Some thoughts about what worship may look like following the COVID-19 pandemic

As I write these reflections in early May of 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic is still raging in many places in the world.  Here in Australia, the “curve” of new infections is beginning to flatten, while most restrictions on physical contact and public gatherings have (intelligently) not been significantly eased yet in most states, although a process for the gradual easing of restrictions has been announced.

One area of life affected by these restrictions is the worship life of churches and other faith communities.  I doubt if many of us would have predicted at the beginning of this year that almost all worship services in Australia would have moved online for a significant part of this year.  In any event, it’s good to see the extent to which the move of worship online was well accepted by worshippers, compared to the reactions among some (admittedly extreme) groups in the United States.


In this regard, I’d like to reflect on the impact of the pandemic on worship and, in particular, to suggest some ways in which the experiences of the pandemic may affect our worship in the time after restrictions start to be eased.  My reflection is based on my own experience as a Minister of the Word in the Uniting Church in Australia, now retired, who has served both as a minister to congregations and as an ecumenical staffer.


Speaking personally, I feel I may have had a bit more preparation for the experience of worshipping online than many other UCA members have had.  For a number of years, I’ve been a member of a Rotary club which has its regular meetings, not over a meal at a local restaurant, pub, or golf club, but online using the “Zoom” platform.  (In Rotary, such clubs are known as “e-clubs”.)  As a result of my Rotary e-club experience, I feel I’ve been prepared for the experience of attending online worship and have found it much less jarring than I may have found otherwise.


In the time since worship moved online in late March, my online worship participation has involved three congregations of three denominations:

• the outer-suburban UCA congregation of which we’re members,
• an inner-suburban Anglican parish (with an Anglo-Catholic spirituality), where I’ve been a semi-regular worshipper for some years (and where I regard this involvement as an important dimension of my “self-care” in ministry), and
• a Roman Catholic cathedral parish in a regional city interstate where we worshipped while on holidays a few years ago.

As a result, my experience of online worship during the time of the pandemic has not been limited to worship in a single congregation or, indeed, in a single denomination.

Looking more broadly, and in the multifaith context of

contemporary Australia, I’d like to suggest that the varied religious traditions of humanity can be grouped together into two large clusters:

• On the one hand, for many of the faiths that arose in Eastern and Southern Asia, the heart of their spirituality is seen in the devotional practice of individuals.  A Hindu or a Buddhist may go to their temple to pray or to meditate, but it will most often be a private visit or a visit by a family group rather than attendance a larger gathering.  Group worship or group meditation does take place within these traditions, but (other than at major festivals) individual practice is far more crucial.
• On the other hand, for a large cluster of faiths which includes Christianity, Judaism, and Islam (among others), the heart of spiritual practice is found in gathering together with other people of shared faith to join in shared worship.  Worship as part of a congregation is the “bread-and-butter” of spirituality, while private devotions are the “icing on the cake”.   If occasionally missing a worship service sometimes feels to some members to be more like wagging school than missing a meal, that feeling may often be a sign of being part of a dysfunctional congregation.

I believe that one result of the COVID-19 coronavirus on faith communities, both here in Australia and elsewhere, will be to reemphasise the value for people of faith of gathering together with others for worship.  Perhaps, it may even be the end of glib comments on the part of some people in the community about “I worship God best when bushwalking or playing golf.”

But the question then could be “What differences may we find when we begin to gather together again?”  (And here I’d like to focus on the effect of our re-gathering upon worship in the Uniting Church, although my comments may be relevant to other denominations as well.)  I’d like to make four suggestions about how the aftermath of the coronavirus may positively affect the shape of our worship.

1.  The first suggestion is that our congregations may find ourselves having more frequent celebrations of Holy Communion. 

In churches such as the UCA, worshippers attend public worship for a variety of reasons:

• Some attend worship with the primary reason of learning some new insights about our faith.  For them, worship is primarily a teaching-learning experience.
• Others attend worship with the primary reason of experiencing fellowship with our fellow-worshippers.  For them, worship is primarily a community-building experience.
• Yet others (including myself) attend worship with the primary reason of becoming more aware of the closer presence of God.  Worship for us is primarily an experience of communion with the Sacred.

