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?
Sadly or gladly, the season of my foray of daily lectionary haikus has come to its end for now. Don’t ask me why, it just seems they have served their purpose. Perhaps the point of engaging with a daily devotion in this way had become something like the tail wagging the dog. Instead of allowing the Word to engage me in its most direct and surgical manner, I was becoming distracted with searching for the correct 5-7-5 formula to give it expression. Today I am in retreat and will possibly discover ways in which my writing will give better expression to what I am wanting to communicate to myself and the universe. There is much that has been pulling towards a disintegrated approach to the challenges that surround me, and my striving is towards the unification and non-duality that finds its most complete expression in the experience of the living Christ. Haikus have been a tool but not the goal and will still appear from time to time. in fact, it seems appropriate to sign off with one.
Finding words is hard Haikus distill essence well Avoid addiction
How often is striving against the odds a context for reaching for resources beyond ourselves? Today’s texts, following the Psalm, portray some contexts.
Wondering Pilgrim 