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Salt and Light… Today?

Much debate and discussion has taken place over the years as to what is the role of the church. And by church I mean that in a universal sense. The ‘church’ that we find in the local expression often called a congregation. We note that like most businesses, organisations and human institutions we as the church always seem to be in the middle of one of those discussions about the future. And they are always discussions about restructuring… Always it seems!

As far as the church goes it seems that many of us feel all this restructuring talk will enable our Church, Congregation or Faith Community to more resemble the kingdom or realm of God of which Jesus spoke about. We tend to forget that it is an alternative way of being from that which we might assume is better or perfect, or efficient.

What we invariably get caught up in is the causes have more to do with dwindling resources,
an outdated theology, and the rate of change in the world. Like climate change issues we scramble with what we think is a better way of doing things rather than seek an alternative way of being. It seems that we don’t really want to believe that if everything changes, then change too must change.

For instance, each generation finds itself further removed from its predecessor. The gap between children and their parents is always a little wider than it had been for parents and their parents. (Friedman 2009:10). The same can be said for ‘church’.

During this time of continuing change, what will guide us in our understanding of ‘church’? How will our ecclesiology mirror our theology and how will our theology reflect the alternative we seek and how will our theology reflect that which we now know?

It is always tempting to look back. And it is important to reflect on how the past has influenced our present, but as historical beings we are not just nourished by our past. We actually live in the present, and it is a new present, “qualitatively different from any of our human pasts” (Kaufman 2006:106). This is the nature of the realm that we seek, it is always the alternative, it is always that which is yet to be but it is also about being alternative and thus we are required to be attentive to alternative, always ready to engage imagination.

It will of course also be tempting to do nothing, lest we upset someone or their pet likes or dislikes, or power structures. We will always create resistance to change otherwise it would not be new, it would not happen without the other, the other person, the other point of view. Without challenge is would become useless fundamentalism. It is always more that its label, more than extremes.

Maybe the question we face is where are our discussion about alternatives? Where are our guides amid these calls for change or redefinition? What will shape our new present which is  qualitatively different from our past? If we have any so-called hope as followers of Jesus what might it look like? Maybe we could start with our stories? Perhaps today’s stories, which hint at common everyday life in first century Palestine, and as told by the storyteller we call Matthew, can be a guide, or at least offer a couple of suggestions or signposts.

The images of the ‘church’ as light or salt, as eagerly grabbed hold of by many church leaders, as catalysts for illumination or flavour seem to be in sharp contrast to much of our modern mega-church or mission thinking. These sayings might appear to uncover something of the indirect and hidden nature of the church. That is, they might as stories from the past reveal a way in which the life of a faith community could seek to express itself.  Rather than calling attention to itself, to claim some sort of singular truth possessed as a group of people who know it all, who have got it all sorted as if there is only one way of being? Maybe the question we face in our time is what is a church or congregation or a ‘follower of Jesus’, that is most effective when it/they are not noticed. I am not suggesting that church can exist outside of, nor instead of or in separation from, the community that surrounds and feeds us as human beings.

Some years ago, retired Melbourne theologian and educationalist, Denham Grierson,
published an important book called, “A People on The Way”. It was a study of ‘congregation, mission and Australian culture’ where he picked up the three biblical images of light,
salt and yeast and said they provide “a theological foundation for a local congregation as it seeks to define its mission”.

He then went on: “That mission is best understood as a continuing persisting presence…  Much of the witness of the local congregation (will be) of the kind that is hidden within the fabric of community”. A continuing persisting presence…  Hidden, we might say, like salt? Just enough salt and we say ‘this steak is juicy and tender’. Too much salt and we spit it out and complain. The salt is not detectable if it is doing its job. Its effects are.

Grierson, also being a storyteller, digs into his local history and tells a ‘salt’ story…  His story was that during the post war years in the 1940s in Australia a small but determined Catholic woman heard of thesickness of aged neighbours in small houses in her street.

South Melbourne, the suburb where she lived, was hard hit by strikes and unemployment. Many people were sick because of poor nutrition, and unable to act because of advanced age. So Mary Kehoe mobilised some of her friends and they cooked meals for those who were ill.

