ASH WEDNESDAY

Here we are once more at Ash Wednesday and there is a great deal said about sin. For most of us, the language of sin has been obscured and even lost; sin, as a concept doesn’t make a great deal of sense. For some, it seems convenient to simply leave sin in the rear-view mirror, to move on without it However we need sin

Two helpful terms that help in understanding sin are isolation and damage. Isolation has been described as the chief human problem in our age. Certainly, the pandemic has highlighted this problem. Isolation impedes our life, our abundant life, because we are created to be in communion with God, our neighbours, and ourselves. When we are isolated or isolate ourselves, our humanity is diminished.   . We were created in the triune image of God, which is a loving community of persons that are so caught up in giving that they share a nature. This is why reconciliation is such a theme of God’s work – and therefore ours – because sin is isolation.

The other term that is helpful for understanding sin is damage. Damage is inflicted upon us, and it is also self-inflicted.  We are created good, but something happens, something damages us, yet we can be restored to health; damage is not our nature nor our fate.

As we look at our readings today, we can substitute damage and isolation for sin. From the Corinthians reading: “ We are ambassadors for Christ; it is as though God were appealing through us, and the appeal that we make in Christ’s name is be reconciled to God. For our sake God made the sinless one into sin, so that in him we might become the goodness of God. .” This could be read as: “ For our sake he made him to be damaged who knew no damage, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” Here we see that Jesus, who was not damaged, took upon himself our damage to heal us.

Sin as isolation sounds like this: “We entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him to be isolated who knew no isolation, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” By Jesus taking on our isolation, we are reconciled, that is, reunited, to God, ourselves, and our neighbours.

 This action of substituting those words “damage” and “isolation” for sin allows us to, perhaps for the first time, hear what sin is and how it hurts us. Sin isolates us from God, ourselves, and our neighbours. It sets up walls that are not supposed to be there that keep us from thriving. Sin damages our goodness, our soundness. Sin hurts our healthy integrity. And we need healing; we need reconciliation.

Ash Wednesday is our reminder of our isolation and damage. How we have separated ourselves and hurt ourselves and have been both victim and perpetrator of isolation and damage. It’s a reminder that you are human, you will die, that you are a sinner, and that, yes, there is reconciliation of isolation through Christ, there is healing of damage through Christ.

It is so important for us to recover a healthy sense of sin both theologically and socially. The first part of this Ash Wednesday message is about the theological importance of sin, but the social impacts are just as important.

 We are sinners. So be it. And we have healing of that sin through Christ. That healing is for our flourishing, for us to enter into the abundant life of God. Our saving, our salvation, is not primarily to quit the life of the flesh to go to heaven. And our salvation is not primarily the celestial fire insurance of rescuing us from the flames of hell. Instead, our salvation is accepting God’s healing of our damage and the reconciliation of our isolation. God is not our elevator, hopefully only taking us up, no, God is our abundant life lived in health and community.

As we move into and through Lent, carry these helpful images of sin as damage and isolation. Take up your Lenten disciplines that can begin to address your damage and isolation. And remember that God is for you, so desperately. 

 

EIGHTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME C

In today’s readings we hear Jesus speaking in Galilee as well as a Jewish sage named Sirach writing in Jerusalem more than a century earlier. The two of them touch upon a single truth: The words that come out of us make known the hidden thoughts within us. Speech reveals the secrets of the heart.

The parables of Jesus recalled in this reading are so familiar that they have become proverbial: the blind leading the blind; the splinter in the brother’s eye, a tree known by its fruits. Luke wants us to recognise that – as part of the teaching of Jesus – these parables are far more than the expression of homely truths. They certainly do express truths that are applicable to every human situation – continuing the wisdom tradition of old Israel, so wonderfully expressed in the reading from the book of Ecclesiasticus. But the Good News of the Kingdom brought by Jesus (expressed in the teaching to the disciples we have already reflected upon) brings a truth far greater than has ever been expressed before. It is the promise of a new kind of existence, to be found by identifying with the ways of the living God – after the example of the One who is the revelation of the Father.

