EASTER 7C - Christian Unity

Today marks the beginning of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity – the week leading up to the Day of Pentecost which we sometimes call the birthday of the Church.

Having been committed to the ecumenical movement for many years I am familiar with the sentiments we seek to address during this week.

On the one hand there is room for some remorse over the history of division and exclusion that we have all been part of over the centuries.  Yet, on the other hand there is much to celebrate as we have found more and more opportunities to act in unity with our Christian brothers and sisters.

But it is hard.

I was reading up a little about the history of the Christianisation of the Nubian Kingdom many centuries ago.  Some suggest that the Christianity reached the ancient Kingdom of Makuria during the first century AD and this is plausible in context of the spread of Christianity into a near neighbour – Ethiopia. 

A few centuries later during the 6^th Century, however, we seem to have records of a Byzantine Queen Theodora determining to send missionaries to the Kingdom – but she got involved in a race with another group to get there first.  A missionary sent by Emperor Justinian, and representing the true Orthodox Church tried to get there first and failed.

These two competing expressions of Christianity were born out of the Credal Councils of the Church and divided over the divine nature of Jesus.  The Nicene Creed affirmed that he was fully human and fully divine, but Queen Theodora and her church friends believed that Jesus was always and only fully divine – they were called Monophytes.

Alas, a century further on the Arabs invaded and tried to force Islam on the Nubian people – some areas resisted for a thousand years but others converted – but they did not forget their Christian heritage. 

The Missionary movement of the 19^th Century very largely concentrated its activities in what we now call South Sudan, but their work revived the church in the Nuba regions.

It is sad that the missionary movement replicated the denominational divisions of Europe which were largely meaningless to the Sudanese people – but there you go. 

Part of the problem for the church in South Sudan is that the dioceses are based on ethnic tribal groupings of people – which is a way of ensuring a bishop will be recognised by all in that diocese.  Culturally, they are unable to accept diversity within the church.  That might help you understand why there is still so much strife in South Sudan even though they were given their independence a few years ago.

It seems that divisiveness is almost instinctive to us – yet the prayer of Jesus in John 17 is a call to us all in the church to be really counter-cultural.  It calls us to act against our instincts.  It calls us to go against all our cultural norms.

So, how do we need to change in order to live this way?

In our study this week of Marcus’ Borg’s book, The Heart of Christianity, we gave some consideration to this idea.  We were talking about being Christian in a world that is pluralistic – where there are not just other religions, but many different ways of being Christian.

Some people over the years have been very cautious about the work of the World Council of Churches.  They have somehow gotten the idea that the goal of the Council is to create a single homogeneous church which, of course, might mean we have to change a bit.  What Borg and the Council of Churches seem to get is that rather than trying to find some small areas which we hold in common and work together on the basis of that, we should be so self-contained in our confidence about the faith we have that we can celebrate the different faith that others have without feeling like we are compromising our faith.  If we can confidently celebrate our diversity then we will be able to demonstrate the Unity of Spirit that Jesus is praying for. 

This is not a case of putting aside any of the things we hold dear – rather it simply involves allowing others to do the faith differently than we do.

It is a way of saying that God and Jesus are too big for any one church to say it all.  If we can grasp this then we can celebrate those other Christians we might work with because when they are added to us we might actually be getting closer to all that God wants us to be.

So often in the Church we think one of our primary tasks is guarding the doors – checking up on who gets in and does not.  That is what our Creeds and Statements of Faith are about.  We use these to decide if someone can be included in our definition of what it means to be a Christian.  Somehow, when I consider the teachings of Jesus, I think God isn’t like that nor does God want us to be like that.

Our starting point should be that everyone is IN.

When we are IN and together like that, and when we seek to explore how we should be practicing the Christian life together – the things that we should be doing in Jesus’ name – then we will find far more people on the inside than if we had tried to keep them out at the door.

Jesus says very clearly that our WORK is to live in Jesus – to abide in him – in just the same way that Jesus abides in God the Father.  As we all live in this close and intimate relationship with Jesus, even though we might do the outward practices of our faith and order in the church differently, we will become the answer to Jesus’ prayer.

Easter 5C - Radical Inclusion

When you travel overseas it is often necessary to take special precautions about the food and water that you consume because they might make you sick.  A friend’s recent trip to Sri Lanka created a constant anxiety for her about the water – but also about how well the food might have been cooked.