A problem arose as to how to carry the meals to those in need?  And a solution was found in the use of an old pram. The meals were loaded into the pram, and pushed up the street to the houses of the unwell and needy, and to a canteen two houses from Mary Kehoe’s place. Her efforts to involve the local council had resulted in the provision of two huts to act as a relief centre. Meals cooked at her house were wheeled to the canteen where many gathered for emergency help. Thus began ‘Meals on Wheels’, which today it is so much a part of many of our social service provisions  where its beginnings are lost and forgotten. What this does is give hope and support to hundreds of people, who without it, would not survive.

The manifestation of imagination, human effort and a continuing persisting presence, hidden, like salt changes things.

Biblical scholar Barbara Reid puts Matthew’s ‘salt’ story in some sort of context: “…the uses of salt in the ancient world included: seasoning, preservation, purification, and judgment…” She goes on: “In saying to his disciples, ‘You are the salt of the earth’ Jesus could have meant that they perform any and all of these functions: that they draw out the liveliness and flavour of God’s love in the world; they are a sign of God’s eternal fidelity; they bring to judgment all that is opposed to God’s basiliea”. (Reid 2001:48). Like the symbolic Hebrew Passover meal the reality of collaboration, shared celebration, shared resources the church is seen in its becoming.

Then She makes this important comment: She says: “The task of Christians in every age is to discern what it means in a new context to be faithful to the words and deeds of Jesus.  Just as Christians of the last century determined that abolition of slavery was being most faithful to the gospel, even though Jesus’ teachings presumed the institution of slavery, so today we face the challenge of eliminating sexism, inculturation, extremisms and systems of domination, though even though these are woven into the fabric of the Gospels”. Makes some significant challenges for reliance of restructuring I suggest. If everything changes, then change must change too.

What do we mean when we suggest our new way of being will be characterised or shaped by:
(a) listening to the community first rather than talk;

(b) letting what we hear and feel and sense genuinely shape our gospel response;

(c) letting our response be original and creative.

I want to suggest that St Andrews has been innovative, attentive to others and resourceful in its support and initiatives. It’s model has been to speak inclusive language, to be inclusive in its actions and its evangelism tries to be a continuing receptive persisting presence, and hidden if you like, like salt. And amid change that too is changing. Where is the alternative that identifies the Way of Jesus?

If we are to face a ‘church’ which is discussing change and restructuring because of dwindling resources and interest in faith communities that come with an identity assumed or not… And if we are to face this changing situation with integrity and purpose, then how we become ‘church’ in the community, will be more important than how we are structured within any set of set of Regulations or guidelines or Constitution. Note I haven’t given you any solution because I am not sure we have understood the question yet. What does it mean to be light and salt to those who don’t understand or want to be like us? How do we be a continuing persisting presence… This is the question that is being asked.

Bibliography:
Friedman, E. H. What are You Going to Do with Your Life? Unpublished Writing and Diaries. New York. Seabury Books, 2009.
Grierson, D. A People on The Way. Congregation, Mission and Australian Culture. Melbourne. JBCE, 1991.
Kaufman, G. D. Jesus and Creativity. Minniapolis. Fortress Press, 2006.
Reid, B. E. Parables for Preachers. Year A. Collegeville. The Liturgical Press, 2001.

We Are To Be!

In today’s gospel story we have the beginnings of what is known as the Sermon on the Mount, or the Beatitudes. Some have even paraphrased the title as: ‘Be-Attitudes’ or ‘Attitudes for Being’. It is a very well-known section of the gospel story and we probably have heard a similar story – from Luke, and most probably last year. But Matthew’s story is not the same as Luke’s.  However, Luke’s version is written after Matthew, and it is likely that he is using earlier material. That said, the Luke story is about the poor, the hungry and those who weep. He is clearly talking about human need and he reflects Jesus’ sayings that when God’s reign is enacted, there will be change but it will be good news for only certain people. The poor. The hungry. The depressed. Whereas in Matthew’s story we find that these promises have undergone some change.  Matthew’s focus is less on the needy, and they have been somewhat ‘spiritualised’. Matthew’s focus is more on the hearers who need to be challenged to take up new attitudes.

[Former] West Australian Bill Loader offers this suggestion for the change in emphasis: “Love and compassion are the hallmark of the discipleship for which Jesus calls… Perhaps this reflects the kind of people who made up Matthew’s community.  So… the beatitudes have been changed from promises to the poor and hungry to challenges to people to be ‘poor in spirit’ and to ‘hunger after righteousness’… attitudes and behaviour you need to develop”.  (Loader web site 2005).

