I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God – what is good and acceptable and perfect. [Pauk’s Letter to the Roman Church 12:1-2]

Compliance is simpler, really. Not rocking the boat.

We can observe our politics, both local and international, taking on a darker hue, reaching to polarise some, to accuse others, attacking with words and worse.

Recently, members of our Jewish (and therefore, our own) community are violently attacked. Another gathering, of our First Nations (and therefore, our own) people has a failed explosive device thrown amongst them – a weapon we are more accustomed to associating with the war in Afgahnsistan and not within our neighbourhoods. A group from our Muslim (and this, our own) community is praying near a protest, and are accosted by police and others, as if those on their knees in prayer are liable to incite harm.

Why can’t people just fit in?

There is another, coercive and corrosive form of compliance, when a government co-opts a belief system, like Christianity, nationalises it and declares that the faithful will support a certain notion of faith, of politics, of behaviour. This looks like the demand for the Ten Commandments in every school, coupled with the false association between a particular political brand and a corrupted understanding of the Gospel.

We are told: if you have true faith, it will look like this.

And then, Jesus. Jesus asking to believe and live and act and love and forgive in such a way that neighbours and enemies are not simply tolerated, or endured, but loved. Extra miles to walk, and our coats to sacrifice and forgiving four hundred and ninety times, when once certainly seems more than enough – to us. These are not astringent measures of compliance; rather, they are acts of extravagance we could not expect.  

As Jesus, so Paul.

Embroidered in the yoke of the stole presented to me at my Ordination are Paul’s words, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed…” How shall we determine this transformation?

Paul talks of our being drawn into community, how we are bound together, members of each other. We are woven by the very act of God in Christ, not simply by our decision, or our sense of self-improvement.

The word we translate as “conformed” leads to our words “scheme” and “schematics” where we are shaped into compliance with the way things are. In complete contrast, the word for “transformation” gives birth to our word “metamorphosis”, as we comprehend the world, and our lives and our faith are continually renewed by the mercies of God.

The only measure for our hope is Christ, and him crucified. The voices which demonise the weak, or the faithful, or those who are different, are simply sirens luring us to disaster. When we are unsure of our calling, or our direction, we find our bearings only in the cross, in our discipleship to the one whose call is to love, to serve and to forgive. And perhaps, to sacrifice everything.

This is where the shape of life is found; in Jesus Christ, the risen crucified One.  

Just then a Canaanite woman from that region came out and started shouting, “Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is tormented by a demon.”But he did not answer her at all. And his disciples came and urged him, saying, “Send her away, for she keeps shouting after us.” He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”⁵ But she came and knelt before him, saying, “Lord, help me.” [from Matthew’s Gospel 15:21-28]

There’s a social media meme commenting that each household has one member who stacks the dishwasher like a Scandinavian architect and another who loads it like a possum on meth.

We know these people, or perhaps we are them … I have ways I do certain things, which maintain a level of comfort for me. They might be idiosyncratic and inconsequential, like how I hang out the washing (or stack the dishwasher). They may, however, have more weight, such as how I view the world, how I approach my vocation, or understand other people.

The sequel to this is what may lead me to change my mind? As our community appears to become more polarised, we increasingly socialise with people of similar views, avoiding those with whom we might disagree. This is apparently true socially, poetically and theologically.

How will we grow and change? How will we hear those voices which will challenge and transform our thinking? How will we disagree, even have disputes, in ways which are appropriate and healthy?

How do we change the algorithm?

Jesus has a singular sense of his vocation: his community, the people of Israel. The wrong person has found their way to Jesus – foreign, woman, outside his mission plan – and he ignores her. The disciples want to be even more assertive and send her away.

Jesus’ niggardly response is that he has other priorities. When she kneels, begging for her daughter’s life, his response to this Palestinian woman is derisive at best and appalling at worst. Then, as now, casting any woman as an animal is destructive.  

We cannot know Jesus’ mind; what impairs his response, what cultural boundaries hinder his expected mercy. The honesty of the gospel writers is to include this least complimentary account of Jesus to someone in need.

So, what changes him?  She does. This unnamed, indefatigable mother, advocates for her child.  She will not let Jesus go.

How shall we attend to those voices that we need to hear, when we are accustomed to listen elsewhere? We are trained to hear only certain voices, those which fit our sense of self and society, while disregarding others, as if they do not even exist. These symptoms are international and personal, they are in our social circles and our communities of faith. We airbrush artists and silence writers and journalists because of the discomfort they cause, and yet real hope lies in listening, attending to, and addressing – with integrity – those voices as they speak. More especially when they speak from the fractured places, from the edges.

