Authority

This is the text of the message I prepared for proclamation at Stawell Uniting Church for Sunday 1st October 2023, the eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost in Year-A.

Exodus 17:1-7; Psalm 78:1-4, 12-16; Philippians 2:1-13; Matthew 21:23-32

Give ear, O my people, to my teaching; incline your ears to the words of my mouth. I will open my mouth in a parable; I will utter dark sayings from of old, things that we have heard and known, that our ancestors have told us. We will not hide them from their children; we will tell to the coming generation the glorious deeds of the Lord and his might and the wonders that he has done.

If you ever get to have a turn at preaching from up here, there’s a great opening paragraph for you to use: Psalm 78:1-4 makes it plain that the job given to the one asked to bring proclamation is an honourable responsibility. “Oi, listen up youse mob, I’m going to tell you an old story to remind you about God’s faithfulness to us,” doesn’t quite carry the same sense of majesty, but it makes the same point: the old stories of God bear telling and retelling over and over again. The way that Asaph writes here it’s more like he’s writing for Proverbs or Ecclesiastes than for Psalms, this is a story of wisdom and not just of history: what can we know about God and ourselves when we remember what God did for our ancestors? In this Psalm, and the rest of Asaph’s mighty song-slash-sermon-slash-proverbalism, we know that we Israelites are a whinging mob, and we know that as hard as we have at it whining God goes even harder at it in answering us with faithfulness; faithful to our sustenance needs (water in the desert) and faithful to our need for liberty (get us further away from Egypt).

So, yes, water in the desert, In our story from the Hebrew Traditions today and Exodus 17 we meet the Hebrews journeying by stages (following God’s itinerary from place to place) and once again they are having a massive sook about it. God has saved the Hebrews from Egypt: they have exited (exodused?) so completely that they have even walked across a dry seabed and then seen the sea return and flood both the valley and the pursuing armies therein. (Presumably, an army consisting of Egypt’s finest younger sons and second-best stallions since the eldest didn’t make it out of Passover night alive.) The Hebrews have eaten quail and manna every day since they first suggested to The LORD that foraging in a desert wasn’t going to work for an entre nation on the march. (Yeah, as if The LORD were unaware and hadn’t made provision for a journey beyond the wilderness.) So in a scene that does not surprise anyone, the people whinge. This time Moses seems to be on his own as the target of their anger (he had Aaron with him when the food ran out) and he  feels threatened, so he goes to God.

The commentaries I made use of this week all point out that the language used by the Hebrews, or at least by the later editors who wrote down this story as part of Exodus, are making use of lawsuit language. They have not only put God “to the test”, this is a “test case”, a case that The LORD is called upon to answer. And, as Asaph has already told us today, God does answer. So, is God with us: water running out of a rock says yes. Are we with God: whinging running out of our stony faces says no.

What strikes me as a leader, and also as a reader and a bit of a language-lover, is that we are told in Exodus 17:6 that Moses did this (struck the rock) in the sight of the elders of Israel. Here’s the thing, having first obeyed God’s instruction to pass before the people…and the staff with which you struck the Nile take in your hand and go (Exodus 17:5 Alter), Moses actually walks right past the stone-heavy mob, so that everyone can see that God has given Moses the authority to act, and that when Moses does act he does so with God’s power and authority. Remember that all of this happens at Horeb, the mountain of The LORD which is beyond the wilderness as we heard last month from Exodus 3:1. Moses, now with all of Israel with him, is back at the place where he first heard God’s name and was then instructed to repeat it to the Hebrews as a sign that he carried God-given authority and responsibility. Today this is the place where Moses feels threatened with stoning, (Exodus 17:4): today God again makes it clear that Moses has the lead here, personally and directly appointed by I AM Godself, and carrying in his hand the staff with which [he] struck the Nile and which sent Pharaoh home to think again. Maybe the Hebrews need to work on their remembering, things that we have heard and known, but not that our ancestors have told us, but which they personally witnessed only a few months earlier.

Our story from the Jesus Traditions occurs during holy week, probably Monday the day after Palm Sunday. On the previous day Jesus has entered Jerusalem in triumph, and then overturned the temple. This morning and on his way in from Bethany Jesus has cursed a fig tree (it withered at once), and now he has entered the temple again. Yesterday he left it messy, today he has come ready to teach; and immediately the religious leadership ask him for his leadership credentials. Jesus immediately throws the question back at them, pointing to John the Baptiser and his reputation as a prophet (who was assumed to have authority from God, the same claim Jesus is making in a round-about way). So no, Jesus does not derive his authority from them (the hierarchy), or from the temple system, which is the point that they are trying to make. But Jesus rejects the idea entirely, and makes plain that his authority comes (as did John’s, and Moses’) directly from God. Jesus’ authority was established in time and conferred upon him in action, and his ministry inaugurated beyond the wilderness beside (beneath) the Jordan River as he underwent John’s baptism and then stepped out of the water; not from some rabbinic ordination in Jerusalem. You’re right, says Jesus, you haven’t given me permission to do this, but then I wasn’t asking you.

In the parable of the two sons, Jesus offers a second answer to the question, and a challenge to the questioners, offering that while Jesus himself is neither of these sons (he says yes immediately and he obeys immediately) the behaviour which best fits the chief priests and elders of the people so far is that of the second son who talks a big game but doesn’t do any work. Jesus is the true son, and the tax collectors and the marginalised people who first heeded John’s call to repentance and baptism, and are now sitting around Jesus’ feet, who are entering the kingdom at his invitation, are like the first son. In telling this story Jesus points out that these quarrelsome religious elites have entirely missed the plot, the point, and are in danger of missing the boat too. Jesus has effectively abolished the temple, so when the temple powers-that-be come to speak to him in the different situations it is remarkable. They are calculating and populist (Matthew 21:25b-27a), not really concerned with truth but with expediency. Jesus response, in the story has shown up the faithlessness of the wordy elites and the faithfulness of the actively repenting and attentive common people of Israel.