Now, whether Jesus actually preached a so-called ‘sermon’ like this or not, is debatable. Much recent scholarship reckons he didn’t, and that what we have here is an edited collection of sayings. What seemed to matter for Matthew the storyteller, was the building-up of his young, struggling house-churches. And to do that Matthew had to recruit more followers who would take upon themselves the responsibility for dreaming and for re-imagining the world. But they had little or no inkling how to live out that dream. How to be a ‘kingdom’ of equals. So, Matthew tells a story… of Jesus leading a group of supporters to the western shore of the Sea of Galilee, where he, Jesus, begins to teach and stretch their imaginations.

The Inclusive Language Lectionary from which we gained our version today uses the words “Happy are…” ‘Happy’ is a word which seems to jar as somewhat strange and even superficial and not everyone is happy with the ‘happy’ translation. A few commentators reckon it makes Jesus out to be some kind of “pop psychologist”.  (Sarah Dylan Breuer). However, I like Rex Hunts response to that when he asks, “doesn’t everyone strive to be ‘happy’?” And besides, doesn’t the more familiar translation, ‘Blessed’ open to the irritating touch of the pious. There is a third suggestion around and that is to replace ‘blessed’, the traditional term derived from the Latin, with its modern equivalent ‘congratulations!’ For in these sayings “Jesus declares that certain groups are in God’s special favour”. (Funk 1993:138) And then there is a fourth one which is to translate the Greek as ‘honoured’ . (J H Neyrey). Honoured are you when you make the greatest claim for others; Honoured are you when you bring peace rather than being a source of dissension; Honoured are you when you act non-violently in the face of violence.

Matthew sets the stage and he does that in story… A story which has us and the members of his collection of house churches, overhearing a Jesus’ conversation… A story which invites a response in favour of those who are adversely affected by the powerful goings-on of the ‘empire’. And encouraging a response that is more an incentive to want to do away with all that oppresses, limits, restricts, deprives, imprisons others. The challenge is one of attitudes, assumptions and systemic culture akin to that which we call colonialism, inculturation and a number of social, political and economic isms. To borrow some 21st century words of social commentator, Hugh Mackay: “The acid test of the decency of any society [or group] is the way it deals with the disadvantaged, the drop-outs, the criminals and, yes, the ‘aliens’”.

In all these story suggestions we can sense Matthew’s hope that at least some of the house-church membership will reply: Yes, we know that’s risky. Yes, we know that means change. But… we can be that!  Our hope for the future lies with us in this. We can live out that dream! We can make that happen. And like Matthew’s house-churches, we are also invited to listen. To discern, to hear the alternative, to seek the better, the alternative. Like Matthew’s house-churches, we too can respond: And yes, that will be risky because we will be changed. And like the members of Matthew’s house-churches, we can. accept that we will not get it all right first time, that we need to adapt and move during the change. It will not be perfect. But it will be with the strongest of intent because it is about the attitude of the common good, the compassionate and the loving..

One of the challenges we in New Zealand face at this time is the upcoming 2023 national elections. In my view we have had a leader who took on a challenge to change attitudes to the poor and disadvantaged, and to the adversarial attitudinal them and us approach. The stigmatization of difference, and to the individualist propensity to isolate the frightening. Some argue that this last battle was hugely difficult and even divisive. What was possible lost in this was the theme of the search for wellbeing. The nation was once again sucked into an adversarial mode and we know now of the vitriolic, bigotry, the racism and stereotyping that such an approach revealed and we were reminded of the challenge of the beatitudes. Happy are the  poor that, Blessed are the poor, Honoured are the poor. We are forced to ask: how does that happen without a change of heart? How does a nation change its attitude? Can it change? The danger of the election process is that we lose sight of who are we to be and get caught up in the need to win and to control our world as if our ideals are absolutes of right when the reality is that life is dynamic and can only succeed with attitudes of compassion and love. The task of politics is the wellbeing of the people ad it can only happen within an attitude of love, Love for the people, Love for those who struggle to be able to be who they are called to be. Fully functioning members of the society that we name New Zealand. It wasn’t called the ’team of 5 million’ for nothing. It wasn’t about the battle between the centralization verses the privatisation of resources and control, it was about the attitude towards each other as human beings on this populated planet called Earth. Surely we have learnt that the way we have been doing things, the attitudes we have towards each other, towards the planet and to wards the cosmos cannot be sustained. Time to read the beatitudes again it seems? Amen.

