So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new! [Paul’s Second Corinthian Letter, 5.17]

Is it the embrace? That moment when the failed, recreant child returns home, after wasting life and money and trust in a far country? Is it then?

Or perhaps when the faithful older child realises he has neglected to understand the love and mercy in which he has lived every moment of his life?

That moment when everything changes.

In one of Jesus’ best-loved parables, a child rips their portion of their father’s bequest from his hands and heads into a season of waste and dissipation. The disaster occurs, as every original hearer expects; he ends up hankering for the pigs’ food as he hands it to them, so profoundly has he fallen.

Eventually, he sees himself as every listener does, a deserved failure. He finds his way back to his father, expecting servitude, hoping for bread. He does not make it completely home, because his father runs to him, interrupts his repentance with compassion and embrace. The child discovers not servitude but celebration, not bread but feasting, not begrudging tolerance but love.

Is everything changed then?

He, too, has resigned his part
In the casual comedy;
He, too, has been changed in his turn,
Transformed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born.

And then, this elder child, this faithful one who worked and served and has not once asked for anything. Never asked, never expected that every morsel, every song, every blessing, was his for the rejoicing.

Too long a sacrifice
Can make a stone of the heart.
O when may it suffice?

Compassion is offered with an embrace and kisses to the younger child, and the older one discovers he has been embraced in love for each heartbeat of his life.

Paul tells us that when someone discovers themselves in Christ, everything shifts, all changes; there is a new creation. It is not simply acceptance, or acquiescence; it is the miracle of one who finds themselves loved, forgiven and alive.

It does not suffice for just the one who finds life, but all around are changed. We see the possibilities of what it means to be forgiven, to be restored, and we hanker for it, even as we find it hard to understand.

This is for all, the faithful and the failures. This is food for all who hunger, nourishing and splendid. This is for all who believe themselves beyond hope, beyond mercy, beyond return.

This is the declaration of a God who, through Jesus Christ, embraces us, forgives us and welcomes us all home.

The verses quoted are from W.B. Yeats poem, “Easter, 1916”.

Walking in the bush is a wonderful experience. Fiona and I try to take a three or four day walk each year in a National Park. We are not always successful.

One aspect of the wonder is not always being particularly confident that I am in the right spot or heading in the appropriate direction. I have read books about being lost and confused in the desert, where each rise looks precisely like the previous one, and nothing seems different, or appears to change.

Standing in the midst of the Australian bush can be confounding for the entirely opposite reason. It’s full – of trees, which are reliably irregular in size and shape; of low scrub, so footprints are obscured as if you have never walked to where you are; and it’s dense, so that seeing the path (if there is one, in particular), or the goal of your walk is frequently unclear.

The sounds can also be disorienting. Cicadas in summer can be stunningly loud, sounding triumphant, even mocking, if you are confused. Frogs take their harmonic turns through the evening.

The raucous choral wonder of birds is operatic, if you know your path; if you aren’t sure, or have missed your turn, they can taunt you at every step.   

A map, and a compass, a GPS (if you have range) and an EPIRB (as a last resort) are either essential or preferable in your walking, moving from a model of orientation which has served us for centuries, to one which many of us still don’t completely trust.

I have European friends who regard the disorder of our native forests as chaotic, even threatening. The concern of becoming lost looms large for them, as it has for those of us who have settled in this land since the last decade of the eighteenth century.

Becoming lost is a fear many second Australians share. A book, The Country of Lost Children – An Australian Anxiety, by Peter Pierce, describes how art and story depict the deep concern of what lies in the scrub, the bush, the area beyond our fence. McCubbin’s artwork, stories like Dot and the Kangaroo, serious movies like Wake in Fright and One Night, The Moon all echo the fear of being lost in the Australian landscape.

That fear translates into many aspects of our world; in the increasing urgency of life around us; harried by the insistence of electronic communication; the constant need to learn new skills; all these lead to a feeling of disorientation and lostness.