In our medicalised view of the world we have accepted as true the idea that what goes into you can indeed do you a great deal of harm.

This is not unlike the world in which Jesus lived where they had a religious tradition we call a “purity code”.  According to the rules associated with this if you ate certain things you would be ritually unclean.  If you touched certain things you would become ritually unclean.  And if you associated with certain kinds of people you would be regarded as ritually unclean.

And if you were ritually unclean it meant that you could not fulfill your religious obligations at temple or synagogue.  Depending on the gravity of the transgression the uncleanness would last a certain number of days – a day, a week, a month or even longer.  Generally a form of ritual washing completed the period of days and sometimes a sacrifice was required.

It is in this context that we have to begin to understand the story that was read from Acts 11.  On one level it is a story of the Holy Spirit of God trying to break through the thick skulls of the Apostles that the Gospel was a message for all humanity, not just the Jews – but as history bears out, Peter was not the great apostle to the Gentiles.  That commission was given to Paul.  Peter was the leader of the apostolic mission to the Jews.

But in using the metaphor of unclean foods to get this message across the voice in the vision says to Peter “Do not consider anything unclean that God has declared clean.”  It is these words that struck me most as I read through the selected texts for today.  So what are we to make of it as God’s word to us for today?

On another level I think this story could also be an attempt by the Holy Spirit of God to get through the thick skulls of the Apostles that this new Way of Jesus means an end to the Purity Code that had for so long controlled so many aspects of their daily lives.

This should not have been a new idea to the Apostles if they had been listening to the stories of Jesus as we have them recorded in the Gospels.  Jesus frequently challenged the purity code:-

• He ate with tax collectors and sinners (code for Gentiles).
• He did not mind the company of women – noting the haemorrhaging woman who was clearly “unclean” according to the code.
• He had no qualms reaching out to touch lepers.
• He touched the coffin of the dead son of the widow of Nain.

So, here in this story, Peter is being reminded again that the Way of Jesus establishes a new way to God that is not about purity – “If God says something is clean, then don’t go on saying it is unclean.” - it is about Inclusion.  Everyone is welcome!

So the question I then have to ask myself is do we still have remnants of a purity code in the church today and if so, what does it look like?

One example of it that I see in some places is a clear reluctance to mix with certain kinds of people.  This might be because their theology is perceived to be in error; or it might be because they live morally questionable lifestyles; or it might even be nothing more than that they are obviously much poorer than us.  In some of my ecumenical work I have come across good people who refused to join in the work of a committee because there were Catholics on it.  It was almost as if being close to them might contaminate their own reputation as Christian people.

In an earlier time in many churches people who smoked cigarettes or drank alcohol were regarded as something like social pariahs – people not to be associated with if you wanted to be really Christian.  And you might add to that women who wore makeup or had their ears pierced and etc. etc. etc.

But I think there are some more subtle ways in which we use attitudes and gesture to try and keep our little part of the Community of Christ rather bland and homogenous.  People who are not like us are subtly excluded from circles.  People who hold different political or theological views than our group are also shut out – very subtly.

Jesus is calling us into a very different kind of community than those that humans generally try to create in which we are all alike.  He does this by challenging us to recognise the mark of God in every other human being – we call this “the image of God” – and then to love that person who is bearing the mark of God.

This kind of radical inclusion stands in contrast to what we see in most of society and that is why John reminds of the words of Jesus that we have been given a new commandment (I actually think it is really an old one restated) to love one another.  When we do this, he says, people will really know that you are his disciples. 

This should mark us apart from the rest of society.  We should be a place that is welcoming and inclusive.  It makes me really sad to see the enormous amount of material on social media in which Christian people are excluding themselves from people whose sexuality or morality is troublesome to them.  Or people who want to reject others because of their theology or some other aspect of difference.

It is only when we welcome others and sit down at meals with them that we can ever begin to share our journey of faith with them as Jesus did and has called us to do.

Easter 3C - Your mission, if you choose to accept it ...

Last Sunday, as we gave our consideration to the story that is often said to be about Doubting Thomas, I was struck by the words of Jesus to his friends.  These were John’s equivalent of the Great Commission we read in Matthew 28 – but here Jesus is concerned with just one thing – Forgiveness.

John, of course, has a singular thread running through his gospel –

The God is love and those who love are in God and he is in them. 