Luke invites us to find this deeper meaning that these parables had for Jesus. The ‘blindness’ Jesus warns against, especially for those who are leaders and guides in the community of disciples, is the blindness of those who assume the role of leadership although they have not  committed themselves to the Law of Love. Disciples who have not made this conversion will see living according to their old ways – placing selfish limits on their practical love for their neighbour – as no more than a tiny ‘splinter’ obscuring their vision. Such people do not recognise that presenting themselves as disciples of the Lord is kind of ‘hypocrisy’ – they make this clear by their readiness to point out the more obvious failings of their brothers and sisters. Genuine disciples will be known by their ‘fruits’: not in clever words or orations but in the witness of the quiet convictions that shape their lives – as, through the gift of Christ’s Spirit, the disciple grows ‘like his teacher.’

‘The good man draws what is good from the store of goodness in his heart.’ Again, when related to the central message of the teaching of Jesus, these words are more than wise advice about the conduct of our lives.

Jesus is speaking of the hearts of disciples – transformed by their acceptance of the ways of God after the example of Jesus, and putting no selfish limits to the love, or practical good will, they have towards their fellow human beings. . Jesus asks for a creative attitude which will make us capable of going and encountering others without judging them, without preconceptions and rationalizing, but accepting the brother. This total openness toward others considering them as brothers/sisters will arise in us only when we are capable of relating to God with total trust as His children.

We are all disciples in training, waiting to be “fully trained,” when we will more perfectly reflect the life of Christ. Like Luke’s community, we continually need to hear again the instructions of the Teacher. Jesus is also speaking of himself as our teacher when he says, “No disciple is superior to the teacher, but when fully trained, every disciple will be like his/her teacher.” The season of Lent begins with Ash Wednesday   we will have our hearts and minds further shaped by the Teacher and as a result we will increasingly become “like the teacher.”

 In our Lenten journey to our baptismal renewal, we will commit ourselves again to our pilgrimage in community with Christ and each other. We will acknowledge that not all that has come from our individual and communal hearts has been the goodness Jesus describes. Not all the fruit from our trees has been nourishing for our members, or for others.

 Those who have found the joy of true discipleship will recognise that something of the ‘victory’ Paul speaks of can already be ours, even in this present life.

 

SEVENTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME C

In contemporary Australian culture, media and advertisers tell us that, in order to have a happy life, we need to be wealthy, and if we cannot be wealthy, then we should have enough followers to make us a social media influencer, which usually ends in some kind of wealth anyway.  The insidiousness of privilege based on wealth and justice through retaliation and not reconciliation is reflected from our current culture back to us. There is no place for God here. So, what does this mean for a follower of Jesus?

 No matter which time period we are in, reconciliation is a process and can take many forms. Many people believe reconciliation means going back to being the way you were or forgetting what happened and moving forward from there. In a world of violence, reconciliation can only come after an attack and must be desired by both parties – if it happens at all. Better yet, is there a way to avoid needing to reconcile in the first place? Jesus speaks of a different way of responding when facing violence to the heart, body, and/or spirit.  The story of David and Saul in today’s First Reading functions almost like a parable. Showing mercy to his deadly foe, David gives a concrete example of what Jesus expects to become a way of life for His disciples.

Today’s Gospel challenges the disciples and us to think beyond the culture of violence in which they lived. Luke is writing to the communities of Gentile Christians in Rome, Greece, and Asia Minor. A question for this community was: Could they be both Christians and good citizens of the empire in which they lived? Systems of ethical teachings circulated widely throughout Greco-Roman and Jewish societies during Jesus’ life and the first centuries of early Christian tradition. Luke’s theme of discipleship is clear and has Jesus going even beyond the ethical standards of the day. Both then and now, Jesus’ instructions about accumulating wealth and possessions and responding to hostility can sound weak or simple. However, when we dig deeper into what Jesus is teaching, there is nothing passive about his aggressive commitment to non-violence and his repudiation of using wealth and privilege as power over others.