Bibliography: Dylan’s Lectionary Blog. Sarah Dylan Breuer. 2005. Funk, R. W. et al. The Five Gospels. The Search for the Authentic Words of Jesus. New York. Macmillan Publishing, 1993. Jerome H. Neyrey. <http://www.nd.edu/~jneyrey1/loss.html&gt; “Honoring the Dishonored: The Cultural Edge of Jesus’ Beatitudes,”

‘Each Day Nurtures and Enlivens’

The story of the Baptism of Jesus is a story that reminds us of the nature of awareness, the nature of encountering or engaging with the novel, the new. It challenges us to ask about choice and decision and making change and how to value them as part of life and living while at the same time acknowledging their importance as watershed or significant life choices. In the time of the early gatherings of Jesus followers it was important to declare ones membership of the cause, Baptism was a ritual that expressed that and later took on the supernatural status of divine family. The context of the story in our context is our lives and how we live them. During the past week of so some of us have undertaken the post-Christmas ritual of disassembling the lounge room Christmas tree and decorations. The fairy lights and decorated wreaths and been packed away. The last remaining spot of candle grease removed from the dining room table. And the Christmas cards packed away as reminders for another year. Maybe the cupboards and ‘under beds’ have once again received their annual ‘gifts’ and will not be invaded for another 11 months. It’ll soon be back to reality! Time to get back into the public demands of commuting and work and all that.

In the spirit of this so-called ‘return to reality’ let me then pose a couple of questions. How do we prepare to step out into the public spotlight? And how do we act once we are out in the public view? In this post Christendom and almost post Christian world, what is the significance of the ritual of Baptism? Parties, media releases and performances are the usual ways folk are introduced into public view.

 Rex Hunt talks of an article he read in 1970 Joint Board of Christian Education –
written by former Victorian, Doug Mackenzie.  The query was, “How can we in the church expand our rituals, our celebrations, to include those important special stages of life – such as applying for a first job, or leaving home to go to university, or heading off overseas for 12 months? What rituals can we, the church, encourage, invent, celebrate, as those among us step out into the public spotlight in these ‘first time’ public events? Rex commented that he was left with the conclusion we really haven’t seen the necessity of doing that. Perhaps it is caught up in the ‘too hard’ basket. Or got lost in the so-called ‘sacred/secular’ debate.”

Rex also notes that the church has been reasonably successful despite the decline in acknowledging how one is introduced into public ministry within the church. It still maintains its recognition and even one’s authentication or legalization through ordination and induction.

The baptism of Jesus, as told by the storyteller Matthew, is the church’s traditional ritual story of the ‘coming out’ of Jesus into the public spotlight. And while Jesus may have been reticent to claim titles for himself, others, such as Matthew, were quick to do so. For Matthew, this ‘coming out’ is of the one who will “establish justice upon the earth”. through tenderness and vulnerability rather than force. We note here the magnitude of the significance of his Baptism as more than an individually motivated act and thus an integral part of the meaning of the ritual. His coming out was both an individual personal choice and a social, political, economic, and religious transformation.

New Testament scholars now tell us the baptism of Jesus has distinctive characteristics in Matthew’s story. For instance, only Matthew: • includes a conversation between John the baptiser and Jesus; • recounts John’s resistance to the baptism request; • stresses the public character of the baptism – the ‘voice’ addresses everyone. And the baptism of Jesus was also a very controversial subject. John was not the first to baptise people. Jews baptised ‘outsiders’ into their faith, but did not baptise other Jews. Jesus was a Jew.

William Barclay picks up this point in his commentary on Matthew: “No Jew had ever conceived that he, a member of the chosen people, a son of Abraham, assured of God’s salvation, could ever need baptism…”. (Barclay 1956:52-53).

Rex has also said elsewhere… that;(i) Jesus’ baptism is mentioned only in the Synoptic Gospels, and not as ‘historical reports, but as Christian accounts of an existing practice within the Christian community, (ii) that tradition is clearly uneasy with the idea of John the Dipper baptising Jesus, and (iii) the John baptism was not a Christian baptism!

Grounding the Sacrament of Baptism in the New Testament as some are wont to do, is also tricky business.  There is no consistent or one New Testament view on this which leaded one to abandon that understanding.  Even when we examine the genuine Pauline letters it is impossible to determine the origin of Christian baptism.  Only that Paul already met with baptism

These were all important issues for members of the early Jesus Movement communities. Especially the debate around the different style and theology of Jesus and his cousin John, the baptiser! Dom Crossan also puts this in context for us: “The tradition is clearly uneasy with the idea of John baptizing Jesus because that seems to make John superior and Jesus sinful” (Crossan 1991:232).

