It’s a heady time. A change of government that swaps the barren ideals of economic rationalism for a more fertile social conscience. A new focus on the Uluru Statement as we head into Reconciliation week. Yesterday, following three years of housing insecurity following the scandalous collapse of Sterling First, Jenny and I were able to sign a new rental agreement while renewing our pursuit for justice and compensation for the cohort of retired battlers that were scammed.
No wonder the Greeks came visiting at 4 am. Their names are Kairos and Metanoia. They are as ancient as human awareness and figure large in both Greek mythology and the Christian sacred texts.
Bag with wallet, keys and phone are inadvertently left on the bus at Whitfords Interchange. Frantic discussion with Transperth employee. Both route number and bus number were miraculously memorised. Bus tracked on dry run on freeway to Perth CBD where driver will take a meal break. No passengers. Maybe he can locate the bag when he reaches his destination. Oh yes, he does! If we can meet him at the Central bus station within the hour, we can collect it. 40 minutes. How to get there through peak hour traffic on the freeway? Hop on the train. We make it with 10 minutes to spare. Buses are everywhere as commuters make their way home. Armed with gate number, route number, bus number and time of departure, we meet the bus driver. Bag handed over. A leisurely train ride back to Whitfords. How good is Transperth?
You’ve got to be kidding. Surely this is demanding the impossible. Surely this “wisdom” only serves to feed weak manipulative relationships and reinforce the kind of violence that is built on a toxic cycle of attack, remorse, forgive and repeat – because at least one party is given to a mistaken application of this highest of all commandments. Believe me, I’ve been around long enough to see how misunderstood and misappropriated these words have proved to be. Instead of building and inspiring, this disembodied commandment has rather been guilt-inducing and victimising.
After all who can love how Jesus loved? The first one to share a dish with Jesus at his final meal is the same who betrayed him to his executioners. “Go and do what you must do,” Jesus said to him. Even as he hung on a cross in mortal and spiritual agony, Jesus uttered, “Father, forgive them, they don’t know what they are doing.” At a beachside breakfast, the Risen Christ restored a guilt-ridden and fallen Peter to responsible leadership. He had denied even knowing Jesus, abandoning him in his time of greatest need.
Who can love like that?
Election fever currently has the country in its grip. Love is certainly not high on the agenda. I myself am part of a group that has been all but consumed in lobbying hard for justice regarding a failed and fraudulent retirement housing scheme. Twenty of our number have died in the process, stress of losing secure accommodation and life savings due to deliberate regulatory dysfunction being a major factor. Politicians and bureaucrats have led this group up the garden path with promises, false hope, lies, deception and Machiavellian manipulation. How does one “love your enemy” and “those who despitefuly use you” under such conditions?
Spiritual wisdom of the ages reveals this highest of Jesus’ summons is best understood and followed as aspiration, the summit of a peak of what it means to be most completely and fully human. In the thick of conflict, in the bloodiest part of the battle with those who sneakily or blatantly strive against us, it’s hard to see the peak through the dust and fog. We know it’s there, however!
And to love is not to forgive cheaply or to fail to call abuse and injustice to account. To love as Jesus demonstrates can involve some very painful relationship surgery. Poison needs to be drawn so that souls may heal. To love as Jesus loves is also to build our own positive self-regard, in order to “love others as we love ourselves” (another commandment of Jesus).
So yes, we can love like that. We are serious! Read all about it in John 13:31-35, the set reading for this Sunday.
Come and Join Us! Tomorrow, Tuesday, May 10th, 11 am Next to the entrance to Elizabeth Quay Train Station
A Senate Inquiry finds that regulatory failure was the cause of the loss of over 100 homes and retirees’ life savings and that compensation is due.
Both major political parties are either dismissive or guilty of concocting false hope tied to a mythical Compensation Scheme of Last Resort.
The state of Western Australia was negligent in aiding and abetting fake rental leases.
The Federal Government was negligent in aiding and abetting fake trust funds.
State and Federal, therefore, need to collaborate to design and release an immediate compensation package.
Tomorrow’s rally will reinforce these points as we support our leader, Denise Brailey, in her run for the Senate under the banner of the Citizen’s Party.
A small faith community in the western suburbs of Perth is grieving the loss of four significant members in as many months. Not only was their participation in the church’s witness and service strong, but they lived the church’s ethos of compassion and inclusion. In the wake of the latest funeral three days ago, we are looking at the text from John 10:22-30. It’s Good Shepherd Sunday.
These are my ponderings upon which I am basing my remarks.
We are asking “How does Jesus’ shepherd language speak into this congregation’s current experience of heavy loss? Particularly during this continuing Easter season?”