This is the new commandment – Love one another. 

So it is not surprising nor out of place for him to see that what Jesus is commanding us all to be engaged in as his disciples – forgiveness.  This is our singular task.

Strangely enough I think many Christians find this one of the hardest things in their journey of faith.  If they have been hurt by someone, especially someone in the church, they so often find it darned hard to make up with them by offering forgiveness.  I know I have struggled with that.

A story has emerged from the US in the aftermath of the shootings in Paris some little while ago.

Somewhere or another there must be some similar teaching on the Qu’oran, but there certainly is that teaching in the Bible.

In the stories that John tells us, immediately after he tells us in Jesus’ voice that our mission is to be forgiving people, there are two really vivid things for us to understand.

One of the many layers of meaning in that resurrection appearance of Jesus on the beach is the idea that his disciples are to cast out wide nets and gather in all who are there.  This is a call to be an inclusive place – where all are welcome no matter their background.  That was revolutionary thinking for his Jewish Disciples who had live in exclusive isolation from other races.

But I am more interested in the second story.

Before his execution, Jesus had warned Peter that he was going to do something unthinkable – and it was so unthinkable that Peter simply said that he would never do that.

But he did!

As I look at this scenario I feel for both Jesus and for Peter. 

If Jesus was anything like you and me, and in many ways I think he was, he would have been heart-broken by the way his disciples all seemed to flake off into the shadows during the period leading up to his execution.  And Peter’s betrayal would have hurt all the more because he had warned Peter.

But think about how Peter might have felt, too.  I know that sometimes when people do something bad to others they don’t feel any remorse because they have worked out a way of thinking that has justified the horrible thing they have done.  But Peter must have felt shattered.  We call that shame.  We have failed.  We have let down someone we really do care about.  It crushes us.  We just want to hide away.

It is not surprising that Peter decided to go off fishing.  He had to do something to take his mind of his shame.  But Jesus follows him.

Here is a great teaching moment for Jesus.  He has given his disciples this commission about forgiveness, now he can show them how it is done.

“Peter, do you love me more than these others do?”

Wow.  What a question.  It goes right to it.

Do you think Peter was able to look Jesus in the face that first time he said “Yes Lord.  You know that I love you.”?  Whether he did or not we don’t know, but Jesus said to him “Take care of my lambs”. 

And this happened three times.

Anything that happens three times is something we have to take notice of.  This is the same kind of forgiveness there was in Jesus parable of the Prodigal Son/Father.  It was a forgiveness that did not have in it retribution.  There was no probation after a failure.  Here Peter is welcomed back into the community of the Disciples.

This single thing could transform the world.

This single thing could transform the church.

This single thing could transform you.

I said this was a hard thing – and it is.  But when we remember how God has forgiven us so much, how could we ever withhold forgiveness from a fellow brother or sister.

God has forgiven us everything.  There is nothing terrible or bad that we have done that God is holding out on the forgiveness for.  It is in that forgiveness that we accept our righteousness before God – not something of our own efforts, not something that we deserved, but something by God’s grace that we have received.

And it is in that righteousness that we are restored as his children and can stand before him here every Sunday to receive these holy things.  Nothing we do can keep us away from God’s love and forgiveness – as Peter found on that day on the beach.

EASTER 2 C - Ministers of Reconciliation

I have picked up Tim Winton’s Cloudstreet for a re-read.

The story, as some of you will know, centres on the collision of the lives of two very different families in a rambling old house somewhere in the Subiaco/Claremont area.  There was inveterate gambler Sam Pickles who is penniless and will never work properly again because of an injury inherits an old house which he can’t sell for twenty years; and there was Lester Lamb and clan whose rental of half the house provided Sam and Dolly with an income.

It’s a long and complex story and I suspect many of you have read it, but I discovered last Sunday that there was a very important interpretive clue right at the beginning of the novel.  I had previously read the novel for the story, and when I watched the TV series again I was wanting the story to be reawakened for me, which it was.

You know how writers often put a little quote at the beginning of the book – or even at the beginning of every chapter – well, Tim Winton has given us such a thing right at the beginning of Cloudstreet, and I assure you it is a very important clue as to what are the important bits of the story.  He gives us just two lines of one of those old evangelical songs from the 19th century:

Shall we gather at the river

Where bright angel-feet have trod…

The story includes frequent episodes described in metaphysical imagery – of a house that is a living breathing thing caught up in the sadness of its own history, of lights, and gatherings, and water, of a pig that speaks in tongues and of a mystical blackfella who keeps calling people “home”.  All these things interwoven with the story only make sense in the light of these two lines.