Jesus, even as he is The Christ, is a humble persona. Similarly (but far less so) we look at Paul  himself as he writes to the church in Philippi from gaol. There isn’t agreement among scholars where Paul was imprisoned at the time, but all agree that he was in gaol somewhere, and we can agree that that is not a place of honour and prestige. So Paul is in gaol, and he is concerned by the news he has received of infighting in the Philippian local church. His first concern is the potentially divisive message of several visiting leaders, men who were not proclaiming the gospel as it was understood by Paul, and who, like the temple leaders who confronted Jesus, are preaching their own opinions and agenda in wordy and self-aggrandising ways rather than holding faith with the message and example of the humble Jesus. Paul’s second concern is with the disputes he has heard are breaking out within the congregation, and the cliques being formed around two vocal women. Be of the same mind says Paul, reminding us of Jesus own words from Matthew 18 that we heard a few weeks ago, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind…do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit (Philippians 2:2-3) and let the same mind be in you, that was in Christ Jesus (Philippians 2:5).

So with Paul in gaol, and remembering how both Moses and Jesus were confronted to their faces by argumentative community leaders, we read today’s call to unity beneath Christ’s leadership. From his gaol cell we hear an apostle tell us about the lordship of the most humble man, Jesus, who is Christ the LORD Godself.  With many different opinions scurrying around Philippi, and many little groups forming, look at what Paul says about his desire for the local church.

1. Show unity through setting your mind on the same thing.
2. Act out of humility and obedience.
3. Hold the needs and interests of others in high regard.

And why does Paul say that’s the best way? Because according to Philippians 2:5 that’s Jesus’ own way.

Jesus always had the purpose of God foremost in his mind: Jesus and the Father were united in this way. Jesus did not have to prove himself, indeed he actually shrugged the benefits of Godhood from his being so that he could preach more effectively: this is both the nature and the will of God. There was nothing grandiose about Jesus, nothing about him was inflated because almost everything about him was hidden. Jesus knew that people needed God to be accessible if they were going to be saved, so he made himself as friendly and approachable as possible.  Jesus could have come as the cloud of fire seen over Sinai, or as The LORD of Eternity riding across the clouds on a great white stallion, but his work was better suited to the one in dusty sandals in small villages. That is also how you are supposed to be, says Paul.

Today I am not interested whether this scripture points to trinitarian ideas about God; a co-equal Son with The Father, I don’t think Paul was trying to make that point anyway. I certainly don’t think the way to read this is “if you are humble like Christ then you will be exalted like Christ” because that also goes against what Paul is saying. What I read today is that the most effective way for Christians inside a local church to behave is for each person to show the humility of Christ toward one another. The unity of Christ and the Father is to be seen in all that we say and do as Christians together; and we are reminded in Philippians 2:13 that God is at work, the work of personal renewal and community reconciliation, of makarrata, is not only taking place amongst us but within us.

At St Matthews we are in a time of transition. I and you are getting to know and understand each other better, and there have already been some scratches caused by rough edges as we seek to come together and find a fit. But not only do you have a new minister who is different in some ways from the previous one, (and she was here for a very long time), you yourselves are moving and having your being in tectonic ways of living, rubbing against each other with no involvement from me. We are growing, moving forward and moving outward; pilgrims on a journey and companions on the road.

The LORD is amongst us; but The LORD is here quietly and patiently, feeding and guiding us in the every day. There is no need to complain because God knows what we need and God is already here to provide it for us, for you.  As God waited for Moses and the elders at Horeb so God waits for us to obey the command to come and see and trust and worship: and when we come then we do see. In Christian humility and pastoral authority I commend you, people of St Matthews; incline your ears to the words of my mouth. I will open my mouth in a parable; I will utter dark sayings from of old, things that we have heard and known, that our ancestors have told us. We will not hide them from their children; we will tell to the coming generation the glorious deeds of the Lord and his might and the wonders that he has done. Remember what The LORD has done for you, come and see, then go and tell.

Amen.

Like Matthew

This is the text of the message I prepared for proclamation at Stawell (St Matthew’s) Uniting Church for Sunday 24th September 2023, the seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost in Year-A.

Exodus 16:2-15; Psalm 105:1-6, 37-45; Philippians 1:21-30; Matthew 20:1-16

Today we gather in St Matthew’s Church Stawell in the week that the Western Church celebrates St Matthew. His saint’s day is actually 21^st September, but since we weren’t here on Thursday we will mark the occasion today.

The gospel accounts we have been reading this year in the lectionary cycle have Matthew’s name on them, but the earliest copies of Matthew that we still have, dating from the early 100s AD, are anonymous. Matthew doesn’t name himself in his gospel in the same way that Paul names himself in his letters; and whilst there is a character named “Matthew” in Matthew there are plenty of other named characters, (including one named Jesus), and none of them make a claim to be author. (The character Matthew also appears in Mark and Luke.) Nonetheless we will assume that Matthew wrote this gospel, because it actually doesn’t matter whether he did or he didn’t: it doesn’t matter today in church anyway.

Assuming that Matthew, also named Levi, is the author of this gospel, and assuming (as most scholars do) that he used Mark as his source, as well as his own research and eyewitness records, we know something else about Matthew at the time that the gospel was being written. Matthew lived alongside Jesus, so 30AD give or take; but it seems like he wrote his gospel 75-80AD give or take. This means that Matthew was looking back as an elderly man, back through the destruction of the temple of Jerusalem, back through the persecution of the churches by various local leaders and emperors, back through the split of the Christian local fellowships away from the synagogues, and back through the resurrection. If you have seen any episodes of The Chosen, the multi-season television series, you might remember Matthew as a social outsider, perhaps an autistic figure, who is constantly making notes. Whether that is a true picture or not the point is that Matthew was written with hindsight for a community undergoing great upheaval and transition. The experiences of the first two generations of Christians made sense in the memory of the cross, and the cross made sense in the memory of the life of Jesus. This is the shape of new wineskins for new wine.