Here are some hooks to hang our hats on:
The Christian story is cyclical – it is about transformation from “one degree of glory into the next” The first few centuries of the church called this “theosis.” The resurrection reminds us that change involves something dying in order that the new may be birthed. Change, whether expected or forced, takes on fresh meaning when seen through an Easter lens.
Today’s text sees the Jerusalem Temple leaders demanding Jesus say clearly if he is the Messiah. It is during the Feast of Dedication, a commemoration of the successful Maccabean revolt that briefly restored a measure of sovereignty to Israel before the Roman occupation. Today it is celebrated as Channukah, meaning “dedication.”
Jesus replies to his critics’ loaded “gotcha” question with “shepherd language,” the long-time common practice of ancient middle eastern potentates, including David, the shepherd-king of Israel. Such shepherd language reflected the duty of the king to lead and protect his people.
Jesus completes his answer with the words “I and the Father are one.” The implications of his Messiahship extend far beyond Israel into timelessness and endless space. His shepherding role can now be experienced through the story of resurrection.
All this takes place in Solomon’s Portico, one of the series of Temple colonnades in which Jesus taught and where the early church in Acts met. Marriage of incident and place is not a coincidence in John’s Gospel.
Some takeaways
Jesus’ shepherd language is about a “knowing” relational intimacy that challenges and absorbs external expectations. It is experienced as much as it is reflected on.
It is an inner compelling driving force within a faith community. “My sheep know my voice.” A grieving community is strengthened to realise that the departed are still united with them through the shepherd-king’ s voice. Just as “the Father and I are one”, so we remain one together in the living Christ.
This reality is glimpsed in our closest relationships and as our understanding grows into them through the living Christ. A retired missionary often reminded me we are all “little Christs.”
A Haiku Are you him? The king? Feel your grief and grasp my crook Become one with Me!
Today Jenny and I were inducted into pastoring the same church into which we were similarly inducted 26 years ago!
A bit different this time.
In 1996 we were returning to a state from which we had been absent for 17 years. We knew the church only by reputation and were anticipating a good fit. It must have been because we stayed 22 years before retiring midway through 2018.
Now we are back for a 3-month part-time interim. We were inducted once more, answering the charge “to share that which gives people the way to live the life more abundantly.” This time we know the people, we know the ethos, we know the challenges that confront an ageing and passionately active and questing faith community.
The set Gospel passage was telling – a grieving Peter summoned from his fishing nets to take up the charge to “feed the sheep” in response to his restored relationship with the Risen Christ. I don’t see the summons out of retirement in quite the same terms (I wasn’t grieving!) but am alive to the task that is driven by an ever-questing relationship with the living Christ.
No-one likes Haikus? Annoying when pressed each day? Oh well, c’est la vie!
(Additional note: If you’re concerned I’m sulking or spitting the dummy – relax. I find irony deliciously amusing. All is well and you will not be spared future haikus!)
An intense, yet tender exchange takes place between two estranged friends in next Sunday’s gospel. One has gone in search of the other, who, guilt and grief-ridden, and not knowing what to do, has returned to his former work. The searching one draws him forth to a fire he has set on the beach and over which he is preparing to cook a fish breakfast. A most hospitable setting over which to repair a strained relationship.
You see, the working one had left the searching one for dead. When he heard that he had defied death and was actually alive, walking out of the tomb in which he had been laid, and speaking to people, he fled to the safety of the known.
But his own phantoms pursued him. The accusing fingers continued to jab into his psyche. “He wanted so much from you.” “He called you the foundation on which he was going to build all that he was talking about” “You’re the one who called him Anointed – even the Son of the Living God!” “Yet you couldn’t even admit you knew him at his time of greatest need.”
And now, here he is, calling him and his companions to breakfast on the beach.
Three piercing and well-placed questions. Three summons to reclaim and fulfil his true purpose.
When I used this phrase to describe my imminent return from retirement to some part-time work, my peer mentors challenged me. “What do you mean by back into harness?” I let my muse respond…
What is a harness? A shackle that constricts and restrains? Straps of bondage as heavy as chains? Stifling freedom, restricting one’s way, Muffling one’s ability to engage with some play?
Or rather the yoke that is easy and light Opening ways to embrace some fresh insight? Rather the fire that burns in the grate than the wildfire that will not abate. The stream contained by its shore than the floods that swamp, we abhor.
Yep, harness seems the right word Slipping it on isn’t absurd The calling is right, the burden is light The Spirit within me is stirred.
Writing poetry in the middle of the night because reflux is keeping you awake has its nuances, especially when you are on retreat with several mutual mentors who are also therapists!
Here’s the poem: Phantoms of the night Gather around my bed Whispering anxieties and “what ifs” They scoff at my commands of dismissal So perhaps I should befriend them “No way,” they say, and disappear into the ether.
A remaining question to ponder: are those so gathered angels or demons?
Wondering Pilgrim 