In all three years of our Lectionary this reading from John’s Gospel is prescribed for the Sunday after Easter, so our church Fathers consider it to be a very important story for us to take notice of, and indeed, John felt this was an important story and he wants us to notice some things about it, too.  The challenging question is “What are we supposed to notice?”

How can we decide this?

Well I want to suggest that a few lines right at the beginning of John’s Gospel might get us there:

In the beginning was the Word

And the Word was with God

And the Word was God

When we think about the things John wants us to take notice of in the Gospel stories he tells us, in the way he tells them, much of it will only make sense in the light of these three lines – which many think were lines in a song or poem.

They speak of Jesus’ unique relationship with the God and his intimate involvement in the creation of all things.

In this text we have before us the thing that stands out almost blindingly obvious when you use these three lines as a filter is the way that Jesus greeted them. 

“Peace be with you.

As the Father has sent me, so I send you.”

²²When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them,

“Receive the Holy Spirit.

²³If you forgive the sins of any,

they are forgiven them;

if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”

Did you notice it?

Well, you might not have.  Let me help.

John stands apart from Luke in his understanding of the nature and meaning of the coming of the Holy Spirit.  In Luke, it is all about signs and wonders and the undoing of that great Babylonian myth of “The Tower of Babel” by which the Hebrew people understood the emergence of diverse languages.

For John, the coming of the Holy Spirit is intimately involved with images of Creation – here the new creation.  When God created all things he created the man out of the “dust of the ground” and then “breathed into his nostrils the breath of life.”  This action was repeated again when God created the woman.  Interestingly it is not part of the story of the creation of all the other living, breathing animals that were created as helpers for the man.

So, for John, who has been thinking about these things for a very long time before he wrote them down, the use of this breathing imagery in the story of Jesus passing on the Holy Spirit is his way of recognizing Jesus’ intimate role in re-creating us.

Jesus breathed on them and said “receive the Holy Spirit.”  This is a direct echo of the Creation story in Genesis 2.  So this is really important – have I got your attention now?

So, having imparted the Holy Spirit to them, affirming that they are New Creations (as St Paul would describe it), what is the very next thing he tells them?

“If you forgive the sins of any,

they are forgiven them;

if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”

Now the church has made a lot out of these words over the years as it tried to ensure its place as controller of all things mystical.  In the end they simply created exactly what these words were challenging. 

In Jesus’ day the Temple was the only place you could go to have your sins forgiven – you would make the required offering or sacrifice and the sins would be forgiven.  When early Christians said things like this they were daring to stand independent of the Temple system – they did not have to go to Temple.  That was radical.  That was treasonable in those days.

Jesus is saying we all have within our power those things we thought were in the gift and power of the church alone – the power to forgive sins and withhold forgiveness. 

But I want to pick up something in particular in these words of Commission by Jesus.  After declaring that they have received the gift of the Holy Spirit, Jesus gives them a very singular mission – to forgive people.  We can talk about the withholding of forgiveness in another place.  Here I just want is to think about the significance of this primary task.

During the week a man was talking to me about his recent experience with a man he had been in trouble with for a long time.  It wasn’t really bad trouble – they just kept irritating each other.  This meant they were frequently resentful of each other and there certainly was no trust between them.

The man told me he knew he had to try and do something to make things better, but he didn’t really know what to do.  Anyway he arranged to meet with this man to try and talk about things.  They talked and talked.  He listened more than he talked, I think.  He said to me that after about two hours of this he felt the Holy Spirit tell him something very important.

He looked the man straight in the eye and said to him “I’m sorry.  I think in all these things I have hurt you and I am sorry that I did that to you.”  Then he put his hand out in reconciliation.  The other man hesitated as the significance of this was sinking in and then he took his hand and pulled him into a long and warm embrace.  Both men wept as they found forgiveness in this moment.

I think there is something very powerful in the wisdom of Jesus in giving his disciples this one task – to forgive one another.  I truly believe that that wisdom exists in all the other religious traditions of the world, and it would be a wonderful world if we all got it – but that is another story.