Two weeks ago I somewhat unsuccessfully tried to tell you that I am interested in stories. The sound wasn’t good in here that day, a bit echoey in the microphones, and some of my big words left you baffled. I apologise for both of those things. Nonetheless, I am interested in stories, and more than that I am interested in why we tell the stories that we tell. That’s actually what “Sociolinguistics and Narrative Theory” is. Don’t worry about the big words, listen to the explanation; the stories we tell ourselves as a group also tell other people something about our group. For example, Christians are always talking about the death and resurrection of Jesus: but why? Well, because we believe that to be the most significant event in the history of the universe. The Passion is not just a story for us, it’s our reason for being; it’s our deepest, most meaningful thing. We tell that story because that story keeps us alive, alive with hope and with confidence. Matthew drafted the story of Jesus to remind his community who they were, (the Church), and whose they were, (the Risen Christ’s own), because the days were dark and scary and they needed to be reminded of these things.

In Exodus 16 this morning we read of another community who needed to be reminded of who and whose they were. Two weeks ago and that same day of big and baffling words we heard the story of the Passover night, where God told Moses to tell the Hebrews to make sure that they were wearing pants at the dinner table. Today’s story occurs one lunar month after that, and we find God’s People well into the wilderness and feeling frustrated, tired and hungry. “Are we there yet?” is all that they can say.  Four weeks after leaving dead the eldest sons of Egypt, four weeks after leaving dead the armies of Egypt beneath the Red Sea, all The LORD and Moses hears from God’s People is a multitude of sulking. The LORD tells Moses that relief is coming in the form of meat and bread, and that it will come every day for as long as it is needed. The actual words of God are that God’s People can trust in the provision the LORD.

That is a strong message. God hears the sighing desperation of God’s People and God responds immediately with grace and provision. There is no indication in this passage that God is dismayed by the people’s attitude, only a recognition that there is a need which the people require God to meet. In other places God gets annoyed and angry with the people’s stubbornness, but on this occasion God simply addresses the need. There is a legitimate claim on God’s provision, and God fills that need to the very top. Moses and Aaron on the other hand are upset by the whinging; perhaps they too are tired and hungry so they’re not in the mood to hear it. “Why don’t you tell God” they say in desperation, “it’s not our job to feed you”. Of course, this also means “are you prepared to tell God?” and of course God’s People are more than ready to tell The LORD in no uncertain terms what they think about The LORD’s lordship. Nonetheless The LORD provides. However, with that provision comes a test of obedience. Will Israel obey God and gather only a day’s supply, or will they hoard the manna in case it is a “once off” event. Will God’s People trust God’s promise to send the quail and the manna tomorrow? God is revealing something about Godself in this miracle: that God is faithful, generous, and dependable. God will not allow the exodus people to die of starvation or dehydration; this is a sign that God is with them and that the God who is with them is like this. God will also not dump a vast supply on the people and then walk away: God rations the provision because God intends to walk with the people each step of the day and each day of the way.

Can you think why that would be a good story to write down and remember, and then to tell further generations? That’s the sort of thinking Matthew had. We also see it in Psalm 105, which often pops up in the lectionary for this sort of story-telling exercise. When we remember who God is and what God has done for us we are reminded of whom we are. We are God’s People and the people that God does this sort of thing for. So, don’t worry.

One of the things that sets Matthew apart from the other three gospels is the dignity that Matthew (the author) ascribes to Jesus. Jesus is very much in control of every situation in John, and he is the undoubted messiah in all four gospels, but in Matthew he’s practically regal. In our reading from Matthew 20 we find Jesus telling a story about dignity.

The main meaning of the parable is that it doesn’t matter to Jesus as he’s telling the story one day in Judea, or to Matthew when he’s writing down the story fifty years later in Antioch, it doesn’t matter when you choose to follow Jesus. What matters is that you choose to follow Jesus. The wages of righteousness are the same whether you entered the kingdom at one minute past dawn or one minute before dusk, everyone gets paid the full amount. In the justice of God everyone gets blessed the same, which is to say that everyone gets blessed completely: there’s no half-blessing for latecomers. In the wilderness God fed every Hebrew until his or her tummy was full, regardless of who was sooking hardest and who was quietly faithful. If you belong now, you get blessed now. If you don’t belong yet, you get an invitation to belong, and as soon as you belong you get what the rest of us have been getting every day since we first accepted the invitation. When we read Matthew 20:16 and the last shall be first and the first shall be last, that can come as a bit of a surprise ending to the story; but if everyone gets enough why would it matter? God is inviting us to be generous in choosing to receive generously, which if you think about it is also a bit back-to-front.

Matthew presented Jesus as a Jewish king in his gospel account, but as you already know (because you’ve heard this story before), Jesus wasn’t the sort of king that the Jewish people were expecting. Saul of Tarsus was a Pharisee, not only a Jewish man (from the tribe of Benjamin), but also one who read and understood the scriptures within tradition and with application, and he missed who Jesus was when Jesus came. Today we might describe the Pharisees as “Evangelicals”; not because today’s Evangelicals are Pharisaic (an insult), but because the Pharisees were the people who read the scriptures and sought God whole-heartedly in their studies, their discussions, and their prayers. Saul the Benjaminite, the Pharisee, became one of the last, acknowledging Christ and accepting that invitation to fellowship years after the twelve and the five thousand had; but Saul did, eventually, accept that invitation, and thereby became one of the first. We know from his story recorded in Acts 9 that he copped a face-full of Jesus on the Damascus Road, and in later chapters and in the letters he wrote we find evidence of his changed heart that worshipped and adored king Jesus with all of its Pharisee talent and insight.

In Philippians 1:21 we read where Paul writes to one of the first churches in Europe that for him living is Christ and dying is gain. Paul has abandoned himself to the generosity of God, and whatever hardship he faces as an apostle and a traveller, it’s all about Jesus and so it’s all worth it. In Philippians 1:27-28 he shifts his focus away from his personal story to encouraging the members of this local church, and he writes only, live your life in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ…this is evidence of your salvation and this is God’s doing. They too would live hard lives, some of them already were, and this was what was coming. Their resilience in the face of destruction was their witness, their generosity in the face of lack, their hope and reliance upon God in the face of despair. Their dignity even as they were being denied came from the Christ in whom they hoped and in whom they had great cause to hope. The God of the living first-born sons, rams and bulls, the God of the dry-footed travellers in the Red Sea, the God of manna and quail, the God of a full day’s pay for every man in the field regardless of his point of arrival, the God we sing about in the Psalms and hear about in the Torah and the Traditions, this is the God in whom you have hoped. So stay strong, strong in the strength of The LORD because there is provision of that too, it’s not just meat, water and coins that God can do.