And of course this raises another question. That which we have been taught by conservatives and traditionalists that Jesus was born and led a ‘sinless’ life. Like us, but not really one of us. So was Jesus just participating in a public relations exercise by setting a good public example? Others have suggested that maybe Jesus did not see himself as beyond the need for repentance. That he was content to be identified along with the tax collectors, the lowly, the outsider. Maybe he felt an acute need to share the baptism of repentance.

Bruce Prewer, retired Uniting Church minister, suggests: “Jesus was baptised along beside the common human herd, because he was one of us and saw himself as one of us.  He did not play the role of being a human being; he was one.  His dipping in the river was neither setting a good example nor a public relations exercise for the best of reasons…  If this leaves us in a doctrinal tangle about the so-called sinlessness of Jesus, too bad.  I would far prefer a tangle, a dilemma, a paradox, than compromise [his] essential humanity…”.  (Bruce Prewer Web site, 2005).

Much doctrinal ‘bothering’ has gone on over the years around this issue. In Matthew’s era and in our era. And no doubt all of you will have your own opinion on this issue as well. I am sure when Matthew told this story, he told it very sensitively and aware of the raging debates of his time. But Like Rex and many Progressives, I am also inclined to the view the reason he told this story was not doctrinal, but to lure his hearers away from all those ‘tangles’ to the life of the man Jesus who’s vision would enlarge their experiences of what it means to be human, a child of God, and the understanding of that which they named Elohim, Yahweh, and God and what we might name Love, The sacred, Perhaps or Almost.

Today, we are invited to recall the public ‘coming out’ of Jesus: Jesus’ baptism. And by association we are also being invited to recall our own baptism. To know again, to remember again, to acknowledge that the refreshing waters of baptism signified by the ritual enlivens, and nurtures us each new day. It also reminds us that we live in tat which we call God, the Serendipitously creating event we call God lives and comes to wonderful expression, in us in every new moment of life. If anything needs a ritual then that has to worth ‘coming out’ and celebrating! Amen.

Bibliography:
Barclay, W. The Gospel According to Matthew. Scotland. St Andrew’s Press, 1956.
Crossan, J. D. The Historical Jesus. The Life of a Mediterranean Jewish Peasant. North Blackburn. CollinsDove, 1991.

Hunt & Jenks. Wisdom & Imagination, Melbourne. Morning Star Publishing, 2014) ALSO Hunt, R. A. E. When Progressives Gather Together: Liturgy, Lectionary, Landscape… And Other Explorations. Melbourne: Morning Star Publishing, 2016.

‘Travelling Light.’

Did you hear the story floating about over the Christmas holidays? It claims that because the nativity stories were written by men there is a gap in the narratives about the birth of Mary and Joseph’s baby boy. This alternative version says that… Three Wise Women actually arrived before the three Wise Men (Ones). The women quickly asked for directions, got there in time to deliver the baby, made a casserole, and brought disposable nappies, baby cream and baby powder as their gifts for Mary, and a soft toy for the baby.

Are we in a post Christendom world or maybe even a post Christian World? Are we abandoning the Jesus story in favour of another or are we modifying it in the light of revelation? Are we reinterpreting it and how far can we go. I found a poem by John Roedel.

I was riding comfortably on the road to God

when suddenly and without warning

the wheels fell off of the ornate carriage I was riding in

~ and I became stuck

I was stranded on a dusty road

surrounded by the untamed wilderness on either side of me

“I have to get moving again,” I thought

so, I spent way too much time

desperately trying to fix what was irrecoverably broken

eventually, it became clear that I would never get my life to look the way it used to

I was tempted to turn the wreckage of my life into a roadside museum

and to make a home out of the ruins

but then suddenly and without warning

a blue butterfly came out of the badlands next to me ~

and landed right on my nose

her wings had the most abstract watercolor pattern I had ever see before

~ but after spending an hour watching her stretch and close her wings

I was able to see that the pattern actually spelled three words that I spoke out loud

“come find Me”

then suddenly and without warning the butterfly lept off of my nose

and back into the sprawling wild

I immediately set fire to the wreckage of my broken down carriage

and I chased the butterfly straight into the chaos of the wilderness

I’ve been out here for years now and I’ve learned that no matter how lost I have gotten