The important story is that we have all been called into this great mission of reconciliation – by this simple gift of the Holy Spirit.  Imagine a world in which there was no need for revenge, where people were not holding on to old hurts that made their lives hell.

The bit of the imagery that I love is the BREATH.  Without breath, what are we?  We are dead.  It is BREATH that give us life and keeps us alive.

So, for Christ’s sake, I ask you to take a very deep breath.  Get ready …

Receive the Holy Spirit. Breathe in the Holy Spirit, Let the Spirit fill you with every breath, flow in your blood stream, and saturate your attitudes, your thoughts, your words and your deeds!  And give you Peace.

EASTER DAY - Idle Tales?

There is a widely held view that human beings are much more prone to believe negative or bad news stories than they are to believe good news stories.

There is something in our brain that seems to be wired for this kind of negativity and so when someone tells us something critical about ourselves we take that right to heart, but is someone tells us a compliment, we brush it off and we certainly do not take it to heart.

Someone once described this using a metaphor of Velcro® for the effect negative things have on us and Teflon® for the effect good things have on us – one hangs on like glue, and the other slides off.

So it was on that Resurrection morning.  The closest women friends of Jesus went early in the morning to the tomb in which Jesus’ body had been laid.  While Joseph and his friends had done the basics in preparing Jesus’ body for burial before the “Sabbath” arrived, there was obviously more to be done.  When they got there something was seriously wrong.

The stone closure to the tomb had been hauled back and when they looked inside they saw no body.  The text says: “They stood there puzzled about this.”  I think I might have been more than puzzled.

Anyway, the angels appear and remind the women of Jesus’ forecast of this moment, and then tell them that he is risen.  Amazingly the women believe this straight off.  There is a sense that they are grasped by the Good News and this changes the way the whole world looks to them – forever.  Jesus had promised them way back in Luke 6 – “Happy are you who weep now: you will laugh.”  That seemed impossible when they first heard it – until now.  Just like when Jesus told them “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you and pray for those who mistreat you.”  This life ethic seemed impossible too – until now.

Easter Day brings us the shocking gift of good news: a new way of seeing life that lifts us out of our old ways, turns us around, and reveals everything from a shining new perspective.  That is why you are here today, isn’t it?

When we are experiencing the dark side of life – illness, difficulties, war and persecution as some of you have, or our lives just getting messy and out of control – we want so much to believe that darkness is NOT more powerful than light, and that by Christ’s resurrection God is able to transform our lives.

You have to read between the lines, I think, to see how this good news transformed the lives of these women.  I can imagine them skipping along.  I can imagine them chattering to each other and singing with those wonderful ululations that Middle Eastern and African women are so good at.  And there would be tears – as the realisation that He was not dead but alive began to sink in.

That is why we sing such joyful music and have trumpets and drums and sometimes even dancing.  We have the only good news that can set this world to rights.

But the powers-that-be want nothing of this good news.  “An idle tale” is what the men called it and they would not believe it.  They preferred to be overwhelmed by the bad news of Jesus’ death.  I doubt if the women were really surprised when the men said that.  Women were regarded legally as “incredible” as witnesses of anything.  But there must have been something about the way the women spoke that was new – or empowered.  While the men said “No!  Couldn’t be!”  Peter did get up and go to see for himself, and of course the truth was revealed.

God’s Easter power has met them unexpectedly at the empty tomb, and God’s great Easter victory has transformed all other realities of their lives.

Easter joy like there is contagious and it will not be silenced.  The good news of Easter is real even in the face of doubt and unbelief.  Let us all go from this place like these faithful women to proclaim this good news that can transform lives wherever and whenever we can.

We’re Not Supposed to be Here

There’s a very funny scene in the old film “The Life of Brian” in which there are a large number of women dressed up as men joining in with the crowd in jeering a man who is being stoned to death.  The women had to do this because women were not supposed to be at stonings, and the humour of the story arose when some of the religious authorities began to suspect that there were some women there, but they couldn’t exactly tell. 

It has been suggested by one of the commentators I read, that our Gospel story today is a case just like that.  Mary in this story was in a place she should not have been.  Our Sudanese will understand this better because they have lived by rules that mean that the men and the women eat separately.  But in this story, Mary crosses the line.