As a Christian alive in Stawell today I am grateful to God for Paul, and his word of encouragement. I am grateful to God for Matthew Levi, the Son of Alphaeus, and his gathering and offering the stories of Jesus. I am grateful to God for the Christians alive in Stawell in 1868, and earlier, who erected this building to the glory of God and for the provision of the local church to have a safe, sturdy, warm (sometimes) and dry place to gather in The LORD’s name and for Christ’s purposes. But above all I am grateful to God for Jesus, who not only told a great story about the generosity of God, but who also lived a life of generosity as an example to us of what a life lived in God’s wisdom can look like.

My advice to you then, as the person nominated to proclaim the gospel today, is that you be generous. Don’t complain about being short-changed, like the people in today’s stories. When life is hard, remember that you have not been left to starve; have another quail, take your day’s wages and go. There is enough and more for all, go forth, and receive generously.

Amen.

The Fresh Start

This is the text of the message I prepared for proclamation at Stawell Uniting Church on Sunday 10th September 2023, the fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost in Year-A.

Exodus 12:1-14; Psalm 149; Matthew 18:15-20

Hi! So, today’s new piece of information about Damien, our new pastor, is that he is a sociolinguist. In fact my first undergraduate degree was primarily conducted in the fields of Sociolinguistics and Narrative Theory. So, even if I don’t keep reminding you of that, (and you can be pretty sure that I will, not because I am arrogant in my academia, but because I am just very interested in and constantly amazed by the connection between how people speak and read and how they think and act), you will soon work out that I love language. Of the many languages that I speak, all of them are Englishes, and even in that sentence you may have heard a new word, “Englishes”, plural. For a sociolinguist English is a family of languages.

Why did I tell you that? Well, for two reasons. One, it tells you something about me, I’m a language person. Two, I want to tell you one of my favourite words, a neologism (and no, neologism is not my favourite word), and the fact that I am a sociolinguist explains why I’d lead with that. So, my favourite word is intrepidation. “We look towards the future with some intrepidation,” so said Paul Hester, sometime drummer of Crowded House, and I am very much in agreement with him today. There is a sense of the intrepid about us this morning, of setting out on new adventures with fearlessness and some self-effacing humour, “our intrepid pastor in his new church”; but there is also a sense of trepidation, of anxiety and fear of what is unknown and ahead. Today I feel more terrific than terrified, but honestly it’s both/and rather than either/or.

Today we are underway. I am now three weeks in at Stawell and four in the placement. I have been to Pomonal and I’ll be there again next week. I have been to Landsborough. This afternoon I will go to Eventide and lead those people in worship, word and sacrament. I’ve met some of the church’s councils, and most of the church’s councillors, and I’m getting a better idea of what I have gotten myself into in agreeing to be your next pastor. You’re also getting a better idea of what you have gotten yourselves into by inviting me. And, by the way, “gotten” is a real word, and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. I’m a sociolinguist, so I should know, and I do know.

There’s also a bit of intrepidation about our reading from the Jewish Traditions today: the first Passover was a fresh start for Israel, and that start had many implications. In Exodus 12:2 God institutes a new calendar, saying, “this month for you…is the first for you of the months of the year.” So that’s new, there is a new New Year’s Day, and at a different time in the seasons than when we are used to marking it. Also, in Exodus 12:11, God institutes a new way of eating: those who eat are meant to be at the table with a readiness to depart at any moment, (the instruction is you shall eat it hurriedly), with notice in Exodus 12:10 that those who eat should let none of it remain until morning; anything that remains until the morning you shall burn. According to the commentator and interpreter Robert Alter the Hebrew phrase here implies burn until utterly consumed, i.e. incinerate it, raze it to the ground, deploy Napalm and “boof!”. And, put on your sturdiest shoes and your cargo pants, and don’t worry about the leftovers as you won’t have time to eat later, you’ll be travelling. This really is a fresh start for Israel, a demarcation between old and new times. The new calendar is to begin with the remembrance of the great event of liberation, of an independence day. Liberation is the foundational event of the nation; as it is for those nations of the world today which do celebrate their national day in commemoration of such an event. Also for Israel the event itself (and in centuries ever after in its commemorative meal) is eaten differently to every other meal; because it is different to every other meal. This isn’t just an Australia Day barbeque instituted by Lamb-bassador Sam Kekovich; no, as Exodus 12:11 (Tanakh: JPS) says it is a “pesah”, a protective offering to the LORD. But if God is calling us out of bondage and into liberation, why is there a need for protection? Clearly, we look towards the future with some intrepidation.

In Psalm 149:1 it says Sing to the LORD a new song, his praise in the assembly of the faithful. What can that mean for us? More than just that Damien is new here from Kaniva and keeps picking hymns we don’t know, and using words like neologism, sociolinguist, and intrepidation, but thinking of what The LORD said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, (Exodus 12:1), that things are different now. There’s a new song because there is new stuff to celebrate, and there’s a new song because there’s a new posture for singing. Those who worship God are instructed in Psalm 149:5 to let the faithful exult in glory, let them sing for joy on their couches. Who thinks couches in church would be a good idea? I’m not seeing enough hands raised here, because God has clearly instructed us to get rid of our pews and then “lay back and think of Jerusalem”. Also they are told in Psalm 149:6 to let the high praises of God be in their throats and two-edged swords in their hands. Okay, so you weren’t keen on having couches brought in here, but you’d all be cool with armaments, eh? As you enter the building next week make sure you pick up a newsletter and a weapon to execute vengeance on the nations and punishment on the peoples as it says in Psalm 149:7.  Now, of course, I’m not really suggesting we actually do those things, but is this what it means to sing to the LORD a new song? I think so, so let’s begin to change up how we worship God, and proclaim God’s works, because what God is beginning to do is different to what God has done in the past. There’s a new thing happening, a thing of liberation, and as God’s work has changed so should our responses change in celebration and obedience.