I have never felt more found by the Great Love

I have learned that there is no set road for me to journey to the home of God

for me, God’s home isn’t a fabulous destination at the end of a detailed map

or tight travel schedule

God’s home is the uncharted dangerous expanse of wonder and howling wolves

where the two of us climb trees to scout the next day’s walk

I was never going to find Love by watching the wheels spin on a groomed path

I was only going to find God by stepping off the path and into the crackerjack

splendor of the mystery that has been calling to me for years

it’s an undiscovered land where tree trunks are shaped like question marks

and rivers lead me from one curiosity to the next

it’s a relentless and unending adventure where Spirit arranges a couple hundred

bright blue butterflies in the sky to spell the same thing each morning:

“Come find me”

Today, we move further into the church’s traditional calendar… into the season of Epiphany. We remember here that Epiphany means ‘revelation’ or ‘showing forth’. Like the poem above we can say in our everyday contemporary language that: Epiphany is about ‘going on a journey, about searching for the new. We hear a collection of stories: of the Magi or Wise Ones, the baptism of Jesus, and the Marriage Feast of Cana, where Jesus begins his public ministry, and the calling of the first disciples. Interestingly enough, the biblical stories imply
Epiphany is a search everyone must make.

The storyteller we call Luke… has the poor doing the searching,  in the form of shepherds. The storyteller we call Matthew… has the learned (and rich) doing the searching, in the form of the Magi.

We are used to hearing the story of the Magi, but many of us miss the fact that our religious tradition gives us two sets of so-called Magi or Wise Ones. The first set are the ones we call the Magi. Legend and not history has it there were three and they have those lovely mediaeval names of Gaspar, Melchior, and Balthazar. And they took a series of risks as they pushed some boundaries and searched the heavens, followed the star, and made a commitment. But there was a second group of Wise Ones, the one’s Herod called in… These were the scribes and the pharisees.

Herod says to these Wise Ones, “I’ve got a problem here”.  And when you’ve got a problem you either call in the experts, or check out Wikipedia! Herod chose the former. He gathered a bunch of them together and said, “They talk of the birth of a messiah; I want to know where he is to be born.” And these Wise Ones come up with a ‘poetic’ answer: “In Bethlehem of Judea.” And that’s all that we hear of them.

Two groups of so-called ‘wise ones’.  Two different groups of ‘wise ones’. One group prepared to play it safe… One group, curious about the new, but prepared to take some risks. This Epiphany, we are asked to choose between the two ‘wise’ types: between those who play it safe, and between those who take a risk. Again, like that revealed by the poem above this risk or this revelation is a challenge about the need for a journey. It is perhaps too easy to say and could be said about every year and it can and should but like every year this one is going to be a very interesting and important year for this congregation this church this denomination and for you and I. A bit of a watershed year, we might say.

The challenge of this Epiphany, this year, this group of people is for it to be a year where we all dare to:

• use our imaginations a little more,

• recommit our involvement a little more, and

• like the Magi, become changed ourselves because of the experience and ‘return home by      another way’.

Rex Hunt suggests we might need an image to help us as we begin our new year together, as leaders and followers and the image he suggests is of being on a journey… on a camping trip, in tents, to be exact. We are on a journey. And because we are in tents, we need to travel light. While we need the ‘kitchen sink’, it needs to be a light-weight kitchen sink! But more than that, we are all on the journey together. We need each other’s guidance. We need each other’s encouragement. We need each other’s imagination. We need each other’s curiosity. We need each other’s creativity. We need each other’s balance.

We are all on a journey. And all of us are at different points on that journey. Some of us are way up the front; others of us are at the rear. Some of us are willing; some of us are dragging our feet just a bit. Some of us journey with great certainty; some of us have some doubt. It doesn’t matter where we are in the trip… It’s important that we are journeying at all. At least we’ve responded… we’re taking the risk, to explore, and to return home by another way!

And where is the hope of a new and different future? As a result of their journey, the Magi were changed. No longer could they be instruments of a government oppression. No longer could they repose in cynicism. No longer could they face the world with mere curiosity, remaining aloof. They were changed.  For they had been confronted with the newness and the hope experienced in a God like never before known. And their story is our story, too.
Home by a different way, never to be the same again. As we confront the demise of Christendom and maybe of the Christianity as we know it maybe the hope lies in our ability to interpret for today?

Epiphany

Caught in the kaleidoscope of love I am confronted by the beauty in ambiguity.

