“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.

Good news for the boy of Timaeus’s: a sermon (Mark 10:46-52)

I plan to arrive at the encounter of Jesus and Bartimaeus by a rather circuitous route.  Please bear with me.

Often, if I read a novel before it’s made into a movie or a TV series, I often don’t like the screen version.

It’s different if I see the film or the TV series first.  It’s often a good introduction to the book.

My introduction to Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol was via the various film versions which I saw as a young boy well before I read the book.  Please don’t judge me if I tell you that my favourite was the “Mr. Magoo” version.  (I was only ten or so, after all.)

Similarly, my introduction to Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited came, as it did for many people, through the classic TV adaptation in the early 1980s.

Both became favourite books of mine, which I’ve re-read frequently.  (And, you know, I even collect DVD versions of A Christmas Carol.)

If, on the other hand, I read the book first and it had a powerful impact on me, I’m often reluctant to view any later film or TV version of the book.  For example, I haven’t seen the drama series The Handmaid’s Tale on SBS, even though I found Margaret Atwood’s novel incredibly gripping.

It’s set in a chilling version of the future, in the Republic of Gilead, formerly the United States, in which a fanatical sect of supposedly “Christian” religious fundamentalists (the sort of “Christians” who give Christians a bad name) … a fanatical sect staged a coup and implemented a series of oppressive policies including reducing all women essentially to the status of slaves.

The main character in the book is a woman named Offred.  The two parts of her name says it all: “Of” and “Fred”.  She was the sex slave – or “handmaid” – of a man named Fred.  She was the handmaid of Fred.  All she was known as was Offred.

I first read The Handmaid’s Tale during one of my early Tasmanian ministries in the 1980s, in a rural community.  In this community, many people persisted in referring to a married woman by her husband’s first name.  A married woman in that community was frequently called Mrs. Ed Smith, even by people who knew her name was Betty.  It wasn’t only in formal settings where such language could be expected, but even in some casual settings.  People would say to one another, “I was talking to Mrs. Ed this morning”, as if it was the most normal thing in the world to say … in the 1980s!  (I don’t think it happens there now, thankfully.)

Think of Offred and Mrs. Ed as we hear of the time when Jesus met Bartimaeus.  Mark tells us that Bartimaeus was the son of Timaeus.  That’s true. but possibly a bit redundant.  Bartimaeus means “Son of Timaeus”.  When Mark refers to “Bartimaeus, the son of Timaeus”, he was literally saying the same thing twice.

In Aramaic, “bar” in front of a name means “son of”.  This sort of thing goes on in other middle-eastern languages, with “ben” in Hebrew and “ibn” in Arabic also meaning “son of”. 

This also happens in other language groups as well.  For those who have a Celtic surname such as MacArthur, or O’Brien, or Williams, or Pendennis, your surname began in terms of one of your ancestors being identified – somewhat like Bartimaeus was – as the son of Arthur, or Brian, or William, or Dennis.

Here in Tasmania, there was a similar language thing going on, particularly among rural communities and working-class communities, until fairly recently.  A child or a teenager was frequently called “the boy of Kellys” or “the girl of Smiths”, rather than Tom Kelly or Jane Smith.  If an adult was still called “the boy of Kellys” or “the girl of Smiths”, it was a sign that the community held fairly low expectations of him or her, and was fairly open about its low expectations. 

This sounds cruel, but anyone who’s ever lived in a country town or a working-class suburb knows that both settings can be cruel places for those who don’t really “fit in”.  I say this from my own experience as someone who grew up in a working-class suburb and who’s been a minister both in country towns and in working-class suburbs.

Now, Bartimaeus was an adult.  The fact that he was still called, in effect, “the boy of Timaeus’s” may have indicated a similar set of low expectations on the part of his community.  That may have merely been because of his blindness, or it could have been for other reasons.

Jesus met Bartimaeus on Bartimaeus’s own terms, not on the terms of some stereotyped “boy of Timaeus’s”.  He treated Bartimaeus as a person of value.  This has made all the difference.  Jesus calls us, as people who seek to follow him, to do the same thing.