So, Stawell, what’s new; what fresh thing is God saying to us?

• What is God showing us?
• To what is God calling us?

In our reading from the Jesus Traditions today we heard two of the great soundbites of Christianity. From Matthew 18:20 we heard where two or three are gathered in my name I am there among them. Who has heard that phrase before? Yep, pretty much everyone. And perhaps a little less well known, in Matthew 18:18 we heard whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in Heaven. Who has heard that phrase before? Still some hands, but fewer than the first time. Perhaps the more leading question is where you have heard those phrases, or perhaps I could ask to what these verses usually refer in conversation between Christians. Any takers? My experience has been that we usually use these ideas in reference to prayer, and particularly to prayer meetings. If three of us mumble in a holy huddle then God does miraculous stuff that a solitary mumbler doesn’t get to see: not only but also, the stuff that the prayer triplet sees is mighty stuff, satan-shaming and demon-destroying power unleashed from Heaven to leash the satan and any demons down in their opposition to what Jesus and the angels want. Is that what you’ve heard, or where you’ve heard it?  It’s not wrong, but it’s not what these verses are actually saying, is it? No, the correct answer is no. No, what are these verses are actually talking about is made clear in the paragraph above, these verses are about conflict resolution. If another member of the church sins against you, Jesus begins in Matthew 18:15, then seek to bring about reconciliation between yourselves. Go in private and speak 1:1; and if that doesn’t work then try again but take a witness. If that doesn’t work then try again with an elder or the pastor as mediator, and if that doesn’t work then seek the assistance of the whole congregation. In Matthew 18:17 where Jesus says tell it to the church he is speaking about the local gathering, it’s not about summoning Presbytery to make a ruling or asking perish council to gang up on somebody; but it is about the entire community gathering to support the healing around a fracture in the community. When Jesus says where two or three are gathered in my name I am there among them; you certainly can take that as a motivation for friendship-circle prayer, but don’t forget that he was actually speaking about community coming together to bring about peace, and inviting the Prince of Peace to lead and minister his grace in that space. The church, the local church, is the best place for disputes to be resolved, because the people in the local church are likeminded in their pursuit of shalom for the whole world, especially for their brothers- and sisters-in-pews. (Or on couches, especially if they’ve brought two-edged swords into the worship space.)

I hope that this idea is not entirely new to you, but I hope that it is entirely relevant. I’ve not been here long enough to know where all of the tensions are, but I have been in ministry and even just in church long enough to know that there are some somewhere. And, full-disclosure, I have in fact seen two sandpaper-ish places in the last month that I am keeping my pastor’s eye on. I’m preaching this message today because it is the lectionary, but, full-disclosure, I do like this part of Matthew and experience says that there is work that we can do as a local congregation to keep ourselves on good terms with each other. Also, to skill ourselves up to be a place and a people of resource for mediation and conflict resolution in Stawell.

So, is God showing us that now is the time that God has chosen to do this work in us? Is God speaking through scripture and proclamation to direct us to look at our relationships within this congregation; how those of you sitting in front of me here get along with others of you sitting in front of me here, (and with those not sitting in front of me here, but once sat here in front of Rev. Susan)? Is God directing us to consider the relationship the congregations at Stawell have with the congregations at Landsborough and Pomonal? I’m not looking to pick any fights, I’ve only been here a month and I’m just thinking out loud, but I do wonder whether God is calling us, (yes “us”, not just “youse” but me as well), us to a ministry of reconciliation. Now, calling the local church to a ministry of reconciliation is a bit like calling the local church to proclamation of the gospel, it’s sort of what the local church is always doing anyway; but as with evangelism-pushes and prayer-campaigns and the like, it can be helpful once in a while to have a season of increased effort, or at least improved attention. I’m not declaring such a season today, but I am inviting you to think about it; is this what God is calling Stawell Uniting Church to, to remind ourselves of peace-making skills and to offer ourselves first as people of grace and second as people of justice for mediation? We ask God and others to forgive us our trespasses, and we seek to forgive and to liberate those who have done and continue to trespass upon us.

Around fifteen years ago, at a worship and leadership conference I attended, I heard one of the keynote speakers say, “sometimes God doesn’t give us a ‘new’ word, sometimes God gives a ‘now’ word”. Sometimes God reminds us of something we have heard before to set us back on track or to extend our understanding. We hear an old thing, but it has a fresh meaning, or a deeper meaning, or we discover a new way or place of applying it. Sing to the LORD a new song, his praise in the assembly of the faithful. What is the “new song”, Stawell? What is the older song that is a “now song”, Stawell?

Perhaps it is that we face the future with some intrepidation; because the future is calling us to bring shalom to our city. Perhaps we are being called again to step-up again into the local church’s ongoing work of the ministry of reconciliation, a work that begins inside the congregation as we first bring shalom to each other.

I am a sociolinguist, but I am also new in town. May my words be effective and my proclamation be effective; but tell me what you have heard this morning. If you have heard a call from God, let me know how I can support you, and us, in meeting that call in this city.

Amen.

The Named One (Pentecost 14A)

This is the text of he message I prepared for Stawell Uniting Church for Sunday 3rd September 2023, the fourteenth Sunday in Pentecost Season.

Exodus 3:1-15; Psalm 105:1-6, 23-26, 45b; Matthew 16:21-28

We read in Exodus 3:1 that Moses was keeping the flocks of his father-in-law Jethro, the priest of Midian when God called him. Moses was a defeated man, a murderer on the run who is keeping as low a profile as possible beyond the wilderness. He is not working his own flock, or even his father’s generational flocks on family lands, but the mob of his father-in-law and in foreign country. Yet it is when he is in this state, and beyond the wilderness, that we read (in Exodus 3:2) that he comes upon Horeb, the mountain of God where God addresses him personally (in Exodus 3:5) saying that the place on which you are standing is holy ground.