We are often unsure that we know where the path leads, or even how we arrived where we are. We remember the safety of home, of the spaces we know. We are thankful for a familiar friend, our favourite chair.

This season in which we find ourselves now, this season walking towards Jerusalem and the cross, with Jesus, can be disorienting. The concept of Jesus’ suffering and sacrifice might be well known to us, but the journey for disciples – especially the original mob – takes them (us!) from familiar territory into apparent danger.

We know the story of Easter from the other side. We have seen not only Jesus’ death; we also know of his resurrection. We journey with this hope already in our lives.

One theologian uses the Prodigal Son parable as a starting image, and describes Jesus as the son who journeys into a far country, risking himself, to find us all in our lostness and bring us home.

What might we say of a God who persists in seeking us out and, in Jesus Christ, finds us? We have this traditional image of the Aboriginal tracker, who can read the signs no one else can identify, finds the lost child and brings them back to their family and community.

Our language of “finding Jesus” is, perhaps, a subversion of the truth. The one who seeks is God, in mercy and love, who insists on finding us and bringing us safe home. When we encounter  – and are embraced by – this God, we most certainly discover our one true refuge.

This piece was first written for Ruminations, the rural journal of Saltbush – Uniting the Scattered Community, a ministry of the Uniting Church in NSW & the ACT for rural and regional communities.

#Saltbush
https://saltbushcommunity.uca.org.au

He replied, ‘Sir, let [the fig tree] alone for one more year, until I dig around it and put manure on it. If it bears fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down.’ [Luke’s Gospel 13.8-9]

“I have things to do, of value and service. I can’t be worried about when it’s going to happen.”

I was speaking to a splendid friend and colleague recently, who talked about the challenge of a health issue which hovers around their life. The consequences of this particular health issue are terminal, and the choice might well be to shut down, to live a life of complaint or fear, or to renew your mind, as my friend has, and to step into the world as it is. “I have service to offer others. I am not simply going to sit around and wait.”

Jesus’ recent conversations have been about how we read the signs of these times and live faithfully within them. He is confronted suddenly with the punitive and abhorrent actions of the provincial Governor.

Perhaps someone is being punished? Perhaps a deity is having a bad day? There has to be a reason.

Jesus’ cryptic response reminds us that injustices and accidents occur constantly; how will we live in this season, when death and acts of violence are consistently before us? We have plenty of teaching from Jesus about forgiveness and non-violence, and living hopefully and faithfully.

And accidents happen, friends become ill – this has always been true. People suffer and grieve. If we say this too fast, it will sound glib and uncaring, but if we say it with the attention it deserves, we realise that we are living here, and we need to attend to those around us, offering care and hope, and mercy.  

Jesus invites us to be prepared, within ourselves. The word for repent here is “to change one’s mind”; it’s about renewing how we think about, indeed how we understand, our world and our lives. It’s about comprehending that faithfulness involves laying failures and brokenness aside and taking up the life to which Jesus calls us.

How long will Jesus wait? How long will the faithful gardener tend the tree? Has the owner of the vineyard come down and complained before?

A theologian comments that God’s mercy remains in serious conversation with God’s judgment. We are urged to live our lives more faithfully, to turn from the failures – deliberate and otherwise – which hinder our relationships and drag our feet.

We cannot read these stories too lightly, or mathematically. Jesus is addressing suffering and death, and where real life – and hope – are found. This is not about balancing scales, or solving a life equation.

Jesus in on the road to his own, unjust, death. We have no measure for an act of such mercy, or hope.

In a world where vast injustice is enacted each day, where accidents occur despite our best efforts, we follow one who chose suffering and execution, in order that death would never again be the final word spoken.

Our story is held in the nail-scarred hands of Christ. God intends, in Jesus Christ, to save. What can we imagine will hinder God’s intent?