This, then, is good news, not only for the boy of Timaeus’s, but also for the boy of Kellys, … the girl of Smiths, … Offred, … and Mrs. Ed. 

It’s good news for you and for me.

Thanks be to God.  Amen.

 

The Letter of James: the most underrated book in the New Testament (a sermon)

What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but do not have works? Can faith save you?  If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill,” and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that?  So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead.

But someone will say, “You have faith and I have works.” Show me your faith apart from your works, and I by my works will show you my faith. …

For just as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is also dead.   (James 2: 14-18, 26, NRSV)

Today, as the lectionary begins a series of five Sundays when one of the readings is from the Letter of James, my talk is on the topic “the Letter of James: the most underrated book in the New Testament”.

There are three important Jameses in the New Testament.

·        The first is James the son of Zebedee, and the brother of John.  He was one of the Twelve disciples, and part of a group of three (along with his brother John and with Peter) whom Jesus spent time with when he needed to relate to a smaller group of disciples than the Twelve.  This James became a martyr early in the book of Acts.

·        There’s another James, known as James the Less.  He’s the patron saint of people with low self-esteem.  He was also one of the Twelve. 

·        Then there is the James known as James the Brother of the Lord, or James of Jerusalem, or James the Just.  Early Christian writers assume that this James wrote the Letter of James.  He was the brother of Jesus.  For at least part of Jesus’ public life, James thought his brother had gone bonkers.  In the Book of Acts, however, James emerged as a significant leader in the Christian Church, particularly in the congregation at Jerusalem.  He engaged in major theological debates with Paul, of which we see evidence in the Book of Acts, in Paul’s letters, and in the Letter of James.

This letter was often a controversial addition to the New Testament.  The 16^th century reformer Martin Luther called it an “epistle of straw” and doubted that it really belonged in the New Testament.  In many ways, this was because of Luther’s dependence in his own beliefs on the ideas of Paul and Luther’s reluctance to give much credence to any ideas that seemed to be in conflict with those of Paul, even if hey were found in the Bible.

For a while there was a theory that the Letter of James was based on a pre-Christian Jewish document, with a little bit of Christian language added in.  This theory is no longer really given wide acceptance.

The view now is that the Letter of James was the product of the early Jewish-Christian community in the first century of the Christian faith.  It reflects a Jewish style of spirituality and a very practical Jewish approach to personal and social ethics.  It presupposes a knowledge of the Hebrew Scriptures.  But, it does not give any attention to Jewish ritual practice.  All of this points to an origin in a Jewish-Christian community rather than among either non-Christian Jews or among Gentile Christians.

At the time it was written, the small Jewish-Christian communities within which, and for which, the letter was written were already very vulnerable, under pressure from two sides.

 

·        On one side, they were under pressure from the fact that, in the years after the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple in AD 70, the Jewish faith was redefining its beliefs and practices with greater precision, so that it was able to survive and thrive without a Temple.  In particular, the Jewish faith was redefining itself in a way that did not include within the faith those who affirmed Jesus of Nazareth as the Messiah.

·        Similarly, following the success of the mission led by Paul to the Gentiles of Europe, Christianity was becoming far less a movement within Judaism and increasingly a Gentile religion appealing to the Greek and Latin speaking communities of the Roman Empire.

·        There was the beginning of the parting of the ways between the Christian and Jewish faiths.  And, at some points, this parting of the ways was bitter.  We see this bitterness particularly in some of the language of the Gospel of John.  In addition to becoming a Gentile religion, Christianity was tragically allowing an anti-Judaic perversion of its faith to develop.

The small Jewish Christian communities by whom and for whom the Letter of James was written saw themselves both as good Jews and as good Christians.  They did not want to participate in the parting of the ways, but it was forced upon them from both sides.  I believe that the rather improbable survival of this letter is a gift of God’s grace.