As Christians, or if you happen to be Jewish you will also know this to be true, we know it is no surprise that God’s most precious places, most sacred spaces, are beyond the wilderness. But let’s not get it backwards, as if God has withdrawn from the centre of human activity to go make a place in the solitude: yes there is a religious tradition for that in Judaism, (we see it in Jesus heading out on retreat in several places, notably in Matthew 4), and in Christianity we have a long history of hermit monks and desert, mountain, or ocean rock retreats. But this is not that, God has not withdrawn to Horeb; God has always been at Horeb and humanity hasn’t ever got there.

In this place beyond the wilderness, the place where God is but no-one has yet ventured and found God, Moses hears a thing never before heard by a human: he hears the personal Name of God in God’s own voice. Adam and Eve heard the voice of God, but they never heard God’s name in the garden. Others heard God’s voice give instruction; Noah, Abram, Jacob, Joseph, but never in such intimacy and never did they receive God’s name. And Moses, Moses before he hears The Name, and leading up to this great piece of self-revelation, Moses hears that God has observed the misery of God’s people who are in Egypt, that God has heard their cry, and that God know[s] their sufferings.  He hears that God has come down to deliver them from the Egyptians, and bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey. There is hardship in Egypt right now, and there will be hardship in the activity of leaving Egypt and occupying Canaan in fulfilment of God’s promise to Abraham; God and Moses in conversation agree on those two points, but only God seems to have confidence that it will happen. For Moses, the task seems insurmountable, so much so that he doesn’t even know how or where to start. All well and good that God has seen Israel’s suffering, all well and good that God has made a promise to give Israel a bountiful land of their own, but like Moses beyond the wilderness the Israelites in Egypt are demoralised and defeated, working someone-else’s land for no benefit to themselves beyond sustenance. Moses sees the task ahead and he just can’t, he can’t even, even though the picture is grand and it is the God of the mountain, the God of the flaming but not burning bush, who is telling the salvation story. It is then, when all is big and dangerous and too much of both, that God says to Moses, “yes, but I AM”.

From whom do you need to hear the salvation story? From whom would you believe it if it were told to you? From whom do you need to hear that yes your world is big and dangerous right now, hugely dangery in every area, but that The One Who Is, is with you?

Perhaps the usual way, or probably better to say the most popular of several ways of describing what Exodus 3 is on about, is to say that it is the commissioning of Moses. It is the great commission for Moses, go and tell the People of God that the God of the people has heard their distress and is already present to alleviate and restore. Moses is given a mission (go and tell Pharoah and the Hebrews) and a set of victory conditions (get Israel out of Egypt and get them home to Canaan); he is also given equipment (access to God’s Name), and assurance (God will go with Moses). All of that is true, however I think there’s something else going on. So this is not a story of only, but of also; Moses is to get the Israelites out of the foreign place and into the home place, the place that will be named Israel for them; but Moses is also the first to hear the depth of whom God is. Other have heard God’s promise of presence and protection, but none before Moses were told to make that revelation plain to others for others. So Exodus 3 is very much about Moses and God’s call of him to lead the exodus, the ex-hodos in Greek, the way out; but Exodus 3 is also about us in that God’s word to us, distinct from God’s word to Moses, is that God has heard our distress and has plans for our salvation, and that the God who hears and saves is the I AM. In other words, Exodus 3 is a corporate text a group promise, it’s not only about God blessing Moses for Moses and the jobs that Moses has been given.

“Who am I?” asks Moses in Exodus 3:13, “why would anyone listen to me?” And what does God reply? “Moses, you are the one sent by me.” “Okay,” says Moses, “then who are you?” And God says, “I AM, I am what I am, I Will Be, I am The One Who Endures.” God is the one whose identity is beyond question, beyond doubt: God is who God says God is, and no-one can offer a dissenting opinion (as if you could argue that God was something other than what God says). Why do we need to know this? Because this is the one who has heard our cry, and this is the one who is already here with a plan and a promise to deliver us from evil.

O give thanks to the LORD, call on his name, make known his deeds among the peoples, we read in Psalm 105:1. The reputation of God has gone down the ages and in the psalms we often find Judah and Israel looking back to Abraham or Moses, or more recent history, to tell the story of God’s intervention. Glory in his holy name; let the hearts of those who seek The LORD rejoice says Psalm 105:3. Yes that verse talks about God’s name, as it should because we are to be specific in our worship and there is only one God who we trust and whom we call upon, the One with the Name, but for me the more important part of this verse is the call to let our hearts rejoice. Why should our hearts rejoice? Well, because the LORD has come through, we have been saved from the distress of foreign taskmasters. What does this mean for us? In Psalm 105:4 we read seek the LORD and his strength; seek his presence continually. That is what it means for us, the God we can name is the God who delivers; who saves, soothes, and salves. This is the one we turn to, and the one we want near. So, get busy in prayer, that what the instruction to seek the LORD is referring to, (inquire of the LORD and His strength is how Jewish scholar Robert Alter phrases this), and remember the wonderful works he has done as we read in Psalm 105:5a. As life goes forward do not forget what God has done for you: do not be like the Pharoah had forgotten what God had done for Egypt under Joseph, and do not be like the wicked kings of Israel and Judah who would forget about God’s deliverance in the days of Joseph, and of Moses. No, remember the wonderful works and seek the LORD, and then be ready when God calls your name and gives you a job.

