Monday 28 April 2014

“Two loaves, two tables, one meal”: a sermon (Luke 24:13-35)

It was a Sunday afternoon. Cleopas and his friend … We don’t know the friend’s name. His - or her - name is lost to history.... Cleopas and his friend made the journey from Jerusalem to Emmaus. They were depressed. Jesus had been executed on Friday. Now, they had to pick up the pieces of their lives. They dragged themselves slowly along the road.
 
On their way to Emmaus, they encountered this stranger.   At first the stranger didn’t seem to know anything that had happened in the last few days.  Then, later, he seemed able to explain it all, putting it all into some intelligible context.  But Cleopas and his friend were still depressed.

They reached Emmaus, not a terribly big place.  It was getting towards nightfall.  The stranger seemed to want to travel further, but Cleopas and his friend persuaded the stranger to spend the evening at their lodgings. 

As they gathered around the table to share their meal, the stranger took the loaf of bread, said the blessing, and broke the bread and offered it to the travellers.  Two things happened, almost simultaneously.

Cleopas and his friend recognised that the stranger was Jesus.

Jesus vanished from their sight.

Through the night, they ran back to Jerusalem over the same road they had dragged themselves along that afternoon.  They encountered the remaining members of that core group that had travelled closely with Jesus over the past few years.  They, too, had received the message that Jesus was alive.

It happened for them during the breaking of the bread.

A few nights before, Jesus also broke the bread.  In the Upper Room, as he celebrated the Passover with his disciples, he associated that ancient feast of liberation with his own act of self-giving.  He took bread, blessed it, broke it, and shared it. 

So there were two loaves and two tables.
  • The loaf and the table of the Upper Room spoke of Christ’s self-giving.
  • The loaf and the table of Emmaus spoke of Christ’s victory.
At each table, Jesus took bread, blessed it, broke it, and shared it.

For us, and for all Christ’s people, we gather regularly to take, bless, break, and share the bread in Christ’s name.

Do we gather at the table of the Upper Room, and share Christ’s loaf of self-giving?

Do we gather at the table of Emmaus, and share Christ’s loaf of victory?

While there were two loaves, and two tables, there is one meal.  Whenever we gather to share that meal that Christians have called, under many names,
  • Holy Communion,
  • the Lord’s Supper,
  • the Holy Eucharist, or
  • the Mass,
we gather around both tables and share both loaves.

We gather around the table of the Upper Room and share Christ’s loaf of self-giving.

We also gather around the table of Emmaus and share Christ’s loaf of victory.

In many ways, it is useful to have this passage to preach upon on a Sunday when we are not celebrating Holy Communion.   The fact that we - and many other congregations - do not celebrate Holy Communion every week is very unfortunate.  There is something seriously missing in a church service that does not include a celebration of Holy Communion.  It seems seriously incomplete, less than whole.  It seems like half a service.  It feels like a meal going from soup straight to coffee, but without the main course or dessert; or like a play where the curtain call takes place after the first act, and the second act is omitted. 

And, in practice, what we find is that, in churches with a practice of celebrating communion each week, worshippers are far more regular in attending.  In churches with a weekly Communion, there is a sense of having missed something important if you miss church.  With Cleopas and his friend, even though Jesus opened the scriptures to them, it was only as he broke the bread that they knew they were in his presence.  I feel this sense of Christ’s presence is sadly absent in churches in churches with a less frequent communion celebration. 
  • If the highlight of the weekly service is a sermon by the minister (with which you’re always free either to agree or to disagree -- or even to sleep through), even regular worshippers are willing to miss the occasional service for whatever reason, however trivial. 
  • If the highlight of the service is an encounter with the risen Christ in Holy Communion, worshippers feel less willing to miss church for any reason, however significant.

The unfortunate fact that we - and many other congregations - do not celebrate Holy Communion every week is due, I believe, to the loss of the sense of Emmaus in our celebrations of Holy Communion.  In services of Holy Communion, so much emphasis has typically been placed on remembering Christ’s self-giving that we forget to celebrate Christ’s Easter victory. 

At times, the Christian Church has allowed its services of Holy Communion to become a bit morbid, particularly within the Protestant strand of Christian faith and practice.  And this is the main reason, I believe, why our Communion services have been as infrequent as they have been.  Instead, our celebrations of Holy Communion should always include:
  • at least as much Emmaus as Upper Room – preferably more,
  • at least as much victory as sacrifice – preferably more,
  • at least as much Easter as Good Friday – preferably much more.