This letter in many ways represents James’s side of the robust theological argument he had with Paul.  It’s very important to note that the same New Testament contains both sides of the argument between Paul and James.  Just as Christians today have real diversity in our beliefs and our spiritualities, a similar diversity was present among the earliest generation of Christians.  The fact that this diversity is found in the New Testament itself tells us that this diversity is a good and healthy thing.

In many ways, when Paul and James argued the toss with each other about the relationship between faith and works, they may not have really been listening to each other.  In any event they had very different definitions both of “faith” and of “works”.

When Paul spoke about faith, he was referring to a bedrock trust in the love, grace, and generosity of the Living God.  James tended to use the word “faith”, not in Paul’s terms, but in terms of a list of beliefs, a lifeless and loveless orthodoxy.  “Do you believe in this … and this … and this … and this?  If so you’re OK.  It not, you’re in trouble … eternal trouble.”  So it made perfect sense, then, for Paul to place greater value on faith in the life of the people of God than James did, as he had a much more positive and healthy definition of “faith” than James. 

Similarly, though, when James spoke about works, he referred to actions in our lives which reflected the love of God to others in a very practical way.  Paul used the word “works” to speak of the sort of religious “busy-work” that can be found in the life of any religious community, including Christianity (and, yes, including the Uniting Church, and including each of our three parent denominations).  So it made perfect sense, then, for James to place greater value on works in the life of the people of God than Paul did, as he had a much more positive and healthy definition of “works” than Paul. 

The problem was that the two of them were not really listening to each other.

The good news is that both James the practical Christian disciple and Paul the visionary Christian mystic had their writings included in the same New Testament.  If we had the writings of either of them, but not both, our faith would be much poorer and much less balanced.

But there’s a big downside to James.  He saw Christianity essentially as a branch of Judaism and was very apprehensive about the outreach to the Gentile world in which Paul was engaged.  Had James’ view prevailed, both Christianty and Judaism would have been much the poorer for it.  It was tragic that the parting of the ways between Judaism and Christianity was as bitter as it was (and, historically, the vast bulk of the blame for this bitterness must be laid squarely on Christian shoulders).  Nevertheless, it was essential for the positive future of both faiths that they became independent of each other. 

The following centuries were a highly creative time for both faiths:

 

·        Christianity developed its understanding about the nature of the Incarnate Christ, both fully divine and fully human, and about the nature of God as Trinity.

·        Judaism developed its understanding about how the community would live and worship without a Temple or a sacrificial system; a faith with an emphasis on study, on lifestyle, and on ethics.

These creative tasks would have been much harder for both faiths if James had his way and Christianity remained a branch of Judaism.

Still, James the brother of the Lord … James of Jerusalem … James the Just … is regarded as a saint of the Christian Church.  This shows us the great and liberating good news that God doesn’t require us to be right all the time.

I believe that the Letter of James is the most underrated book in the New Testament.  In our lessons over the next few weeks, we’ll continue to have an opportunity to hear some of James’ perspective on the practicalities of Christian faith.  Sometime, please take the opportunity to read all of this short letter in one sitting.  It will take you less than half-an-hour.  It will open your horizons to the practicality of a significant mind within the life of the early Christian church

What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but do not have works? Can faith save you?  If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill,” and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that?  So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead.

But someone will say, “You have faith and I have works.” Show me your faith apart from your works, and I by my works will show you my faith. …

For just as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is also dead.  

“Life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans.”: a sermon (Mark 5:21-43)

My talk is at least partly based on a quote that’s sometimes attributed to a former Beatle, the late John Lennon:  “Life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans.”  (Actually, he wasn’t the first person to say it.  The quote was around for a few years before that, but Lennon used the quote in his song “Beautiful Boy”, celebrating the birth of one of his sons.  But even though someone else said it first, almost everyone now attributes the quote to John Lennon.)

Anyway, whoever said it first, it’s a good quote:   “Life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans.”   I’ll get back to it in a few minutes.