In today’s reading from the Jesus Traditions we find him at the point where he begins to speak more openly about what lays ahead of him, and the crowds around him, as God’s work draws to its high point. Great suffering is predicted, and unlike the stories of Moses as celebrated by later Israel, God is leading Jesus toward the pain and not away from it. God always heads toward the pain; and since God has always sent the prophets into the place where the greatest pain is, God’s women and men acting with divine agency often move from rest and hiddenness into places of discomfort, even peril. So it’s no surprise to us, really, that Jesus has begun to speak about Jerusalem and suffering, but it comes as a complete surprise to the discipleship mob travelling the road with him. The desire to save your life (Matthew 16:24) is as blatant as it seems in terms of self-preservation: if you wish to keep your head down and avoiding denouncing the injustice around you, you will be safe in this world but you will miss what God is calling you to do and to be, and you will miss out on God’s reward for the good and faithful servant. Moses had been keeping his head down beyond the wilderness, but God’s plan was for him to stand up in Pharoah’s own house and declare God’s judgement upon injustice and God’s plan to set free the oppressed. Moses agreed to go, with the assurance of God’s company, and the system of abuse was overturned. Here Jesus announces his response to universal injustice, and he sets out the consequences for him and for anyone who accompanies him to Jerusalem. This is why we read in Matthew 16:24 that Jesus told his disciples, “if anyone wants to be my follower let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.” Jesus is effectively re-issuing the call to discipleship to those already in his posse. “Follow me” he is saying, “but here’s what that now looks like”. It’s no longer about being the student of an itinerant teacher of parables and worker of healings and exorcisms in Galilee; discipleship with Jesus is now about collaboration in taking a prophetic stand against the injustice of the world right in the heart of Roman Jerusalem, and in the Temple, and the very real possibility of crucifixion, a traitor’s or rebel’s death. “Are you prepared to continue to follow,” asks Jesus, “now that you understand what the mission truly is?” We know that Peter voices strong objection, but he submits to Jesus’ instruction to get back into followship (Matthew 16:23), and he remains a follower of Jesus at the front of the crowd.

Where Peter was looking for a victorious outcome in the ministry of Jesus in Matthew 16, so that Jesus’ talk of his own death is scandalous, there is no promise of success even in Exodus 3. God never promises that Moses will prevail, just that God will be with Moses when Moses goes to Pharoah and then to the Hebrews. Jesus suggests at the very least and promises at the very extreme that for anyone who continues along the track of discipleship this will lead to his or her hideous death. But even death as the end of discipleship is death for my sake as Jesus says in Matthew 16:25, and such a death is an entry to a more full life: not that martyrdom leads to a better room among the many in Heaven, but that a life lived on earth with passionate abandon to the call of God in Christ will be a big life.

Give up your multitudes of stuff and your dreams for even more. Give up your thoughts of achieving a seat at the high table in the coloniser’s palaces. Give up your reluctance to look your suffering neighbour in the face, and your learned incapability to be moved by the sights and sounds of her or his oppression. Instead, choose to deny yourself, inquire of the LORD and His strength and thereby remember the wonderful works he has done. Let God call you from beyond the wilderness where you are safe, but useless; or let God call you from the centre of society to a ministry beyond the wilderness: whatever it Is, follow with Jesus to the places where you will see The One Who Is act powerfully. Even if your body and your dreams die, you will see God win and you will see captives eternally set free.

Amen.

The Wise Ways (Pentecost 13A)

This is the text of the message I prepared for proclamation to Stawell Uniting Church and Landsborough Uniting Church on Sunday 27th August 2023. It was my first service in these new (for me) churches.

Exodus 1:8-2:10; Psalm 124; Romans 12:1-8; Matthew 16:13-20  

I may be getting ahead of myself here, but you may as well all hear this rather than me keeping it just for my first Congregational and Elders Council meetings. I am the type of Christian who often prays with questions and then listens with expectation for answers. Sometimes those answers come as ideas in my head, words or pictures or trains of thought.  Sometimes those answers come as voices in my head, and even though no sounds have entered my ears from outside, the internal process of hearing takes place and I get the message that way. Sometimes those answers come as ideas from outside; I am sparked by something that someone says in an unrelated conversation, or I read something in a book or hear it over the media. As a Christian, and therefore as the pastor in this place, I will be asking questions and seeking and then bringing answers. But I urge you not to fear for your new minister, or for yourselves under my care; I am not a cult leader and I never listen alone. This is why as a leader in this community of faith I shall participate in Congregational and Elders Council meetings.

In our story from the Jewish Traditions today, (and by the way “The Jewish Traditions” is how I generally refer to “The Old Testament”), in Exodus we find the Israelites under oppression because the new shift of leading Egyptians are suspicious of them. Joseph the Israelite had been good for Egypt, but his reputation had been lost over ensuing years because his memory had been forgotten, and xenophobia (and megalomania?) has set in. The new Pharaoh is shrewd, but he is too smart for his own good and he has let his personal judgement get in the way of true wisdom, discernment, and understanding. (Characteristics that Joseph had). In the palaces where Joseph once listened to God and then told his Pharoah what God’s wisdom was for Egypt, and Egypt would prosper; this new Pharoah decides by his own wisdom, and Egypt will crash. The midwives in the story are also shrewd, but they use their cleverness for go(o)d; there is a parallel between Exodus 2 and Genesis 1 and Genesis 6 where the good creation is saved from destruction by an ark. On two occasions women acting together and with integrity subvert the evil intensions of a solitary male leader, and on the first occasion those women are also listening for the wisdom and with the understanding of Israel’s God. So, Stawell Uniting Church rest assured that even as your new pastor is not a woman neither is he a Pharoah. I am a person of integrity, of humility, of discernment, and of community. I have listened to the past, and I am listening to God in your company.As we turn to the Christian Traditions (and Damien’s usual way of referring to the Letters part of “The New Testament”) we read in Romans 12 where Paul exhorts the idea of discipleship as a living sacrifice. Now, to sacrifice something does not mean to kill it, it means to devote that everyday item to God’s exclusive use and purpose and make it sacred through this devotion (attention, intention), followed by ongoing and considered use of the item to offer worship. Where a church might have sacred glassware, used only for communion and kept apart from ordinary use (for which there is another set of glassware in the kitchen) so Paul is suggesting that the life of a Christian be set apart for God’s purposes and never again used for our own. Be transformed he urges, in other words be changed and elevated, be sharpened towards the mindset that you may discern what is the will of God what is good and acceptable and perfect. (Romans 12:2b). To become a living sacrifice is not necessarily about joining a convent, or handing yourself or your first-born son over to the high priest as Hannah did with Samuel, but to commit yourself to seeking the wisdom of God and always and only acting in accordance with that. You still live in the world but you no longer live a world-directed way; you live a God-directed way in the world. So, unlike Pharaoh who did the opposite, Paul encourages us to not think of ourselves more highly than we ought to think, but to think with sober judgement. In other words get into the habit that when facing a decision (be it an actual dilemma or simply a range of possibilities) that you ask God for direction and you then follow God’s direction. Your life is a sacred thing, a living sacrifice, don’t make your decisions alone. That’s pretty simple, in that it’s not a complex idea, but it is difficult in that it’s a pretty challenging way to live your life, and Paul himself suggests that some people in the church are going to be deeper thinkers than others. For some Christians, the greater depth of their thinking is the ministry they offer to the church (it is their service to the body); but everyone has a certain amount of thinking to do, even if that amount is relatively small. Every member of The Church has some thinking to do, and every Christian is accountable to practice thought in ways that bring honour to God as they seek God’s wisdom and guidance for themselves and for the congregation.