So, for example, we should have happy music – celebration music – as the Communion elements are distributed, rather than the sad and sombre Good Friday-like music - funeral-like music - that many churches use at communion.  For example, it should be something joyful like “Now thank we all our God” rather than something funereal like “Abide with me”. 

As well, we need to note that the central act of our worship and spirituality - the single most distinctively Christian thing we do - involves the sharing of food.  This is very significant.  It says to the broader community - to the world in general - just who we are.  When we are most clearly being ourselves, the Christian Church is a community that shares food. 

It extends from the Church’s central act of worship to its network of welfare and justice agencies ... winding its way through a broad range of occasions at which food and drink are shared.  When Christ’s people gather deliberately to be Christ’s people, the sharing of food is rarely far away.

When we are most clearly being ourselves, the Christian Church is a community that shares food. 

And it all began on the evening of that first Easter Day, on the occasion of the first Christian Communion service, that evening in Emmaus when Cleopas and his friend had that blinding moment of absolute clarity at the dinner table...  when they saw the stranger break bread and they recognised the risen Christ.

Friday 25 April 2014

An ethics for ANZAC Day

In developing an “Ethics for ANZAC Day”, my first point is this:

1.       We cannot justly take the ethical ambiguity of more recent armed conflicts and assume the same ambiguity applies to the Second World War.

Given the fact that veterans of the Second World War are the oldest group of war veterans in our community, and still one of the larger groups of veterans, we do need to look particularly at these veterans and the conflict in which they were engaged.  Even though ANZAC Day strictly is an observance of a battle in the First World War, no survivors remain of that meaningless bloodbath.  Many survivors of the Second World War remain within our community.

Ethically, we cannot really compare the Second World War with any of the conflicts that have taken place in our world since then.  Whether we speak of the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Falklands War, either of the Gulf Wars, or any other recent conflict; there was a great level of ethical ambiguity to all these wars.  There was a high level of ethical fault on both sides of any of these conflicts.  Neither side in any of these conflicts can be said ethically to have been fighting a “just war”.

If we compare that with the Second World War, we see something completely different.  A victory by Nazi Germany and the other Axis powers in that conflict would have created a world order that would have been utterly intolerable.  If any war in the past century could ever have been accurately described in ethical terms as a “just war”, the Allied cause in the Second World War was it.

We cannot justly take the ethical ambiguity of more recent armed conflicts and assume the same ambiguity applies to the Second World War.

***

The second point I wish to make is:

2.       We cannot justly use our criticism of any current or recent armed conflict as a reason to demonise those whose own conscience allowed (or even called) them to participate in these conflicts.

One of the tragic lessons that many western nations learned after the Vietnam War was in the way that the veterans of that conflict bore the brunt of the public condemnation of that war.  The fact that it took almost three decades for Vietnam veterans to be officially recognised as part of the veterans’ community in Australia is a dramatic sign of this fact.

Since the Vietnam War, most of us have learned to separate our criticism of the policies that lead to disastrous wars from our attitude toward the individuals who, in good conscience, put themselves in harm’s way in war.

We cannot justly use our criticism of any current or recent armed conflict as a reason to demonise those whose own conscience allowed (or even called) them to participate in these conflicts.

***

The third point is:

3.       We cannot justly allow any government, any movement, or any individual to use national symbols in a partisan or exclusive way.

Again during the Vietnam War, this happened in the US when President Richard Nixon encouraged people to fly the national flag as a sign of their support for the government’s policy.  Thus, a symbol that was supposed to unite the whole nation was seized as a partisan symbol for some, but not all.

Here in Australia, similar things have been known to happen in recent decades, most notably during the Cronulla race riots.  Many of the thugs who descended on Cronulla Beach to beat up Australians of Middle Eastern heritage wore the flag as a cape as if seeking to mask their crimes with a veneer of nationalism.

National symbols – flags, national anthems, national holidays, and the like - need to belong to everyone in the nation.  When they are taken over by a single political, racial, ethnic, or religious group in opposition to others in the community, the whole community suffers.

We cannot justly allow any government, any movement, or any individual to use national symbols in a partisan or exclusive way.