For most of us, all three motivations are present, but one or two may predominate.  These are all distinctions of emphasis, not of exclusivity.

Nevertheless, those of us for whom the motivation of communion with the Sacred is an important dimension of our worship have been finding the current situation particularly difficult.  In response to this, it may be a wise pastoral strategy for congregations to celebrate Holy Communion during the weeks, months, and even years following the resumption of public worship far more frequently than we’ve been in the habit of doing.

2.  The second suggestion is that some congregations may find themselves offering more services of worship at different times, but with fewer people at each. particularly given:

• a gradual easing of the numbers permitted for public gatherings (as seen in the timetables offered by federal and state governments), and
• a continued need for physical distancing even while restrictions for public gatherings are eased,

For some congregations – either for very small congregations, or for congregations of any size gathering for worship in spacious worship centres – this will not be an issue. 

For other congregations (i.e., any large congregation, or any congregation whose pre-coronavirus attendance at worship more closely matches the capacity of their worship centre), the easing of restrictions will necessarily mean fewer people attending any one service of worship, but with more services being held.

With this situation, I believe three things can follow:

• The first is that these services of worship can, perhaps, be more specifically focused.  Rather than a congregation having a single service of worship in a “blended” (or, as I sometimes call it, “blanded”) style, the various services could reflect different styles and emphases.
• The second is that the long-dormant Sunday evening worship service may be revived in some congregations, but with one major difference.  Rather than being offered as a “second helping” of worship for those who are already strongly-committed to the congregation’s life (as was the case for most of these services before they were dropped by most congregations), this service can be an alternative to Sunday morning worship for those within the congregation’s networks for whom Sunday morning is not the best time to gather for worship.
• The third is that ministers serving congregations with multiple worship services may find themselves spending far more time and energy being the worship leaders they were called, educated, trained, and ordained/commissioned to be, rather than merely being the congregation’s “CEO” or the denomination’s local “branch manager”.

I see all these as highly desirable side-effects of our current situation.

3.  The third suggestion is that, with the ongoing need for continued physical distancing, members of our congregations will get into the habit of showing more respect for each other’s personal space. 

In many congregations, some individuals have been in the habit of greeting their fellow-worshippers during the Sharing of the Peace with an enthusiastic embrace that frequently appears to be uncomfortably similar to a sexual grope.  When calls for restraint in these embraces are made (either on behalf of the congregation or by the gropees themselves) in the name of making the worship service a safe space, these requests (and, sometimes, demands) are frequently met with a disingenuously stunned and offended reaction by the offenders.

As well, other worshippers have been in the habit of greeting their fellow-worshippers during the Peace (as well as before and after the service) with an aggressive “Bonecrusher” handshake that can be highly painful to people living with arthritis or with other orthopaedic conditions.

The ongoing need to maintain physical distancing as services of worship begin to recommence may put an end to the “Grope of Peace” and the “Liturgical Bonecrusher” in favour of (for example) an Asian–style “Namaste” greeting.  This would be a possible reform in our worship that many of us would welcome with enthusiasm.  (A more humourous alternative could be to bow or curtsey during the Peace like characters in a Jane Austen novel.)

4.  The fourth suggestion is that some congregations may continue to offer online worship, alongside face-to-face worship, even after the restrictions are fully lifted.  I don’t believe that every congregation currently worshipping online during this pandemic needs to do this, but it may be pastorally helpful to UCA members around Australia if some do. 

The congregations I believe should particularly consider continuing to offer worship online are those congregations reflecting a focused ethos or a specialised emphasis that may frequently not be found among the UCA congregations in many communities.

In particular, I believe that UCA congregations with a consciously “liturgical” ethos, an ethos frequently not found among UCA congregations in many communities, should continue to offer some online opportunities for worship as a ministry to UCA members living outside their immediate geographical area.  This particularly applies to congregations with a “liturgical” ethos which are also socially and pastorally inclusive.

Thinking ecumenically, I believe that similar opportunities regarding online worship are also particularly present for:

• Anglican parishes with a consciously Anglo-Catholic ethos, particularly those which serve as spiritual “oases” within the aridity of conservative evangelical dioceses,
• Roman Catholic parishes which seek to offer a combination of quality liturgy and a commitment to the ethos of the Second Vatican Council (as opposed to those ultra-conservative parishes which combine good liturgy with bad theology) , and
• congregations of evangelical denominations which also affirm a strong commitment to social justice and pastoral inclusion, in contrast to the ultra-conservative social ethos found among many evangelicals.