Our gospel lesson tells us about a time when Jesus was interrupted in the middle of doing something important – to do something else which was equally important.

Jesus was asked by a man named Jairus to see his daughter, who was ill and on the point of death.  Jesus agreed and went with Jairus to his home to see the little girl. 

Now, there’s one interesting thing about Jairus.  Mark describes Jairus as being either one of the “leaders of the synagogue” or one of the “rulers of the synagogue”, depending on the translation you’re using.  In the original Greek, the word used for Jairus and his colleagues was archisynagogus. 

To be an archisynagogus, didn’t mean that Jairus was a rabbi or anything like that, but a lay member of the congregation with a lot of responsibilities around the place. 

·        It may have been that no one else could be bothered doing anything, so “Good ol’ Jairus’ll do it”.   

·        Or it may have been that Jairus really liked being the bloke in charge of things and didn’t want to share the responsibilities.

Mark doesn’t really tell us, but the tone in which he tells the story gives the feeling that Jairus was a decent bloke.  (And that’s the thing about archisynagoguses:  ministers tend to complain and joke about the bad ones (I know I do!), but many archisynagoguses are good people, like Jairus.)

Anyway, from my almost 39 years of experience in ministry, I know that one of the keys for a minister to survive in ministry is how the minister relates to the Jairuses and the other archisynagoguses in the congregations.

Anyway, Jesus, and Jairus, and the disciples were on their way to Jairus’s house to check out how the little girl was doing when … something else happened.  A woman suffering from a debilitating gynaecological ailment decides that all she needed to do was to touch Jesus’s clothing and she’d be healthy.

That’s what she did.

Voila!  That’s what happened.

Jesus has a bit of a conversation with the lady and then it’s back on the road. 

By the time they get to Chez Jairus, the child had died.  While it’s touch-and-go for a while, Jesus does his thing.  By the end of the story, the kid was alive, awake, healthy, and eating lunch.

Meanwhile, the lady whom Jesus encountered on the road was starting to get on with her life again.

And, as we’re reminded in the song, “Life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans.”   

"Is anybody there? Does anybody care?": a sermon (Mark 4:35-41)

I don’t know if anyone else here is familiar with the musical 1776.   Being a history tragic, I particularly enjoy it, as I’ve enjoyed it ever since I saw it on stage in New York City when I was in high school.  The musical is based on the political wheeling-and-dealing leading up to the United States Declaration of Independence in the year 1776 (and thus the title).

One of the great musical and dramatic moments of 1776, is a scene at a time when all the various political issues and all the wheeling-and-dealing are up in the air.  The musical’s central character John Adams is alone on stage and he poses the question (to his fellow-politicians, to his fellow-citizens, to future generations, to God, and to anyone who would listen) “Is anybody there?  Does anybody care?”

For any person of faith, whatever the faith, this pair of questions is the central religious question:  “Is anybody there?  Does anybody care?” 

And the two questions go hand-in-hand.  Even though the writer Kurt Vonnegut once had a character in one of his novels who was the founder of a religious sect called The Church of the Utterly Indifferent God, very few people would want to worship a god whom they believed was “utterly indifferent”.

Therefore, in today’s Gospel lesson, when the disciples woke Jesus up, during a wild storm on the lake while they were all in a small fishing boat, and they said, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?”, they were asking Jesus the single most profound religious question of all:  “Don’t you care?”

“Is anybody there?  Does anybody care?”

In many ways, the second part of the question is the primary question.  I believe a god who doesn’t care is worse than no god at all.  There would be very few people wanting to sign up to become part of The Church of the Utterly Indifferent God, … and rightly so.

“Is anybody there?  Does anybody care?”

At one extreme of the faith spectrum are those who worship a god so remote as to be totally removed from the concerns of our human life in any shape or form, a god who is completed uninterested in the welfare of people.