 Jesus’ teaching is radical because he invites us into a very active and power-full response to these things. As disciples, we are not asked to roll over and accept violence; instead, Jesus lists the ways we may be attacked and then tells us to actively do something additional, something that those who oppose us do not expect. Non-violent action directly combats the dark underbelly of materialism and hostility. This has been proven effective in large and small ways.   The life of the late Archbishop Desmond Tutu also showed us numerous examples of non-violent response, especially in his longstanding work of opposing the state-sponsored racism known as apartheid in his native South Africa. Jesus, of course, gives us other examples in our Gospel today.

An individual making a non-violent response makes a difference, and a group of people does even more. This is where our behavior as disciples is key. Both Jesus and Archbishop Tutu teach us how to actively counter violence with non-violence. What would the world look like if we actually did this as individuals, groups, and communities? People notice how and when we respond to the violence and corruption of the world around us.  In the context of today’s liturgy, we’re all “Sauls”—by our sinfulness and pride we make ourselves enemies of God. But we’ve been spared  God has loved and shown mercy to His enemies, “the ungrateful and the wicked,” as Jesus says.

Jesus showed us this love in His Passion, forgiving His enemies as they stripped Him  and condemned Him to death on a cross   “He redeems your life from destruction,” David reminds us in today’s Psalm.

That’s the promise, too, of today’s second reading: that we who believe in the “last Adam,” Jesus, will rise from the dead in His image, as today we bear the image of the “first Adam,” who by his sin made God an enemy and brought death into the world.

 

SIXTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME C

We are almost two full months into the new year,  And in today’s readings, we are reminded that there are things beyond what we can understand in this world.

The prophet Jeremiah speaks, “ A curse on the man who puts his trust in man, who relies on things of flesh, whose heart turns from the Lord.”

To rely on human strength, is not only foolish but accursed, according to the prophet. The author continues  with a condemnation of the human heart. “The heart is devious above all else; it is perverse—who can understand it?” Human intentions, human efforts, human doings can only lead us so far. Faith demands we reach out beyond what we can feel, perceive, or even know. Faith demands we reach out to God.

St Paul, in his first letter to the church in Corinth, writes of the necessity of the Resurrection. “ if Christ has not been raised, you are still in your sins. And what is more serious, all who have died in Christ have perished. If our hope in Christ has been for this life only, we are the most unfortunate of all people.” These words are meant as words of comfort to the first-century Christian community,  

 How does a Christian today live this out?

The belief in the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth is something that we affirm regularly in the creed, but what does this belief mean for our daily lives?

Andrew Root, contemporary Lutheran theologian, and author, writes that Christianity in a secular age moves from seeing faith as relevant to something that is resonant. For Root, relevance is about transferring content. Resonance, on the other hand, is about a feeling or experience. While certainly there is much to be learned about God from Scripture, the beauty of the Christian faith is that it’s not just about intellectual stimulation

The mystery of our faith is not just that the words of the Scriptures apply today to our situation here, across vast centuries of time and thousands of kilometres of space. Among the mysteries of faith is that, through these words, we can still encounter the divine. When we read Scripture, we certainly look for things that are relevant to our lives. But we also experience an encounter with the divine, having faith that God meets us in the reading of the Word. It is this encounter with the divine that gave life to the faith of the mystics like Hildegard, Julian, and Teresa. The readings then become less about mining for applicable wisdom, and more about looking and listening for resonance with the beauty we find in our lives, in the world, and in each other.

Let us turn now to that great sermon from the gospel text for the day.

The Beatitudes, as these statements are known, are the subject of a long theological debate. On the one hand are those who argue that the sayings are descriptive—they are meant to affirm that those who are of lowly station in life now will be exalted in the Kingdom of God. On the other hand, are those who claim that they are prescriptive. This view maintains that Jesus is saying that all his followers should be poor, sacrificing to the point of hunger, and weeping over the mournful events occurring in one’s community and around the world.

