PROPER 10C - In God We Trust

Down and out.

That is how life was for the two widows in our stories today.

The woman in Zarephath was preparing what she thought would be her last meal.

The woman in Nain was burying her son and, being a widow and unable to inherit from her son, she was facing immediate homelessness.

This was as down and out as anyone could be.

When such circumstances crash in on people today they might have family supports to carry them through, they might have access to some Social Security safety net income, but they might not – and for them life is very tough.

But the story emerging from these two tales is one of hope.

Firstly they encourage is to trust that God will provide.

I have seen communities in which this encouragement has expanded into what we might call a “Prosperity Gospel” – if we pray the right way God will give us what we ask for.  I don’t think either of these women became rich beyond their wildest dreams.  But in their desperate need, God became present in Elijah and Jesus to meet their need give them a new way forward.

The second thing emerging from these stories is the encouragement to be content with what God has given us.  This is very hard in our modern consumer society – we grow up being taught that we can do anything we aspire to and that if we work hard enough we can get anything that we want.

It becomes really hard for us to even imagine what enough is let alone be content with enough.  I would dare to suggest that “enough” is probably far less than you currently think you need in life.

But these stories encourage us all to trust that God will make sure we have enough.

I know that some of you think of our church here at Holy Cross as a “little church”.  Sometimes we feel desolate about the future of the church because we have become so small.  But I want to encourage you to trust that God will ensure that we have ENOUGH.

You may remember that parable of the Kingdom of Heaven in Matthew 13:  “The Kingdom of Heaven is like this.  A woman takes some yeast and mixes it with a bag of flour until the whole batch of dough rises.”

If we are to trust that God will make sure we have enough, we also have to trust that in God what we do have is enough to be the Kingdom of Heaven in this place.

TRINITY C - Can We Make Sense of the Trinity?

There is a standing joke around among ministers that if they ever had theological students working with them when Trinity Sunday came around they would get the student to preach the sermon.  I obviously have not lived by that rule, and I think our student might be rather glad about that.

But why is it so?

Celtic image of Trinity

We all know that the Trinity is the one central doctrine by which we judge the orthodoxy of other churches by.  Yet it is still a doctrine that most preachers find difficult to tackle.

It seems to me that the idea of the unity of Father Son and Holy Spirit as One God is something that we know to be profoundly true and yet we find it almost impossible to explain its meaning in language that is governed by sense and logic.

Last year I used a metaphor of the ancient theatre world to try and express it, but that didn’t work for some of you – and you told me so.

I had a thought recently that was affirmed in our Thursday Prayer group last week.  It involved the simplest and most accessible image for us.  We westerners use a particular idea when we speak of our human being.  We speak of having a body, soul and spirit.  We have a sense of these three as separate aspects of our selves, yet we know that each is indivisible from the others.

On Sunday last my wife and I attended the service at St John’s Anglican Church in Albany, and what a wonderful surprise the Holy Spirit had for us on that Day of Pentecost.  After some time without a minister there are now two women priests serving the congregation and the whole place felt alive in new ways.

In her sermon for Pentecost, the minister made a comment about the function of the Holy Spirit and I think this is at the heart of understanding the significance of the Trinity.  She said that the work of the Spirit was to bind the Father and the Son together in love, and that bound in this way they formed a community.

Now this is as far as I need to go in comprehending the idea of the Trinity.  It is enough for me.  I don’t think we can ever find a satisfactory logical and reasonable explanation of it.  Every attempt will have flaws in the argument or gaps in the logic and through these our arguments could be destroyed.

But we all affirm the truth behind the idea of Trinity.  As I said in the Newsletter it is easy for us to get the one-ness of the Father and the Son, and the place of the Holy Spirit can be understood in its relationship to the Father and the Son.  Paul speaks interchangeably about the Spirit of God and the Spirit of Christ.  We get that, and I think that is really what the creed is trying to say when it says the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son.

Image inspired by the Icon in Rublev of the Trinity

But what does it all mean?

This question is not about making sure you believe the right doctrine.  It’s more of a “So what?” question, and maybe there will be a different answer from each of you or for each of you.

Something I want to pick up and link to some of the other readings we have had from John in this Easter Season is this idea of Community. 

Last week Jesus spoke in the John reading about his being in the Father and the Father being in him.  A couple of weeks before that Jesus is reported saying that those who love Jesus will do as he says and that the Father will love such a person and that Jesus and the Father would come and live with them.   And the week before that Jesus spoke of a new commandment that would make it so clear to the world that we belong together as Gods children.

In various ways these are calling us to live in the same kind of unity with each other and with God that we see in the idea of the Trinity.  Abiding is the other word we might use.  “Abide in me and I will abide in you.”

So we are called to live in close intimacy with Jesus and the Father.  And we are called to live as close companions with each other on the Way in the Community of faith.  It is in this Community that we should be abiding in the Father and the Son. 

This is why an important part of our life in God is that we are growing in our life of prayer and contemplation.  This feeds our relationship with the Father – our part of the abiding commandments – and empowers us as we then work out of our life in God to serve one another and those in need. 

If we do these things we will truly abide in Him and he in us.

Pentecost C - If These Walls Could Talk

This sermon was originally preached at St Matthews in Guildford on Pentecost Sunday 2013.  It is used here today because our Pastor is on leave for a few days.