At the other extreme of the faith spectrum are those who worship a god who’s a bit of a bully, a god who will send people off to be fuel for an eternal BBQ just for getting their theology wrong (just as some politicians will deliberately mistreat vulnerable people to get cheap votes from the underbelly of the electorate).

In each of these images of God, is a sense of an “Utterly Indifferent” god who, when asked “Don’t you care?”, will blithely answer “Not really.”

For many people out there in our wider community, the prevalence of these two images of God is a principal reason for their disbelief in any god, in any form.

 “Is anybody there?  Does anybody care?”

All major faiths worship the God who cares about human well-being.  As Christians in particular, we worship a Jesus-shaped God, God who took human form to demonstrate the divine compassion.

“Is anybody there?  Does anybody care?”

The answer of the Gospel is “Yes!

The Good Shepherd as a leadership model: a sermon (Ezekiel 34:1-10; Psalm 23; John 10:11-18)

In English, and in most other western languages, we easily use the word “shepherd” as an image for people with religious responsibilities.  This is a result of such passages in the Bible as some of today’s lessons.

·        In our Psalm for today, the writer of the Psalm uses the image of strength and care found in a shepherd protecting a flock of sheep as a metaphor for God’s strong care for humanity, even in times of danger.

·        In our gospel lesson for today, Jesus continues this image, describing himself as the Good Shepherd who – as part of this strong care – risks his life for the sheep.

Now, the lesson we heard from the book of Ezekiel was not one of the lectionary’s set lessons for today, but I included it because of its parallels with our gospel lesson. 

·        Ezekiel criticised shepherds who did not search for sheep who were scattered.  Jesus spoke of himself as a shepherd who seeks out the sheep.

·        Ezekiel criticised shepherds who did not feed their sheep, but who, instead, fed themselves from their flocks.  Jesus spoke of himself as a shepherd who will assist the sheep to find pasture.

·        Ezekiel criticised shepherds who did not exert themselves to protect the sheep from wolves and other predators.  Jesus described himself as the Good Shepherd whose vocation is to lay down his life for the sheep.

Jesus must have had this passage from Ezekiel in mind when he spoke of himself as the Good Shepherd.

Now, as I said in the beginning of this talk, in English, as in most western languages, we use the word “shepherd” as an image for a person with religious responsibilities.  So, for example, when we speak of pastoral care, or when we call a minister in some churches a pastor, we use a word that comes from the Latin word for a shepherd.

But this wasn’t the way the word was used at the time of Jesus, and definitely not before the time of Jesus.  When Ezekiel criticised the shepherds of the nation, he was not referring to the members of the religious establishment, but to the political leadership, the king and his advisers.  (I checked this out in three different commentaries and they all made this point.  I have rarely found such unanimity on any point among biblical scholars.)

So, when Jesus calls himself the Good Shepherd and presents us with this example of hands-on, personally involved, often risky, servant leadership, Jesus is not only presenting this as an model for good leadership in religious contexts.  Jesus gives us this image of himself as the Good Shepherd as a model for good leadership in all of the contexts in which we live and work, and exercise leadership.

·        The example of hands-on, personally involved, often risky, servant leadership that Jesus provides when he calls himself the Good Shepherd is as relevant to people with leadership roles in business, government, education, or health care as it is to ministers and priests of churches. 

·        This example is as relevant to people involved as volunteers with leadership roles in “secular” community organisations as it is to laypeople with leadership roles in local congregations. 

·        This example is as relevant to a parent of children, or to a carer of an aged person, as it is to a Bishop or a Moderator.

Jesus gives us all this image of himself as the Good Shepherd as a model for good leadership - hands-on, personally involved, often risky, servant leadership - in all of the contexts in which we live and work, and exercise leadership.

And, just as Jesus reminded his listeners that the Good Shepherd leads his flock to pasture, so Jesus also feeds us, and he feeds us with extravagant generosity.  In the sacrament we shall soon celebrate, Jesus gives us himself as food and drink.  Christ the Good Shepherd leads us and feeds us with extravagant generosity. 

"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!