I think John has rather carefully crafted the telling of these stories because there are some nice echoes of the stories of Lazarus and Mary in the chapters that follow.  The death and resurrection of Lazarus pre-figures Jesus own death and resurrection, and Mary's gesture of anointing the feet of Jesus rather than his head as you might expect in such a story, prefigures the teaching of Jesus that will follow when he commands his disciples to follow his example and wash one another’s feet.

The story we are considering happened just after Jesus had raised Lazarus to life and it seems to be the case that it was a direct expression of gratitude to Jesus by the new man Lazarus.   And Mary invades the male space at this meal.  It was not inappropriate for Martha to serve the meal to the men as it seems she did, but Mary’s behaviour was inappropriate – indeed it could have been regarded as scandalous. 

John in his telling of the story seems to want to emphasise the extravagance of Mary’s gesture.  The nard she uses was an aromatic essential oil from the Far East so it would have been very expensive and have travelled a long way in the baggage of merchants.  Social mores of the time would have judged Mary’s actions as scandalous – her anointing and gentle wiping of Jesus feet was something that belonged in the bedroom, not a public place like this.

But it is the extravagance of the gesture that incites Judas to words.  He rebukes this woman for invading male space in order to do this to Jesus.

To Judas’ shame, Jesus affirms both the right of Mary to be and what she has chosen to do.  In his eyes Mary is exactly where she should be.  He has made it clear from the beginning of his public ministry that women, children and other powerless people of that day were welcome in his company.  The coming reign of God would be a time and place where all were welcome, all are valued.

This woman who goes where she is not supposed to go is important for another reason.  Her brother Lazarus was dead and now he is alive.  This dinner is to celebrate that barrier-shattering event.  He was dead and the stench that was referred to as coming from his tomb when Jesus arrived – the odour of death – stands in stark contrast to the odour of this costly perfume – a sweet smell of life.

It is reasonable to think that some of the people close to Jesus were aware of how close he was to facing his own death.  They didn’t need to be fortune-tellers.  The signs were clear in the way John tells the story.  So here we have Mary acting as a harbinger of the imminent death of Jesus but crying out for it to be a barrier-shattering event like Lazarus’ death, that his death might somehow be the end of death.

And because we know that in a chapter or two of this story Jesus will teach his disciples something very important, we can say here that this gesture by Mary was an extraordinary example of her modelling the kind of discipleship we are all called to.  Mary has done without being told what Jesus is soon going to do to his friends – wash their feet – drawing them into an intimate relationship with himself, just as he is in an intimate relationship with his Father in heaven.  And it is in this relationship that Jesus removes all of our alienation and estrangement from God.

So this extravagant act of a woman who dared to go where she was not supposed to go heralds one of the most important things Jesus wanted to teach his friends in his last few hours with them.  In a radical call to servant-hood, Jesus commands his friends to do to each other what he had just done for the.  Jesus in this teaching is turning upside down all the social conventions of his day.  When the leaders become the least then the Kingdom of God is here.  When the poor are the recipients of our extravagance then the Kingdom of God is here. 

Everything is upside down and understanding when it is that we must go where society says we are not supposed to go is one of the great challenges of our Lenten journey.  There is no getting away from it – following Jesus is a costly thing.  Remember Mary as we move towards Palm Sunday and into Holy Week.  She will be there with us, reminding us that life can come out of death, and that God is always ready to do a new thing – even in us.

LENT 3 - Focus Makes you Fabulous

“Focus makes you Fabulous”

I have seen these words above the computer of people’s work-stations and I suspect that it’s meant to encourage them not to be distracted by the many things that can distract you at work.

But there are times when I find it hard to tell the difference in someone between this admirable commitment to doing what needs doing and being simply stubborn.

A few chapters earlier in Luke’s Gospel from where we read today, Luke says:

“As the time drew near when Jesus would be taken up to heaven, he made up his mind and set out on his way to Jerusalem.”

Your older translations say “Set his face towards Jerusalem”, a phrase that gives a stronger sense of being focussed on that one thing, with a determination not to be distracted.

Now I would not be surprised if some of his disciples thought this was rather fool-hardy – indeed there is a story of gloom Thomas saying in effect “let’s go to Jerusalem and die there with him.”

In our text today, we have a rather extraordinary story of a small group of Pharisees even being so concerned about Jesus fool hardiness in going to Jerusalem.  “Don’t go!” they said.  “Herod wants to kill you.”

