’ death and resurrection transcends who we are not able to be for ourselves and joins us through God’s grace to Jesus’ very life through the power of the Holy Spirit.

Today we will celebrate that in remembering the great act of God’ love as we take bread and wine and receive again through word and action the presence of God into our life.  We share in communion in the faith and hope that as we act so to God will act within us.

So, we return to where we began: It seems simple enough, “As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you, abide in my love... love one another as I have loved you.” 

Today, we will share in that love of God in bread and wine.  God’s grace.  The fruit that we are given to share from our encounter God this day is to go from this table to act as loving people: through Words of affirmation. Gifts. Physical touch.  Quality time. Or, acts of service. 

Take a few moments of silence.  Consider what is God saying to you this day?  Who are you being called to love and what will you do about it?

Do not let you hearts be troubled

John 14:1-14

The disciples were still in the upper room.  Jesus had washed their feet.  They had shared a meal.  Judas had gone out to betray Jesus.  And Jesus had just told Peter that Peter was going to deny him.  The room was filled with apprehension, unease, distress!  It is a liminal space, a space in which life seems to be on a knife’s edge. Things were out of control as the disciples leaned in and listened to Jesus.  It is into this moment of uncertainty and fear that Jesus speaks.

“Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me.”

Facing his own demise.  Aware of the disciple’s confusion, their fear and the impending desertion Jesus offers to them hope.  Jesus always offers to them and to us hope.

“Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me.”

In the face of uncertainty, confusion, doubt and fear: “Believe in God, believe also in me.”

I must admit that when I went away to the Centering Prayer retreat last year I was confronted by the tumultuous nature of my life, its business, and the concerns I was carrying.  It was there in the silence, not seeking to control God, but emptying myself before God that I was reminded deeply and truly that seeking God’s presence and way in my life needed to be rekindled. 

As I prayed at the retreat a strong sense of the words pf Psalm 121 came to me:

I lift up my eyes to the mountain from where does my help come? My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth.

I have shared this story with you a number of times since because of its importance not only to me but to each one of you.  As many of you are aware this retreat set me on a personal journey to refocus my own spiritual development and to invite others to share that with me in the Sunday evening prayer group.

To believe in God and believe in Jesus has me letting go.  Letting go a sense that I can control things.  Letting go of things that are not mine to worry about.  Letting go some of the responsibilities I carry.  I have had a great sense of peace and direction developing in my journey and no doubt this all fed into my decision to accept my new role as a Chaplain.

I realise though that my decision has for some of the congregation taken you back to the upper room with the disciples encountering some unexpected emotions uncertainty, confusion, doubt and fear.  What happens next for St Lucia?  What happen next for me?  We are in that liminal space as a congregation; a space of change and uncertainty.

But when you think about it so much of our lives is lived in this way personally, day by day, and as communities.  The community of this congregation, the community of Brisbane, the community of Australia and the broader community of humanity.

Week by week as we come here, we come as people who live in liminal spaces, with all of the thoughts and emotions that brings I would echo Jesus words to you: “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me.”

Believing in God and in Jesus means turning to God as a community.  It means devoting our gaze and attention to Jesus who helps us to know what to believe. 

Jesus, who, as he reassures the disciples declares those famous words: “I am the way, the truth and the life”.

“I am the way, the truth, and the life.”

He does not tell the disciples that they have to do anything apart from trust in this - it is Jesus himself who is the way, the truth and the life.  It is Jesus who faces the rejection of the cross, who also rises from the grave and lives to pray for us forever.  It is Jesus in his earthly fleshly body, as the eternal Word made flesh, who bridges our journey from the liminal space of uncertainty and fear into the hope of God.

I was reminded of this good news this week as I participated in the space for grace conversation run by the National Assembly of the Uniting Church.  In that space we were invited to share with around 30 other people our deeply personal life stories and in the process to come to know one another.

As an outcomes focussed person this process of listening and sharing was not that easy for me.  I like to know at the end of our time we have something to show for it.  But in this time I was reminded that surrendering control to deepen relationships with the people with whom I gathered was just as important.  Or to return to the notion of devoting myself to God in prayer I was given the opportunity to devote myself to listen for God’s presence in the lives of others.

The conversation was grounded in four principles: openness, responsibility, awareness and confidentiality.  The confidentiality means I cannot share the stories but I can share a glimpse of the experience. 

After 2 days the insight I felt that I was given, or maybe reminded of, was that in our lives lived in liminal spaces in which all of us miss the mark and others around us do too.  To be a bit more specific about this I mean we all sin.  In the sense that in the Greek the word sin has its origin in the word ἁμαρτία (hamartia).  It connotes the notion of an archer missing the target.

Although we may seek to live a good life, a life of discipleship, a life responding to God the reality is that we miss the mark, we err.  When we listen to each other’s life stories we discover that this truth that all of his miss the mark and fall short of the glory of God and this has consequence for us and for those whom we travel with in community.  Sometimes we realise that we have missed the mark and sometimes it takes another person to reveal this to us.

I am also reminded of this truth on days like today which is mother’s day.  My mum was not perfect and I was not the perfect son.  Each of us missed the mark in our relationship.  I am thankful that we were able to work through this and to continue to love one another.  Not all mothers and children are able to achieve this so mothers days comes with a mix of emotions for a range of reasons.

All of us miss the mark, all of us err.  But as the saying goes, "to err is human but to forgive is divine."

Just as we all miss the mark, ἁμαρτία (hamartia), so too the promise of Jesus to his disciples is that thought we miss the mark God remains alongside us.  God shows mercy and grace.  God forgives.  There is the opportunity for many of us to encounter and experience this divine grace in our daily journey of faith.  In the midst of the liminal spaces of life when we are missing the mark, or we are filled with fear and uncertainty, we are reminded that Jesus is the way the truth and the life for us.  We hear the comfort of the words, “Do not let your hearts be troubled”.  Peace breaks into our existence and the coming kingdom of God comes close to us.

All of us, personally and communally, are people who miss the mark.  All of us, personally and communally, are therefore people to whom Jesus words of grace apply.  “Do not let your hearts be troubled.  Believe in God believe also in me.

As we sit on the precipice of change I am reminded that most of us have been here before.  As we enter liminal spaces in life, spaces of uncertainty, and even fear I am constantly reminded that in my own life I miss the mark, but I am also constantly reminded that despite this Jesus is the way the truth and the life and it is he who guides us home.

As you consider this moment in your own existence, personally and as a community, hear the good news and be strong in faith for on the night those disciples gathered full of fear and apprehension Jesus words came to them as good news of hope for them and for all people:

“Do not let your hearts be troubled.”