Swept away in gratitude for graced glimpses of what used to be certainty

wallowing in companionship of the other,

mesmerized by the constancy of the limited declaration.

Serendipitously divine beauty calls beyond the deeply disconcerting

carrying us far away to a place beyond and yet within the simple

complete but not yet dead alive and not yet born

Drawn by sunsets the dark clouds of distance are revealed

Yet still promise near the peaceful peaks and distant mountains

 The coloured strands of vision dance and glow like every changing form

 bouncing off barren branches and fluttering leaves of time

Sacred beauty is revealed in the gift of magnificence

like a cloaking of the soul brought to bear

In loving, consolation, affirmation, healing,

challenge and gratitude.

A dance of allurement in the heart of mystery,

Born a life of beauty, of mind beyond mundane, a life of sacred unity.

D Lendrum

In a way Epiphany is about another way to live. Another way to love. Another way to belong. Another way to be all we can possibly be.

John Shuck says that “Because Creativity God “is a god on the move and on the margins”. “This is a god who invites us to…

• Imagine a world in which there are no weapons because no one can ever think of a need for one.
• Imagine a world in which we don’t fear each other but enjoy each other.
• Imagine a world in which no one ever needs to worry about what to eat or what to wear or where to sleep.
• Imagine a world in which we give what we take and everyone has enough.
• Imagine a world in which our talents and creativity are valued for the joy they bring not the profit they make.
• Imagine a world in which the circle of care is so large that no one is left out.
• Imagine a world in which education is a lifetime love of learning.
• Imagine a world in which we live with the rhythms of Earth.
• Imagine a world in which we respect and care for all living things.
• Imagine a world in which the decisions we make are made with the awareness of how they will affect seven generations to come.
• Imagine a world in which we are daily filled with awe and joy”  

(JShuck. Shuck&Jive blog, 16/1/2011).

What is sure is that the journey awaits us… Imagine a world where the story of Jesus is a story that describes our journey, not God’s. This is Epiphany, our time for searching and journeying! The story of God is already being told and awaits ours to make it exist. So, Welcome to the journey… to an exciting camping trip. Together. Amen.

‘Each Day Nurtures and Enlivens’

The story of the Baptism of Jesus is a story that reminds us of the nature of awareness, the nature of encountering or engaging with the novel, the new. It challenges us to ask about choice and decision and making change and how to value them as part of life and living while at the same time acknowledging their importance as watershed or significant life choices. In the time of the early gatherings of Jesus followers it was important to declare ones membership of the cause, Baptism was a ritual that expressed that and later took on the supernatural status of divine family. The context of the story in our context is our lives and how we live them. During the past week of so some of us have undertaken the post-Christmas ritual of disassembling the lounge room Christmas tree and decorations. The fairy lights and decorated wreaths and been packed away. The last remaining spot of candle grease removed from the dining room table. And the Christmas cards packed away as reminders for another year. Maybe the cupboards and ‘under beds’ have once again received their annual ‘gifts’ and will not be invaded for another 11 months. It’ll soon be back to reality! Time to get back into the public demands of commuting and work and all that.

In the spirit of this so-called ‘return to reality’ let me then pose a couple of questions. How do we prepare to step out into the public spotlight? And how do we act once we are out in the public view? In this post Christendom and almost post Christian world, what is the significance of the ritual of Baptism? Parties, media releases and performances are the usual ways folk are introduced into public view.

 Rex Hunt talks of an article he read in 1970 Joint Board of Christian Education –
written by former Victorian, Doug Mackenzie.  The query was, “How can we in the church expand our rituals, our celebrations, to include those important special stages of life – such as applying for a first job, or leaving home to go to university, or heading off overseas for 12 months? What rituals can we, the church, encourage, invent, celebrate, as those among us step out into the public spotlight in these ‘first time’ public events? Rex commented that he was left with the conclusion we really haven’t seen the necessity of doing that. Perhaps it is caught up in the ‘too hard’ basket. Or got lost in the so-called ‘sacred/secular’ debate.”

Rex also notes that the church has been reasonably successful despite the decline in acknowledging how one is introduced into public ministry within the church. It still maintains its recognition and even one’s authentication or legalization through ordination and induction.

The baptism of Jesus, as told by the storyteller Matthew, is the church’s traditional ritual story of the ‘coming out’ of Jesus into the public spotlight. And while Jesus may have been reticent to claim titles for himself, others, such as Matthew, were quick to do so. For Matthew, this ‘coming out’ is of the one who will “establish justice upon the earth”. through tenderness and vulnerability rather than force. We note here the magnitude of the significance of his Baptism as more than an individually motivated act and thus an integral part of the meaning of the ritual. His coming out was both an individual personal choice and a social, political, economic, and religious transformation.