In conclusion, my observation is that, both in the Uniting Church and in other denominations, congregations in this part of the world have responded well and creatively to the challenges posed by the COVID-19 coronavirus.  Now, I believe we need to explore the challenges posed to the churches as the wider community eases its way out of the pandemic.

 

 

A Prayer for the Sunday after an Election

Let us pray.

God of all nations and peoples, we give thanks for all those who made yesterday’s election possible:
·        for all party leaders,
·        all candidates,
·        all election officials,
·        all campaign workers and volunteers,
·        all journalists and commentators,
·        all satirists, comedians, and cartoonists,
·        all sizzlers of democracy sausages,
·        and particularly for all voters.

May we all be grateful for the generosity of those who have given freely of their time, their energy, their talents, their intelligence, and their passion to make yesterday a reality.

We pray for all those who now have been given great responsibilities by the voters, as members of either the House of Representatives or the Senate.  We particularly pray for …., representing this electorate of ..., and for those who will be representing this state of ... in the Senate.  Grant integrity, wisdom, humility, and compassion to all members of both houses of Parliament.

We pray for those candidates who have stood for office but lost, and for those candidates for whom the election result is still unclear.  Free each from a sense of anxiety, bitterness, self-righteousness, or self-loathing.

In case of a clear national result:

We pray for …. and his team as they prepare to form a government for the next Parliamentary term.  May they lead a wise and compassionate Government, governing in the interests of all the people, not merely in the interests of their supporters.

We pray also for those who will take on the responsibility of Opposition.   May they undertake the tasks of keeping the Government accountable in a robust way, but without bitterness or negativity.

 

Without a clear national result yet:

As the national result of the election is still unclear, we pray for all who are coping with the ambiguities of yesterday’s election result.  Grant all involved a gracious patience, a cool head, a long fuse, an active sense of humour, and the ability to chill.

We pray for us all.  May each of us have a clear commitment to the well-being of all with whom we share this nation and this world, regardless of:

·        their race or their culture,
·        their faith or their philosophy,
·        their gender or their sexuality,
·        their political convictions or their political apathy.

We pray in the name of Jesus, who gave us all the mandate to love one another.  Amen.

 

“What happened in church?”: a sermon (Isaiah 6:1-8)

I’ve given my sermon the title “What happened in church?”  Interestingly, one of my Princeton Seminary professors, the late Dr. Donald Macleod, had a sermon with the title “Something happened in church”, based on this same passage from Isaiah.  These are two very different sermons, and I didn’t consult Dr. Macleod’s sermon in preparing this one.  (Actually, I don’t even own a copy of that particular sermon.)

Let us pray.

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord our strength and our redeemer.  Amen.

I may be about to make a very strange – and, perhaps, dangerous - admission, particularly at the beginning of a sermon. 

But here goes anyway. 

I often “zone out” when I listen to a sermon in church.  If you talk to me on Sunday afternoon and the conversation turns to that morning’s church services, “What was the sermon about?” is a dangerous question to ask me

It’s not because of advancing years.  If you asked me this question back when I was in my mid-twenties, I’d have been as vague on the homiletical content of the typical service I attended then as I would be now in my mid-sixties.

A better question to ask me would be “What happened in church?”  I could comment at length about the scripture lessons, the hymns and other music, and the liturgy.  I’m mentally engaged during the bulk of the service, and always have been.  But I freely admit to letting my mind wander during sermons …, and during children’s talks …, and particularly during the notices.

I don't think I'm alone here.

A big part of this has to do with the assumption – an assumption I consider to be a false assumption - made by many congregations and by many worship leaders:

-- regardless of their denomination,

-- regardless of their theological emphasis,

-- regardless of their worship style,

-- regardless of their musical tastes.

This assumption is that the average person sitting there in the congregation is there because he or she wants to learn things about religion.  As a result, the parts of the service in which information is conveyed to the congregation (sermon, children’s talk, notices) are treated – in practice, at least, if not in theory – treated as being much more important than the rest of the service.