One thing is certain – Jesus knew that by going to Jerusalem he would ultimately meet his death; he knew that the religious and political leaders would not let him live.  But we can see from his response to his kind insiders what he had been doing along the way as he headed towards Jerusalem.  He was still teaching the common people, telling creative parables, healing the physically and mentally ill, and making time for dining out with disreputable characters.  He even makes it clear that he knows he is going to die – all the prophets die in Jerusalem.  So he keeps on going.

He would not be deflected from going to confront his critics in the Holy City.

Was that being stubborn?

In hindsight, we know that he was not just being stubborn.  In fact Jesus was being loyal to the cause of his God, understanding that no matter how much the prospect of crucifixion appalled him, it was nevertheless the right thing to risk it.  He realised that by being willing to lose life something far larger can be accomplished.

What Jesus did has been an example to all followers.

Many have put their faith in him and his way.  The single-mindedness of Stephen saw him stoned to death outside Jerusalem.  James was beheaded; Paul and Peter were martyred in Rome, Thomas in faraway India.

But it did not end with the apostles.

There continued to be notable examples throughout the Christian story.  The witness of those who stuck to their belief at the cost of their well-being, their health, their freedom or their life.

Many but not all became official “saints.”  We don’t hear many sermons about the saints these days – perhaps in our season after Pentecost this year I will take s on a journey with a few.  But there are a lot of amazing stories of amazing people.

Like the aged Polycarp in the 2nd C. AD.

A much loved pastor who, when asked to curse Christ and worship Caesar as Lord or face death by burning at the stake, replied: “Eighty and six years I have served Christ, and he has done me no wrong.  How can I then curse my Lord and my Saviour?” 

Was he just being plain stubborn?

Or the young mother Perpetua.

She walked boldly into the arena to be killed for her faith, then loosed her hair and declared: “This is my day of coronation!”

Was she being stubborn or one of Christ’s true servants?

Francis of Assisi and his disciple Claire.

For much of their lives they were misunderstood and hassled by church authorities. Yet they persisted in their way of Christ’s love, welcoming poverty and hardship for the cause of Christ. 

Stubborn or genuine followers of Jesus of Nazareth?

There are many more of them – Australian ones, too.

John Wycliffe- Oxford scholar and English Bible translator, 

Martin Luther the determined German reformer.

Mary MacKillop who persisted in her mission to establish schools for the poor.

Each of these refused the advice of people close to them to stop doing these things because they were causing too much trouble.

Stubborn or people focussed on doing God’s will?

What about you and me?  Are we keen to emulate them in forethought?  Are we ready in mind and spirit to be so single-minded?

As I said at the beginning – sometimes it is hard to tell the difference between admirable commitment to doing what needs doing and being simply stubborn.  It is not always easy to be sure of the right path when we are suddenly faced with a conflict between apparent truth and error, integrity and compromise?  We need to have fortified ourselves in advance by “dwelling in Christ.”  Fore-thought is not anxiety; it is calm preparedness.

My Confession time

I think I need to make a little confession to you before I proceed.  You know that I have been a Christian for a long time and most of that time now I have worked in one way or another for the church.  Over those years there have been a good number of times when I made what I thought was a firm stand in line with what God wanted in that situation – sometimes at great personal cost.

Looking back now with time for quiet reflection and a perspective that only comes much later on I think there may well have been more occasions that I feel comfortable about where my motives were rather mixed or even dubious.

Sometimes I was just plain stubborn.

It is so often a tricky thing to judge your own motives.  Are we being highly principled or just stubborn (intent on our own way)?  That is the tough question.

That’s why it’s probably a good idea, when you are faced with something tricky to:  

• Pray carefully about it – seeking out what God may require of us.  
• What would Jesus do? is a trite question but it is meant to make us consider how the things he taught and did might guide us in the situation.
• Finally, seek out a second opinion.  Ask a wise friend or pastor what they think you should do.  

Lent is a good time to assess how we are going.  

Our calling is to follow in the Way of Jesus – where he goes.

Our calling is to do so without distraction, without deviation, with focussed determination to do it.

I think it would be fair to say that we need this kind of courage in the church today.

The people involved with #LoveMakesAWay try to live with this kind of courage.  Those Doctors in Brisbane who wanted to #LetThemStay were trying to live with this kind of courage.

May we have the same courage when called on.