Jesus’ mercy arises from her courage and faith. Perhaps we need more courage and faith to listen to those we usually choose to ignore, or fail to notice. What courageous faith might we need to stand with those whose names, whose communities, whose children are at risk of being consigned to despair and destruction?

Where will Jesus be found?

Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.” Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!” Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.” [from John’s Gospel 20.19-31]

Woven throughout the Jesus stories are moments of intimacy which move beyond words. Some of the most arresting images from art and film arise from Jesus’ encounters, or stories that he told.

The Pietà, rendered both in paint and stone, gives us cause to hold our breath; Rembrandt’s portrayal of The Prodigal Son has us hungering for such a restoration as this;  how often has the crucifixion’s depiction drawn us into silence, or weeping, or even despair at the malice of human hands?

We are wrapped within the mystery of Jesus’ resurrection at the moment. The moment of resurrection is neither witnessed nor recorded, so we are left with the blessing of wonder and confusion, doubt and fear.

The risen Jesus’ defiance of locked doors animates the conversation with  the frightened disciples, as he appears and offers the blessing of peace and the missional task of forgiveness. The intimacy of his blessing, followed by showing them the wounds he still carries is enough to contemplate for more than the short retelling. Jesus appears different, yet the same; he is alive, yet bears the wounds of his suffering and death.

It is Jesus’ encounter with Thomas which locates each of us within the resurrection story itself. Jesus exposes his wounds to Thomas and invites – risks – his touch. Is there any happening of greater intimacy than this? Any kiss, any tenderness, any dying moments, any death?

Thomas, called to step into the story of the risen, crucified Christ.

This gathering of cowards and betrayers is welcomed and forgiven. Can anyone doubt that, if Judas was still alive, Jesus would have equally invited him to touch his wounds and experience God’s rigorous mercy?

And thus, we find our place.

It is the invitation of Jesus to risk ourselves with him. Jesus asserts that, despite our fear and doubt, this is for us.

We are discipled in forgiveness, both to receive and to offer. What greater act, what more intimate word, could be spoken into our world, in this season of revenge and violence, of faith bastardised into nationalism or theocracy, when leaders threaten cultural extinction and pray for accurate missile strikes?

Mercy is not some gratuitous wave of the hand, or waiving of sin. It is the engagement of wounds shown (and perhaps touched), of acknowledgement of failure and harm, of forgiveness sought and offered, of relationship restored, of life discovered.

It is costly, and it is priceless. Jesus has invested himself in each and all of us.

The mystery and the wonder is that Jesus invites us. It is also the glory of God, crucified and risen.

… the angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid; I know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified. He is not here; for he has been raised, as he said. Come, see the place where he lay. Then go quickly and tell his disciples, ‘He has been raised from the dead, and indeed he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him.’ This is my message for you.” So they left the tomb quickly with fear and great joy, and ran to tell his disciples.[Matthew’s Gospel 28:5-8]

Fear and great joy, worship and doubt accompany each other as faithful, fearful disciples attend the tomb of Jesus, who has been executed. As Matthew recounts, nothing makes much sense from that point forward.

Earthquakes, angels, fainting soldiers and stories of Jesus alive. And, as always, the angel says to those confronted by wonder, or mystery, “Do not be afraid.” Fine.

One of the weaknesses for the church in recounting this impossible event is that we talk about Jesus’ resurrection as if we have seen an old friend down the street. To honour the accounts of the gospel writers and the experience of these courageous women, we need to hold the event with respect, with fear and a scintilla of doubt.

There is chaos. How do we know? The four gospels differ in people and timing and angels and who was running where, and who was telling (and who believed) whom. And this is at it should be. An account of God upending the world should not agree word for word, but offer an honest reflection of Jesus being raised, defeating death and saving creation.

The heart of our faith resides here. That God in Christ was human, that Christ suffered and was executed, that Christ was raised from death, is the ground on which we locate ourselves.

This does not make believing straightforward, or easy. The wonder of this moment is not always comfortably held in our hands and hearts, because our experience of the world around us chips at our faith, whispering in our ears that death is the final word and that true power is found in the mandibles of armies and the tweeted tantrums of emperors.

We need each other for this journey, for this remembering of our faith in the risen, crucified Christ. We need the company of other disciples, who are frightened and faithful, who are doubting and courageous, and who carry this resurrection story as did those first women, and the men who followed.

We need bread and wine and water, to remind us of the event which defines us, and to replenish us for this journey through our lives.