I think that assumption is a rather large mistake to make.  I believe the typical person who shows up at a worship service, whether a regular worshipper or an infrequent one, is there because she or he wants to experience a relationship with the God worshipped by the congregation, not because they want to learn information about religion.

The fact that so many congregations and worship leaders don’t “get” this – particularly in churches with a middle-of-the-road, teaching-learning worship style such as the Uniting Church – is (in my opinion) one of the main reasons why churches like ourselves have been clobbered in recent decades in areas of membership and attendance:  a far more important reason I believe for the emptying of the churches than questions of theology, biblical interpretation, or sex.  People want to experience God when they turn up in church, rather than merely learning stuff about religion.

We need to remember that  the typical person who shows up at a worship service, whether a regular worshipper or an infrequent one, is there because she or he wants to experience a relationship with the God worshipped by the congregation. 

Thus, we need to be aware that the “main course” of our worship is what we do when we gather around the Lord’s Table to celebrate the presence of the risen Christ.  The part of our worship we’re doing now is the appetizer.  I want to make it as good an appetizer as possible, but nevertheless the appetizer leads up to the main course.

Looking at our lesson from the book of Isaiah, the prophet was in the Temple, the place of public worship.  He spoke of his experience of worship.

-- He was caught up into the cosmic praise of the Living God involving all creation.

-- He was confronted with his own shortcomings, yet also heard the clear word of God’s mercy, grace, and transformation.

-- He experienced God’s call to service, and responded with a clear, “Here am I, send me!”

For Isaiah, worship was not merely something cerebral.  (Nor was it something merely emotional.)  For Isaiah, something happened in worship:  something real, something genuine.

So may it be for us.

Thanks be to God.  Amen.

“Solidarity forever”: a sermon (Matthew 3:13-17)

Comments before the lessons:

Today’s service has the theme of the Baptism of Jesus.  We remember Jesus being baptised by John in the River Jordan.  We give thanks that, by participating in that public act of repentance, Jesus identified with the human condition in all its brokenness.  In this light, my sermon today has the title “Solidarity forever.”

 

Today’s service is a good chance for us to reflect on the significance of Christian Baptism at a time when we don’t have an actual baptism going on.  This way, we can reflect on the meaning of Baptism without the parents of the child being presented for Baptism thinking we’re having a go at them while they’re a captive audience.

Sermon:

In our gospel lesson today, we hear of the Baptism of Jesus.  Jesus went to the Jordan River, where John the Baptist was baptising people.  There, Jesus was baptised by John.  After Jesus was baptised, a voice from the heavens said:  “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”

In our lesson from Matthew’s gospel, there is a brief exchange - perhaps the outline of a much longer argument - between Jesus and John before the baptism.

·        John said, “I need to be baptised by you, and do you come to me?”

·        Jesus replied, “Let it be so now, for it is proper for us in this way to fulfil all righteousness.”

And after that exchange (or the longer argument which it represents), they proceeded with the baptism.

The issue was over what John’s baptism was about.  (And let’s be clear that John’s baptism was different to what the Christian Church does when we baptise.) 

·        The gospels spoke of John’s baptism as a sign of repentance, while, in contrast, the Christian Church sees baptism less as an act of individual repentance and more as an act of identification with Christ, and with the worshipping community.

·        As John’s baptism was associated with repentance, it was an act for adults.  As the Christian Church baptises as an act of entry into a community, most Churches (although not all) baptise children as well as adults (and appropriately so).

·        As John’s baptism was associated with repentance, it was an act for those who had made a radical and often counter-cultural decision about their faith and spirituality.  As the Christian Church baptises as an act of entry into a community, most services of Christian baptism represent (and appropriately so) a far less radical and less counter-cultural step of faith on the part of the candidate or the candidate’s parents.

·        The Christian Church baptises in the name of God as Trinity (and appropriately so), while this language - and the ideas behind it - would have been unknown to John.

So, John’s baptism was not the same thing as what the Christian Church does when it baptises.

As I said, the gospels spoke of John’s baptism as a sign of repentance.  The question that would seem obvious to us may also have occurred to John:  “What, if anything, would Jesus have needed to repent of?”