New Testament scholars now tell us the baptism of Jesus has distinctive characteristics in Matthew’s story. For instance, only Matthew: • includes a conversation between John the baptiser and Jesus; • recounts John’s resistance to the baptism request; • stresses the public character of the baptism – the ‘voice’ addresses everyone. And the baptism of Jesus was also a very controversial subject. John was not the first to baptise people. Jews baptised ‘outsiders’ into their faith, but did not baptise other Jews. Jesus was a Jew.

William Barclay picks up this point in his commentary on Matthew: “No Jew had ever conceived that he, a member of the chosen people, a son of Abraham, assured of God’s salvation, could ever need baptism…”. (Barclay 1956:52-53).

Rex has also said elsewhere… that;(i) Jesus’ baptism is mentioned only in the Synoptic Gospels, and not as ‘historical reports, but as Christian accounts of an existing practice within the Christian community, (ii) that tradition is clearly uneasy with the idea of John the Dipper baptising Jesus, and (iii) the John baptism was not a Christian baptism!

Grounding the Sacrament of Baptism in the New Testament as some are wont to do, is also tricky business.  There is no consistent or one New Testament view on this which leaded one to abandon that understanding.  Even when we examine the genuine Pauline letters it is impossible to determine the origin of Christian baptism.  Only that Paul already met with baptism

These were all important issues for members of the early Jesus Movement communities. Especially the debate around the different style and theology of Jesus and his cousin John, the baptiser! Dom Crossan also puts this in context for us: “The tradition is clearly uneasy with the idea of John baptizing Jesus because that seems to make John superior and Jesus sinful” (Crossan 1991:232).

And of course this raises another question. That which we have been taught by conservatives and traditionalists that Jesus was born and led a ‘sinless’ life. Like us, but not really one of us. So was Jesus just participating in a public relations exercise by setting a good public example? Others have suggested that maybe Jesus did not see himself as beyond the need for repentance. That he was content to be identified along with the tax collectors, the lowly, the outsider. Maybe he felt an acute need to share the baptism of repentance.

Bruce Prewer, retired Uniting Church minister, suggests: “Jesus was baptised along beside the common human herd, because he was one of us and saw himself as one of us.  He did not play the role of being a human being; he was one.  His dipping in the river was neither setting a good example nor a public relations exercise for the best of reasons…  If this leaves us in a doctrinal tangle about the so-called sinlessness of Jesus, too bad.  I would far prefer a tangle, a dilemma, a paradox, than compromise [his] essential humanity…”.  (Bruce Prewer Web site, 2005).

Much doctrinal ‘bothering’ has gone on over the years around this issue. In Matthew’s era and in our era. And no doubt all of you will have your own opinion on this issue as well. I am sure when Matthew told this story, he told it very sensitively and aware of the raging debates of his time. But Like Rex and many Progressives, I am also inclined to the view the reason he told this story was not doctrinal, but to lure his hearers away from all those ‘tangles’ to the life of the man Jesus who’s vision would enlarge their experiences of what it means to be human, a child of God, and the understanding of that which they named Elohim, Yahweh, and God and what we might name Love, The sacred, Perhaps or Almost.

Today, we are invited to recall the public ‘coming out’ of Jesus: Jesus’ baptism. And by association we are also being invited to recall our own baptism. To know again, to remember again, to acknowledge that the refreshing waters of baptism signified by the ritual enlivens, and nurtures us each new day. It also reminds us that we live in tat which we call God, the Serendipitously creating event we call God lives and comes to wonderful expression, in us in every new moment of life. If anything needs a ritual then that has to worth ‘coming out’ and celebrating! Amen.

Bibliography:
Barclay, W. The Gospel According to Matthew. Scotland. St Andrew’s Press, 1956.
Crossan, J. D. The Historical Jesus. The Life of a Mediterranean Jewish Peasant. North Blackburn. CollinsDove, 1991.

Hunt & Jenks. Wisdom & Imagination, Melbourne. Morning Star Publishing, 2014) ALSO Hunt, R. A. E. When Progressives Gather Together: Liturgy, Lectionary, Landscape… And Other Explorations. Melbourne: Morning Star Publishing, 2016.