In one of the commentaries I read this week (James R. Edwards of The New Interpreter’s Study Bible) the writer suggests that in Romans 12 we get a change in Paul’s writing from theology to ethics, in other words Paul shifts his focus as a writer from describing God to suggesting what the best response should be for women and men to the God we have just named. So, in today’s passage we are invited not only to think about Godly concepts but also to respond in ways that demonstrate those concepts. In other words, your freshly converted mind should lead to new behaviours. One of Paul’s ideas says that since God is generous we should fully engage with the activities of dedication: it makes the best sense, it is the logical action to throw ourselves entirely upon God in our “spiritual worship”, because God is gracious and capable and because God first went headfirst for us in the life and work of Jesus. So, where Christian theology says that God is good, wise and generous, Christian Ethics might say that we should trust God and obey what we hear. If we are listening to God, and checking in with each other, whatever we hear will be good advice and we will be kept safe by The Father while we do whatever it is we’re doing. And yes, “checking in with each other”, because as members of the body we don’t do discernment (or transformation) alone, but with the whole group working together where each brings her or his strength and story to the wisdom project, in which diversity of gifts contributes to unity of purpose (Edwards). The Pharoah in Joseph’s time listened to Joseph and to God; the later Pharoah listened only to himself and he missed out on the wisdom of Joseph, and of God. The later Pharoah almost destroyed Egypt, the earlier Pharoah saw God save it. 

In our reading from The Jesus Traditions (so, Damien’s usual way of referencing The Gospels), Mathew writes of Peter naming Jesus as Messiah. Jesus says that Peter has not worked this out for himself, but that this idea has come via The Father as revelation (Matthew 16:17). In Paul’s words it is prophecy in proportion to [his] faith (Romans 12:6). Whatever else we might want to say about Simon as the Peter upon whom Christ will build The Church, or simply reference Peter’s statement of faith as the foundation (rather than the man himself), or speak of the authority delegated to The Church as a collective to loose, bind, lock, or release, Peter speaks out the wisdom of God because he has listened to God and he can respond to the Spirit when the Spirit moves in him. Surrounded as he was at Caesarea Philippi by the trappings of imperial image-worship, and the competing claims of all of the iconography which could have distracted him, in the wisdom of God Peter has named the true lord, pointing to Christ The LORD (big-T, LORD all in small capitals) and pointing away from Tiberius Caesar, the false claimant.

Across all of today’s readings, and in two ways, we are met with the idea of identity: 1. In the Jesus Traditions we read how Jesus, by the whispered wisdom of God, is identified as the Messiah. This insight, which God spoke to one man standing in an assembly of the faithful so that he would share that wisdom with the group, is the greatest piece of wisdom available: Jesus is Lord (LORD) and if you only know one thing then that is the thing to know. The identity of Christ is shared with us today, Peter has just told us who he is.2. In the Jewish and Christian Traditions we read how The Church, by the written wisdom of the scriptures’ authors, is identified as the carrier of wisdom. There’s singular and plural here, The Church as a group and we as the many members of it working together are they who speak what they hear from God, just as Peter spoke what he heard. Peter spoke into a group, who then went and told; and, like him when he spoke what he heard from God rather than speaking from his own ponderings and formulation, so we remain the carriers of wisdom only so long as we respond collectively. As individuals we can only speak what The Church has jointly discerned from God.

In today’s psalm we read if it had not been The LORD who was on our side…then bad stuff might have happened. The stories from Exodus 1-2 show that even with The LORD on our side bad stuff might happen anyway, but that’s not really where the Psalmist was going. The more important question is whether we are on the side of The LORD, with God in the lead and us responding to instructions. With God on our side the bad stuff will not overwhelm us even if it does happen; the story of the Book of Exodus ends with the Israelites out of Egypt and the arrogant Pharoah mourning his profound losses. In the same way, with us attentive to being on God’s side and taking God’s wisdom as our guidance we will never become entangled in nets like birds (Psalm 124:7). If we get caught up in trouble we will receive wisdom to get out of it, and with the same wisdom we will not have trouble of our own making. Remember how Jesus guided us in prayer, asking “save us from the time of trial, and deliver us from evil.” When we listen to God and follow God’s wisdom we won’t make mistakes. When we listen to God and follow God’s wisdom we will be rescued from the consequences of the mistakes of others, even if those mistakes were made by an arrogant and ignorant Pharoah. Of course we will make mistakes, even as living sacrifices we never listen perfectly and continuously, but even then we will be rescued by the wise and generous God when we return to wisdom in humility, and with expectation of God’s love and generosity we will find ourselves saved again.

Commit your way to the generous and loving God. Surrender to Christ The LORD, the Son of the living God everything that you are holding back. Listen deeply and speak boldly for the entire congregation to hear and learn. That’s what I’ll be doing as your newly installed pastor and your brother in discipleship; I invite you to listen with me and speak to me with the wisdom of God.

Amen.