For us, we have been taught in Sunday Schools and Confirmation Classes, about the perfection and sinlessness of Jesus.  As the old hymn says:

                   A perfect life, of perfect deeds,

                   once to the world was shown.

Obviously John would not have operated from anywhere near so highly developed a theology, but he would also have had some expectations about the Messiah.  As Jesus began to seem more and more like the one who would fit that particular bill, John became understandably reluctant to baptise the person he felt should baptise him.

But still, the baptism took place.  Jesus, the individual least in need of repentance, voluntarily participated in an act of profound repentance, saying “Let it be so now, for it is proper for us in this way to fulfil all righteousness.”

In seeking John’s baptism, Jesus expressed his solidarity - and by extension, God’s solidarity - with the whole flawed human race:

·        in our brokenness,

·        in our disunity,

·        in our alienation,

·        in our sin.

This word “solidarity” may just seem like a bit of jargon to some.  (“Solidarity forever!” as the old protest song goes.)  Or it may remind others of the recent history of Poland.  Despite its jargon-ish sound, it is a useful word:  “solidarity”.  It speaks of a person - or a group - so completely identifying with the needs and aspirations of another person - or another group - that it is as if the two were one.  In a sense, the two are “solid”.  (“Solidarity forever!”) 

This is an extension of the whole message of the incarnation - of Emmanuel - of “God-with-us” - that we celebrated at Christmas.  “... [T]he Word became flesh and lived among us ...”.  In the person of Jesus of Nazareth, the one living God dwells in our midst.  Our human life is intimately known by God:

·        in its joy and its pain,

·        in its wholeness and its brokenness,

·        in its hope and its despair,

·        in its celebrations and its crises,

·        in its certainties and its paradoxes. 

Our human life is intimately known by God.  (“Solidarity forever!”)

By seeking John’s baptism, a baptism that recognised the reality of our human brokenness, Jesus expressed his solidarity - and God’s solidarity - with all our human condition:

·        not just the noble bits,

·        not just the pretty bits,

·        not just the presentable bits,

·        not just the “religious” bits,

but the full monty, brokenness and all.  (“Solidarity forever!”)

And Jesus, who was baptised in solidarity with our human brokenness, calls the Church - calls us – all of us as a community and each of us individually - to live in solidarity and in fellowship with all God’s world.

·        The Baptised Christ calls us – those of us who are comfortable and well-fed - to live in solidarity and in fellowship with the poor, the hungry, and the homeless; with the indigenous people of this land and with those who seek a safe home within our shores.

·        The Baptised Christ calls us – those of us who are healthy - to live in solidarity and in fellowship with the disabled, the addicted, and those suffering from diseases, whether physical or psychiatric, whose very names frighten us.

·        The Baptised Christ calls us - we who honestly seek to be people of ethical integrity - to live in solidarity and in fellowship with the moral failures of our society.

·        The Baptised Christ calls us - we who seek to be people of authentic faith - to live in solidarity and in fellowship with those who find it difficult to have faith . . . and with those who find it difficult to put the faith they have into any meaningful level of practice.

·        And I also believe that the Baptised Christ calls us - we who place our faith and our confidence in the living God who reveals Godself in Jesus - to live in solidarity and in fellowship with those who place their faith and confidence in the same living God ... but who name that God with other names.

Jesus sought out John and asked him for baptism.  In so doing, he expressed the solidarity of the divine wholeness with our human brokenness.  He calls us, as people who have glimpsed his light, to continue to express - on his behalf - his solidarity with the world he has so completely embraced.  (“Solidarity forever!”)

Thanks be to God.  Amen.

"Don't stand in the doorway; don't block up the hall.": a sermon

For those from a Methodist background, the annual Covenant Service, normally held early in the year, is a significant occasion of faith renewal.  

As I was preparing a Covenant Service for another congregation a few years ago, I felt it was appropriate to "tweak" the language of the service somewhat, for two main reasons:

• One reason was to underscore the fact that, in the Uniting Church and in many other denominations, we have come to believe that the relationship God has had with the Jews since well before the emergence of Christianity is still an active and vital one.  Our covenant with God as Christians should never be a denial of the covenant which Jews continue to enjoy with God.
• The other reason was to deal with a word whose meaning has changed radically since the days when John Wesley first led a congregation in renewing their covenant.