We will remember that God in Christ is crucified and risen. We will proclaim that forgiveness and new life are inherent in this moment. We will assert that death is not the final word; that life is spoken with wonder and hope as God’s complete word.

We will accompany each other on the road before us, to bless each other when our faith is strong, and to rerly on each other when fear and doubt are present. And the risen Christ goes ahead of us, as he promised.

May the God who shakes heaven and earth,
whom death could not contain,
who lives to disturb and heal us,
bless you with power to go forth
and proclaim the gospel.
Amen.

The crowds that went ahead of him and that followed were shouting,
“Hosanna to the Son of David!
Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!
Hosanna in the highest heaven!”
When he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was in turmoil, asking, “Who is this?” The crowds were saying, “This is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth in Galilee.” [Matthew’s Gospel 21:9-11]

The chaos as peace invades. We have so little language for it; we are barely articulate. A monarch, a prophet, a leader, who brokers peace in his living.

We watch and remember as monarchs and dictators, sociopaths and narcissists punctuate their rhetoric with missiles and the language of punishment. We are more accustomed to this than the other; we have learnt how to deflect bullies, or hide from them.

However, this one who comes, unarmed and disarming, is something entirely different. We are not sure how to respond, so amongst the crowd we cheer the theatre of his arrival, and assume he will survive as long as a tyrant’s whim, or social media post.

We listened as Jesus invited us to reimagine how we might live in our world. We watched as those outcast were gathered with love, and offered life.  We barely dared to hope that turning our cheek and forgiving and forgiving and forgiving might be the new way of offering – and celebrating – life.

We acknowledged that Jesus talked of the costs of bearing witness to such a life as this.

The bullies’ culture is addictive. We know it leads to despair and eventually destruction; we know that we cannot sustain the tyrant’s favour forever. The simple fact is that we know how this poison works because it has been present since Cain murdered his brother. The despots have taught us that their way is the only one.

Then this Jesus and the donkey. Confronting power with powerlessness. Conscious that this act will arouse all the violence of empire and corruption. Not just Pilate and Herod and the corrupted priests, but the system which cannot tolerate questions, or prophets, or alternatives.

If it was our decision, we would retire gracefully, or retreat politically, in order to choose a more suitable battleground. Jesus will have none of it. He reclaims the temple for worship and justice, offers his most powerful teachings, fully aware of the consequences.

We watch as those who call for peace and justice in Gaza and Ukraine and Iran and Lebanon are ridiculed, disappeared, or extinguished. The offspring of Herod’s corruption and Pilate’s political self-interest are present in every age.

Jesus elected a more suitable place to bear witness. It is only there that violence and injustice are both addressed and answered. The brokering of peace at Calvary accepts and defies the violence of every tyrant. In Christ’s final breaths, he offers them life as well.

The depths of this act of Jesus, to save entirely at cost to himself, is prophesied when Jesus of Nazareth rides a donkey’s colt into Jerusalem.  

When Mary came where Jesus was and saw him, she knelt at his feet and said to him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved. He said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to him, “Lord, come and see.” Jesus began to weep. So the Jews said, “See how he loved him!” But some of them said, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?” Then Jesus, again greatly disturbed, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone was lying against it. Jesus said, “Take away the stone.” [John’s Gospel 11.32-38]

We are measuring out our lives in missile strikes. We are becoming accustomed to an appalling situation where war in Ukraine and Gaza are superseded by Venezuela, then Iran, Lebanon and now swathes of Arab nations. The obscene colonisation of language means that “taking someone out” now means execution of an opponent, as opposed to having a meal with a person we like.

Political agitators encourage us to focus on ourselves, to feel aggrieved about the economic burden of fuel (and consequent) prices, while certain individuals, communities and faiths are typecast as terrorists and tyrants, justifying our actions of death as the measure for their sins.

We need to be angry that this is the world we are offered, that we are called to shape our lives around powers and principalities offering death and naming it life, offering slaughter and naming it peace.  

This passage concerning Martha, Mary and Lazarus is one of the most revealing about Jesus’ emotional state. The death of his friend and his family’s accompanying grief affect him deeply.

Death is all around; it is not only his friend’s death, but the reality that Jesus’ own ending draws closer. The gospel writer notes that following the Lazarus miracle, the response of community leaders is not celebration, but them plotting to extinguish both Lazarus and Jesus.

Jesus weeps at what has happened and according to the reading is “greatly disturbed.” A more precise translation is “indignation”; it arises from the sound a horse makes when it is unwilling to comply. Jesus expresses this emotion at least twice, we are told; his friend is dead.

Jesus’ grief is not simply profound sadness, it is unwillingness to accept what is before him.  “Take away the stone.”.