***

My fourth and final point is:

4.       We cannot justly remain silent whenever any individual or movement, however powerful or influential, demeans any person or group of people on the grounds of race, religion, nationality, disability, sexuality, or any similar factor.  To remain silent would be to give Hitler an undeserved posthumous victory.

As we remember those who put themselves in harm’s way for us, and particularly those who served from 1939 to 1945, we need to also remember the movements and the ideologies they struggled against. 

The Nazi regime and the regimes that fought alongside it were brutal in their treatment of many people:  Jews, Gypsies, Poles, the disabled, homosexuals, and others.   

Whenever, in any of the nations that defeated the Nazis and the other Axis powers almost seventy years ago, whenever any politician, any media figure, any religious leader defames or persecutes any group of people on racial, religious or similar grounds, we betray the struggle against Nazism.

Whenever any person seeks to base their career on the strength of being a “professional bigot”, and manages a make a more-than-comfortable living out to doing so, we betray the struggle against Nazism.

Whenever you and I remain silent in the face of the defamation and persecution on racial, religious or any other grounds of anyone in our society, we insult the memory both of those who gave their lives and those who returned.

We cannot justly remain silent whenever any individual or movement, however powerful or influential, demeans any person or group of people on the grounds of race, religion, nationality, disability, sexuality, or any similar factor.  To remain silent would be to give Hitler an undeserved posthumous victory.

***

Today, Australians and New Zealanders honour those who served in past armed conflicts, both those who gave their lives and those who returned.  Today as a result, I believe that the churches and other faith communities in these countries have a responsibility to assist the broader community to develop an appropriate ethics for ANZAC Day.

Tuesday 15 April 2014

“‘You just can’t tie Jesus down …’ (part 2)”: a sermon for Easter Day

I told this story on the first Sunday of Lent.  I’m going to tell it again.
 
I have it on good authority that this is a true story. It happened one December in a small town in the United States. Every year, a service club put up a big nativity scene in a park. One day, the president of the service club received a telephone call from the police: “Is your nativity scene missing anything? ... Is it missing something particularly important … something particularly important for a nativity scene … something that makes a nativity scene a nativity scene?”
 
As it turned out, the owner of a nearby café rang the police to tell them that the figure of the infant Jesus was found in the café, propped up as if sitting at one of the tables. Evidently, practical jokers had removed the figure from the nativity scene and left it there at a table in the café, the baby Jesus sitting in the café, having a hamburger and a cup of coffee.
 
As the president of the club arrived at the café to pick up the figure of baby Jesus, a reporter from the local paper also arrived at the scene. (Someone – possibly the practical jokers themselves - had tipped off the paper.)
 
The rather embarrassed club president found himself explaining to the journalist the difficulties in maintaining the nativity scene. “All the other pieces,” he said, “can all be securely fastened to the ground: shepherds, sheep, wise men, camels, Mary, Joseph, the lot. They can all be secured, all except the Jesus figure. ...” He explained, and then added (with an unexpectedly profound theological statement), “You just can’t tie Jesus down.”
 
Even more so than at Christmas,
         even more so than at the beginning of Lent
Easter is a time when we are reminded:
“You just can’t tie Jesus down!”
 
Pontius Pilate and his cronies thought they could tie Jesus down. The tomb was secured with a heavy stone, with official seals, and with a military guard. Pilate, the arrogant dictator, believed that might made right. Pilate believed, with a jack-booted self-assurance, that Jesus’ execution rung down the curtain on this troublesome new movement. But Pilate soon learned: “You just can’t tie Jesus down!”  
 
The Roman soldiers thought they could tie Jesus down. They probably felt a bit foolish. It’s not the sort of duty that soldiers relish ... guarding a corpse. In all probability, it would have been a punishment detail. The soldiers who were selected to guard Jesus’ tomb may have earned that honour by not having their armour polished to regimental standards, or by talking back to an officer, or by making too much noise on their way back to barracks from the pub the night before. But however they got there, the Roman soldiers soon learned: “You just can’t tie Jesus down!”  
 
The group of female disciples who went to the tomb feared that Jesus had finally been permanently “tied down”. The women went to pay their final respects to the body, with all the proper spices and oils. They found the tomb empty. They met an angel with a story of a resurrection. They even saw Jesus himself, with a message to go and share their news with that fainthearted group of male disciples. They experienced first-hand that: “You just can’t tie Jesus down!”  
 