The word was "to suffer", as in Wesley's phrase "Put me to doing; put me to suffering."

The way we use the word "suffer" now means to experience pain.  Now, there are some religious people who believe that God causes us to suffer, whether as some sort of punishment, or as some sort of test, or to teach us some sort of cruel "lesson".  While some people on the fringe of Christian faith believe this, and while some people in the churches believe it, no mainstream Christian church teaches this. 

Many people outside the churches, in the wider community, are under the impression that we believe this, however.  In fact, in my experience, it's this false impression - the notion that Christians believe God is the source of human suffering - that's one of the really, really big reasons why you'll find people who grow up as part of families of worshipping, committed Christians who then later opt to become convinced, committed, angry and aggressive atheists in adulthood. 

In Wesley's time, and in earlier centuries, alongside our current meaning of "suffering" was another meaning.  The word "to suffer" meant "to allow" or "to let".  So, for example, the translators of the old King James Bible (about a century-and-a-half before Wesley's day) translated the Greek of the gospels so that Jesus was quoted in English saying "Suffer the little children to come unto me."  What he was saying was "Allow the children to come"... "Let the kids meet me".

So what I've done was to paraphrase Wesley's words "Put me to doing; put me to suffering" so that they say "Enable me to make things happen; enable me to let things happen", so as to minimise the confusion.  The Richard Dawkinses and other "secular fundamentalists" of this world have enough ammunition without our adding to it.

And let me say that the art of letting things happen can be a profound ministry.  In both the church and the wider community, there are times when we need to allow something positive to happen even it's not our first choice (or second, or third, or fourth, or even our eighteenth choice) as a way forward.  Sometimes, we need to cultivate the fine art of letting things happen.   

In the Christian church in our own day, the mentality of "Over my dead body!" has proved fatal for many congregations.  If you remember the TV comedy "The Vicar of Dibley", the character of David Horton, played by Gary Waldhorn, was an exemplar of the "Over my dead body!" mentality:  "A female vicar:  over my dead body! ... Blessing animals in church:  over my dead body!"  In many ways, one of the main story arcs of "The Vicar of Dibley" over a number of seasons was David's transformation from an exemplar of the "Over my dead body!" mentality to something far more positive. 

The singer-songwriter Bob Dylan said something similar in his song "The Times They Are a-changing":

"Come senators, congressmen, please heed the call,

Don't stand in the doorway; don't block up the hall."

"For the times, they are a-changing!"

And now, having referenced John Wesley, Richard Dawkins, "The Vicar of Dibley", and Bob Dylan in the same sermon, I think I'll quit while I'm ahead and remind us that when, in a few minutes, we pray "Enable me to make things happen; enable me to let things happen," we're praying that God will lead us to reject the whole destructive attitude of "Over my dead body!"

"Alive to God in Christ Jesus": a sermon (Romans 6:5-11; Mark 16:1-8)

Alleluia!  Christ is risen!
He is risen indeed!  Alleluia!

A few things –four, in fact - have jumped out at me as I was preparing to preach for Easter this year.

***

The first thing that jumped out at me is the fact that there are some high-profile legal proceedings going on in Melbourne, and that these legal proceedings promise to go on for a few months.

A senior leader of a mainstream Christian Church has been accused of a number of charges of sexual assault against minors, with many of these charges being decades old.  I don’t know if he’s guilty or not.  I don’t want to speculate on his guilt or innocence.  I believe Cardinal Pell has the same common law right to the presumption of innocence as anyone else accused of a crime, whether this be a VIP or some homeless wino accused of shoplifting.

Nevertheless, this case will be hard for many people:
·        the Cardinal,
·        his accusers,
·        any other person who is a survivor of child sexual abuse,
·        any family member of a survivor or a victim of child sexual abuse.

This will also be a hard time for the life of all the Christian churches in this country, not merely for the Catholics.

Following the findings of the Royal Commission last year, as far as the average person in our community is concerned,
·        for the bulk of our neighbours,
·        for the sort of people who aren’t worshippers because the churches haven’t given them any good reason to become worshippers,
·        particularly for the sort of person who is attracted by the example of Jesus but repelled by the social conservatism of the churches,
this case merely confirms the worst of everything they’ve come to believe about the Christian churches. 