Done with Herod and the glittering robe,
the zinfandel in Pilate’s bowl,
the scarlet thorned together at his breast,
he went, what was left of him, after
the lashed bone and lead toggles were finished
making completely clear who
was who and what was what, out of the city,
a day’s work still to do.

A retrospective piety would have him
gaze down the novel vistas
of Flodden Field, Antietam, Gallipoli
the flaming butter of napalm, the gulf
made in the air when atoms boil, the hiss
of gas to deal with other Jews:
but he may have found it saving grace enough
not to be hating bloody fools.

Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing! See, your house is left to you. And I tell you, you will not see me until the time comes when you say, ‘Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.’ ” [Luke’s Gospel 13.34-35]

One of the most malevolent sounds in any movie I have seen is in Hotel Rwanda, which tells the horror of the Rwandan genocide in mid-1994. The movie talks from the point of view of the hotel manager, and the violence from which he seeks to flee, with many others.

Through virtually the entire movie, no direct violence is seen, but there are the reports and hints, the growing fear, and once or twice we see the horrific consequences. Thus, we share the impending sense of what will happen to those characters with whom we are in contact.

And there is this sound. It is the sound of pangas (large knives similar to a machete), being drawn along the road; a discordant, scraping sound. It is many more than one, as militant fistfuls of men come hunting. Their presence is frequently off-screen, but the consequence of their violence creates a foreboding from which the movie never relents and the viewer – like the victims – might never escape.

As we enter more deeply into this season of Lent, the journey of Jesus towards Jerusalem and the cross, a shadow grows across the path he walks with his disciples. There are hints and warnings of violence all around, and each event seems dogged by anger, or threats, or implications of harm.

We are privileged to read this story from the other side; we know both the horror of Jesus’ execution and the wonder of him being raised to life. However, the disciples and even Jesus are walking on the shadowed side of the gospel, as the darkness grows. Jesus continues to assert the calling upon his life, but the disciples are following him, unsure of where everything will lead.

The signs and sounds of violence have accompanied Jesus since Herod felt threatened by the infant child of Mary and Joseph. Jesus knows what happens to prophets and dissidents in Jerusalem and, may I say, elsewhere in history. Ask of Romero, or Sophie Sholl, or Pemulwuy.

Jesus is confident that the pangas are being drawn after him on the road he walks towards Jerusalem. The warnings from community leaders and those around him are simply confirmation. Notwithstanding all this, Jesus’ desire is to embrace that community, those people, to gather them in safety and offer them hope.

The image of a mother hen, doing all she can to secure the safety of her brood, and any other chicks within her ambit.  

This is not to be.

The old fox is stalking in the background. We know what happens when foxes and chooks mix it up.

Yet, Jesus, by calling and deliberate choice, continues on his path, with the sounds of malevolence growing in our ears and his.

What does it mean for us that Jesus so deliberately chooses to continue? What courage is declared to us in his choice to say yes to God’s call upon him?

As we journey towards this Easter, let us consider not just the profound depth of Jesus’ embrace of us, but also our willingness to be so embraced. Having welcomed this intimate engagement, we realise that we are on the path with him, with all the implications of following one who elected life for us above his own.

A prayer, written during the United States war with Iraq in 1991.

Lent comes.

We draw a holy comma
in rushed and busy lives.
We follow down
old scripture words
the journey to Jerusalem.
We stumble into prayer again
and whisper soft
the dearest, fearest
of our thoughts.

Lent comes.

Last year’s palms
crumble into ashes.
Last year’s peace
weeps into war.
We sing of Gethsemane
amid new tears, new bleeding.
The screaming bombs
burn crosses in our hearts –
this too is God’s story.

Lent comes,
but also Ramadan’s fast,
Passover’s freedom memory,
Easter’s crazy contradiction.

Faith is born of prayer
and sings with courage,
while all the children
of the earth
shelter in the wings of God
awaiting our embrace.