The fainthearted and ham-fisted men in the company of disciples heard the words that Jesus told the women: … They argued. … They worried. … They doubted. … But eventually they also encountered the risen Christ, seeing for themselves: “You just can’t tie Jesus down!”  
 
And the story goes on – 
  • The story goes on down through history as late as twenty-fourteen - and even later.  
  • The story goes on - even as far away from Galilee as Australia – even as far away from Jerusalem as Sorell.
The story goes on - today - in this place - in the midst of this community: “You just can’t tie Jesus down!”  
 
In the waters of Baptism,
     in the broken bread,
          in the outpoured wine,
we truly encounter the crucified-and-risen Christ.
 
But not only there.
  • We encounter the crucified-and-risen Christ in the search for peace in the midst of war.
  • We encounter the crucified-and-risen Christ in the struggle for human rights.
  • We encounter the crucified-and-risen Christ in the struggle to preserve our environment for future generations.
  • We encounter the crucified-and-risen Christ in the honest search for meaning in life.
  • We encounter the crucified-and-risen Christ in the difficult ethical choices of our daily lives.
In our daily life, may we learn, as the disciples learned: “You just can’t tie Jesus down.”

Friday 11 April 2014

“Woman, here is your Son. . . . Here is your mother.”: a sermon for Good Friday (John 19:25a-27)

 
"Woman, here is your Son. .... Here is your mother."
 
In the TV series Kath and Kim, whenever there was a crisis involving Kath … or Kel … or Brett … or Sharon …, eventually Kim would pipe up and say something like “Listen everyone, nobody here is thinking how I’m affected in this.  Have you forgotten that this is about me?”

If anyone had ever had a right at any one moment to ask “Have you forgotten that this is about me?” it would have been Jesus during that time when he hung on the cross.

But hear again the passage you heard a moment ago:

Meanwhile, standing near the cross of Jesus were his mother, and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing beside her, he said to his mother, “Woman, here is your son.” Then he said to the disciple, “Here is your mother.” And from that hour the disciple took her into his own home.

Instead of saying “Have you forgotten that this is about me?” Jesus made provision for his mother’s safety.

“Woman, here is your Son. . . . Here is your mother.”

It was very much a man’s world in those days.  A woman who was on her own with no living male family members was very vulnerable.  In the midst of his own deep pain, Jesus chose to provide for his mother’s safety.  We see the deep compassion of Jesus in this act.

“Woman, here is your Son. . . . Here is your mother.”

As well, there was this shadowy figure of the Beloved Disciple.  We don’t really know who this person was.  Early Christian traditions saw this person to be John, one of the twelve, brother of James and son of Zebedee.  But we don’t really know.  Many more recent writers have speculated about a number of other possible contenders to be this Beloved Disciple, but it’s all guesswork. 

The same early Christian traditions that cast John as the Beloved Disciple also declared that John was a very young man at this time, perhaps even still a teenager.  Perhaps, in the same way that Mary needed someone around with a strong arm, perhaps John needed to be around someone with a mature mind.  In the midst of his own deep pain, Jesus chose to provide for his friend’s guidance.  We see the deep compassion of Jesus in this act.

“Woman, here is your Son. . . . Here is your mother.”

And in all this, we see the great compassion of Jesus.  And, in the great compassion of Jesus, we also see the compassion of a Jesus-shaped God. 

Today, I’m sure, there will be many gruesome sermons preached all over the world about Jesus satisfying the wrath of an angry God for us, and describing it all in gory detail.  People will come out of church depressed … or terrified …, but also thinking, “Well that’s church for another year, thank goodness.”  And the well-meaning but ham-fisted clerics (of many different denominations) who preached those dismal sermons will unknowingly have done their bit toward the further secularising of our culture. 

And, in all of it, the main point will be missed.  Jesus was the victim, not of God’s anger or God’s wrath, but of human anger and human wrath.  In the name of God’s compassion, Jesus took the worst that the human race could dish out.  And, while it was happening to him, Jesus still demonstrated the profound compassion of God to those around him.

Meanwhile, standing near the cross of Jesus were his mother, and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing beside her, he said to his mother, “Woman, here is your son.” Then he said to the disciple, “Here is your mother.” And from that hour the disciple took her into his own home.

In making provision (even on the cross) for the well-being both of his mother and of his young friend, Jesus illustrated with profound clarity the radical compassion of God for us all.