A few years ago, they would have said, “I don’t bother with the churches.  They’re all the same:  full of wowsers and hypocrites.” 

Now they say, “I don’t bother with the churches.  They’re all the same:  full of wowsers, hypocrites, and paedophiles.” 

In a real sense, the credibility of the churches – the credibility of all the churches - is at rock bottom.  I believe the churches will rebuild our credibility, slowly, steadily.  We will only do so if we are honest about our past, humble about our present, and hopeful about our future. 

In all of this, we are nevertheless fearful about the future of the churches. 

Our gospel lesson speaks to this issue of fear.  Mark tells of the first witnesses to the resurrection, Mary Magdalene and her friends, being seized by fear and saying nothing to anyone.  This was the earliest ending to Mark’s gospel. 

Those who read this ending knew two things:
·        The first was that the fear was real.
·        The second was that the fear wasn’t the end of the story.  The good news got out, despite the fear.  Otherwise the gospel would have never been written in the first place.

The good news of Easter is this:
·        Fear never has the final word.
·        Sin never has the final word.
·        Death never has the final word.

*** 

The second thing that jumped out at me had to do with some comments made by a senior Australian politician to the effect that a number of people who were critics of his policies were, effectively, “dead” to him.  This, of course, provoked a great deal of comment, both in social media and in the media media. 

A friend of mine, who is a lay Anglican and one of the most competent lay theologians I know, made the comment on Facebook that, in this, is found the meaning of life.  We need to live lives that are so full, so meaningful, and so loving that, in effect, we are “dead” to Peter Dutton.

I added the comment, “and that, once dead, our funerals are picketed by the Westboro Baptist Church”.

Thinking about it a bit more I thought about Paul’s comments in Romans 6, the part about considering ourselves “dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus”.  (This lesson is one of the ones for the Easter Vigil, so if we had our service in the middle of the night last night that would have been one of our lessons.)  Anyway, we had this as one of our readings this morning.  We are “dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus”.

I was encouraged to see a Facebook post by Father Rod, the bloke who maintains that brilliant church signboard in Gosford, New South Wales, who also made the same link between the politician’s comments and those of Paul.

A lot depends on how we define “sin”.  Many of us were brought up to define “sin” as being a bit too frisky in our sex lives, or being a bit too rowdy in our choice of beverages.  But, if we’re serious about being “dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus”, we need a far wider and broader definition of sin. 
·        We must consider ourselves “dead to bigotry and alive to God in Christ Jesus”.
·        We must consider ourselves “dead to cruelty and alive to God in Christ Jesus”.
·        We must consider ourselves “dead to greed and alive to God in Christ Jesus”.

***

The third thing that jumped out at me is the fact that, here in the Southern Hemisphere, we celebrate Easter during the autumn.  The springtime imagery we find in many Easter hymns and in many secular Easter songs … spring flowers and chubby little bunny rabbits … just doesn’t cut it in the Southern Hemisphere, … in Australia, or New Zealand, or South Africa, or Argentina, or Chile, or anywhere else south of the Equator.

Here, Easter takes place in the autumn, at the time of harvest, at a time when the earth produces food.  There are some creative possibilities here for Christians celebrating Easter within the Southern Hemisphere.
·        We celebrate the Risen Christ, who is the first fruits of God’s great harvest of humanity.
·        We celebrate the Risen Christ, who gives himself to us as food from the earth, as bread and as wine.

I looked through our hymnbook and found precisely one hymn that links this theme of harvest to that of Easter (Pamela Stotter’s hymn “Christ is alive, with joy we sing…”).  We’ll sing it just after this sermon.

***

The fourth thing that jumped out at me is the fact that, in addition to being Easter Day, today is also April Fool’s Day.  (At the beginning of Lent this year, Ash Wednesday was also St. Valentine’s Day.)

In a real sense, that first Easter Day was also the first April Fool’s Day. 

On the first Good Friday, Death thought it had prevailed against Jesus, against humanity, and against God.

On that first Easter, Jesus looked Death squarely in the eye and said “April Fool!”

(Thanks.  I was hoping someone would laugh.  Resurrection people laugh.)

 Alleluia!  Christ is risen! 
He is risen indeed!  Alleluia!