I don’t suppose you have had many sermons on the Holy Spirit since Pentecost Sunday last year.  When we start talking about the Spirit, it’s not long before our words get terribly vague.  It’s hard.  But then most of the really important, undeniably real things in life are hard to talk about.

Talk about fire:

We can sit around a campfire at the end of a great day in the outdoors, or we can light the heater/fire at home on a cold evening.  It is good to be warmed by the fire.  I love the way the embers glow in a pulsating kind of way that seeps into your eyes and relaxes you.

But wait, I am talking about warmth and glowing embers, not fire.

Describe the wind:

Today, my wife and I will be in Albany and we will stand in awe at the Wind Farm as those huge vanes zoomed around making a whooshing sound like nothing I have heard before –the vane tip was travelling at 260kmh.

We will see the wind send spray cascading back from the waves on Middleton Beach or maybe even at the new Lookout at The Gap.  And love watching the bands of rain-bearing clouds travelled across the sky effortlessly and frequently.

But wait, I am talking about wind turbines turning, waves spraying and clouds travelling, not wind.

Now describe the Holy Spirit:

Well, it – wait, there’s the first problem.  “It” – the Holy Spirit is not an “it”.  The Holy Spirit is a person, but in English, Spirit has no gender so we run into a linguistic problem straight off.  In Greek and Hebrew Spirit is feminine and early Byzantine representations of the Holy Spirit did so using feminine figures.

So let’s just recall what happened on this day we call “the Birthday of the Church”.

The Disciples were all gathered together there in a house waiting for the Spirit to come, as Jesus had promised.

Sure enough, she/he – the Holy Spirit – came upon them that day, like wind, like fire.

American song-writer, Ken Medema has a song called “A crack in the wall” and two lines of it go like this:

I think I can see sunlightComin’ through a crack in the wall …And I’m gunna sing this song‘til the walls start a-tumblin’ down.

I think this give us a lead into a great metaphor for what Pentecost is all about – a whole lot a walls came tumbling down that day:

The walls that separate who could preach and who could not.

The prophet Joel’s vision was fulfilled:

All flesh was blessed by the Holy Spirit to proclaim the gospel – not just the male and the educated, but male and female, old and young, slave and free – they all became ministers of the Gospel of Jesus Christ that day.

Walls that separate who can hear the Gospel and who could not;

Walls separating people from this country and that country;

Walls separating my language from your language;

Walls separating the generations of young and old;

Walls separating the haves and the have nots;

They all came tumblin’ down that day.  The Gospel was proclaimed for the first time across barriers of nationality and language.  And the people understood and were saved.

But I wonder if you noticed – one more set of walls went down when the Spirit came upon them that day.

The story starts out with the Disciples safely in a house.  Somehow, and the details is not there in the story, the Spirit brought down even the physical walls of that house that were separating the Disciples from the world around them.  Suddenly they are outside proclaiming the Gospel to thousands of people, and later on that day they are gathered by a great body of water baptising people left and right.

That’s the Holy Spirit.  We only know some things by their effects.  Breaking down walls is an unmistakeable sign of the Spirit at work:  just as the sounds of leaves rustling lets you know the wind is there, or the smell of smoke lets you know there’s fire, so an ever-expanding circle of believers lets you know the Spirit is here.

So, the big question is:

Is the Spirit here in this church, Holy Cross, Hamersley, today?  Can we see any of the effects of the Spirit here?  What would these walls say, if they could talk?

Do we have eyes that can see the working of the Spirit among us? 

A welcome is also offered to those who bring their children for Baptism because this can be a wonderful time for people to hear the Gospel – the Good News that we are all loved and accepted by God.

I see people in this congregation from diverse traditions of faith before they came here, people with disabilities that might in other places become barriers, people across several generations.

I think that over the years some of the walls have come tumbling down.  There are signs here of people crashing through the barriers that society or tradition have built up so that others can hear the Gospel stories that can transform their lives – and in doing that their own lives have been transformed.

There is no doubt in my mind, no hesitation in saying the Holy Spirit is upon us!  We who are gathered together in this place have been touched by the flames of fire and swept up in the winds of change.  Old and young, male and female, whatever, we have all heard the Gospel and we are all empowered by the Spirit to go and share it.

But look out!  We think it is just us gathered here in this place.  But look again – we find ourselves surrounded by thousands of neighbours – people in our neighbourhood – who want to hear about Jesus.  They have heard the Spirit speaking their language.  Will the Spirit move us beyond these walls to gossip the Gospel, to share stories about the great love we have known to the people we meet in the park or the Square or the Shopping Centre – not strangers, people we know, our neighbours.

Sure as the sound of rustling leaves lets you know the wind is there, sure as the smell of smoke lets you know there’s fire, an ever-expanding circle of believers lets us know the Spirit is here.

And the Spirit is about to take us out there!  These walls are a tumblin’ down.

Let us pray:

God most wonderful, Friend most holy, our Easter season is climaxed by this reminder of you sending us your Holy Spirit in abundant power.

You have cast down the walls that divide people and prevent them from hearing the Gospel, creating the opportunity for every race and nation on earth to hear the Good news.

Embolden us with your Spirit to take that Good News beyond these walls so that every tongue may tell and every life display the wonders of your love.

Through Christ Jesus, who lives and loves with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God to be praised forever!

Amen!

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.