Certainly, these are important theological debates to consider. But when we read for resonance,  instead of, “How does this passage apply to me?” or “Are these or aren’t these relevant to me?” the question becomes, “How does this passage resonate with my encounters with God?” 

St Paul’s words about the centrality of resurrection guide us to consider where we see Jesus’ resurrection echo and harmonize with our experiences, our histories, and our lives. We attune ourselves to the beautiful mysteries of faith. The words of the beatitudes similarly become a living word when we let them wash over us: when we attune ourselves to the poor, the hungry, and the weeping around us.

Let us consider not just the relevance of these words. But let us truly let them resonate in our lives. May we all consider the mystery of the divine around us, within us, and outside us as we seek to attune ourselves to the unfolding of the Kingdom of God.

 

FIFTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME C

 Simon Peter, the fisherman, is the first to be called by Jesus in Luke’s Gospel. His calling resembles Isaiah’s commissioning in the First Reading: confronted with the holiness of the Lord, both Peter and Isaiah are overwhelmed by a sense of their own sinfulness and inadequacy. Yet each experiences the Lord’s forgiveness and is sent to preach the good news of His mercy to the world.

 There is one word that describes the feelings of all of our scripture writers this morning: Paul included: futility. And futility is perhaps a feeling we can all identify with in year 3 of pandemic   We’re starting to believe our efforts are futile, that the end of the virus is not really possible. Futility robs us of hope, of possibility, of faith itself. This is where Peter is, he and his companions have been out all-night fishing and have caught nothing. They may be doubting their skills and capability as fishermen. This is where futility can land us. We don’t just begin to doubt what we can do. We begin to doubt who we are.

Then Jesus comes into the situation, and everything changes.

One thing Jesus says here jumps off the page: “ Put out into deep water.”  When we are feeling swamped by futility, we need to go deeper. When you feel like you have nothing but failure to show for your best effort, go deeper.

“ Put out into deep water and pay out your nets for a catch.”

What is the difference between beating our heads against a wall, i.e., doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results, and following Jesus’ advice?

 We take Jesus with us. That is what changes the disciples’ action from “doing the same thing and expecting different results” into a sudden and bountiful harvest. When Jesus is with us—in our minds, in our hearts, in our conversations, in our discernment, in our priorities, two things happen. First, we are empowered to go out into the deep water. We are able to take risks and stretch ourselves and each other toward something new. And then, we can let down our nets and actually find fish. What was once the site of futility becomes the site of abundance, discovery, and sustenance.

Notice one more interesting detail in this gospel text. At the end of the fishing part of the story, we read this sentence: “And they came and filled both boats, so that they began to sink.”

 We do find out by the end of the story that they make it back to shore, but that detail that Luke includes is important. The boat begins to sink. This is a symbol of having to leave your old life behind. The boat was the fishermen’s primary tool of the trade, the economic engine of their lives. But when Jesus showed up, the bounty and abundance his presence brought into their lives completely overwhelmed their old worldview, their old tools, old ways of living their lives. Saying yes to Jesus means we have to give up all our cherished sources of security, to find true security and freedom in him. And remember what the call is to Peter and his friends: to become fishers of people. This is about evangelism.

Peter and his companions begin this story sad, frustrated, afraid, and almost hopeless. They don’t believe there are any fish, and they don’t believe that they have what it takes to catch them. But Jesus says,  “Put out into deep water and pay out your nets for a catch” and everything changes. The group of failed fishermen are courageous  followers of Jesus by the end of the story.

So, ask yourself: where do I find futility in my life? Where am I ready to give up? Where have I lost hope?

And then listen to the call of Jesus: “ Put out into deep water and pay out your nets for a catch.…  Do not be afraid; from now on it is men you will catch”

The road from failure to evangelist is quite short—it just requires saying yes to Jesus and saying yes to depth. God’s Word comes to us as it came to Peter, Paul, Isaiah, and today’s Psalmist—as a personal call to leave everything and follow Him, to surrender our weaknesses in order to be filled with His strength.