– Maren C. Tirabassi Gifts of Many Cultures (PIlgrim Press 1995)

Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness,where for forty days he was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing at all during those days, and when they were over, he was famished. The devil said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become a loaf of bread.”  [Luke’s Gospel 4.1-3]

A few short breaths after his baptism by John and anointing by the Holy Spirit, that same Spirit drives Jesus into the wilderness, where he was tempted and famished for six weeks.

Having been announced to the crowd by a heavenly voice as God’s Son, Jesus spends all this time with a wheedling voice whispering cynicism and doubt in his ear. Murmurings about food, bargains about power and the bastardisation of Scripture are in the playbook.

Are you the real thing, Jesus?

The seeds of misgiving and self-doubt are hidden in every phrase; step after misstep, they have taken root in the lives of leaders and servants, of women and men, monarchs and faith communities.

The twisting of call and faithful intent into self-aggrandisement and corruption are stories we have known only too well.

If you are who you say you are. If you are the Son of God …

Jesus has barely been introduced to us; we have seen nothing but the wonder of his birth and baptism. Suddenly we are confronted with this, watching Jesus subjected to the devil’s insinuations.

Are we, perhaps, the ones who need the miraculous signs? Would it help us to know that Jesus actually appears to fulfil his contract? Would it assist us if, at the call of the ringmaster, the Son of God performs his tricks?

The desire for bread and circuses is not solely the province of the Roman Colosseum, but one of the discomforting marks of the crowd in every age. If Jesus would just show us a sign!

At the very crux of Luke’s account is neither a performer, nor a healer, nor a miracle worker, but one who journeys to the cross, suffers and dies. And is raised. The purpose of the Spirit’s anointing is to bring good news, to offer release and vision and liberty to those who need them most desperately.

Jesus is the one for others, not for himself. His authority exists for the restoration of life, not performance art.

Whenever the Church – our community, any congregation – becomes self-absorbed, whether in pride, in cynicism, or fear, we remove our attention from the God who saves and give our worship to the one who cripples and destroys.

Jesus knows where life is found, and leads us there, in word and action;

Jesus answered him, “It is written,
‘Worship the Lord your God,
and serve only him.’ ”

May this season’s journey to the cross and the life beyond bless you and keep you.

A Collect for Lent Sunday | Janet Morley
Spirit of integrity,
you drive us into the desert
to search out the truth of us.
Give us clarity to know what is right,
and courage to reject what is strategic;
that we may abandon the false innocence
of failing to choose at all,
but may follow the purposes of Jesus Christ. Amen

Receive this cross of ash upon your brow,
Brought from the burning of Palm Sunday’s cross.
The forests of the world are burning now
And you make late repentance for the loss.
But all the trees of God would clap their hands
The very stones themselves would shout and sing
If you could covenant to love these lands
And recognise in Christ their Lord and king.

He sees the slow destruction of those trees,
He weeps to see the ancient places burn,
And still you make what purchases you please,
And still to dust and ashes you return.
But Hope could rise from ashes even now
Beginning with this sign upon your brow.

Gardener, Maker
Only Wise God
who tends the life of the world

You formed us from the dust:
wellspring of life,
beckoner of justice

When we turn from your life-giving way
send us back to dust
to be formed again by your gracious hand

When we disregard creation
send us back to dust
to be rejoined with the wonder of your world

You formed us from the dust:
self-giving sovereign
who whispers mercy into being

When we make of ourselves an idol
send us back to dust
to be filled again with your breath of life

When we disregard the poor
send us back to dust
to be emptied of our selfish indulgence

God of ashes and sackcloth and hope
send us into wild places
to retread your way of liberation

Take us again on the journey of life
that winds its way through deathly valleys

Take us again on the journey of death
that winds its way past tender streams

Gardener, Maker
Only Wise God
and the life of the world

Teach us again the way of your hope
Baptise us again into your fellowship
of loving and serving and suffering and joy

In the name of the beloved One:
Jesus the Anointed,
tender child and pioneer of peace
Amen.