As we draw nearer to the weekend which transforms history, the Lazarus story asserts to us how Jesus understands God’s economy, surrounded by death, yet insisting on life.

We cannot become accustomed to the world where might makes right. The powers that claim authority over life and death, wealth and poverty, faith and other faith must be named – and confronted. The saving of Lazarus, the healing of the blind man, the welcome of the Samaritan woman are not nice, neat gospel stories told to palliate the church, they are the assertion of a God who will not tolerate the powers that isolate and blame, marginalise and condemn.

This is the God of the cross, and the empty tomb.

We are citizens of God’s economy. We will proclaim – and live – the impossibility that death is defeated by resurrection. We will assert that love is offered to all, and mercy is not constrained by politics or geography. Or faith.

We will not be satisfied with the story of death on offer from the world around us. Take away the stone.

They brought to the Pharisees the man who had formerly been blind. Now it was a sabbath day when Jesus made the mud and opened his eyes. Then the Pharisees also began to ask him how he had received his sight. He said to them, “He put mud on my eyes. Then I washed, and now I see.” Some of the Pharisees said, “This man is not from God, for he does not observe the sabbath.” But others said, “How can a man who is a sinner perform such signs?” And they were divided. So they said again to the blind man, “What do you say about him? It was your eyes he opened.” He said, “He is a prophet.” [John’s Gospel 9.13-18]

A few weeks ago, a church leader sat with Jesus in the dark, talking (spiritual) obstetrics. The Spirit breathes where it wants. Just last week, a foreign woman shared a midday drink with Jesus, talking about water which quenches thirst forever. The Spirit breathes where it wants.

A man, sitting always in his individual darkness, is suddenly able to see. The Spirit breathes … and people of faith erupt. This in the wrong day. What poor theology.  Something, everything is wrong – wrong day, wrong man, wrong act, wrong answer. There must be someone to blame, to punish, to banish, to deny.

We read this story, and watch it unfold. We wonder how anyone, any community, could act in this way. Then we walk past a mirror, and stumble. All too easily we can locate our face in the crowd, and perhaps even hear our voice.

A gift is given. A life enhanced. One translation uses the phrase, “The Spirit respires where it will”, as if the breathing, the respiration, of the receiver is eased by Jesus’ presence.

Yet, for an awful moment, all the air is sucked out of the room by the indignation of the community of faith. There are rules. The Sabbath is not for healing.

You can’t just feed someone because they are hungry.

There’s a queue, they have to start at the back.

What if she was asking for it?  

The risk of these gospel stories is finding ourselves within them. We hope to imagine ourselves as the one receiving life, and that may well be our experience. We may also find ourselves mingling with those offering judgement, not justice; blame, not blessing.

These narratives of respiration disrupt our faith and our lives. When someone is offered life, it is disturbing for everyone they meet. When a person is offered forgiveness, when people discover mercy, they become entirely different.

There is, however, a profound danger in forgetting. When we forget the wonder of our first respiration; when we misremember what mercy is all about; when we only recall the culture which constrains us and not the Spirit who breathes us life.

When we forget what it is to see again.

This church leader, this foreign woman, this formerly blind man are all offered mercy and life for the circumstances in which they find themselves. Perhaps they, or their families, are members of John’s community, to remind us so that we, in turn, are able to remember.

Our remembering is never solely for ourselves, but for the one who comes to us at midnight, or midday, or in their own personal darkness. Jesus never turns us away.

The Spirit breathes where it wants. May you hear the sound of it.

Just then his disciples came. They were astonished that he was speaking with a woman, but no one said, “What do you want?” or, “Why are you speaking with her?”Then the woman left her water jar and went back to the city. She said to the people,“Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?” They left the city and were on their way to him. [from the Gospel of John 4.4-42]

The darting poetry of this conversation, John’s narrative, as this woman and this man engage with each other in the heat of the day. Image and metaphor, question and reframing, step and dance; two thirsty people.

It could almost seem whimsical, even allowing for the context of her apparent social marginalisation and his presence in the wrong territory. With the wrong person.

Notwithstanding, she does not shy away, even at the cultural baldness of his request … demand. The conversation moves through theology and need, to theology again. Claim and counter claim, as sibling cultures engage, working themselves out in the midday sun.    

Perhaps she serves him. Perhaps they each imbibe the well’s gift. Perhaps they are equally blessed to have their thirst relieved.

At what appears to be the utter end of everything, he will be thirsty again. Sour wine must suffice on that occasion, stuttering heartbeats from his final breath. Perhaps one of the faithful women there held it to his lips?