 “Woman, here is your Son. . . . Here is your mother.”

Saturday 5 April 2014

It's an honour to be called a "bleeding heart".

About a month or so ago, I read a recent article in "Eureka Street" by Andrew Hamilton.  He wrote about the term "bleeding heart".  He drew a connection between this phrase and the pictures of the Sacred Heart used in some popular Roman Catholic religious art. In this picture, we see an image of Jesus pointing to his heart, which is visible outside his clothing.  The heart is surrounded by a crown of thorns, causing a drop of blood to drip from the heart.  Flames rise from the top of the heart. 

 
The picture is a popular image in Catholic devotional life.  Growing up in a community (Bayonne, New Jersey) where the majority of people were Catholics, I've seen this picture in many Catholic homes, both in homes where the people were conventionally devout and in homes where the level of practice was more minimal.
 
Hamilton compared the use of the phrase "bleeding heart" to this picture of the Sacred Heart.  I must say that whenever I've heard the phrase "bleeding heart", I've also instinctively thought of this picture, and I'm not even Catholic.
 
Hamilton says that the term "bleeding heart" is normally used by people who "dismiss ethical arguments" when considering social and political issues, such as our response to the plight of asylum seekers.  (In my own observation, those who use the phrase "bleeding heart" frequently tend to be people who combine a populist political conservatism with a non-religious - and sometimes a stridently anti-religious - world view.  Conservative religious people - whether Christian or otherwise - are less likely to use the phrase "bleeding heart" as an insult.)  People who use the phrase "bleeding heart" use it to describe those whom they believe are "guided by emotion, not by reason" (Hamilton's phrase) in expressing compassion to those they feel are "undeserving" of the compassion.
 
In all of this, the comparison with Jesus, particularly during Lent, is striking.  Showing compassion to the "undeserving" is exactly the sort of thing Jesus did, both throughout his life and in his Passion.   For a Christian, to be called a "bleeding heart" means that (if you use the language of some of my evangelical friends) you've successfully asked yourself the WWJD question ("What would Jesus do?") in terms of the issue at hand.  In the language of classical ecumenical Christian spirituality, you're participating (at least partially) in what Thomas a' Kempis called "The Imitation of Christ"
 
Two final points:
 
1.  I believe that that any society in which such phrases as "bleeding-heart" or "do-gooder" are used as insults is a society in grave ethical and moral trouble.  When people are mocked for being "too compassionate" as if it's a character flaw, a crime, or a sin, the community is on its way to becoming one in which the only law is the law of the jungle.
 
2.  If someone calls you a "bleeding heart", thank them.  (Particularly if you're a Christian, they've paid you the great honour of comparing you to Jesus.)  Thanking them may help them think about the implications of what they've said.  At the very least, it will freak them out.


Tuesday 1 April 2014

"Pie Church": the freshest "Fresh Expression" you've ever heard of

Hello, everyone.

This blog is honoured to have the opportunity of launching "Pie Church", a new "Fresh Expression" of worship. 

According to a spokesperson for the Missional Consultation of Churches Advocating Fresh Expressions (MCCAFE):

"Pie Church is the freshest Fresh Expression possible.
It makes Café Church look like a Latin Mass.
It makes Messy Church look like Choral Evensong."

Wow!

"What is Pie Church?"  We hear you ask.

Pie Church begins like a normal church service, perhaps even a parody of a traditional church service.  At some point in the proceedings, the worship leader reverently intones the sacred and holy "M-word":  missional.

Someone in the congregation stands up and calls out:  "MissionalMissional?  Do you want to see something missionalThis is missional!" and throws a custard pie in the face of the worship leader.



The worship leader takes a pie from behind the lectern, and similarly smooshes the pie in the face of the person who threw the pie at him.

A supply of pies is brought out so that members of the congregation can throw pies at each other.

After a few minutes, the worship leader stands behind the lectern and declares "Now that was missional!"  The service then continues as if nothing has happened.

MCCAFE has high hopes that Pie Church will be the newest wave of "Fresh Expressions" to transform the life of congregations around the world.

"But what's the point?":  you may ask.  If you ask this question, though, you don't really get it.  Pie Church is a "Fresh Expression".  It doesn't need to have a point.

If you want to learn more about Pie Church, or if you wish to make any comment about the possibilities for Pie Church in your own ministry context, please make a comment on this blog (and please share this post with a friend or colleague).