And then the (potentially hazardous) blessing of knowing. And being known. She has hidden here because the journey of being known has proved all too costly. Yet here is the profound gift he proffers her.

A man who told me everything I have ever done. Then the words, unspoken, yet clear as midday sun, and still he offered me life!

This encounter, beyond theology and culture, claim and counter-claim. When we are told (and even believe) that we have no name, no faith, no future, no place but the margins, no worth but our failure, he meets us where we are, he asks us for help, and he offers us life.

He knows all our story, and loves us, this Jesus.

Nothing will prevent Jesus’ offer of life, to each and all of us. Always.

A Drink of Water | Seamus Heaney

She came every morning to draw water
Like an old bat staggering up the field:
The pump’s whooping cough, the bucket’s clatter
And slow diminuendo as it filled,
Announced her. I recall
Her grey apron, the pocked white enamel
Of the brimming bucket, and the treble
Creak of her voice like the pump’s handle.
Nights when a full moon lifted past her gable
It fell back through her window and would lie
Into the water set out on the table.
Where I have dipped to drink again, to be
Faithful to the admonishment of her cup,
Remember the Giver, fading off the lip.

Tell us, what do the living do?
Do you dance? Do you make bread
with each other? Do you walk in the parks
in Autumn, smelling the late summer flowers?
Is it true that some things get to grow old?
What is the world doing now? Are you fighting
with sticks and stones? Do you remember
us? Do you lie down under the stars
and listen to the birds passing overhead,
and do you get to feel the little wings of your own
wild heart be opened? You have somewhere
to go then, don’t you? Go. Don’t let us keep you.
We have names, we are safe. We’re at school.
We are hiding in our favourite little places, waiting
for you to tap us on the shoulders, to tell us
it was just a joke, come home now,
and the bombs and boots are just a game we’re playing,
and the bread and milk are waiting on the table,
and the moon is new, and the gardens are in blossom.
This sentence is the length of one of our shoes.

What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not be astonished that I said to you, ‘You must be born from above.’ The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” Nicodemus said to him, “How can these things be?” [Gospel of John 3.6-9]

Nicodemus visits Jesus in the dark.

In rural communities, living beyond the streetlights, night is a time of darkness, alleviated when the moon is full. However, in cities and towns across the world people never truly experience night. The restless fluorescents of businesses and homes, of cars and streetlights, punctuate and banish any hint of darkness, and the stars are mere memories in the night sky.

One of the most potent verses as John’s community introduces the Gospel is the assertion about the coming of Jesus that “The light shines in the darkness and the darkness did not overcome it.”

We are invited into a series of engaging narratives where light and dark are pronounced. A man, a community leader, visits Jesus at night, to avoid scrutiny.  A woman is banished to the blazing midday heat to draw water, alone. A man, born in darkness, receives light and life. Jesus’ friend, entombed, waits. As dawn emerges, the most powerful man in Israel refuses light and life, and hope.

Each time we have the opportunity to condemn – to locate in someone else our discomfort, our blame, our woundedness – Jesus, instead, wonderfully offers life.

The narratives invite us to discover where darkness dominates lives and societies. This is not only the failing of individuals, this is the action of a community, a culture. The woman is isolated by her village’s judgment and consent; the previously sightless man is condemned more after his healing than before. As the dead man is restored to life, the response of the community leaders is to find a way to kill him, and Jesus.

Darkness and evil will not easily tolerate challenge.

The politician takes the stage and speaks of a God who hates. A preacher proclaims that the world is better when women cannot vote, and simply comply with their husbands. Leaders condemn children for the failed decisions of their parents, seeming content with their penury and isolation.

Speaking of forgiveness, or being reconciled, articulating justice which offers accountability coupled with restoration, is a dialect which so many never learn. Worse, others are taught to banish it entirely from their lives and memories.

We do not need to look for demonic powers, they are in plain sight. Justifying the punishment, wounding and death of children; being content that they are suffering in another country, another story, another life; ignoring deliberate misery with the diseased solipsism of contemporary populism, or failed theology. Satan’s fingerprints are obvious.

Nicodemus is told of a breath which – impossibly – births new life. This breath stirs us to step beyond what we can know, to what God reimagines.

What if all the world is entirely loved by God? What if God has given everything, even God’s self, to save the creation? What if we are embraced in this story and are called to embrace others in our turn?

What if reflecting Christ’s light in the darkness is to confront and oppose the demonic powers of the pedlars of suffering and live out our resurrection hope?

How can these things be?

There is a God, who loves the world beyond measure and has given everything, even his child, so that the creation might have life, abundantly.